F**ck ’em if they can’t take a joke

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There is a lot of talk about democracy going the way of the dodo bird, which went extinct in less than 100 years. Our country has been around for almost 250 years, and maybe we are on the fast track to dump democracy. But what people don’t understand is that our collective sense of humor is marching off hand-in-hand with democracy. There is something democratic about a joke, particularly one told in front of an audience to entertain. It is my belief that In order to get a joke you must be able to take a joke. It is called a sense of humor.

Freedom to Laugh–or not to

We toss around the term “protected speech.” But what the Constitution or the Declaration of Independence don’t specifically mention or protect, is the freedom to laugh–or not to. It probably falls somewhere under under the Implied Powers of Congress buried in Article I, Section 8, Clause 8: Congress has the right: To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries. Somehow this implied power wormed its way over to quasi government agencies like the FCC. The FCC must be using an antiquated laugh meter from the 1930s to determine what is funny. It would not surprise me if we see the return of the laff box to cue us when to laugh.

Charles Douglass, a CBS engineer, developed the laff box, and according to the BBC, “When Douglass first ‘invented’ the laugh track in 1950, it was intended to help the audience watch, understand and feel comfortable with a relatively new medium. TV comedies adopted canned laughter to ease their viewers into a new kind of entertainment, even for shows that were filmed without live audiences.

British actor David Niven said, “The laugh track is the single greatest affront to public intelligence I know.” Humor is about intelligence–getting the joke sometimes takes a little knowledge of the joke.

I can only imagine what it was like to laugh in the 1600s during the Puritan rule in New England. I don’t suspect a community that would pillar its fellow citizens for social faux paus would want to induce laughter. Back then saying the wrong thing, for a laugh or not, could affect your standing in the community. For Instance, the New England Historical Society mentioned the poor fool who crossed the religious leaders of the day. It wrote, “the general court tried a man in Hartford for ‘contemptuous carriages’ against the church and minister. He had to stand upon a four-foot high block or stool on Lecture Day with a paper fixed on his breast with the words, ‘AN OPEN AND OBSTINATE CONTEMNNER OF GOD’S HOLY ORDINANCES.’ The purpose of his punishment: so others would ‘fear and be ashamed of breakinge out in like wickednesse.’” By controlling the comedian we are essentially controlling what we can laugh at.

Because of our diversity we have moved away from a Puritanical outlook on life. There was no insult comedy back then. The Puritans didn’t see anything funny about other (English) religions i.e. Quakers and surely not Catholics, encroaching on their holy ground let alone the town’s fool telling jokes. A night out back then was finding a warm pew and listening to Jonathan Edwards preaching that we are all “Sinners in the hands of angry God.” I am not sure if “The wicked deserve to be cast into Hell” or that “Divine justice does not prevent God from destroying the wicked at any moment.” It is my observation that the latter does not happen too often. In any case, there are not a whole lot of laughs there.

As a country we have learned to take a joke. In 1820 America there were no Polish or Italian jokes. Maybe the first Irish jokes showed up around the 1840s. There may not have even been “Knock Knock” jokes back then. As a nation in a depression we had the slapstick of The Three Stooges. By 1966 there was a book that dealt specifically with racial insults and slurs: Race Riots an Anthology of Ethnic Insults. (You can buy the book on EBAY for about $50.) This sort of observational insult humor is frowned upon today. No governmental organization banned the telling of ethnic jokes. It probably had more to do with the fact that people did not want to laugh at such jokes publicly.

It is all about the Idea

John Stuart Mill came up with this marketplace of ideas in his 1859 book On Liberty. The Middle Tennessee State University Speech Center writes: The importance of On Liberty resides in a series of powerful arguments defending the free flow of ideas in a marketplace of ideas, and in the belief that individuals can best make their own lifestyle choices, free from government intervention. On Liberty was thus an inspiration for future First Amendment theory.

We don’t normally look at “funny” as part of the marketplace of ideas but it is. Just look at any insurance company ad on TV. Who didn’t laugh seeing Doug chasing Emu out onto the football field and then getting pancake-tackled by a security guard. According to the Speech Center, “The marketplace of ideas refers to the belief that the test of the truth or acceptance of ideas depends on their competition with one another and not on the opinion of a censor, whether one provided by the government or by some other authority.”

What makes a joke work in the marketplace is the incongruous linkage created between misplaced elements or characters. Take insurance advertisement and their humorous sell job. Emu Limu and Doug are out there competing with Mayhem, Cavemen, geckos, ducks and celebrities for a laugh. There has to be some sort of “truth or acceptance” on the viewing audience despite what people believe about insurance companies. Insurance companies know they need to make us laugh; because in reality, their business is not really about laughing. I, for one, would find it quite funny if someone would squash the gecko. It would be hilarious to see how the insurance company would pay up.

Comic License

Here is where humor can get dicey, particularly for the comedian. The defining part of any joke is the laugh it gets. A comedian must have a good idea of the audience the joke is aimed at. As a member of the audience your individual sense of humor, and all the social and moral factors that form your sense of humor will decide how hard you laugh or what you think is funny. It is difficult to determine what an audience will laugh at on any given night. That in and of itself makes it almost impossible to regulate or license humor. So, humor, like beauty is in the eye and the ear of the beholder. It is an opinion–unsupported judgment.

According to Mill even a point of view needs a guardian. He writes, “Protection is also needed against the tyranny of prevailing opinion, which seeks to suppress dissent and enforce conformity.” The central concern of On Liberty is to find a way to draw the line between “individual independence and social control.” Censorship is not an option.

Mill argues “against censorship and in favor of the free flow of ideas. Asserting that “no one alone knows the truth, or that no one idea alone embodies either the truth or its antithesis.” Or, in this case what is funny or not funny. A crucial component of Mill’s belief is “that the free competition of ideas is the best way to separate falsehoods from fact.” (Free Speech Center Middle Tennessee State University) Again, what is funny and what is not.

Funny Money

But let us take laughter out of the realm of Constitutional theory and debate. Let us go back to 1776 and Adam Smith’s book Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations; or better known simply as the Wealth of Nations. Many of Smith’s beliefs can trickle down to any form of economic endeavor.

In Smith’s book he outlines four key economic theories that determines a country’s wealth. One concept is the free market–the invisible hand that the economy uses to regulate itself–“that individuals pursuing their own self-interest would result in the best outcomes for society as a whole.” In the free market it is all about what moves off the shelves. Comedy is no different. if the joke does not get a laugh it is not in the best interest of the comedian to repeat something that hit the floor like an anvil. The comedian not only has to be funny, he or she has to be in charge of their own marketing. If it ain’t funny there will be one more starving comedian hanging on to his day job. It is not up to the government to determine if a joke “is too soon.”; or to determine what sells as humor. That is up to the audience–the market for humor.

A story with a humorous climax

And that is he real problem today. We just don’t know how to take a joke anymore. America in some way has lost its sense of humor, and hence our democracy. Political realities of the day have sapped our ability to take a joke. We are losing our ability to recognize a joke. Granted, not everything is funny to everyone. And yes some people will not get the joke. Others will get ticked off at the joke. I think our democracy depends on our ability to laugh. It is when we take things too seriously no laff box will get us on track.

As Mel Helitzer with Mark Shatz write in their book: Writing Secrets “Humor has played an important part in our lives for thousands of years, but scientist and philosophers are still working to understand what laughter means, why we tell jokes and why we do or don’t appreciate others humor.” They write “humor is subjective. And in today’s world of diverse opinions humor is more subjective than ever.”

With today’s incongruities people are more mesmerized in dealing with incompatible ideas, innuendos, facts, near facts, alternate facts and ever-changing norms and awareness, getting to a punchline of a joke goes beyond a priest, a minister and a rabbi walked into a bar…

Ancient Aliens, the Deep State and the Epstein Conspiracy

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Without a doubt Americans love a good conundrum. If it is real puzzler with crime and sex we either turn it into TV docudrama or better yet, a full blown conspiracy. 

Just look at the Kennedy assassination. After 60 years we have gone from the “lone gunman nut theory” to Cuban assassins parachuting in on the Grassy Knoll to CIA Mafia-hired hitmen looking to get revenge for John’s brother, Robert, for going after organized crime as the Attorney General. I have even read where theorists say there is evidence to suggest that somebody took a shot at Kennedy from inside a curb-side sewer at street level.

Like the Warren Commission and the Kennedy assassination, I really don’t think President Trump realized as candidate Trump the morass he got himself into when he promised to release Jeffrey Epstein’s files to the public. That was like aroma of fresh-baked pizza with extra cheese wafting out onto the street for the Deep State conspiracy minded cosmonauts of  cyberspace to start chowing down on.  Afterall, whether he likes it or not, Trump has inherited the Deep State and all its dirty ops.

The Epstein Files is more than alleged sex trafficking of underage girls. Right now the conspiracy sleuths are more interested in whose names are on some sort of list, men seeking the pleasure of younger women—and their connection to the Deep State, banking, oil and international business. This has conspiracy bloodhounds digging like terriers at a rat hole. And that is what the Deep State , or what’s left of it at this point, wants. The Deep State wants these rat terriers running down dead end alleys. 

Meanwhile a key piece of information is being over looked: Epstein’s DNA. When it comes to crime we depend on Forensic DNA Specialists. But, in this case we should be relying on Genomic Researchers. 

The Human Genome Project was a large, well-organized, and highly collaborative international effort that generated the first sequence of the human genome and that of several additional well-studied organisms. Carried out from 1990-2003, it was one of the most ambitious and important scientific endeavors in human history.—NIH National Genome Research Institute. 

