Profile of a patriot

I’ve got to tell you about my friend Dan, an extraordinary human being. To begin with, he smells bad. He can’t recall the last time he bathed. His clothes are old and frayed. They get washed about as often as he bathes. He has a scraggly beard, and his hair is never combed. And last month he was fired. His boss told him he’d become unproductive. Maybe so, but more likely he was just too unpleasant to be around.

Dan wasn’t always unhygienic. In fact, as recently as last fall, anyone would have said he was a well-groomed, attractive person. What happened, you ask. A divorce? A death in the family? News of a terminal illness? No, none of these. Incredibly, it was the trauma of realizing that another Trump-Biden election was inevitable and destined to be a tossup.

I had to get my head around this. I’d known Dan for almost 20 years and was very fond of him. His breakdown was shocking. I was concerned, of course, and mystified. Dan was always full of surprising insights. Perhaps he saw something about the fate of the nation that I’d like to see too.

I decided to invite him over for lunch. When I met him at the door, I was momentarily stunned by his appearance. We embraced, and I led him inside. I took his arm …

Dan, I’m very worried about you. You’re a dear friend, and you’re in a slump I don’t understand. It scares me. If you don’t mind, I’d like to talk about it. I’m not presuming to be your therapist, but there is value in talking, probably for both of us. I think you’ve been struck by a vision of something acutely painful. I hope you’ll share it with me.

Ken … thank you … so much! When you came by last January and I sent you away, I felt miserable. I wasn’t talking to anyone then. I wasn’t sure I could ever turn my depression into words, and I wondered whether you’d ever talk to me again. I think now you may be a way out of this hell. I’m ready to talk.

I’m so glad! Please tell me about your depression.

I’m in mourning, Ken. Last fall, I realized our country was dying with no hope of recovery.

Why would you think that?

It’s a long story of evolution gone awry. When America was founded in the 18th century, it was a historical novelty. There was nothing like it before. Oh, there were the Greeks with their direct democracy and the Romans with their democratic republic, but our democratic republic was an invention, penned by a few men and refined by a convention. Unprecedented! It provided for free speech and a free press, a separation of powers, and mechanisms for amendment.

And the rules for populating the branches of government with representatives and judges, as well as rules for removing them from power.

Yes. It looked like the American Constitution had all that was needed to cope with changing times and a growing nation. As our country lurched forward, it faced a near-fatal question — whether an individual’s freedom extended so far as to permit the ownership of slaves. We fought a civil war, amended the Constitution, and rolled on. The lesson in this episode was that the boundaries of freedom were a disputatious matter that could incite civil disorder, if not war.

I think I see where you’re going with this. There are contentious issues about freedom’s boundaries that we have today. Abortion and gun control, for example.

True, and there’s also the matter of paramilitary groups. Should people have the right to associate in such groups?

I’d say no. They now seem ready to act at a conservative president’s behest.

Good point, and this raises the question of the boundaries of presidential power. For example, the War Powers Resolution of 1973 allows the president, under special conditions, to deploy military force without a Congressional declaration of war. But presidents have dodged these conditions more than once and faced no consequences.

Former President Trump brushed aside a presidential boundary in the last year of his term. He ignored the requirement that the Senate confirm his cabinet nominations by simply saying that his cabinet choices were “acting” officials who therefore needed no confirmation.

He has already promised to go on a firing rampage with civil service employees as his target. Anyone he suspects of not working in his interest will get the boot. These employees have a few legal protections, but they’ll be of little help; the Justice Department will be headed by an “acting” Attorney General.

Then there’s the matter of executive orders. These are presidential fiats that don’t require the approval of Congress. The rationale is that the president is the head of the executive branch, and the Constitution says presidents must ensure that laws are “faithfully executed.” But who is to say an executive order lacks a credible connection to the faithful execution of a law? Only the Supreme Court can do this. If Trump is president, will our irresponsible Supreme Court countermand his executive orders?

That’s a horrible thought, Dan. I can understand why you talk about America’s demise, but it’s certainly not inevitable. It could well be that Biden wins in November.

Sure, Biden might win, which is far better than embarking on a dictatorship. But here’s the bad news: it doesn’t actually matter. America is still doomed. It’s doomed because it’s ungovernable.

Inevitably, political parties arose early in our history. They were foreshadowed as far back as the Continental Congresses. Over the decades, the prevailing parties went through metamorphoses beyond anyone’s control. The allure of human exploitation shaped them, as did our fortunate geography, the possibility of westward expansion, our vast stretches of arable land, the abundance of natural resources, the energy of foreigners who escaped poverty and religious oppression, and a swelling national pride that often expressed itself as jingoism. Most telling, in the 1980s, a fever of greed swept over our politics.

