Libera Voce

“Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.” George Orwell

On 09/03/24 the US Department of Justice indicted leaders of Hamas on terrorism charges. The following day Reuters reported that the Biden administration announced they were close to making yet another new proposal for a Gaza ceasefire and release of hostages; this is eerily like Orwell’s “Doublethink”. To indict these terrorists would be a welcome moral statement, but to do so nearly a year after their heinous massacres appears not only belated, but cynically opportunistic as it comes so close to an election. For the US to be simultaneously indicting and negotiating with those same terrorists demonstrates a conflicted, if not hypocritical policy.

Politicians have used doublethink to deceive people many times throughout history, but this is a particularly heinous example because it demonstrates both an illusion of moral righteousness while betraying its principles. There will never be an arraignment to follow-up the indictment, and the administration knows that, despite the fact that once a UN member nation issues an indictment, all other member nations are obligated to arrest and extradite those indicted; does anyone expect Qatar, where the leaders of Hamas reside, to do so?

This administration has one consistent policy regarding the current war between terrorists and Israel, and that is to avoid having one; issuing indictments is not a policy, nor is it an effective response to the murders of Americans. Waving legal documents in the face of thugs like Hamas does nothing but make them emboldened to continue playing the game that so far has hamstrung Israel in its fight for its very existence. The objective and thinking American should question the ethics or the intelligence, if not both, of its government.

It’s one thing for the administration to create such a contradiction, but it’s another to maintain the obvious error as a policy that is devoid of any sense of reality; it’s like thinking that a wolf is deterred from attack by the bleating of sheep. When Americans are faced with a situation where our government acts in such an egregious contradiction that potentially puts us in harms way, we have the cruel choice of either losing our own moral compass or our respect for the administration.

While they profess support for Israel, the Biden administration has consistently been inconsistent in acting accordingly. While I do not support interventionism, either in foreign affairs or economics, the US is where it is in accordance with its policy and numerous treaties as an ally of Israel. Further, it has always been an American policy to never negotiate with terrorists, especially those guilty of the murder of Americans. Issuing indictments is fine, but until you bring those indicted to justice, they are nothing more than the bleating of sheep.

“God have mercy on the man who doubts what he’s sure of.” Bruce Springsteen

In his song Brilliant Disguise, this icon of Rock expresses a common affliction of humanity, specifically, a loss of identity. It is a great song that evokes the human need to know better our fellow man, and more importantly, ourselves. I love this song for its lyrical quality and musicality. In Verse 33 of Tao Te Ching, Lao Tzu says, “Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom.” This book is dated around two and a half millennia ago; apparently this very human need is not new.

What we should ask the two leading presidential candidates is to honestly tell us who they are by telling us their values and principles and what they would do to translate them into coherent policies; doing so would inform us which candidate best represents our values. We should beware of altruistic expressions by either candidate as they’re nothing more than self-righteous virtue signaling; what we need from them is not cliches but clear answers. Expressions of altruism signal a self-deception of proposing a greater good while the underlying motivation is power, the root of all evil; it inevitably leads to political action for coercive compliance to their world vision.

With Trump, we know what we’re getting because he’s all too willing to tell us that, so transparency is not an issue for him; besides claiming that his presidency and administration was the best in the history of the US, his policies of high tariffs, restrictive civil rights and dangerous interventionism in foreign affairs are a curious mix of traditional Democratic platforms and Neocon tendencies. It’s therefore not surprising that RFK Jr would endorse Trump, although it’s also apparent that revenge motivation was involved given the DNC’s Soviet like active measures against him.

With Harris, what we are getting is an obvious opportunist without the intelligence of the chameleon she is likened to. While she is part of the current administration, she has attempted, with the help of a compliant press, to rewrite her history. Not only has she denied the values, principles and policies she has espoused over her career, she has taken on some of those of her opponent; it takes an amazing lack of respect of the electorate for her to think that such a strategy would get her their respect. As the famous Roman historian Livy observed, “A fraudulent intent, however carefully concealed at the outset, will generally, in the end, betray itself.”