The Epstein case goes well beyond criminal forensics. It is alleged that Epstein’s DNA carries a slight mutation. It is a slight mutation passed along for centuries and can be traced back to its possible origins in three river valleys on Earth: The Hung He or Yellow River, “The Cradle of Chinese Civilization,” The Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, better known as the “Fertile Crescent” and the Nile River. Some researchers believe that the same mutation can be found in Central and South Americans—home to the Aztecs, Incas and Mayans. This explains Trump’s efforts to deport as many illegal South and Central Americans as possible. This is just cover for the Deep State’s search for alien DNA in immigrants who come into this country from south of our border. It could possibly be argued that the Deep State kept Trump in the dark about this research in his first term. In his second term he unknowingly fell into the Epstein Files and the ancient alien DNA research face first. He now finds himself mired within the Deep State, something that unsettles his staunch MAGA base. 

Most middle schoolers, who stayed awake in their World History class, can take a wild stab at explaining the significance of those geographic areas. Those of us who are smarter than a 5th grader but less studious than an 8th grader may not know that all of these locations are significant in establishment of ancient civilizations and human advancement; moving from hunters and gatherers to inventing the wheel, writing, gunpowder and domesticating crops and animals. Something the Trump Administration is banking on us not knowing, now that they are aware of some of the buried Deep State secrets. This explains the dismantling of the state and national educational infrastructure and the closing down government funded national research centers.

The Deep State became obsessed with determining the human genome and may explain the push for diversity, equity, and inclusion as a way of preparing us for extraterrestrial beings in the woodshed.  According the National Genome Research Institute, “A special committee of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences outlined the original goals for the Human Genome Project in 1988, which included sequencing the entire human genome in addition to the genomes of several carefully selected non-human organisms.”

For whatever reason a handful of researchers were convinced that the Fertile Crescent held some of the mysteries of the human genome. Many people believe that President George H. W. Bush’s 1990  Gulf War was to put Saddam Hussein back in his box. Its real mission was in search of  DNA, just one of  Bush’s thousand points of light was the mapping and sequencing of the human genome. 

The main goal of this international effort was to get the entire human genome, or the genetic blueprint of the human being. By 2000 the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium “announced that it had produced a draft human genome sequence that accounted for 90% of the human genome.” The key word here is “human” because “The draft sequence contained more than 150,000 areas where DNA sequence was unknown because it could not be determined accurately (known as gaps).” But that 8 to 10 percent needed to be filled in. 

Again, in 2003 another Gulf War, this one started by Bush II, to fill in the gaps. This time it was under the guise of looking for Weapons of Mass Destruction. In reality it was in search of that one little mutation. Hence, military house-to-house searches armed with AR-15s and cotton swabs.  Abu Ghraib Prison was known more as a CIA torture chamber than a Deep State secret genetic research facility. The dupes in this charade were the Army National Guardsmen who unbeknownst decoyed the real purpose of Abu Ghraib. The human rights abuses was a great cover for the more benign genomic research that was taking place deep within its walls. 

By 2022 those gaps had been filled. All though touted as a positive outcome, the Human Genome Project “made every part of the draft human genome sequence publicly available shortly after production.” This created a genome race giving Communist Chinese scientists access to DNA sequencing science that they previously lacked. Trump’s trade war with China goes deeper than container ships crossing the ocean. It sheds some light on the Wuhan lab leak theory. What were Chinese scientists really researching? Was the Covid pandemic just a cover for deeper, darker genetic secrets?

What we are witnessing now is the anti-Deep State’s attempt to dismantle all evidence of the Deep State through a concocted agency called DOGE. DOGE’s eradication of agencies includes many seemingly unrelated government activities. It is a shotgun approach to eliminating the Deep State, destroying more than DEI and “woke” agencies.  The Trump administration is not only slashing research efforts taking place across the nation in government but also in university labs. Hence, the legal battles to defund universities like Harvard and the closing down government research centers. But probably its biggest take down was removing the United States from the World Health Organization, thus denying scientists valuable DNA data derived from a variety of sources–and reasons.

What the anti-Deep State does not understand is that some of these labs have been researching for decades with alien remains. Alien remains that some researchers believe are related to those they believe visited this planet 10,000 to 12,000 years ago. The Deep State has meticulously compartmentalized this alien DNA research so no one agency or research lab could connect the DNA gaps on its own. With the anti-Deep State slashing funding for research facilities, it is hard now to tell what was lost to DOGE’s shotgun approach in dismantling the government for budgetary purposes. 

For instance, one research group found there was a slight difference within the mutation leading some researchers to believe that there is just enough diversity in the alien DNA to speculate that maybe as many as three different alien related-groups visited Earth. No one is sure if that research is lost or just on pause. 

It is also their belief, but purely speculative, that these aliens set up what would be “Roanoke Colonies” in the Hung He River, the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, and the Nile River valleys, much like Britain’s attempt to establish settlements off the North Carolina coast in 1685.  These attempts resulted in the first great American Mystery:  “The Lost Colony of Roanoke.” Historians today do not know what happened to the 112 to 120 settlers. They still search for clues to their disappearance. Some speculate that local native Americans savagely killed them. Others believe that they may have lived out their remaining years with peaceful natives in the unsettled wilderness. 

Some researchers believe that these ancient aliens, stranded  in a hostile environment, suffered the same fate as Lost Colony of Roanoke inhabitants, were waiting for an interstellar supply ship that never arrived. Some go on to speculate that like the Lost Colony, war kept these Earth colonies from getting supplies they  needed. Although there is no proof of this some believe that an interstellar war may have kept colonizing aliens from a timely return.This leads some to believe that those stranded aliens, much like the Roanoke settlers, intermarried with the natives, humans, creating this out-worldly “nonhuman” mutant piece of DNA floating around in the genetic pool of humans.

In fact, some researchers feel strongly that the Chinese may be on to something big with their exploration on the Dark Side of the Moon– 2001: A Space Odyssey moment. There maybe proof of an ancient alien space battle that took place in our own Solar System. Evidence of this battle could possibly be found on the Moon. It may even give clues to the possible end of life on Mars. Although not taken seriously among astronomers and astrophysicists, it is a belief that this ancient alien space battle destroyed several planets explaining the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter and the Kuiper Belt. 

The Deep State has been secretly working with the remains of extraterrestrials since the end of World War II. The government has tightly controlled information on UFOs or “unidentified anomalous phenomena”  UAPs. (see blog Congress and Aliens, January 2024). We have been looking to space for proof of extraterrestrial life while the proof may be right here walking around on Earth in our own DNA. There is more hiding in the Epstein Files and fantasy island. The Trump Administration overt activities to defund large portions of the government, its suspicious turn around on the Epstein Files indicates that like past administration, it has been consumed by the Deep State. 

Float Like a Bubble, Implode like a Star

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Since the late 1990s the world has witnessed the implosion of two of the worst economic bubbles in history. Some economist believe that pending economic bubbles can go unnoticed for five to ten years before they implode like a dying star. In fact, some economist believe we sitting on the next economic stellar black hole. But I think there is another bubble brewing up, a different kind of bubble: The Ego Bubble.

The Ego Bubble, however, differs from an Economic Bubble. First off, economic bubbles are simply a time when investors go bonkers for something. Investopedia says bubbles “occurs when the price of a financial asset or a commodity rises to levels well above historical norms, above its actual value, or both.”

A healthy ego is a good thing. It projects self awareness, self esteem and props up a positive self-image. However, when an ego’s awareness becomes inflated and reality becomes distorted, or “rises to levels well above historical norms, “the inflated ego, unchecked, can become a black hole of self-centered superiority pulling in misconceptions and false beliefs.

One essential element in the growth of any bubble, egoic or economic, is groupthink. According to Psychology Today, “Groupthink is a phenomenon that occurs when a group of well-intentioned people make irrational or non-optimal decisions spurred by the urge to conform or the belief that dissent is impossible.” For an economic bubble to grow it needs large amounts of money chasing a belief in the perception that an asset or a commodity will keep growing exponentially. That means a lot of people have to believe in the pot of gold theory.

No one in this world, so far as I know—and I have searched the records for years, and employed agents to help me—has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people.–H L Mencken

History is full of both bubbles. When economic bubbles implode they can leave irate investors, homeless and without two nickels to rub together. With pitchforks in hand they are ready to chase down Frankenstein’s monster.

We can go back to 1637 and Tulip Mania; The South Sea Bubble in 1720 that pulled in King George and Sir Isaac Newton into its economic Tsunami wave. Parliament created the monster, The South Sea Company. According to History UK “It was a public and private partnership that was designed as a way of consolidating, controlling and reducing the national debt and to help Britain increase its trade and profits in the Americas.” That old “national debt” is a spectre that’s been around forever in some sort of big beautiful way, driving countries numb and dumb. Even Sir Isaac Newton, who could figure out why an apple falls off a tree was unable to explain why investor losses dropped from tons to pounds. Maybe it was because the whole thing was based on an immoral concept: slavery. The South Sea Company thought it had a monopoly on providing Spain with the needed labor, slave labor, for her New World colonies.

“The slave trade had proved immensely profitable in the previous two centuries and there was huge public confidence in (The South Sea Company) scheme, as many expected slave profits to increase dramatically…–History UK

Since the 1990s we have seen two of the worst economic bubbles collapse. The the Dot com Bubble of the late 1990s; then there was the 2008 Real Estate Bubble, along with Bernie Madoff’s 20 year Ponzi scheme collapsing the same year. With economic bubbles people cheerfully hop on the bandwagon. They then ride the fallacy: The majority’s opinion, in this case the investor’s belief in a sure thing, until it is not.

The South Sea Bubble has been called: the world’s first financial crash, the world’s first Ponzi scheme, speculation mania and a disastrous example of what can happen when people fall prey to ‘group think’. That it was a catastrophic financial crash is in no doubt and that some of the greatest thinkers at the time succumbed to it, including Isaac Newton himself, is also irrefutable. Estimates vary but Newton reportedly lost as much as £40 million (pounds) of today’s money in the scheme.–Historic Uk.