Today, we have two very partisan parties. I’ll call them the Blues and the Reds. They oppose each other on practically every governmental, economic, and social issue that concerns the public. The Blues are preoccupied with the welfare of the entire population, but they avoid confrontation with our ruling oligarchy. The Reds embrace our oligarchy and use the term “socialism” as a bogeyman to frighten voters away from efforts to transfer wealth for the public good. The Blues are horrified by the saturation of firearms in the population and the bloody consequences of unregulated ownership. The Reds see gun ownership as an American birthright and want no regulation, despite the mass shootings in schools, churches, and other public places. The Blues want government to have no role in fundamental private matters, like the decision to have an abortion or to marry someone of the same sex. The Reds want government to intervene if a personal decision is opposed by a Biblical dictate. In fact, the Reds want America to formally become a Christian nation. One more difference, the most important one. The Blues believe a government of laws is a defining attribute of America. The Reds believe a tyranny is palatable if not preferable.

I’ll give you this, Dan. I can’t imagine a credible chain of events that leads to a reconciliation.

Some people think that someday enough Reds will join the Blues to push through several desperately needed Constitutional Amendments, like one discontinuing the Electoral College or giving more Senate seats to populous states or outlawing gerrymandering or regulating firearms.

Well, I know why the first three will never happen. Many states are sparsely populated Red states. There’s no way in hell they’ll say yes to an amendment that would diminish their political power.

Exactly. As for firearms regulation, most Reds believe it’s synonymous with firearms confiscation. And that would lead to a tyrannical government. They fear a tyrannical government! What irony!

We’ve always had a so-called “lunatic fringe” in our country, people who are neurotically superstitious, pathetically uninformed, or bereft of critical thinking. Every country has them. They’re usually fewer than 10% of the voting population. In the 2020 presidential election, Biden got 81.3 million votes, and Trump got 74.2 million. Imagine, 74.2 million after he cozied up to Putin, horribly mismanaged the pandemic, and tried to extort political support from Ukraine! That’s a shocking indictment of his supporters, but nothing compared to their current lunacy. They’ve watched him spread malignant lies about the election; start an insurrection to stop the count of electoral votes; label the jailed insurrectionists “hostages”; receive 88 felony indictments; hawk trading cards, sneakers, and Bibles to pay for legal fees; pose as a Christ figure, battling a corrupt power structure; and beleaguer the entire legal system with petitions for trial delays. You’d think that at least half of his 74.2 million supporters would have deserted him in the ensuing years, but no. He’s tied with Biden in the polls! It shows that the lunatic fringe in our country is massive and durable. One day, Trump will disappear from the national stage, but the insane political bloc he created will still be around to stymie our social progress and world leadership. America will sputter like an old jalopy. We’ll be helpless in the face of the stresses the AI revolution will bring.

What shows me the steadfastness of Trump’s supporters is their reaction to his claim of absolute presidential immunity. He’s confessing, “Yes, I’m guilty. I’m guilty of everything. But … haha … I have immunity from prosecution!” And that’s good enough for them.

Remember when he said he could shoot someone in broad daylight and be absolved by his followers? He had sized them up perfectly. He couldn’t help but gloat about it.

That sickens me, Dan…. Yes, I see now why your pessimism is so deep. I see why America will probably be a hospital case for a very long time. But some day, well after you and I are gone, might there not be a gradual reconciliation and reawakening of America’s founding principles?

Of course, Ken. But the people of that time would be fooling themselves if they thought the original America had revived. It would be like Charlemagne believing he had reestablished the Roman Empire in Europe. There can’t be a once and future America. The original America, that bold, brilliant experiment, has evolved into a schizophrenic beast without a future. And that’s sad, Ken. Terribly, terribly sad.

Free will

Norm and I have been friends since high school. We still see each other occasionally, and a few weeks ago, we had Norm and his wife, Susan, at our house for dinner. Afterward we sat and talked in our family room. Inevitably, the conversation became political. I say inevitably because Norm is to the left of me, and only politically obsessed people are to the left of me.

Norm had the shootings at the Nashville Covenant School on his mind. I knew he’d been agonizing over it because our gun culture is the hottest of his hot buttons. He wants the government to seize every firearm in the country with no questions asked. After that, he’s OK with allowing a federal agency to issue gun licenses, but only under the most extreme circumstances — like, you’re a celebrity with a history of being stalked or a gay living in Buffalo, N.Y.¹ I’d be much more lenient with gun owners. You can own a gun but only a hand gun. No clips over 8 rounds. No history of antisocial behavior or mental illness. Licensing, registration, and gun insurance required.

Norm and I went back and forth about whose gun control plan was better, and then the conversation took an unforeseen turn …²

Norm: Ya know what I will never understand, Ken? How can anyone decide to kill innocent people, and complete strangers besides? Yeah, I know what you’ll say. Many shootings are simply hate crimes, but still … the victims probably had loved ones and dreams of the future. And many, especially children, don’t have an unkind bone in their bodies. How can anyone choose to do something so evil?