With the American electorate, it would take an amazing lack of self-esteem to want either of these narcissistic clowns in the Oval Office; while it is inevitable that one of them will be there, we should be infuriated that we are again expected to choose the lesser of two evils, and this time between two that are morphing into each other. If we realize that in the end we would still get evil, what then should we do?

When we are left with such a choice, it’s called a dilemma; what we should want to know to solve the problem is to understand how we got to this dilemma to begin with. That would require asking ourselves who we are that we should find ourselves in this situation. It is clear that we are so divided because we have lost our identity as a nation, but then we have to define the identity that was lost; is it something we now doubt that once we were sure of? We are told by politicians, the press and the pundits that this coming election is all about saving democracy, and therein we find the fallacy attempting to define who we are.

The fact is the US is not a democracy, but a republic. In our republic we have a fundamental law called the Constitution; it is not something that governs us, but what governs those who would govern us. Our Constitution prohibits the government from violating our inalienable rights, even if that government was elected by a majority of the people. In a democracy, the voting majority has almost limitless power over the minority; it is synonymous with mob rule, which is all about power as whoever has it rules.

There was a time when children were taught basic facts about the American republic called Civics; it is not part of the curriculum in modern education. Consequently, younger generations are deprived of a fundamental understanding of their nation’s form of governance like the separation and balance of powers, the sovereignty of the individual and protection of liberty. What they get instead is an indoctrination of social justice, best described by the economist Hayek as, “The idea of social justice is that the state should treat different people unequally in order to make them equal.”

When people are treated unequally, they become resentful and tend to gravitate toward whomever they perceive best advocates their grievances; this invites opportunistic politicians like Trump and Harris to prey on a disaffected populace, creating partisan politics not conducive to civil discourse. Such an environment creates doubt regarding the nature of the country and what it stands for that its people thought they were sure of, and that leads to a loss of identity.

So who are you? Do you know the difference between compassion and compulsion? Do you understand the concepts of free trade, free speech and free choice? Do you know what civil discourse means? Do you know the difference between opportunity and outcome? Do you understand the evils of interventionism in foreign affairs and economics? Do you understand the natural laws of life, liberty, and property? Do you know what sound money means? If the answer to any of these questions is yes, then you have the basics to not doubt what you are sure of. If the answer is no, learn so you can understand, or rely on God to help you because neither of these two candidates will.

“You can ignore reality, but you cannot ignore the consequences of ignoring reality.” Ayn Rand

That the old phrase “come back to haunt you” played out yesterday in NYC at a Harris campaign rally as Hamas supporters rioted. Kamala Harris has expressed sympathy with the pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel protesters who she says are “…showing exactly what the human emotion should be.” Rioting is no more a part of a peaceful protest than war is a humanitarian effort, regardless of what emotions are involved. For a presidential candidate to sympathize with the supporters of terrorism ignores reality, and Harris should take responsibility for the consequences of ignoring that reality.

Trump says that he will impose punitive tariffs on China and other countries to the benefit of Americans; however, tariffs are taxes imposed on imported goods paid by consumers. Further, it would likely result in a trade war as China would retaliate with their own tariffs on American imports; historically, trade wars often lead to violent confrontations. These realities about tariffs are not addressed because to do so would expose their use as irresponsible political propaganda to attract votes from a financially stressed and poorly informed electorate.

Likewise, we have Harris finally talking about issues, in this case, the economy. Ahead of her planned speech tomorrow on her economic agenda, her campaign managers have announced her plan for a federal ban on corporate price gouging on groceries; even Nixon was more honest when he imposed price controls by calling it what it is, which has in all cases throughout history resulted in economic disasters. Rather than address inflation, which is the root cause of high prices, Harris irresponsibly deflects blame to businesses for the high cost of food.

Trump is promising that if elected he will again suck-up to the military/industrial complex with increases in the defense budget; at the same time, he continues to avoid discussions on the debt, likely because his own record as president was hardly a beacon of fiscal responsibility. When you combine Trump’s militaristic tendencies with his trade policies, we have the risk of another Bush era of dangerous interventionism, something that was so irresponsible as it resulted in a painful series of forever wars for the American people, not to mention the embarrassment of military and policy failures.