Ego bubble works on a similar concept. The first thing needed is an individual who uses an inflated ego to gather control of an idea or concept–a sure thing. One of history’s best examples is Adolf Hitler. It did not take Hitler long to suck like-minded people into his scapegoating illusions of political and economic reality. Once the groupthink expands with these like-minded people a small cohesive secondary autocratic group of leaders*, like Himmler, Goering and Goebbels forms to bolstered Hitler’s power. These leaders sell their souls to a fallacious concept. They are the ones who keep the faithful in line. Critical thinking is one of the first things that goes out the door. Because what is needed, is conformity and consensus. The fallacy of the bandwagon needs to keep moving forward.

  • Himmler, Goering and Goebbels all committed suicide when Hitler’s ego bubble disintegrated.

(James) Janis and other researchers have found that in a situation that can be characterized as groupthink, individuals tend to refrain from expressing doubts and judgments or disagreeing with the consensus. In the interest of making a decision that furthers their group cause, members may also ignore ethical or moral consequences.–Psychology Today

Once critical thinking is kicked to the curb, dissention in the ranks also disappears. It becomes easy to stereotype those outside the bubble as being dumb, or a threat to the greater well being. There is no counter debate or diversity. The access to additional information is locked out. Poor decisions are sure to follow without the inflow disparate information to fuel constructive debate.

In biology, for example, for a cell to exist it must be able to transport necessary nutrients into the cell and wastes out of the cell. According to biologyinsights.com, for proper cell function “Cell transport mechanisms are essential processes that maintain homeostasis” and allows “cells to interact with their surroundings and adapt to changes.” A mechanism lacking in the ego bubble to allow new ideas in and dead beliefs out.

In the 1930s the world witnessed the growth of three gigantic ego bubbles. Two of these bubbles were in Europe: Adolf Hitler and his Nationalist Socialist German Workers’ Party, and Benito Mussolini and his Partito Nazionale Fascista or the National Fascist Party. In the Pacific, General Hideki Tojo was a militerist from the Imperial Rule Assistance Association Party of Japan. It is safe to say that there were no opposition parties. Their individual ego bubbles were secure with no opposing ideas moving in. Together these bubbles formed the Axis Powers, a black hole that sucked almost every contintnet they came in contact with into a world war.

Today’s astrological alignment of ego bubbles are being filled in the East by China’s Xi Jinping’s lust for the “golden age” of the Tang Dynasty; in the North by Russia’s Vladimir Putin visions of Peter the Great; and here at home with Donald Trump’s belief that only he can Make America Great Again. We have seen how these bubbles bounce into each other. America and China engaged in trade war. Putin trying to engulf Ukraine into the Russian sphere. All the while ,Trump and Putin are on the disco dance floor doing The Hustle one minute and then grooving into The Electric Slide next. All three bubbles are trying to avoid The Bump.

There are several other smaller bubbles floating around causing trouble: Israel’s Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un. Both Netanyahu and Kim are double bubbles that attach and develop onto an existing bigger bubble. It is hard to tell which bubble dominates at time. I would not classify Iran has having an ego bubble per se. Religious fanaticism is a whole different form of groupthink, just as dangerous and not as easily popped. Religious fanaticism is like Dandelion seeds spreading from one yard to another: One terrorist group spawns another.

I am not suggesting that these three bubbles would combine to form an Axis-like Super Bubble. In fact, I am not really suggesting anything. Right now they are there just floating around. But, since I brought up religion I must say it is not in my nature to proselytize. I am not suggesting any sort of divine intervention in popping ego bubbles. Because for some reason when it comes to gods, God always seems to be on everybody’s side. German soldiers going back to Prussia in the 1700s all the way up to the Nazi in WWII went into battle with Gott mit uns or God is with us on their belt buckle. Nor I am not going to propose any sort of Freudian psychology or psychoanalyst theories to explain the comings and goings or the inner wounded child theory in any of the oversized ego. However, I prefer to use Proverbs 6: 16-19 as an ego bubble checklist.

If by simple observation the following criteria can be checked off in evaluating an egoic, groupthink bubble, we could be in for trouble. For instance if it can be determined that the bubble exhibits “a lying tongue,” and has “a false witnesses who pours out lies;” and is a bubble that “stirs up conflict in the community,” we may be witnessing the forming of an ego bubble. If we see a bubble “that devises wicked schemes and has feet that are quick to rush into evil,” the devil may already be on the loose. If “that (bubble) has hands that shed innocent blood,” we, as Tom Waits sings, may have failed to “keep the devil way down in the hole, he’s got the fire and fury at his command…” We just might be in for some serious Old Testament fire and brimstone on the level of Sodom and Gomorrah.

“Oh with your fussin’ and your fightin’,” Trump’s Tonkin Gulf Moment

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It would be hard to find a time when we as a nation were blessed without all “your fussin’ and your fightin’.” I think the key word in this is “your.” How easy it is to get dragged into someone else’s fussin and fightin’ that then has you hip deep into their feud. If you are one with a limited amount of common sense, to often you gladly jump into the melee feet first; if you are lacking common sense, you dive in head first. This the way I see the immigration nonsense taking place in LA.

I will admit that this country’s immigration policy is out-of-whack, but hardly a Mars Attacks assault. This so-called immigration invasion in Los Angeles has stirred up a lot “fussin’ and fightin’.” Immigration Customs and Enforcement agents are rounding up day laborers at Home Depot–the low hanging fruit of snatch and grab–has gotten a lot people excited, particularly those at The White House. In fact, they got so excited they decided, not only to call out the California National Guard, but the Marines. Who better to call out then the Marines. Marines have a history of dealing with Central American insurrections that goes back to the early 1900s, the National Guard not so much. And who better to guard our streets against an immigrant insurrection of landscapers, dishwashers and a hodgepodge of day laborers then those who cleared the streets of Fallujah in 2004. This is Trump’s domestic surge to push back alien invaders from our streets. It may literally become overkill.

Listen to the radio, talkin’ ’bout the last show
Someone got excited, had to call the state militia–Creedence Clearwater Revival: Travelin’ Band

I am not condoning violence and the burning of driverless cars or surrounding federal buildings. But if there were a Richter Scale for measuring riots what is happening in LA is a 1.0: A microriot not felt, but recorded by main street news (and other bloviators). Take Detroit in 1967, that was a riot. That five-day riot was a magnitude 8.0 Riot: More than 40 people were killed, 1,100 injured (figures for injured vary), 7,200 people arrested and 2,000 buildings damaged or destroyed, its tremors were felt across the nation. Ironically, this riot started with similar early morning police raid on an after hours-bar that went amiss. A side note, the 1992 LA Riot was a 9.0 Riot.

The 1967 Detroit Riots were among the most violent and destructive riots in U.S. history. By the time the bloodshed, burning and looting ended after five days, 43 people were dead, 342 injured, nearly 1,400 buildings had been burned and some 7,000 National Guard and U.S. Army troops had been called into service.–History.com

The Paramount Riot seems like Trump’s Tonkin Gulf Resolution to escalate his deportation war. The big difference is there is no Congressional authorization, which today is a wink and a nod and a hardy “go for it!” It is a hyped up reason to bring out Title 10 U.S.C. 12406 and the military, which says “the president may call into federal service members and units of the National Guard of any State in such numbers as he considers necessary to repel the invasion, suppress the rebellion, or execute those laws.” In other words, the Administration just put a hiring freeze in Home Depot parking lots across the nation. Some poor drywaller is going have a hard time finding locals to carry in sheetrock up to the second floor addition. Boards that can weigh from anywhere from 30 to 100 pounds depending on the size, and usually bundled in twos.

Our immigrant problem began when the first European immigrants in 1617 brought in African immigrants to pick tobacco. (Native Americans’ immigration problems started in the early 1500s.) On a more positive note, in the late 1600s William Penn actively sought out Europeans to settle in Pennsylvania. According to The Historical Society of Pennsylvania, “William Penn had proselytize among Rhine Valley dissenters and invited them to settle in his colony…Between 1727 and 1775, approximately 65,000 Germans landed in Philadelphia.” And they had to travel hundreds of miles just to get to a ship to cross the Atlantic Ocean. Benjamin Franklin wrote “that at least one-third of Pennsylvania’s white population was German.”

Immigration is a part of our natural history as a country. We cannot deport our way out of 400 years of immigration. It runs as deep in our veins as tax avoidance; both have been necessary to sustain the growth and expansion of our country. It is interesting, however, to note, that the current Administration is trying to tackle both issues at the same time with The One Big Beautiful (tax cut) Bill and rounding up 3,000 immigrants a day–but not to carry drywall. It will be interesting to see if this administration can walk and blow bubble gum at the same time.

If our country is a melting pot of culture, our immigration policies have been a recipe created over time reflecting the singular view of White Anglo Saxon beliefs of race, religion and economics at various points along our history. According to heinonline.org, “The Naturalization Act of 1790 established that foreign-born residents of the United States could apply for citizenship provided they had lived in the U.S. for two years, had remained in their current residence for one year, and were free, white, and of “good moral character.” If we went by “good moral character” for being a citizen today, we might easily lose half the currently elected and appointed members of our government, to include Supreme Court justices–they could easily be DOGE(d).

Since then we have had a twisting immigration policy that has encouraging Chinese laborers to work on the railroads to then outright excluding them in 1882 from not only becoming citizens but denying those that were here the path to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The Exclusion Act was renewed every 10 years until it was finally repealed in 1952. In 1980 immigrants could now claim refugee status and could enter the immigration maze. And, In 1986 the Reagan Administration basically outsourced the control of immigration to business.