Me: You say “decide” and “choose,” Norm. It sounds like you believe the shooter acted with volition; she had a free choice, to kill or not to kill, and she chose to kill — consciously, deliberately.

Norm: Yeah, of course. She planned it for months. She made a map of the school. She picked the weapons she thought were best for her task.

Me: I’d describe it another way, in the passive voice. The decision was made first, and then came the plan, which included drawing the map and picking weapons.

Norm: OK, but so what? I’m not seeing your point.

Me: I believe that she didn’t make the decision. It was made by an unconscious process whose complexity baffles even the best of today’s neuroscientists. The process comprises genetic factors that predisposed her emotional responses to what she experienced as she developed. It comprises happy and hurtful memories and the values imprinted on her by her family and childhood acquaintances. It’s true that the process and its contents are uniquely hers, but she is not a separate actor who stands to one side and gives a final thumbs up or thumbs down. And when her mind reaches a verdict, she doesn’t see herself as the recipient of orders. It seems to her conscious mind that she has exercised her free will. But it’s all an illusion. The illusion is not only real to her, it’s real to you and most others as well.

Norm, laughing: I agree with just a small part of all that. Yes, her murders look like acts of free will to me, and that’s because they are. You’ve heard of Occam’s Razor — the simplest explanation is the best one … well, the simplest explanation is that she has free will! Your explanation is far-fetched by comparison.

Me: Not far-fetched at all. The idea of an unconscious mind has been widely acknowledged for more than a century.³ I’m sure you’re not suggesting that it doesn’t exist. But more than that, imagining the absence of free will is neither more nor less complicated than imagining its existence. Both ideas are simple.

Norm: I take it then that her other behavior — planning for months, making a map, choosing her weapons — was, in your view, also unconscious. Are you really going that far?

Me: Well, I grant that she was aware of doing those things. She wanted the plan to be thorough, the map accurate, and the weapons well suited to her task. So she used her cognitive skills to accomplish it all. But what’s actually happening when we use our cognitive skills? Mainly, we’re calling on our cognitive endowments and how-to recollections to get to work. But it would be a mistake to imagine our egos standing on a podium and saying, “All right, all you assets. Let’s get to it.” No, we just feel a vague sense of urgency, something like a writer facing a blank sheet of paper. The writer sees a creative leap is needed, so he “invokes his muse.” As odd as it may sound, the killer-to-be undoubtedly does much the same. And in both cases, something in the mind begins to engage. A thought emerges, then a refinement, then another thought, then another refinement, and so on. Before long, the writer and killer-to-be are “lost in their work.” That’s the same as saying, “They’re on autopilot.”⁴ The unconscious is in charge.

Norm: To be frank, I think your version of reality is appalling. To think that everyone who exists, has existed, and will exist is a deceived robot, predestined to live according to a script that no one can hope to comprehend! Truly, it’s a nightmare.

Me: Then, tell me, Norm, how do you explain the fact that I’m bearing up so well?

Norm: Good question. I don’t have a clue. Please tell me how you make a “will-less” life bearable?

Me: There’s not much to it. In fact, I don’t have to do anything. The illusion itself is so damn good, the integration of the conscious with the unconscious so flawless, that ownership of what bubbles up seems natural and real.⁵ Say someone praises me for doing something admirable. How do I react? I feel happy and valued, even though I know I was, inevitably, unavoidably, just being me. Both my original deed and my reaction to the praise are hard-wired, so to speak. The same is true if I’m told I’m being boorish. First, I’m defensive. Then I’m introspective. Was I really boorish? If I was, I don’t think, “That’s who I am, a boor. C’est la vie.” No, I feel blameworthy. I feel burdened by a challenge to change. That, too, is hard-wired. It’s paradoxical. Our preordained reaction to praise and blame is to ignore preordination! It’s as if will-lessness comes with its own defense mechanisms.

Norm: So you’re saying, “Don’t worry about being strait-jacketed by preordination. You’ll barely notice.”

Ken: Yeah, that’s one way to put it.

And there’s more good news. There is no time in our lives when our programming is finished and immutable. This will come as a surprise to those who assume that without free will, our life paths would have no twists or turns. Because this is obviously not the case, they reason, free will must exist.

What their assumption fails to consider are the innumerable events that come at us out of the blue. For example, think of a child who has a crippling accident or loses a parent or finds himself suddenly homeless or encounters an inspiring teacher or gets the chance to study abroad for a year. Life is chaotic, a continual series of buffets, and each one is assimilated into our unconscious. With each assimilation, we change, sometimes trivially, sometimes fundamentally. Think of all the alcoholics whose lives are shattered, and then some exogenous event brings them to Jesus and a sober existence. So we’re continually becoming. Admittedly, the pace slows as we age, but it is always active to some degree.

Norm: I see that, but what about the thought that these exogenous events are themselves predetermined, meaning that even the alterations in our lives are an infinitesimal part of the destiny of the universe.