Harris was assigned the task as the “Border Czar” by Joe Biden soon after his inauguration. While that title was first coined by Obama in 2009 when he appointed Alan Bersin, the media picked up on that for everyone who was put in charge of the border since, so regardless of what the media says now, that’s what they called her. There’s something curious and confusing about that title as the Secretary of Homeland Security already has that responsibility, and the use of the word Czar implies a higher command; what we have here is a way to pass the buck, but where to, and what does this make Joe Biden? The reality is that the border failure and the resulting immigration crisis are consequences Mayorkas, Harris and Biden choose to ignore or deny responsibility for.

Trump made an audacious but absurd appearance at the Libertarian Convention last May; to think that he expected anything but the raucous rejection of his overture was delusional, but then again we’re talking about Trump. He later went on to ridicule the candidate, Charles Oliver, including oblique references to the fact that Oliver is gay. Trump’s campaign managers have advised him to avoid his addiction to demeaning those he disagrees with and focus on policies; while he has made many policy statements, he irresponsibly continues with his addiction.

As a libertarian, I am often advised by friends that I should be more “realistic” and vote for whom I consider to be the lesser of two evils, meaning either a Democrat or a Republican. This advice assumes that voting for the same failed policies over and over again, and expecting a different result is realistic; besides, what you get with the lesser of two evils is still evil. I am very objective about the reality in which we find ourselves, and well know that it’s unlikely that a libertarian will be in the oval office anytime soon. The fact that Javier Milei won the presidency of Argentina in 2023 as a libertarian is encouraging, especially as it was up against a powerful Peronist regime with a strong political organization; unfortunately, it took a devastating 143% inflation rate to mobilize Argentines to end a centuries long history of socialist policies; it only took one year for Milei’s free market policies to reduce that to 4%.

I long ago faced the reality that Americans would have to radically change their political and economic values in order to reverse the self-destructive trend toward socialism; as the most recognized leader of American libertarianism, Murray Rothbard advised libertarians that the only way to do so is to live your life based on your principles. For all those that advise choosing between the lesser of two evils, the reality is that it can only lead to evil, even if you ignore that reality.

“Liberty not only means that the individual has both the opportunity and the burden of choice; it also means that he must bear the consequences of his actions and will receive praise or blame for them. Liberty and responsibility are inseparable.” Friedrich Hayek

“Only the mob and the elite can be attracted by the momentum of totalitarianism itself; the masses have to be won by propaganda. Under conditions of constitutional government and freedom of opinion, totalitarian movements struggling for power can use terror to a limited extent only and share with other parties the necessity of winning adherents and of appearing plausible to a public which is not yet rigorously isolated from all other sources of information.” Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism

This quote by Hannah Arendt, an historian and political scientist, is based on observation; it’s empirical, not theoretical, because it’s from the author’s experience, and all too often a matter of historical record. For Americans to think “It can’t happen here!” (actually the title of a dystopian novel by Sinclair Lewis) is foolish, as it has and is happening again. While the US is a “…constitutional government…” and we have freedom of speech, we also have political ideologies that threaten our access to other sources of information that may be contrarian and therefore labeled as “misinformation”.  

There was a news clip recently of Tim Walz expounding on free speech that, “There’s no guarantee to free speech on misinformation or hate speech, and especially around our democracy.” Misinformation is defined as unintentionally false information. Then we have “disinformation” which is defined as intentionally false information. Hate speech is a very ambiguous term with no consistent definition as hate is an emotion that can be based on facts or falsehoods. For Walz to further qualify that these forms of speech especially do not belong in a democracy is contrary to what a free society is all about.

To identify something as misinformation would require infallible knowledge about what was said, and hate speech is in the ear of the listener. For speech to be considered unprotected, the Supreme Court established the Brandenburg Test in the 1969 case Brandenburg v. Ohio, which requires that the speaker must intend to incite or produce imminent lawless action, and the speaker’s words or conduct must be likely to produce such action. Trump’s speech just prior to the January 6^th riots at the Capitol could qualify under the Brandenburg Test, as could the riots with the Pro-Palestinian Protests if intent could be established. Intent is extremely difficult to prove because it is a state of mind which only the speaker can expose by their own admission.