Prior to Reagan, Congress had created a niche out for businesses. According to The Congressional Quarterly Almanac, “it was illegal to enter or work in the country without proper papers, did not make it illegal for employers to hire undocumented workers.” It seems the government closed the front door but left the back door wide open to hiring immigrants no matter what their status was. In reality it is an economic problem of supply and demand in getting the cheapest labor possible.

That changed with the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986. It was now illegal to hire illegals “knowing that such person is unauthorized to work…without verifying his or her work status.” Employers could now be subjected to fines and jail. The new law also allowed a pathway for amnesty and legal status for undocumented aliens. Since then we have had Dream Acts that set requirements and conditions for illegal immigrants to apply for residential and permanent status. And of course there has been wall building and border openings and closings along with barbed wire across the Rio Grande. But that has not stopped businesses from hiring illegal immigrants.

A major problem with immigration is that we have had a Congresses that is too cheap to buy new underwear. But not so for foreign owned 747s. Our policies in dealing with immigration has a time-worn elastic band, it is ragged, and it is full of holes. You dare not put it in the dryer and you damn sure don’t want to hang it out on the line to dry after washing it in the sink.

“If you have a problem you can solve by throwing money at it, you don’t have a very interesting problem.”— American novelist and nonfiction writer Anne Lamott.

For the better part of 40 years Congress and various Presidents have created a very interesting political/economical problem” out of immigration. Businesses like agriculture, meat packing and construction run on cheap labor immigration provides. Employment for immigrants for decades was wide open. As a nation we have not invested the necessary money to control and accommodate business needs nor screen immigrants at the border. If we did, why are we deporting so many now? Instead, We have allowed our country to become a Walmart on Black Friday every day.

What I am sick and tired of is the political extremes on both ends of the spectrum creating all the insane fussin’ and fightin’. Without a doubt we have had a long running challenges with immigration. But now we have a president that has decided that things are out of hand. Have things drastically changed from 1980 to the present? If so, it is because immigration is part of our historical DNA. The problem today, is that this administration’s policy on immigration could be compared to a doctor using a guillotine to treat patients suffering from migraines. It is a bit radical and obvious not the best solution for the patient or his family.

Meanwhile, those of us that are in the middle looking for real solutions to immigration watch the ends never meet.

The Big Bang Theory on why Everybody Loves Donald

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Lately I have curtailed my absorption of news. “The News” is not new. It is more like watching reruns of Everybody Loves Raymond or The Big Bang Theory. How many times can the lovable but klutzy Raymond say or do something that creates a commotion that has everybody going bat-shit crazy? Donald Trump, that lovable but crusty president has turned “The News” into a nightly sitcom reruns.

For most of its existence “The News”: news papers, magazines, radio news, and TV news was hard pressed to make a profit. It relied on advertising. But with Trump whole networks and pod casters have popped up to deliver us non-stop Trump news. All Trump has to do is say anything and everybody along the political spectrum jumps into critical analyses mode. It feeds the news monkey with stay tuned to what Trump will say next. It is WWE news wrestlemania.

“The New,” however, has taken a more turn to sitcoms. Screenrant.com writes, “Sitcoms love tropes because they are often predictable. Although novelty wins when creating media content, predictability also enables audiences to enjoy new stories. As a result, even the most creative TV shows follow cinematic tropes that bring some comfort to a show.” I am not sure if the current antics of the administration are bringing “comfort news” to its viewers; but it does have people tuning in to is predictability.

Leonard and Sheldon are brilliant physicists, the kind of “beautiful minds” that understand how the universe works. But none of that genius helps them interact with people, especially women. All this begins to change when a free-spirited beauty named Penny moves in next door.–warnerbrothers.com

The zany antics from the cast of Everybody Loves Donald have created novel ways to present predictable governmental “news” content into “must see TV.” It has people tuning in just to see how Trump will piss off those Dems. Who can resist watching liberals running around with their hair on fire and their backsides smoking. New executive orders come shooting out of the White House like bats flying out of a cave at night. Each day brings out new tropes from deporting suspected immigrant gang members to El Salvador jails with the adding of homegrown criminals to the mix. And lest not forget the changing of geographical names and holidays–and even creating new ones with military parades.

We have even seen the president faked out on Truth Social in Pontific regalia. I am sure this will be a hot Halloween costume this year–depending on the tariffs. It is ironic that in the 1960 election people were concerned that if John F. Kennedy, a Catholic, were elected president the Pope would be lurking in the inner sanctums of the White House, unseen, as his consigliere. In 1963, when Kennedy met Pope Paul VI many were waiting to see if Kennedy would kneel before the Pope and kiss his ring. He didn’t. But now we have a president who dresses up as the Pope–on AI. And why not, after all he has his own God Bless America Bible that comes in a Camo edition for $74.99.

All this really does is create a news feeding frenzy; or what Cambridge Dictionary calls, “a situation in which people try to get as much as possible of something, for example information about an event, especially in an unpleasant way.” We could add to that “a fierce competition between people who all want the same thing.” And I will add regardless if you are on the far right or far left, Trump gets clicks. Trump has replaced the old journalism adage: If it bleeds it leads.

Trump has become the protagonist in “The News” feeding frenzy. There are still some news outlets with a fading belief in the sanctity of the Presidency. But not so the Office of the Vice Presidency. Some joke that the only real qualification for being vice president is to have a heartbeat. “The News” has taken a cue from sitcoms. It needs real comic relief. And what better way to do this is to give the protagonist a trusted sidekick.

Screenrant says, “The dumb sidekick is a very useful character in a sitcom. They act as tension breakers in heavy scenes.” And with democracy dancing on death’s doorsteps, enter J.D. Vance, the Jar Jar Binks of the Administration: “Mesa knowing mesa be big help with the negotiations.”

When it comes to President Trump, he is “The News tar baby.” A Fox News created tar baby. A creation that drives news ratings, social media hits, podcasts. Whatever he says or does goes viral. And most of it, like bringing back the Birdman of Alcatraz, is nonsense. It is becoming old. It is losing its originality. Trump has to keep dipping into the absurd to keep it spontaneous and engaging so “The News” will cover each new posting, executive order or rambling interview regardless, he is the president. “The News” media, its viewers and readers are getting mired deeper into the goo of the tar baby. The problem is the media is the tar puppet of the Trump’s administration. It is reporting on nonsense that should be buried back on the page with public notices and personals ads, pages that no longer exist. It is not being bombarded with fake news. It is being overwhelmed with irrelevant news.

Making America Great from Sea to Shining Sea

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American Progress by John Gast, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The slogan “Make America Great Again” confuses me. There is so much to unpack in that four word statement. It is a wide open proclamation that seems simple but in reality is so subjective it creates more questions than it can possibly answer, starting with what is great. Can “Great” even be defined and then agreed upon.

MAGA as a slogan is a historical phenomena based on the Rashomon effect. The term Rashomon effect comes from Akira Kurosawa’s 1950 film Rashomon. The movie, according to psychologenie.com, “highlights the contradictory interpretations of the same event by different people. But because these are accompanied by facts, each of these interpretations seem completely plausible … wherein lies the confusion and dilemma.”

What makes MAGA so confusing is whose interpretation of what era of American history we agree upon is or was great. Our history is comprised not of one event but a series of events that lead up to a major event–like say, the Civil War to Reconstruction.

Understanding and interpreting history comes from three sources. The University of California, Berkley’s Department of History says that Primary Sources are “The ‘raw materials’ (or the) foundation of historical research and writing.” It is observations from sources who witnessed history as it was unfolding. Sources like newspaper articles, journals, government documents and the arts all give us information from the past.

Secondary sources are the historiography produced from primary sources. It is the books and articles “that (are) anchored in primary sources and informed secondary sources.” It is the “arguments and interpretations about the past” that emerge from the “foundations of historical evidence (i.e., primary sources).” It is a process of either challenging or supplementing “prevailing interpretations that other historians have made.”

And finally, Tertiary Sources are “Books and articles based exclusively on secondary sources – i.e., on the research of others.” Basically we are dealing with numerous interpretations (sources) and outcomes depending on the combination and permutations of historical events. Like this blog.

The (Rashomon) effect of the subjectivity of perception on recollection, by which observers of an event are able to produce substantially different but equally plausible accounts of it.–Wikitionary

A lot of philosophical beliefs about government and influential individuals in our history can be hashed about as causes for “making America great” starting with the Revolutionary War all the way to someone like Henry Ford and the assembly line. It could be argued that the Louisiana Purchase was an accelerant spurring a population pinned in-between the Appalachians and the Atlantic to move west into what would be a mission of Manifest Destiny, from sea to shining sea with amber waves of grain in-between. It was going west to get to the East–the Orient, and even possibly into Central America. But first Native Americans and Mexico had to be shoved out of the way.

After the War of 1812 a spirit of nationalism took hold. For the next two decades Americans began to take their beliefs west. According to William Earl Weeks, “Manifest Destiny consistently reflected three key themes: the special virtues of the American people and their institutions; their mission to redeem and remake the world in the image of America; and the American destiny under God to accomplish this sublime task.” It was a belief in the virtues of a liberty, justice, and the republican form of government. It encompassed the two “Cs”: Christianity and Capitalism, two concept developed during Colonial times that were now ready to move beyond the Appalachian Mountains–on steroids.

The westward movement in some ways was a religious crusade spawned by the Second Great Awakening. It created a religious incentive to drive west. Indeed, many settlers believed that God himself blessed the growth of the American nation. Afterall the Native Americans were considered heathens and always subject to be converted. By Christianizing the tribes, American missionaries believed they could save souls. Unlike Mountain Men and fur trappers who preceded the missionaries, Manifest Destiny was a fulfillment of God’s will to Christianize the heathen Native American tribes.