Me: Yes, I’ve had that thought. It’s the thought that nothing is nor ever has been random. It’s plausible and unimaginable at the same time. Ultimately, it would mean that from the Big Bang onward, the destiny of every subatomic particle in the universe was predestined. It would be a scenario so vastly complex as to appear random! And that’s where my mind takes leave of it.

Norm: Mine, too. But here’s another troublesome thought, Ken. If we deny the existence of free will, it means we’re not responsible for our actions. And that means, morally speaking, no one should be punished for wrongdoing. We couldn’t send anyone to prison for murder or rape, not to mention election tampering. We couldn’t even fine anyone for double parking. Civilized society would fall apart!

Me: I agree with your premise: If we deny the existence of free will, it means we’re not responsible for our actions. But I don’t agree that consequently no one should be punished for wrongdoing. The fundamental question becomes, how is it ethical to punish behavior that comes from the unconscious? First, let’s agree that separating felons from the rest of society — generally by imprisonment — is a good idea. Felons are dangerous people. Their unconscious minds may cause more harm if they remain among us. Second, imprisoning felons is one of those exogenous events we talked about. It’s an intervention that holds the possibility, however remote, of constructively altering the unconscious. It follows, then, that society should try to eliminate any events that might aggravate an inmate’s troubled unconscious. Punishments like solitary confinement and the denial of visitors and amenities should be verboten.

Typical misdemeanors — shoplifting, vandalism, trespassing, disorderly conduct, minor assault, a minor traffic violation — should also be punished with the intent of modifying unconscious behavior. I think fines, community service, jail time, probation, and court-ordered counseling are all appropriate. I wonder how much research has been done on making interventions more effective. Probably far too little.

Norm: No doubt … Ken, I must say you’ve given me a lot to think about. Thanks for such an interesting evening!

Me: My pleasure, Norm. It’s been stimulating, and I feel, well … happy and valued.

________________________

¹According to a study of tweets from 2014 through 2015, Buffalo, NY, is the most homophobic city in the U.S., followed by Arlington, TX, and Riverside, CA.

²The subject of the following conversation is anathema to most Americans. Discussing it with people you don’t know is risky.

³Neuroscientists believe 95% of the brain’s activity is unconscious, meaning only 5% of our actions, behaviors, and emotions lie within our conscious awareness.

⁴The technical term for doing tasks quickly, accurately, and without conscious thought is automaticity.

⁵To see how astounding the integration of the conscious and unconscious mind can be, watch this artist at work.

Medievalism, Part 2

In Part 1, Congresswoman Greene talked about the futility of fighting climate change. She favors confronting it stoically, as brave people have always done in the face of natural disasters. She declared her love for science when it manifests God’s glory, but she resists the timeline that science assigns to the development of life. She disparaged homosexual marriage because it doesn’t respect Nature’s demand for procreation, and she warned that changes in our sexual mores would soon lead to our extinction. She conceded that she hated Democrats and blamed them for instituting a policy of immigration without quotas. She predicted this blunder would destroy the culture that Americans had come to love.

Obviously, her enmity ran deep. I wanted to explore this further.

Please tell me more about the disputes with Democrats that push you toward hatred. Maybe it’s still possible to find common ground.*

I see you’re slow on the uptake, Ken, so I’ll spell it out for you.

Please do.

In the Democrats, we have a nationwide political party whose policy is to bankrupt the country with socialist spending sprees. They want to wreck the birth rate by wrecking marriage. They want to dilute our culture to the point that “American” loses its meaning. Do they despise America? Obviously. They just have to hold power long enough to see our destruction through to the end.

In 2016, their presidential candidate matched their plans perfectly. Just to look at her and hear her voice — and her laugh! her hideous laugh! — was toxic. She’s the devil’s work, hands down the nastiest bitch who ever entered politics. By the grace of God — and I mean that literally, Ken — the Democrats were too transparent for their own good. The average voter could see the venom in her heart and recoiled. Her evil became even plainer in contrast to her opponent, a man who understood the people’s heart and spoke their language. And don’t think for a minute that his emergence was a fluke. God had a hand in that, too.

Hold on, Marjorie. Do I have this right? You’re telling me that Hillary Clinton is an agent of the devil and Donald Trump is an agent of God? You make it sound like American politics is a battleground where the forces of Good and Evil are engaged.

Bravo, Ken! You put it together! Of course, the battle is far older than America, but America took center stage in colonial times. America is pretty much God’s creation. The Founding Fathers get the credit, but they were given divine wisdom. How often do people marvel that so many political geniuses could exist at the same time and place? Well, it was no accident. God is the founder of the Founding Fathers.

By “God,” you mean the Christian God of the New Testament? Or are you including the God of the Jews as well?

They’re the same God, Ken, but the Jews didn’t agree, and they reject the idea even today.

Are they a lesser people because of that?