Walz’s statement about free speech is an ominous one coming from the VP candidate of a major American political party, and displays either a willful ignorance of our constitution, or just plain ignorance about our most indispensable right. The most controversial issue concerning many delegates to the Constitutional Convention was the absence of a Bill of Rights; not until such a bill was agreed to would they sign, although some still refused. That bill constituted the first ten amendments which included an unequivocal guarantee for freedom of religion, speech and the press. One of the most controversial Justices on the Supreme Court was Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. who said, “We should be eternally vigilant against attempts to check the expression of opinions that we loathe.” Unfortunately, he was not faithful to his own words in the 1919 case Schenck v. United States in which Schenck was found to have violated the Espionage Act of 1917 by speaking and writing against the US entrance in the Great War. Holmes came up with the egregious “clear and present danger”, and the “bad tendency” tests; although these were not fully adopted, they became important legal concepts in First Amendment law until the 1969 case Brandenburg v. Ohio, where they were thankfully discarded.

Back in April 2022, the Department of Homeland Security announced the creation of the “Disinformation Governance Board”, perhaps one of the most egregious threats to the First Amendment since the Espionage Act of 1917 and the Sedition Act of 1918; its comparison to Orwell’s “Ministry of Truth” in his dystopian novel 1984 was so apparent that the DHS was understandably embarrassed and had to dissolve it the following August. Don’t be fooled that this suppression of free speech is limited to any one political party as there are many Republicans who, during the course of the various House and Senate committee hearings on tech companies, and their support for recent state government book bannings, have shown themselves to be just as much a “clear and present danger” to free speech as their Democratic colleagues; clearly hypocrisy is a non-partisan trait.

“Free speech is my right to say what you don’t want to hear.” George Orwell

“The first panacea for a mismanaged nation is inflation of the currency; the second is war. Both bring a temporary prosperity; both bring a permanent ruin. But both are the refuge of political and economic opportunists.” Ernest Hemingway

Hemingway got this exactly right, inflation and war are twin evils that need each other in order to endure, and there are enough statists around to see to that. The fact is that statism needs war, and to guarantee it the state needs money. The first step to assure adequate funding for war is to introduce central banking. Without the monetary manipulations of a central bank, the state would have to rely on taxation, which would expose politicians to the wrath of the electorate. The Federal Reserve was not the first attempt of the US government to create a central bank, but the third; the charters of the two prior attempts were cancelled or allowed to expire due to mismanagement and corruption. There is also the inconvenient fact that creating a central bank is not among the enumerated and expressed powers of the federal government in the US Constitution .  

The creation of the Federal Reserve is cloaked in secretive meetings of powerful bankers and corrupt government officials (see the blog post “Remember Hyde” 09/25/20). Mayer Rothschild, perhaps the most notorious member of the 20C banking cartel, knew all too well the power that comes from controlling a nation’s currency, once said “Give me control over a nation’s currency, and I care not who makes its laws.” That was quite apparent with the Federal Reserve Act of 1913; the Fed facilitated America’s participation in the “Great War” by issuing war bonds and providing banks low-rate loans to purchase Treasury certificates, just as monarchs of the past debased currencies to finance their wars. The debt and inflation that resulted was among the reasons the Great War was extremely unpopular with Americans and gave rise to the “Isolationism” that followed.

The statists took note of the disdain that Americans had for the US involvement in the Great War; this was a major obstacle for FDR in his fervor to repeat that tragic mistake in entering what became known as WWII. Apparently, we needed a numbering system to keep track of such foolish behavior, so the “Great War’ was renamed WWI; who needed to call a war “Great” anyway. Something had to be done to finance both FDR’s “New Deal” (actually not so new as Lenin, Mussolini, Franco and Hitler, were way ahead of him) and his war aspirations as the Fed was still somewhat limited by the gold standard. Never underestimate the evil creativity of a statist as FDR fixed that problem by outlawing gold ownership; while that was unconstitutional, he got away with it.

While the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was the immediate cause for the US entry into WWII, the underlying causes for the war were the Versailles Treaty that ended WWI, and the growth of central banking that created the Great Depression, which in turn spawned the many trade wars that resulted. It is an economic reality that free trade benefits all nations with prosperity, and therefore a strong mutual incentive to avoid war. However, as socialism is an essential element of statism, free trade is not acceptable; as George Orwell noted, “The object of waging a war is always to be in a better position in which to wage another war.”