It appeared to be America’s sacred duty to expand across the North American continent, to reign supreme in the Western Hemisphere, and to serve as an example of the future to people everywhere. This was Manifest Destiny of the American people.–Building the Continental Empire Americas Expansion from the Revolution by William Earl Weeks

Manifest destiny touched not only on religion; it was an economic and trade crusade; it was about race and patriotism. According to Weeks, “Senator Edward Hannegan of Indiana typified (the) view when in late February 1847 he proclaimed to Congress that ‘Mexico and the United States are peopled by two distinct and utterly nonhomogeneous races. In no reasonable period could we amalgamate.'” A country that depended on slave labor to generate a national income probably did not have a deep seated problem in viewing the western inhabitants, non-Anglo Saxons, Catholics as inferior. The needs of the American expansion to the Pacific generally did not include them. These religious, economic and racial differences would end up in a war with Mexico over Texas. Mexico would lose just about all of the Southwest to include California right up to the border of the Oregon Territory as a result of the Mexican-American War (1846-1848). If this could be looked as a ledger sheet, America’s great gain was Mexico’s great loss.

The Oregon Territory was a bit different then battling non Anglo Saxon Catholics and savages. Fighting over the territory was not really an option. Territorial disputes with the former Mother Country over northern and western borders was nothing new. Handling the British bulldog was different then kicking around the Mexican Chihuahua. Britain, unlike Mexico with Texas, could see that American settlers were soon going to populate the Oregon Territory. Both countries had a vested interest in not disrupting the trade between the two countries. And besides, the United States had just engaged Mexico in one war and did not need to fight the British along the northern border at the same time.

Ironing out the Columbia River was done diplomatically. Concessions were made on both sides in modifying the belligerent cry of “Fifty-four Forty or Fight” land grab. This American claim included most of the land west of Continental Divide (current British Columbia) and as far north as the Russian territory of Alaska. Cooler diplomatic heads prevailed setting the border between British North America, Canada a country that we invade twice and at present seem to want to annex, along the 49th parallel instead of the 54th.

Then there was the desire of southerners to find more lands suitable for cotton cultivation. The anti-slavery movement in Northern states was beginning to take off. There was a deep concerned about adding any more slave states to the Union. All of this new land could alter the delicate balance of power of the federal government. Adding states to the Union at this time consisted of bringing in one slave and one free state at the same time. And no president until Abraham Lincoln would consider curbing the growth of our “peculiar institution” to just the South. Settling the boundaries of slavery in these new lands would take two compromises, The Compromise of 1820 (the Missouri Compromise) and The Compromise of 1850. Both were replaced with the idea of popular sovereignty in the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854. The idea was that the settlers of new territories would decide. Eventually the country decided on war.

And then there was trade, particularly with China. According to The Office of the Historian, “American trade with China began as early as 1784, relying on North American exports such as furs, sandalwood, and ginseng, but American interest in Chinese products soon outstripped the Chinese appetite for these American exports.” (It seems we have always run a trade imbalance with China.) Sixty years later the United States would sign The Treaty of Wangxia that would open up five treaty ports to US trade.

The big problem in tapping into the Far East trade was the United States did not have a suitable port on the West Coast. San Diego, Los Angeles and San Francisco were all in Mexico. That would change after the Mexican-American War. Under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo Mexico cede 55 percent of its country to the US. America received California, Nevada, Utah along with most of Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona. It also settled the long standing feud over the southern border of Texas as the Rio Grande.

It could be argued that Manifest Destiny was a great moment in American history. A lot of the greatness however, was taking place East of the Mississippi. Internal improvements like canals were built to move produce and trade along the many rivers flowing to the Hudson and Mississippi Rivers, and the Great Lakes. Steamships began regular runs up and down the Mississippi and its tributaries. In 1826 in New Jersey John Stevens demonstrated the possibilities of steam locomotion. By the 1830s railroads like the Baltimore & Ohio (B & O) were surveying and laying track. Some Forty years later the railroads connected the Atlantic to the Pacific Oceans. These were innovations that would be needed to settle and develop the West.

From a certain perspective Manifest Destiny was a time when it could be argued that America being made great. Not so much for Mexico and Native Americans. Therefore greatness may very well depend on the subjective perspective taken in determining what is great as to who benefits by greatness and the stories they tell. To the contrary, there is a good possibility that someone has been disposed, denied or defeated by just standing in the way of making something great.

Making America Great: The Beginning

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We have been living with the red-hatted MAGA mantra for close to 10 years. I think this shibboleth historically does the country and its people a great disservice. Yes, it is a forward thinking concept. But in many ways MAGA focuses on the foibles and glitches of the present and omits the fact that America has always been a country that is constantly under construction; progressively moving forward in science, trade, economics and human rights.

I am not sure if we have ever had a period in our history where we have stomped the mud off our boots and dusted our hands and said, “My work here is done.” The only thing that comes to mind is planting the flag on the moon. The last man on the Moon was Gene Cernan way back in December of 1972. In fact no humans have been more than 400 miles from the Earth since that Apollo 17 flight. Every country with a space program is still flying in our contrails.

There are many reason why America has progressively moved forward. The early Puritans considered the New World to be a “beacon on a hill.” Today, President Trump is putting forth the concept that improving tariffs are a mechanism to keep that beacon shining. However, many are questioning if tariffs are the right tool for the time.

Even if we look back to what has to be our darkest moment there was progress. During the Civil War when the country ripped itself apart over a slave based economic system, a time when cotton accounted for 60 percent of the country’s trade revenues, a time when hundreds of thousands of men fought over Union and slavery; America was still moving forward. And, The Homestead Act was just one part of making America great in the post Civil War era.

During the Civil War, while the country was giving its last full measure of devotion to reunite a divided country there was hope with landmark legislation like The Homestead Act 1862. The Act opened up 270 million acres to “anyone” 21 year old or the head of a household. There were two caveats: you had to be a citizen or declare the intentions of becoming one; and well, if you took up arms against or aided enemies (the Confederacy) of the United States you need not apply. A step in making America great. However, this step, a concept of an individual owning 160 acres of western land, clashed with Native American ideas of land ownership and management.

Washington [D.C.] is not a place to live in. The rents are high, the food is bad, the dust is disgusting and the morals are deplorable. Go West, young man, go West and grow up with the country.— attributed to Horace Greeley, New-York Daily Tribune, July 13, 1865

But what made this act so important is it dovetailed neatly into the concept of Manifest Destiny. A belief that America was destined to be a country from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Americans, or English Colonials, have always pushed westward through the Cumberland Gap on the Wilderness Road into Kentucky and Tennessee or the National Road out of western Maryland on into Indiana. River travel played a big role in moving settlers and goods on rivers like the Ohio and its tributaries that flowed to the Mississippi.

However, at this time the United States was hemmed in by the Mississippi River to the West and Spanish Florida to the South. Nobody was really sure what lay on the other side of the Mississippi River in 1800. For instance, the Spanish searched all over the Southwest looking for a city made of gold called Eldorado. (They were looking in the wrong places. All they really needed to do was build a sawmill in Northern California and maybe American history would have been a whole lot different.)

This belief that America was to rule from the Atlantic to the Pacific grew legs with Thomas Jefferson’s Louisiana Purchase. The cry “go west young man” and the slogan “Manifest Destiny” were still to come. But, the early 1800s was also a time of some ill conceived ideas. Americans were picking a Quasi War in the late 1790s with France and a real war, again, trying to settle old scores with Great Britain in 1812. While we were fighting the British we also took another crack at conquering Canada. it seems history has circled back again on conquering Canada, this time with tariffs.


The Homestead Act of 1862 was a revolutionary concept for distributing public land in American history. This law turned over vast amounts of the public domain to private citizens. 270 millions acres, or 10% of the area of the United States was claimed and settled under this act. Repercussions of this monumental piece of legislation can be detected throughout America today.–National Park Service

The new nation’s eyes were also focused south on the Spanish possession, the appendage we know as Florida. At that time there were two Floridas, as if one was not bad enough: an East Florida and a West Florida. It was West Florida that abutted New Orleans and the part of Florida that was not included in the Louisiana Purchase. Despite diplomatic haggling, Presidents Madison and Monroe got nowhere on changing Spain, France or Britain’s mind as to America owning what would later become chunks of Mississippi, Alabama and Florida. Spain, unlike France, was not interested in selling off its North American holdings. However that was about to change.

In 1804 Jefferson was after New Orleans, the crown jewel in the Louisiana Purchase. As long as any foreign country owned New Orleans it put a serious crimp in bottling up American trade coming down the river. Forget tarifs, the fledgling country needed an outlet for its western produce. America needed West Florida to get its goods to what would later be known as the Gulf of America and on to foreign markets or back east to New York, Boston, and Philadelphia.

The process of acquiring this chunk of Gulf Coast would take several diplomatic incidents. But it was General Andrew Jackson that got the ball rolling. During the War of 1812, while other generals were floundering in taking Canada, while the British burning Washington City; Jackson was fighting both the British and Native Americans in the South. He whipped the Native Americans in what was known as the Creek War and whipped the British in the Battle for New Orleans. Once the war with the British was over he was able to turn his full attention to the various renegades who were crossing to and fro across the the US and Spanish Florida border. (It seems like some things in history never change.)

Now, in most wars there is always at least one country ready to supply the locals with the needed provisions to wage war. Like the United States sending weapons to Ukraine. In this case it was Britain supplying the Native American tribes of the Southeast with the tools of the trade. The Spanish did not seem to mind. Nor did they care who came and went across the border. Runaway slaves from Georgia found refuge among the Native Americans. Two groups that had a vested interest in helping Spain keep Florida and keeping Jackson out.