I wouldn’t say “lesser,” but not as trustworthy. Only by converting can they be trusted, and even then, how can we know what’s really in their hearts?

And what about people who have always been Christians. Are they automatically trustworthy?

They get the benefit of the doubt, unless there are clear reasons for not trusting them.

That’s too funny! Donald Trump constantly professes his Christianity and love for the Bible, and millions — I’ll include myself — place him among the least trustworthy people in history. Yet you see him as a hero.

Yes, I do. He’s done God’s work, and he’s taken no end of abuse. Even so, he fights on and wants to do more! He’s amazing! He knows what’s at stake — all the devil’s work we’ve been talking about. What if he did urge those patriots to stop the House from certifying Biden? Any right thinking person would do exactly the same. The man is trying his damnedest to save this country! And let me tell you something. If his party doesn’t nominate him in 2024, it won’t matter. Moses never saw the Promised Land, and President Trump may never return to the White House. But his agenda lives on, and that’s because he put it in our hearts! That, at a minimum, will be his legacy.

I agree. I can imagine the Republican Party dissolving over the next two years, only to rise like a phoenix as the Christian Nationalist Party. You and Governor DeSantis have put this label on yourselves. This is simply distilled Trumpism, is it not?

It’s Trumpism whose name has been elevated from a man to an ideal. It tells people what to fight for in just two words.

You don’t foresee the possibility that people will see your rebranding as blatant fascism?

Ha! They will see it as blatant euphoria. It will give every real American a new focus, a new energy.

But what if you’re wrong and your party fails at the polls?

Well, the Democrats will continue with their swindling schemes, that’s certain! It’ll be a call for war, and we’ll be ready.

Ready with angry mobs brandishing their guns?

Let me wise you up about guns, Ken. Guns are instruments of freedom. They’ve changed history for the good. Without them, tyranny would rule the world. With them, ordinary, peace-loving people feel secure. So, yes, people will brandish their guns — and use them!

Marjorie, you can’t be serious. U.S. military forces can fight from the air and with firepower that will overwhelm any attack against the government. You know this. You’re talking suicidal nonsense.

And you’re talking about conventional war. I’m not thinking of replaying the Civil War. I’m thinking of replaying the Vietnam War. But even that isn’t right because in our case the opposing populations are integrated. I guess the closest model would be gang warfare.

I see your point, but even so, your party would be outlawed. It would be disorganized, without funding, and excluded from political power. Your fighters would have almost no mobility or access to advanced technology. The road would be bloody, and the Second Amendment would vanish forever. The consequences for people who hold your values would be devastating.

[She pauses and stands.] Ken, I think you’ve just brought this interview to an end point. Really, no more needs to be said.

I suppose you’re right. It got pretty intense. Even though our values are very different, I want to thank you for your frankness. You put a lot on the table. I hope you accomplished what you came here to do.

I did, but frankly, you dip your oar in the water too often for my liking. After all, this was to be an interview about me.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, there’s a political strategist I need to fire.

* See Confession.

Medievalism, Part 1

Marjorie Taylor Greene is a polarizing, far-right politician who represents Georgia’s 14th congressional district. She peddles conspiracy theories, tosses off racist remarks, ardently opposes abortion, immigration, and gay rights, and happily serves as a Trump echo chamber. But you probably knew all that already. What you certainly don’t know is that she called me last week and asked that I interview her and publish the transcript on this blog.* I was dumbstruck.

I stammered something incredibly insincere, like “I’m flattered that you thought of me,” and recovered with, “But our political views are poles apart. How could my name have entered your mind?” Her answer was another surprise. “I want people to know me better. And I realized that what I have to say would be much better received if it was reported by someone who, politically, has practically nothing in common with me.” Then she flattered me with, “People tell me that your commitment to fairness is as strong as anyone who writes about politics. That was all I needed to hear.” “True words,” I said, laughing, “but you should expect some hardball questions.” “Of course, Ken,” she replied.

We met on a Saturday in my San Jose office. I was impressed that she had flown out to see me, and thanked her for it. We chatted about her flight and the miserable summer heat. When the smalltalk trailed off, I motioned at my voice recorder and asked, “Shall we?”

Marjorie, apropos of this sweltering weather, do you accept that we’re going through a climate change?

I do, Ken, but that’s not really a controversial question. Practically every year, average temperatures rise around the world, and ocean levels rise as glaciers melt. But can we do anything about it? As of last year, fossil fuels supplied 79% of our energy needs and supported 10.3 million jobs. That’s more or less what they supplied a decade ago. The growth in renewable energy sources has been piddling, and no one is predicting explosive growth in the future. What about the rest of the world? Their rates in the growth of renewables are mostly worse than ours. Face facts. We need to stop whining about greenhouse gases and figure out how to roll with the punches.

So you’re giving up. You’re saying there’s nothing we can do?