The “Cold War” was the inevitable aftermath of WWII, nearly resulting in a nuclear confrontation between the US and the USSR, the two principal antagonists; the former seeking to export democracy as if it were a brand name product like Coca Cola, the latter to grow exponentially the land and people for its own brand of socialism. The two did so through proxy wars and interventionist machinations for regime change. The costs to both nations were astronomical, resulting in economic chaos that nearly bankrupted the US, and eventually doing so to Russia, collapsing the USSR.

The statist idea that the US has a moral duty to police the world is pure war hawk propaganda, which not only accelerated the growth of the federal government, but increases the risk for even more wars, as does foreign aid that subsidizes a another nations military; doing so causes the US to become the enemy of that nation’s adversary and at great costs to its own people. US interests should be defined as what benefits the American people with peace and prosperity, not what benefits the state and the military-industrial complex; foreign conflicts don’t require the US to choose sides for more forever wars.

Sanctions and tariffs are acts of aggression perpetrated by those looking for a fight, and not the behavior of a free country that professes free markets. Statists need wars to survive and to get them they loot their own citizens through central bank manipulations; a free nation survives through production, creating peace and prosperity, which are the best reasons to end the Fed.

“It is no coincidence that the century of total war coincided with the century of central banking.” Ron Paul

“People who pride themselves on their ‘complexity’ and deride others for being ‘simplistic’ should realize that the truth is often not very complicated. What gets complex is evading the truth.” Thomas Sowell (Barbarians Inside the Gates and Other Controversial Essays)

According to the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism in 2022, Americans have become very skeptical of what they hear and read from mass and social media, placing the US with the lowest credibility among the nations studied at 26%; this is understandable given the dominance of “Advocacy Journalism”, a reporting philosophy for the profession to move beyond accuracy to truth. The simple question that then arises is how do you get to the truth if you bypass accuracy? Whatever happened to the simple Walter Cronkite creed of “And that’s the way it is.”

The faults of modern journalism are a result of, and not the cause for, our societal decline; the simplest explanation as to the cause is a cultural shift that prioritizes subjective feelings over objective facts. This leads to all sorts of conflicts as logic and reason can no longer serve in the interests of civil discourse. Everything becomes the subject of what someone finds offensive regardless of the facts, such to an extreme that, as the famous author Christopher Hitchens lamented, “I’m very depressed how in this country you can be told ‘That’s offensive’ as though those two words constitute an argument.”

This syndrome of hysteria and irrationality has been labeled “Wokeness”, which is kind of odd as it appears more like sleepwalking into oblivion. I have read in various articles that things like “Critical Race Theory”, “Modern Monetary Theory”, “Intersectionality” and “Gender Identity” are very complex concepts that are beyond the understanding of simple people and require a re-education due to the prejudices and misconceptions inherent in Western Civilization; does this mean that concepts like liberty, reason and other shared and sensible values are to be denied because they are offensive to someone?

Recently I heard a phrase coined by Doctor Phillip McGraw, a clinical psychologist, known more popularly as Dr. Phil, i.e., “Tyranny of the Fringe”; he was addressing how this minority of “influencers”, “experts”, whatever name you wish, dominate mass and social media with their “narratives” rather than facts. Intelligent people need facts, not doctrines; the less we get of the former and the more we get of the latter, the less informed we actually are.

The simplest explanation for whatever happens is usually the correct one, provided it’s supported by the facts, not opinion; it’s not complicated. Walter Cronkite always maintained the highest level of integrity by reporting the facts regardless of the consequences, advising journalists that, “In the end, no matter what ideologies or causes motivate journalists, nobody will put faith in us if we fail to get the story right.”

“There are decades where nothing happens, and there are weeks where decades happen.” Vladimir Lenin. 

Over the past few weeks, we have had an assassination attempt, a political coup, and abuse and betrayal of an ally. We certainly are living in interesting times, but are we seeing these things as they are or as we are being told they are? If we look objectively at these events, we will be driven crazy by what they actually represent; well, crazy is better than stupid, so we should not be listening to those talking heads in a political galaxy far away from the reality in which we live.