If there is one thing that history has taught us is that Native Americans never come out on the winning side of a war involving Europeans and Americans. Once Jackson sent the British running back to the Gulf of Mexico, as it was known back then, he began chasing Native Americans and runaway slaves seeking asylum in Spanish territory. In his incursion into Spanish Florida combatants were killed, forts and personal property were destroyed. Caught up in the hostilities were two British nationals: Alexander Arbuthnot and Robert Ambrister. Both were convicted of aiding Seminoles and other Native American tribes. Jackson gave both men a short shrift and a short rope. Both ended up getting hung along with two Seminole chiefs creating an international incident. It was a diplomatic mess that Secretary of State, John Quincy Adams, had to clean up. The whole affair would become the first of three Seminole Wars.

A side note here. A small country like Denmark might want to take note. When it comes to land, Americans usually get what they want. Just ask any Native American tribe or Mexico, For instance Florida, the Monroe Administration wanted Florida. Later it was the Polk administration going after Texas. If anything, Jackson’s running around Florida made it clear that Spain could not control the border or its inhabitants. Secretary of State John Quincy Adams presented Spain with the ultimatum either control your people or we will.

If it was anybody who had the art of the deal down it was John Quincy Adams. It was the Onís-Adams Treaty of 1819, which according to history.state.gov, “Spain ceded East Florida to the United States and renounced all claim to West Florida. Spain received no compensation, but the Unites States agreed to assume liability for $5millin in damages done by (Jackson) American citizens who rebelled against Spain”

The Onís-Adams Treaty resulted in the 1821 Transcontinental Treaty. What makes the treaty important is that it “defined the western limits of the Louisiana Purchase.” It led Spain to surrender “its claims to the Pacific Northwest (Oregon Territory). In return, the United States recognized Spanish sovereignty over Texas.” A recognition that would last less than 30 years. Adams also worked out the northern boundaries of the Louisiana Purchase and the Oregon Territory with Great Britain. Once Adams set these boundaries the march to the Pacific and making America great was about to begin.

In just a little more than 10 Years America increased its size by one million square miles.

  • The Louisiana Purchase: 828,000 Square Miles;
  • The Oregon Territory: 288,000 Square Miles;
  • and Florida: 72,000 Square Miles.

And this does not include Mexican controlled California and Texas, yet to be acquired.

The biggest problem Americans faced was getting over the Mississippi River. The technology to capitalize on all of this land had yet to be developed. Canals connecting rivers to the Mississippi River had to be built. According to mississippiriver.com, “In 1814 the city of New Orleans recorded 21 steamboat arrivals, however, over the course of the following 20 years, that number exploded to more than 1200. The steamboat’s place as a transportation necessity was secured.” It was the beginning of making America great.

Rules and Regulations: Who needs ’em

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The last six weeks of the new Administration has been hectic to say the least. One reason is because this administration has eschewed the normal rules, procedures and decorum of government. It’s first 100 days are coming fast and furiously at the Democrats, possibly the bulk of the GOP, the media–basically all of us. The playbook, Project 2025, is the vision on how Trump’s administration will govern.

This playbook is a radical departure from say Franklin D. Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan’s first 100 days in office. Both FDR and Reagan turned the country from a rightward trajectory in the 1930s to a leftward tack and then back to a rightward journey in the 1980s . Since, then we have bounced around like a compass needle seeking true north.

Unlike FDR and Reagan, this playbook is bent on crashing the economy into the ditch and retooling the federal government into a single unchecked branch of government where Congress’s main job is to stand up and chant USA. I always got a kick out of seeing clips from communist countries when they had their annual party congresses. In walks, Stalin dressed in his little premier of Russia uniform to a thunderous welcome. In 1937 Uncle Joe got an 11 minute standing O. No one dares to be the first one to stop clapping let alone sit down.

With the 2025 playbook in operation it has created a lot confusion to say the least, chaos among government managers, mayhem for government workers while the markets double clutch and downshift to unchecked presidential power.

Changing rules of the game is nothing new. major league sports tweek the rules before every season. Take the 1983 NFL season, it started the new season with a rule dealing with snowplows. Just like there is no crying in baseball, there is not suppose to be snowplows in football. But on December 12, 1982 the Miami Dolphins battled the New England Patriots in icy snowy, New England winter conditions that had the teams tied up in a scoreless game late in the fourth quarter. During the game referees were using a small tractor with a snow brusher attached to clear off yard markers.

However, with less than five minutes left in the game and the Patriots on the Dolphin’s 33 yard line, and a timeout on the field, in comes the snow brusher to clear off the spot for the Patriot place kicker. The field goal was good and the Patriots went on to win 3-0. At the time there was no mention in the rules that this was an illegal move by the snowplow operator. The snowplow left Dolphin coach, Don Shula, on the sideline livid. The real kicker in all of this was that Shula was on the NFL rules committee. He made sure no Northern snowbound team would clear off a spot with a mechanical device in the future to make a winning kick.

In my life I have played a lot of games. I have played backyard games like Badminton and Croquet. Badminton was fun until you got the birdie, or the shuttlecock, caught in the net. Croquet was fun but it was much later in life I realized that our backyard rules didn’t quite follow The Official Rules of Garden Croquet. Before we played tag football the out of bounds and goal lines were discussed. We decided if it was two-hand touch, one-hand touch or a touch below the waist only.

Then there was one indoor game that I never got the hang of: Pool. It is a game of angles. A game of precise aim. It is a game where the cue ball has to have the exact velocity to match the distance and force in which to strike the target ball to get the desired results. And with all of that, the shooter has to have the fineses to take into consideration where the cue ball stops to line up the next shot. It is not a game of Whack-A-Mole.

The opening moves and possessions in any game are intended to set the tempo and direction of the game. President Donald Trump’s opening break in his first six week in office has a lot of people confused as to the rules he is playing by. Maybe he has a pool room in Mar-a-Lago. But I honestly think he must have a poor pool player calling his First 100 shots. Even the opening break shot in pool takes a well measured shot to ensure a break that does not end up in sinking the 8 ball. What we are seeing is some guy running around the pool table with a chainsaw. A guy who shows no fineses. A chainsaw mentality might be good for cutting down trees, but it takes a more than a finely balanced cue stick to get around a pool table, surely no place for a chainsaw.

If Elon Musk is calling the shots he is sending balls all over the table. I am not sure, but I think Elon has already put two 8 balls in each side pocket with his break ’em up style of play. This has people wondering how did the other 8 ball get into play. Maybe his young teenage apprentice, “Big Balls” lent him one.

I find it difficult to believe, that Trump a golfer, would let Musk loose in his pool room or golf course. Trump knows you drive for show and putt for dough. To get to the dough you need a well placed drive in the fairway setting up the next shot to the green. With Musk doing the driving the ball is going into the rough from one side of the fairway to the other. And since we are nowhere near the green we are not sure what kind of club Musk will pull from the bag to get out the bunkers he is sure to beach himself into, obviously not a chainsaw. Possibly a shovel, but more than likely a backhoe to dig him out of the hole he is putting the government in.

Then there is the sport term: Flood the Zone. In basketball and football teams utilize what is called a Zone Defense. Instead of a defender assigned to cover a specific offensive player, the defender is assigned an area to guard. One way to beat a zone defense is to flood the zone with more offensive players than defensive players. Supposedly, Steve Bannon came up with this Trump political strategy.

Originally it was aimed at dealing with the media. Bannon called the media “the real opposition.” The best way to “deal with them is to flood the zone with shit.” The key word here is “shit.” Not only do we have a guy running around with a chainsaw, we now we have feces being chucked throughout the government like dung flung in a monkey cage. It is a telling statement. It is hard to tell who is making political decisions: The guy with chainsaw or the host of flies following the shit storm that is flooding the zone. This is not governing.

For almost 250 years the United States has had set of rules and procedures in place for the government to follow. It is called the Constitution. Thirty-nine delegates endorsed the document in 1787. All 13 states ratified it by 1789. Since that time a Bill of Rights was added. It has been amended 27 times, laws have been enacted and its processes have gone through judicial review. It has served us in a Civil War and ended slavery. It has given us the ability to fight two World Wars, a Cold War and ensure order in times of civil unrest. It has given the country a frame work in dealing with economic depressions and recessions–despite differing economic philosophies. Furthermore, the Constitution has even given us continuity through the assassination of four presidents and the natural death of two others.

In all that the Constitution has gotten us through dark times like December 7th 1941, 9-11 and January 6th. Now, all of the sudden it is floundering and needs the guidance from the Heritage Foundation because somebody has decreed America is not great. Somebody who wants to take us back to the 1890s; a time when America was led by President William McKinley and tariffs. America was forging an empire under McKinley. After defeating Spain in the Spanish American War, America picked up territories in the Pacific and Caribbean, Hawaii was annexed. As testimonial to McKinley, Trump says, “He was a very good businessman, and he took in billions of dollars at the time. We were a very wealthy country at the time.” I hate to tell President Trump but America is still a rich country. If Trump’s gage of greatness is on billionaires, we have eight of the top 10 richest men in the world. If we go by economics our Gross Domestic Product is the highest in the world.

What we are dealing with in Project 2025 is a one-way conservative plot hatched in a think tank founded in 1973 to combat a supposed communist/socialist takeover of the government. The main goal is to increase the power of the Office of the President. The Project itself tells us that “the nation’s leading conservative organizations (are) joining forces to prepare and seize the day.” And that “History teaches that a President’s power to implement an agenda is at its apex during the Administration’s opening days. To execute requires a well-conceived, coordinated, unified plan and a trained and committed cadre of personnel to implement it.” This sounds more like the Soviet Union’s takeover of Eastern Europe after World War II. It was a takeover that killed fledgling Democracy in countries like Poland and Czechoslovakia with a cadre of commissars from Moscow strong arming their way into power–its mandate was backed by the Red Army.