Pretty much. There’s nuclear power, but everyone’s afraid of it. Germany would rather burn coal than go nuclear.

It sounds like you’re taking a “fix it or forget it” position. What about mitigation? Surely we can mitigate the disastrous effects of unchecked climate change.

How would we do that, Ken? By adopting Biden’s Green New Deal? If we did that, we’d bankrupt the USA and make Communist China the richest, most powerful nation in the world. The Democrats are determined to force us to drive electric vehicles, but EVs won’t run without special batteries made from rare earth elements. And where are those elements found in greatest abundance? You guessed it. No other country comes close. In a decade or so, Communist China will be to the rest of the world what we were 75 years ago. We will be a declining mediocrity.

You’re such an alarmist, Marjorie. First, rare earths aren’t all that rare; the name is misleading. Second, the batteries in EVs and other high-tech gadgets rely mostly on lithium and cobalt, neither of which is a rare earth. Third, our reliance on lithium and cobalt is far from indefinite. Apple is developing plans to use only renewable resources and recycled materials in their products; others will follow their lead. So go out and buy an EV, and continue to use your iPhone with a light heart.

You must be getting your facts from left-wing publications, Ken. But I accepted that risk when I chose you.

Marjorie, your disdain for renewable energy solutions and lack of alarm over climate change make me wonder … are you anti-science?

Heck no — I love science! For example, that new telescope that’s sending us all those thrilling pictures. It’s got me on the edge of my seat.

What is it exactly that thrills you?

It’s God, Ken! He’s revealing himself to us. In biblical times, he talked to a few of us directly, and he spoke through his son, Jesus. Some of the saints have heard his voice, but today he reveals himself through signs. And what signs these pictures are! All Moses got was a burning bush, but we have billions of galaxies each burning with the fire of billions of stars! And there’s so much more. Vast dark spheres with a ripping pull that can’t be resisted, oddly shaped expanses that hold the fragments of exploded stars, billions of miles of star dust dotted with concentrations that become new stars. How can anyone not drop to their knees at these sights?

Marjorie, I’ve never heard you talk so rapturously. You’re almost another person. But I’m curious … part of the mission of the JWST is to help us envision the universe as it was less than a billion years after the Big Bang. Another part is to analyze the atmospheres of exoplanets for signs of life, perhaps intelligent life. What do you think of claims that the universe is over 14 billion years old, or that we may share the universe with life forms whose intelligence is greater than ours.

Ken, I think you know that God didn’t create the Earth until the third day, and he didn’t create the Sun until the fourth day. It wasn’t till the sixth day that he created man. Only when Adam saw one cycle of daylight and darkness pass did the concept of “a day” come into being. So how long really were the first five so-called “days” of creation? We don’t know. Maybe they lasted 14 billion years.

As for the idea that beings more intelligent than us may be in the universe — no. The Bible says God made a covenant with the Jews, but if you read deeply, you realize that he made a covenant with all humans. People are special to God. He made us in his image and made our intelligence an echo of his intelligence. He didn’t make squirrels in his image, and he wouldn’t make Bingonians from the planet Bingo in his image. Nor would he give them a bigger share of his intellect. That would diminish our dearness to him and destroy the covenant.

Marjorie, please. Do you really think the first five days of creation might have been eons? God actually putzed around for 14 billion years before he created Adam? That doesn’t sound very omnipotent. Do you suppose he needed rest periods?

Scoff if you like. As I said, we don’t know. What we do know is that God is an eternal being. Time means nothing to him. You’re imposing human notions of time on eternity.

True enough. It’s the only frame of reference we humans have. But tell me more about your love of science. According to Genesis, on the sixth day God said, “Let the land produce living creatures.” That’s Adam and cats and dogs and pigs and goats, and dinosaurs. Scientists have trouble with that grouping. They say dinosaurs appeared and disappeared tens of millions of years before mankind appeared. How does that disagreement affect your love of science?

That’s an area of science that’s mistaken — for now. Science continually amends itself, which is what makes science so admirable. Some day, carbon dating will be discredited. In fact, the theory of evolution will eventually be discredited.

Don’t hold your breath, Marjorie. Using radioactive decay to measure the age of fossils has improved with time, and in 37 more years the theory of evolution will be 200 years old. I’d say that “eventually” has come and gone.

Well, it’s pointless to debate this. We’ll probably both be gone before a winner is declared.

This may be a good point for me to make a generalization about the way my mind works. I freely admit that I’m simple-minded, but not in the way you think, Ken. I’m not saying that I’m simple, as in stupid. I’m saying that when questions arise about politics, economics, human rights, or morality, I look for simple answers. A simple answer is one that has a compelling rightness. We understand it at once, and an inner voice says, “Of course!” Not all of life’s important questions have simple answers, but a great many do.

Can you give some examples of consequential questions and the simple answers to them?