We know very little about the assassination attempt on Trump other than who to blame, which we are told is the Secret Service. While it’s true that the agency in charge of this candidate’s security screwed up badly, that tells us little about the assassination itself. We know the who, and the how, but we don’t know the why, i.e., the motive, which would tell us whether or not others may have been involved. Think about why that is, especially with the shooter’s electronic devices in FBI possession. Whether or not a conspiracy is involved has not been determined, but the lack of transparency by both the Secret Service and the FBI serves to promote that perception.

Then we have Joe Biden quitting the presidential campaign, something he repeatedly swore he would never do. We are told that he was with family and close advisers when he decided to do so, and he later explained that he did so to save democracy. When political language consists of such vague references you know you’re being played. When someone can’t control reality, they talk about it the way they want you to see it. The reality is that being forced to resign is the same as being terminated; Biden didn’t quit, he was dumped, so what we have here is a political coup.

The regime change was deemed necessary by the leaders of the DNC because the party would lose power; who the power brokers are has been speculated, but the obvious beneficiary is Kamala Harris, a blatant sycophant of the wealthy and influential people in the progressive faction of the Democratic Party. This is such an obvious act of power grabbing that many Democrats are calling it out as illegal; what was the point of the primary or the upcoming convention if Biden’s delegates just roll over in a coronation?

While both of the above events are extremely disturbing, neither were successful; Trump is alive and Harris enters the race for president with some really bad baggage to carry. It was all too obvious that Joe Biden was fading fast, not just mentally but physically, although that hardly excuses the way he was treated; Harris would likely have been nominated, but the way this is happening is more like what we see in Russia and China.

Harris’ excused her absence yesterday as President of the Senate during a state visit by the leader of an ally because she had a speaking engagement at a sorority convention! It would take an unbelievable suspension of intelligence to not see what she did as a repudiation of Israel, a blatant act of anti-Semitism. The Hamas supporters protesting Netanyahu’s speaking to Congress was an exercise of free speech, but Harris’ absence was a dereliction of duty, and a betrayal of an ally.

But there’s so much more about this event that should be a far greater concern than Harris’ behavior.  Not only were there others in her party that snubbed the Israeli PM, but there is a history of it going even further back than the Hamas massacre of October 7^th. Compare the various receptions of Zelensky of Ukraine, a gushing display of political virtue signally for essentially a foreign regime with no treaty with or security interest for the US, with that afforded Netanyahu. As I said in my 06/20/23 post “Revolutionary Acts”, Ukraine is hardly a democracy, nor is Zelensky a beacon of liberty. The known Nazi Ukrainian oligarchs Ihor Kolomoisky and Mykola Zlochevsky are the main source of funds for the Neo-Nazi Azov Battalion, control Burisma, funded and directed Zelensky’s presidential campaign, and own the media conglomerate that made him famous. Zelensky has declared all other political parties illegal but his own, and controls Ukraine’s media.

The Biden administration has given Ukraine $107B to fight Russia, while conditionally giving Israel $12.5B to fight Hamas. Iran and their proxy Hamas espouse the very ideals of the Nazis, especially when it comes to Jews; what we have in Ukraine is a Neo-Nazi regime being funded with American taxpayer money. The American people should not accept a situation where we are being played as Nazi collaborators while betraying the one ally we have in the region.

“The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became the truth.” George Orwell

“It is absurd that a man should rule others, who cannot rule himself.” Latin Proverb

The author of the above quote is unknown; given the behavior of the candidates from the two major parties, we certainly do not have anyone capable of ruling themselves. Dwight Eisenhower once said that “The supreme quality of leadership is integrity.” Given the history of these two contenders for America’s top leadership, integrity is not their strong point. Both Trump and Harris have a disturbing record of draconian autocracy.

To add to this sad situation, we have the slight-of-hand with Joe Biden “quitting” the race; while he explained his reasons a week later, it was not at all convincing especially because he swore many times that he would never quit. The power brokers in his party have been calling for Biden to step down ever since the debate a few weeks back; these are the same people who previously rejected every report of his cognitive decline as “fake news”. Biden did not resign, he was dumped; his party’s leaders feared that he would lose, and the threat of losing power is a stronger motivation for the elite than saving democracy.