If anything the 2025 Project has an interesting interpretation of Article II for re-arranging Constitutional checks and balances. Pardon me, but the 2024 Election was not a mandate for this. The election was more of a sales pitch giving us bait and switch coupon at the grocery checkout. If agencies and programs need to be honed and excesses rolled back there is a legislative process. It is Congress’s job. Not some billionaire with a chainsaw.

Religion, Politics and the Curvature of History

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I often sit down and read short sections of the Bible. A friend of mine, who became a pastor, once told me that the Bible was God’s authorized word; and written by those under God’s direction. I never thought much one way or another about who wrote the Bible. I’ll even go so far as to accept that those who wrote the Bible were listening to God as they inked the pages and bound them together. But now that I think about it, it is not who wrote the Bible but who and how it has been interpreted through the ages, particularly the New Testament.

The same is partially true for our Constitution, our legal Bible so to speak. We know who wrote the Constitution, and we know that before the ink had dried the framers were already debating various interpretations. Particularly differing views from Hamiltonian Federalists and banking and Jeffersonian Democratic-Republicans in foreign land purchases.

Early Christians/Jews could not agree on a lot of things from Mosaic law in keeping the sabbath holy to allow believing Gentiles to convert to Christianity. They debated the existence of Jesus as a man of virgin birth; or was he pure spirit; to some was he the Messiah; and then what was his relationship to God. These early Christian churches from Carthage in Africa and the Coptic church in Egypt to Roman Catholic churches in Europe to Eastern Orthodox churches of Byzantine and Antioch in Asia Minor all had differing opinions on Jesus and other conflicting dogmatic matters. It is interesting to note that Christianity is not the major religion in most of these geographical locations today.

Unlike some scientific laws, like Newton’s Laws of Motion or Kepler’s Laws of Planetary Motion, religious and political laws always seem to be up for debate. Debates that in most cases end up having somebody losing a head. As Pontius Pilate said to Jesus in Jesus Christ Superstar: And what is ‘truth’? Is truth unchanging law? We both have truths. Are mine the same as yours?

Much like the early Christians, Americans tripped over some of the same truths. For instance, for many the Constitution was nothing without a Bill of Rights. Since the first Ten Amendments the Constitution has been amended 17 times. But like early 1st Century Christians who were debating who could be a Christian, 18th Century Americans within ten years after becoming a nation were arguing the same point: who could be a citizen, who could vote and who was only a partial person.

Congress, in 1798, passed a series of laws called the Alien and Sedition Acts. The Naturalization Act, included in the Alien and Sedition Acts, upped residency requirements. To become a citizen, a person had to reside in America for 14 years, up from five years. It seems most arriving immigrants sided with Jefferson and his Republicans. Voting immigrants caused some electoral distress among Federalists.

In addition there was the Alien Friends Act. According to History.com, this “Act allowed the president to deport any non-citizen suspected of plotting against the government, even in peacetime.” It is a good thing the mob that invaded the Capitol on January 6 were citizens open to pardons instead of deportations.

But the Act that probably had the most sting was the Sedition Act. This Act, “took direct aim at those who spoke out against the president (at the time, the thinned-skinned John Adams) or the Federalist-dominated government.” History.com says, “Altogether, the federal government tried and convicted ten people under the Sedition Act, including four top Jeffersonian-Republican newspaper editors. Although the Federalists won convictions, they lost politically by creating martyrs and giving defendants a platform to defend freedom of speech and the press.”

 Ironically the Sedition Act, like one of Kepler’s planets, reappeared in 1918. According to the National Constitution Center the 1918 Sedition Act “imposed harsh penalties for a wide range of dissenting speech, including speech abusing the U.S. government, the flag, the Constitution, and the military. These laws were directed at socialists, pacifists, and other anti-war activists.” This is sort of an American Casablanca moment when Captain Renault orders: Round up the usual suspects.

The rounding up the usual suspects could be said of Christianity’s interesting interpretations of Christianity. The Romans had no trouble making sport of Christians in the Colosseum. Christians of later years learned from the Romans. Christians had no problem slaughtering and burning each other at the stake for heresy. Inquisitions were a common occurance well up into the 1970s in Ireland. Being saved was open for debate.

It took more about 300 years from Jesus’s death for churches to start singing from the same hymnal. Roman Emperor Constantine made Christianity legal in the Roman Empire with he Edict of Milan 313 A.D. Before that, the official Roman view of Christianity was religio prava: an evil or depraved religion. It gives new meaning to putting Christ back in Christmas and Nativities down at City Hall.

I am not trying to be sacrilegious but just because Christianity or the Catholic Church was street legal in Rome did not mean the various churches agreed on a lot of issues. Again, it took the Roman Emperor, Constantine, to knock heads together and get bishops in a room at the First Council of Nicea in 325 to hammer out their differences. He basically said your not finished until you come out with some sort of consensus. Hence, we got the Apostles Creed.

There were six more councils with the last or the Second Council of Nicea in 787 dealing with with icons and relics. Some religious scholars of the time, iconoclasts, believed praying to icons was parting from the Second Commandment–worshiping idols, a no-no that got the Jews in trouble with the Golden Calf while waiting for Moses to lead them into the promised land. Iconophiles, on the other hand, where a little more lenient in their views saying God told the Jews to put two Cherubims on the Ark of the Covenant. And, that icons were real proof that Jesus was a real person.

I wonder what these bejeweled bishops would have thought of Rastafari. According to Britannica. com, Rastafari “is a monotheistic religion that originated in Jamaica in the 1930s. It is centered on Africa and is based on the interpretation of the Bible, especially the Old Testament. Rastafarians believe in a single God, Jah, and that Haile Selassie I, the former Emperor of Ethiopia, is the reincarnation of Jesus Christ.” Can you imagine them imparting their religious views on ganja as the sacrament. Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper could have been the first pot party.

When it comes to religion and politics we rarely end up agreeing on one or two things. In most cases, we agree upon nothing most of the time. Eventually the bickering come to an end and people part ways. In 1054 the churches chucked the common hymnal. The Roman (Latin) Catholic Church split with the Eastern (Greek) Orthodox church. It had as much to do with religious dogma as shifting political winds on who would rule portions of the now defunct Roman Empire. The Roman Empire in Europe was a pile of dust that brought life to a new Holy Roman Empire with Papal powers. Also large swaths of Christian Africa and the Middle East left the church for Islam. There was a Muslim Caliphate in Egypt. In-between these two sat an Eastern Greek Orthodox,the Byzantine Empire. Religious clashes now included diametrically opposing views of God’s intentions more often than not settled with the sword.

But one good schism deserves another and the Catholic Church was not through with the splitting process. In the late 1500s the Protestant Reformation spun of all sorts of new religions into orbit. In many ways this reformation was as much a political revolution as it was an attempt at reforming religious thought. The reformation was also causing inner strife within ruling kingdoms of the time–aka Henry the VIII and his wedding/divorce woes. If you don’t like the divorce court’s rulings, start your own religion. And, oh by the way, make yourself the head of the religion.

Eventually some of those religions managed to land upon the Eastern shores of this country bringing their religious strife to the New World. Fortunately for us, political heads prevailed over fundamentalist religious preachers of the time. However, there was one Old World concept that still resonated within the New World: slavery, our original sin so to speak. Much like the Catholic Church during the Reformation, America eventually had s schism in the way it viewed the Constitution

Throughout our history we have had various and changing sects (political parties) and their absolute interpretations of the Constitution. Take the slavery issue and the Supreme Court under Chief Justice Roger B. Taney. In the 1857 Dred Scott decision Taney ruled that basically African Americans (free or otherwise) had no rights under the Constitution. Sticking to the prevailing thought at the time, Taney believed that slaves were property, and hence had no rights he or anybody else needed to respect. The only real reference to African Americans in the United States legally was that they were three-fifths of a person, an economic/political concept that worked for almost 100 years. The Civil War forced a major shift in dealing with more than four-hundred million freed African Americans. They went from property to voting citizens within a decade.

The aftermath of the American Civil War completely altered the way we would look at the law and the Constitution. It was Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity for social sciences. According to howstuffworks.com Einstein’s theory “remains an important and essential discovery because it permanently altered how we look at the universe. Einstein’s major breakthrough was to say that space and time are not absolutes.” The Civil War changed the way America would look at human rights. It threw America’s absolute views into a world of uncertainty.

How was America to view the recently freed slaves? It is sort of like Werner Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle. According to scienceexchange.caltech.edu “the uncertainty principle states that we cannot know both the position and speed of a particle, such as a photon or electron, with perfect accuracy; the more we nail down the particle’s position, the less we know about its speed and vice versa. Post Civil War politics never nailed down African Americans positions in a freed society. The speed of this transition however, was known. It was slow and backwards to those halcyonic antebellum times.

In order to rectify the concept that slaves were property, the Constitution had to be amended. It had to upgrade the African American population to citizenship 3.0. They had to be set free from serving the peculiar institution they were forever indentured to. They had to be made citizens. And, they had to be given the right to vote. Most middle school civics class students would know that this is the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the Constitution, amendments needed to make Roger B. Taney’s decision null and void.

In a weird twist of property rights and logic the Supreme Court ruled in the Citizens United case in 2010 ruled that money was free speech. Interesting because money is also property. And corporations are loaded up with money. These monied interests are now granted Second Amendment rights under the law of the land. They can spend their money on elections like a kid at the county fair. Can you imagine after seeing the Israelites dancing around the Golden Calf Moses decided to amend the Second Commandment. What absolute will dissolve away next? With Artificial Intelligence right around the corner, Citizens United may have pushed the concept that if money is property will my laptop eventually get the right to vote. I am just wondering.

I am going to go off on the deep end. I think history is a lot like curved space time, not linear. History events are like Halley’s Comet. History is a giant mass. And it is not so much that history repeats itself, it is that certain fundamental so-called absolutes, human issues, rights, whatever keeping coming back around in time. These issues are caught in history’s gravitational pull spiraling in on us. Until we sort these issues out, nail down their position and velocity, they basically will keep coming back around and around until they crash in on us, whether they are religious or political.