No problem. Take homosexuality. Is it normal? No, it’s not, and it’s stunningly obvious that it’s not. In every society since the word “society” was a thing, homosexuality has been abhorrent. Why is that? Because the need to reproduce is an imperative of nature, and you can’t have babies if all you crave is homosexual sex. Let’s go a step further. All societies approve of marriage. That makes sense because it’s the best idea we’ve come up with for promoting procreation in a nurturing environment. But how about homosexual marriage. Is that a good idea? No, it’s a silly idea. Marriage without procreation negates the very purpose of the institution. If two people want sex without the possibility of impregnation, fine, but that’s not marriage.

What about all the heterosexual couples who get married to mark their devotion to each other but who don’t want children?

Well, if they’re sure of that beforehand, they have no business getting married. It’s that simple.

What about adoption? Would you allow a gay couple to adopt? And what about a childless couple adopting?

No to the gays. They can’t model a heterosexual relationship. It’s a recipe for maladjusted children. But I’d say yes to the childless straight couple, provided they were childless for medical reasons. They really want to parent.

Marjorie, when do you suppose the first marriage took place?

Ha! Such an odd question. I guess it was in the Garden of Eden, with God blessing the union of Adam and Eve. And it became a sacrament from then on.

Where do you think we’ve found the earliest records of marriages?

I have no idea, Ken.

It was in Mesopotamia, and ensuring the continuation of society was not the motive for inventing marriage. Men, especially powerful men, wanted more control over women. They wanted to keep an eye on the women they impregnated so that these women alone could claim giving birth to an heir. Naturally, women in this role would be regarded as property.

I also have simple thoughts. One of them is that procreation has never been or ever will be a societal problem. The human sex drive is too strong to make depopulation a serious concern. Only a cataclysmic war or an apocalyptic act of nature could end our species. You don’t agree?

No, I don’t agree at all. As I’ve said many times, if our obsession with the rights of lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgenders, and other sexual misfits doesn’t stop soon, procreation will end in just a few more generations. The Democrats are leading humanity off a cliff.

I’m glad you brought them up. I get the impression that the days of “the loyal opposition” are gone, and they’re now regarded with genuine hatred. Would it be accurate, Marjorie, to say that you hate Democrats?

Wow, that’s a tough one, Ken. Hatred does not come easily to me, and I resist giving that name to my feelings about Democrats. But their ideas are so destructive to what I hold dear. I don’t want to live in the world they want to create. They are my enemies, truly, and it’s so hard to deal with enemies without letting feelings of hate creep in.

Take, for example, the question of immigration. At least once in every great civilization, there is an idyllic time of peace, security, and prosperity. America had that in the 50s. We were the envy of the world, and then came the unrest of the 60s. Under President Johnson and a Democrat congress, our quota system ended. Since then, the number of immigrants in America has quadrupled. According to projections, immigrants and their descendants will account for 88% of our population growth by 2065! The process the Democrats started in 1965 will wipe away American culture in one century!

Let me tell you about the greatest misconception in American history. It’s the idea that calling America a “great melting pot” is a proud truth. Imagine an actual melting pot into which you add iron, tin, nickel, aluminum, lithium, and magnesium, as well as some gold and silver — an indiscriminate mix of metals. You invent a new alloy. What is it, though? Does it have any particular characteristics, any useful purpose? Or is it just a nondescript hodgepodge?

Why do you take it for granted that cultural diversity produces a “nondescript hodgepodge”? Let’s change the metaphor to one of weaving. Perhaps what we’re seeing is an emergent tapestry, full of vibrant colors and beguiling patterns that delight the eye. Why is my glass full and yours bone dry?

Ken, your glass is full because you have a talent for spinning fairy tales, just like so many of your left-leaning colleagues. Get real. Tapestry weavers are craftsmen of the highest order. They work as if they shared a single mind. Immigrants are tribal. Each race and ethnicity is an interest group; they see oppression and discrimination everywhere they look. If their complaints aren’t handled to their satisfaction, look out. They become a mob. In the 50s, there were no mass protests. Now they occur every week or so. Nothing could be further from an “emergent tapestry.” [She snickers.]

Well, our views of what our world is now and what it can be are diametrically different. Please tell me more about the disputes with Democrats that push you toward hatred. Maybe it’s still possible to find common ground.

* See Confession.

Bring back the Inquisition!

The Spanish Inquisition was a stain on world history, but it needn’t have been. It was badly botched. An inquisition is, after all, merely a formal inquiry. There’s nothing in the term that connotes punishment, torture, or malice. It’s simply a search for facts. In more tolerant times, the Spanish might have gathered testimony on why Jews choose Judaism over Christianity and left it at that. Instead, their proceedings were poisoned by hatred. A calamity was inevitable.

We have learned better. We need to give it another go, but with an entirely different mission. Today, there are dozens of people who have tens of millions of fervent followers. They are political leaders, religious gurus, people of enormous wealth, and various others possessed of exceptional charisma. They command extraordinary power. From the standpoint of public safety, it’s imperative to know the histories of these people, the beliefs they hold, and the social agendas they support.