It was inevitable that Biden was not going to be able to continue, and that Harris would take his place, which creates a unique problem for the DNC, i.e., either have a real convention for the nomination, or conduct a coronation; the former could make for more of a circus, the latter more of a coup. Regardless of which way it plays out it will serve to help Trump; if the Democratic Party either conducts another 1968 Chicago Convention or by-passes a democratic process to make Kamala their candidate, they will facture the party.

It is inevitable that democracy leads to the least common denominator, and so we are faced with a choice of Trump versus Harris; it is indisputable that a republic represents the best protection of liberty, yet here we are with Ben Franklin’s response to the question, what kind of government do we have, “A republic, if you can keep it.” Ben Franklin was being both humorous and ominous with that response; on the one hand the question was silly as it is for the people to protect the republic, yet on the other hand they have the ability to lose it.

Both major parties say they represent a revolution; what we need to be wary of is what happens with the revolution after this election; perhaps it is inevitable that, as George Orwell said, “One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship.” We need to stop wasting our votes on these two major parties that have proven that their only objective is power; take the opportunity this election provides in voting for a third-party candidate that best represents your principles and remember that an unprincipled vote is the only wasted vote.

“We are not final because we are infallible, but we are infallible only because we are final.” Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson

Not one delegate to the Constitutional Convention ever claimed that the Constitution was perfect, but all claimed that they had serious issues with it and made those concerns public when presented to the people for ratification.  Some delegates were so opposed to ratification that they refused to sign it. Many of these concerns were about not having enough safeguards against government expanding powers beyond those enumerated. The reason for these concerns, and the limitations and/or balance of powers as structured in the Constitution, were based on the simple fact that no one is infallible.

In a recorded discussion between Justice Antonin Scalia and Justice Stephen Breyer, two men of different political party affiliation, they had total agreement on the simple fact that the role of the Supreme Court was to preserve, protect and interpret the Constitution, and to judge whether the laws passed by Congress and the judgements of others in cases brought before it were in accordance with the Constitution. Despite how much things may have changed in America since the ratification of the Constitution, the role of the Supreme Court has not.

Throughout US history, the Supreme Court has been criticized by political factions in opposition to their decisions; some civilly, but all too often inappropriately, especially when the criticism is not about the merits of the decision, but directed at the justices themselves. Such conduct is demeaning, not because the justices are incapable of error, but because it reduces the dialogue to malicious defamation rather than about the issues the decision addressed.

The recent criticisms of the immunity decision are examples of such willful ignorance or boorish partisan bias. The decision included the following from Chief Justice Roberts in the majority opinion in anticipation of partisan hyperbole:

“The President enjoys no immunity for his unofficial acts, and not everything the President does is official. The President is not above the law. But Congress may not criminalize the President’s conduct in carrying out the responsibilities of the Executive Branch under the Constitution. And the system of separated powers designed by the Framers has always demanded an energetic, independent Executive. The President therefore may not be prosecuted for exercising his core constitutional powers, and he is entitled, at a minimum, to a presumptive immunity from prosecution for all his official acts. That immunity applies equally to all occupants of the Oval Office, regardless of politics, policy, or party.”

What became apparent following the decision was the willful ignorance and partisan bias by both the Trump and Biden campaigns, both claiming that it provided the president immunity from any action he may have committed. The majority opinion as summated by Roberts said no such thing, and in fact made clear that official acts were only those duties, responsibilities and powers as enumerated in the Constitution; this was ignored by both sides of the issue.  Regardless, the justices who provided both the majority and minority opinions were verbally assaulted, ignoring the fact that for the first time in US history, SCOTUS provided a decision regarding immunity for the actions of those in government. 

The immunity decision is a very foundational one and not to be confused by the political factions twisting it to their partisan bias. The fact that the only reference in the Constitution about immunity was in regards to the rights of the people was due to the Framers not imagining that sometime in the future there would be such a polarized political environment that people would no longer even bother to read the Constitution but rely on the echo chamber of partisan narratives. The decision is not only about enumerated powers, but the very reason for the separation and balance of powers as James Madison described:

“The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.”