From Gilded Age to Golden Age

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contemplative images flickr.com

In President Trump’s Inaugural Address he boldly stated, “The golden age of America begins right now.” It has a nice ring to it but when you think about it, America’s last attempt at a golden age was called the Gilded Age.

Our Gilded Age was a time that was between the Civil War and the and turn of the 20th Century. It was a time when America was unfolding itself from sea to shining sea. History.com describes it as an era where “America became more prosperous and saw unprecedented growth in industry and technology.” But it was also an era as History.com says, that “had a more sinister side: It was a period where greedy, corrupt industrialists, bankers and politicians enjoyed extraordinary wealth and opulence at the expense of the working class. In fact, it was wealthy tycoons, not politicians, who inconspicuously held the most political power during the Gilded Age.”

For a Golden Age to be golden it needs to fit the following criteria:

  • The age must have stable economic growth, trade and the creation of wealth;
  • The age must have significant advancements in the arts, literature and science that contributes to the advancement of civilization;
  • The age must be one of discovery and innovation where progress pushes the envelope of what is possible;
  • Finally, it must be an age where there are peaceful relations among citizens and other countries.

Granted very few eras in history have hit all of the above criteria in full. It could be argued that for most of the United States history the US has come close to meeting most of the criteria to some degree some of the time; and at other times completely disregarded others. But even the Gilded Age with its moments of great wealth had its moments of economic panics, followed once again with the creation of great wealth. It was a time when the captains of industry controlled entire industries creating monopolies and trusts. and full employment. But it was a time where workers barley made $500 a year.

 Like today, New York City was the center of the financial system. Between 1863 and 1913, eight banking panics occurred in the money center of Manhattan. The panics in 1884, 1890, 1899, 1901, and 1908 were confined to New York and nearby cities and states. The panics in 1873, 1893, and 1907 spread throughout the nation.–federalreservehistory.org

According to the Thomas Edison National Historical Park, “In 1879, he made an incandescent bulb that burned long enough to be practical, long enough to light a home for many hours.” Within 60 years there would be night baseball.

Louis Bachrach Studios Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress

It was a period of peace and innovation. Inventors like Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell pushed the boundaries of science. Their inventions had a great impact on raising America’s standard of living and helped push the world into an electronic age of light and communication.

Alexander Bell places the first long-distance call from New York to Chicago in 1892. There were no free minutes at that time or unlimited texting.

Gilbert H. Grosvenor Collection, Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress

With the influx of immigrants, a segregated population became more segregated with laws like the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. It was a law that restricted Chinese laborers from entering the country, among other restrictions. It also affected Chinese immigrants already in the country by making them permanent aliens. It was an act of denying them citizenship. It was also a time where women, citizens, were denied the right to vote.

And it was a time of full employment fueled by immigrants, where workers barley made $500 a year. It was also a time dangerous working and conditions for labor. One slip or injury could cause economic devastation for a family. Unions fought for survival. However most were crushed from the weight of business interests working in conjunction with the government.

  • There was the Haymarket Riot of 1886 where workers were rallying for an 8 hour day. A bomb exploded killing workers and seven policemen.
  • There was the Homestead Steel Strike of 1892 where workers battled Pinkerton Detectives brought in by Andrew Carnegie’s chief executive Henry Clay Frick to break the strike. Eventually the Pennsylvania Militia was called out and the union organization was crushed.
  • And two years later there was the Pullman Strike. Pullman manufactured railroad cars. In 1893 George Pullman laid off seventy-five percent of the work force and reduced wages for those still working. The the American Railway Union called for a nationwide strike shutting down rail travel in 27 states. Eventually, President Grover Cleveland sent in 10,000 troops to quash the strike.

The annual income of an American worker in 1890, at the height of the Gilded Age. Adjusted for inflation, that’s just under $1,500 in today’s dollars.–Investopedia

Sticking with the railroad motif, Louisiana in 1890 passed The Separate Car Act. Railroads were required to provide “equal but separate accommodations for white and African American passengers.” Additionally, according to Britannica.com, the law prohibited passengers from entering accommodations other than those to which they had been assigned on the basis of their race.

The argument necessarily assumes … that social prejudices may be overcome by legislation, and that equal rights cannot be secured to the negro except by an enforced commingling of the two races. We cannot accept this proposition. If the two races are to meet upon terms of social equality, it must be the result of natural affinities, a mutual appreciation of each other’s merits, and a voluntary consent of individuals. (From Brown’s majority opinion in Plessy v. Ferguson. In other words, don’t trip over the color line on the way out.

Original published in The American Magazine in 1905 Frances Benjamin Johnston

It is amazing how educated legal minds can interpret the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution. When this law was challenged in court it made its way to the Supreme Court. In Plessy v Ferguson, the Supreme Court ruled that separate accommodations did not violate the Thirteenth or Fourteenth Amendments. Justice Henry Billings Brown wrote for the majority. He “argued, because the amendment was intended to secure only the legal equality of African Americans and whites, not their social equality. Legal equality was adequately respected in the act because the accommodations provided for each race.” The lone dissenting vote came from John Marshall Harlan who fundamentally objected to the statute because “it interferes with the personal freedom of citizens.” The ruling gave us the concept of “separate but equal.” A dogmatic principle that hung around for another 50 plus years.

A Golden Age is a term used to describe a period in history where a culture, society, or nation experiences a period of prosperity, peace, and advancements. This era is characterized by significant achievements, significant contributions, and a collective sense of prosperity and unity. Golden ages are often marked by major advances in science, technology, art, and literature.–California Learning Resource Network

Before declaring a golden age Trump and company should look at what they are up against. They may have a hard time competing with the likes of ancient Egypt’s Fourth Dynasty. We might be going back more than 4500 years but in its golden age these pharaohs put up some impressive feats, like building pyramids. According to Pharaoh.se “the pharaohs of this dynasty only ruled for a little more than a century (and we think eight years is a long time), and yet they managed to have the three pyramids of Giza built in that time.” The pharaoh Sneferu started construction of the first pyramid and built three more, (no doubt letting the Nubians to pay for last two).

The Pyramids of Giza
Ricardo Liberato, Wikimedia Commons

His son Khufu continually improved upon his dad’s work. No pressure on Don Junior. In Trump’s first term he could not complete a wall along the Southern Border. (It was foiled when Mexico reneged on its fiduciary participation.) However Trump is proposing the Stargate Initiative. According to Forbes, this is “a $500 billion private sector deal to expand U.S. artificial intelligence infrastructure. Spearheaded by tech giants OpenAI, SoftBank, and Oracle, Stargate represents the largest AI infrastructure project in history.” Move over pyramids because the Yanks are coming! The sky’s the limit when billionaires get together. (At least three have skirted outer space.)

And then there is the Golden Age of Ukraine. If Trump plans to end Russia’s conquest of Ukraine he might want to bone up on Vladimir I or just Vladimir the Great. And no, this is not Putin but the “founding father” of Kievan Rus’. Putin might be using history to repeat Vladimir I’s medieval accomplishments. We have to harken back the 10th and 11th Century when Kievan Rus’ was Europe’s most powerful European state. A state without nuclear weapons. Vladimir I is credited with expanding Christianity to that region. Originally a pagan, much like Saul of Tarsus, he saw the light. When he converted to Christianity he oversaw the conversion of Kyiv and Novgorod to Christianity as well. For kicks he had all pagan idols thrown into the Dnieper River.

And lest not forget what was once “The Red Menace” from the East, China. Any golden age today has to take into account one of the oldest cultures in human civilization. Just look to the Tang Dynasty. Its first emperor was Gaozu (also Kao-tsu, formerly Li Yuan,-tsu (618-626 C.E.). According to ushistory.org, Gaozu “granted equal amounts of land to each adult male in return for taxes and continued the trend of local government rule…he also created a monetary system of copper coins.” Maybe Trump and Friends are onto something with Bitcoin. And he wrote a set of laws that were revised every two decades that lasted into the 14th century and the Ming dynasty. Sounds a bit like our Presidential Executive Orders, subject change but more frequently.

Emperor Gaozu was a Sui military commander who led a rebellion against his former masters, seized control of the state, and founded the Tang Dynasty
Public Domain

There is a cautionary tale here: “One of Gaozu son’s, General Li Shih-min, succeeded in eliminating all political rivals of the Tang and established firm control of the Tang dynasty over the newly reunified China. He then proceeded to murder his brothers, and forced his father (Gaozu) to abdicate the throne to him. Preferring his temple name, Tai-tsung took the throne in 626 C.E. The Golden Age of China had begun.” Nothing like a little fratricide and shoving the old man off the throne to get a golden age kicked off.

And if Trump wants to purse a Mideast policy he might want to look into the Islamic Golden Age. According Islamic History this golden age “is traditionally dated from the mid-7th century to the mid-13th century during which Muslim rulers established one of the largest empires in history.” It was period when artists, engineers, scholars, poets, philosophers, traders contributed “to agriculture, the arts, economics” mathematics and science. This was a time before OPEC, BP, Mobile, Exxon and Chevron–and Israel.

A little closer to our time the Elizabethan Age between 1558 and 1603 is referred to as a Golden Age of England. “According to Britannica, “it was a span of time characterized by relative peace and prosperity and by a flowering of artistic, literary and intellectual culture.” It was a time of Shakespeare.

With America’s stable economy and government, great universities and innovative thinkers, Trump has a lot to work with in getting a golden age cranked up. A lot of the elements needed to create a golden age are already present. They just need to be combined and conducted into a fine symphony. However, it is going to take more than handing out fries under the Golden Arches to create an age greatness.