“If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.” Albert Einstein.

One of the main issues the “Framers of the Constitution” had to address was to write it in such a way as to avoid arcane or legalistic text as its passage depended so much on what the citizens of the new republic understood and agreed with; the issue came down to communication, i.e., keeping it simple. The Framers understood that simplicity provided for a perception of trust in contrast to complexity and ambiguity which provided for a perception of deceit. Constitutional scholars estimated that the reading level required to read and understand the US Constitution is approximately 8^th – 11^th grade, yet only 23% of Americans have read it; the US Constitution is not a difficult document to read, but is a difficult document to change, which are two things that do not endear it to politicians.

The “Framers of the Constitution” were James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay. Madison wrote most of the constitution; all three were authors of the “Federalist Papers”, a publication of essays in support of ratification of the new constitution. When the Continental Convention was called by the Confederation Congress in 1787, the agenda issued for discussion was state versus federal powers, executive powers, representation, commerce, and slavery.

There was a presumption in that agenda regarding executive powers as the Articles of Confederation had no such thing, and the convention was called to address amendments, not to create a new constitution. How that issue was overcome is unclear as the discussions were held in strict confidence and without record, except of course for the new constitution itself. Over time some delegates wrote about what was discussed, and while accounts vary, it was obvious that the “Framers” not only convinced the delegates to consider a new constitution but were tasked to write it.

Except regarding the rights of citizens, the word “immunity” does not appear in the Constitution. When SCOTUS decided to hear the case regarding Trump’s claim of presidential immunity, the only precedent was the 1982 case of Nixon v. Fitzgerald; the court ruled that the president has absolute immunity from civil damages arising from the conduct of their duties, but did not mention criminal charges. What had to be addressed then was what executive duties, responsibilities and powers were as enumerated in the Constitution regarding the actions of a president; it was like an open book test as those things are addressed in Article II. There’s not a lot of such things as the very idea of an executive was troubling to many delegates, so these are limited.

There are 119 pages in the decision, 52 of which consists of the majority opinion by Roberts, and concurring opinions from Thomas and Barret. The dissenting opinion by Sotomayor is 67 pages; apparently someone didn’t get the “keep it simple” memo. The most informative part of the majority opinion, and frankly the part that could have been all that was necessary, came from Roberts:

“The President enjoys no immunity for his unofficial acts, and not everything the President does is official. The President is not above the law. But Congress may not criminalize the President’s conduct in carrying out the responsibilities of the Executive Branch under the Constitution. And the system of separated powers designed by the Framers has always demanded an energetic, independent Executive. The President therefore may not be prosecuted for exercising his core constitutional powers, and he is entitled, at a minimum, to a presumptive immunity from prosecution for all his official acts. That immunity applies equally to all occupants of the Oval Office, regardless of politics, policy, or party.”

Of the criticisms of the decision, there are two that stand out as cases of either failed reading comprehension, or a failure to have read it at all; one is the phrase “official acts” and the other that the president now had immunity from prosecution of criminal acts. The criticism about the phrase “official acts” is that it does not appear in the Constitution; true, the phrase does not appear in the Constitution, but the case here regards immunity for criminal acts. It is not the function of SCOTUS to conduct a trail; their job is guardians and interpreters of the Constitution. In order to decide what actions the president is immune from, they must ground their decision on what the Constitution says the President is permitted to do.

There was another aspect of the case and the decision that does not appear to have received much attention; as Roberts pointed out, subjecting presidential actions to prosecution based on allegations of criminal intent that has yet to be charged, is contrary to the due process protections in the Constitution, and in conflict with the foundational separation-of-powers.

This decision is not a win for Trump as the hysteria in the press would have us believe. Trump is not now immune from criminal prosecution as the only immunity he or any president now has according to this decision is for actions committed in accordance with the executive duties, responsibilities, and powers as enumerated in the Constitution; inciting to riot or conspiring for a fabrication of votes do not qualify. The fact that some of the Trump cases involving such criminal acts are now delayed is for the trail courts and prosecutors to address.

“People who pride themselves on their “complexity” and deride others for being “simplistic” should realize that the truth is often not very complicated. What gets complex is evading the truth.” Thomas Sowell