I propose that an alliance of governments, perhaps with the help of philanthropists, create an International Inquisition Academy (IIA). The academy would consist of acclaimed critical thinkers from all parts of the globe. Their task would be to interview powerful people and publish a transcript. It would have an addendum titled “Assessment,” where interviewees are judged on their credibility, honesty, and rationality. Instances of factual error, deliberate lying, evasion, and oversimplification would be called out. Regardless of the contents, interviewees would earn the IIA seal as evidence they had submitted to the extensive questioning of experts.

You may wonder why powerful people would agree to such an ordeal. They’d do it for the seal, a symbol that they had done a civic duty and had the courage to “bare all.” Any public figure who declines an IIA invitation would, in effect, imply they have something to conceal from the public. (The rules of the interview would stipulate that no question about sexual conduct is admissible, unless its intention is to reveal the interviewee’s hypocrisy.)

It may be difficult to imagine how an IIA interview might go, so I’ve chosen to do a mock interview of a popular holy man whose opinions have been widely published. He is the Dalai Lama, a title that means “Ocean of Wisdom.” He was born in Tibet in 1935, with the name Lhamo Thondup. Later, he took the name Tenzin Gyatso, meaning “Upholder of Teachings.”

What follows are the Dalai Lama’s essential teachings, shown in bold italics, and my corresponding questions.

A positive state of mind is not merely good for you, it benefits everyone with whom you come into contact, literally changing the world.

I prefer “constructive state of mind” to “positive state of mind.” What do you think?

Doesn’t a “state of mind” suggest a continuous outlook? Therefore, wouldn’t a “positive” state of mind be one in which a negative thought rarely intrudes? And when one does, wouldn’t “thought editing” be likely?

Do you equate critical thinking with negative thinking? What effect do you think this teaching might have on critical thinking?

Anger, hatred, and jealousy never solve problems. Only affection, concern, and respect can do that.

This seems self-evident, though I do have a quibble with “affection.” If one likes the parties to a quarrel, might that not complicate the path to the optimal solution. Wouldn’t substituting “cooperation” for “affection” make your observation sounder?

Remember that the best relationship is the one in which your love for each other exceeds your need for each other.

Are “love” and “need” attributes that can be isolated, or are they intermingled and hence unmeasurable? If they can be measured, by what means?

Does your observation apply to both sexual and nonsexual love?

What are the negative consequences if one needs more than loves, and have you observed them? Can one love to excess?

Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them humanity cannot survive.

You often insert “love” or “affection” when they are seemingly superfluous to your thought. Is it any less true to say “copulation and compassion are necessities for humanity to survive”?

Love and compassion benefit both ourselves and others. Through kindness to others, your heart and mind will be peaceful and open.

Isn’t this yet another vague use of “love”? Why not use “kindness” in both sentences?

Am I correct in assuming that love is a central concept in all your teachings? As such, doesn’t it behoove you to be an expert on the subject? Yet you’ve never been amorous with a woman, another man, or even a well-groomed Irish setter. What, then, is the source of your expertise?

Perhaps you’re thinking of love only in its nonsexual sense, as in parental love, friendship, or affection for a pet. Or do you have a kind of sibling love in mind that can somehow be mimicked with strangers? Do you agree that without much more elaboration of your conception of love, your teachings suffer greatly?

A sense of concern for others gives our lives meaning; it is the root of all human happiness.

This is a strong, surprising claim. What evidence do you have that it’s true? Should I conclude that all those driven to create art, pursue science, or make money are unhappy? What about the billions of people who live in the unreflective cycle of work-play-sleep? Are they unhappy, too? Is the entire Republican Party secretly miserable?

When you think everything is someone else’s fault. you will suffer a lot. When you realize that everything springs only from yourself, you will learn both peace and joy.

Are you asserting that each of us is the source of whatever we experience? If I’m mugged, am I the cause of it? Should I reprimand myself for my lost wallet, or should I report the incident to the police in hopes of preventing others from being mugged? What if I’m walking with a friend and we’re mugged together? Do we share the responsibility?

You’ve no doubt observed that acts of cruelty and brutality occur continually all over the world. Do those acts spring from me? This thought does not bring me peace and joy.

Never give up. No matter what is happening, no matter what is going on around you, never give up.

W.C. Fields once said, “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. Then quit. There’s no point in being a damn fool about it.” What do you say to that?

Have you ever offered this advice to Donald Trump?

Our prime purpose in this life is to help others. And if you can’t help them, at least don’t hurt them.

What was your thought process in choosing this as the “prime” purpose? Do you think loving people is a prerequisite for helping them?

Pain can change you, but that doesn’t mean it has to be a bad change. Take that pain and turn it into wisdom.

Is it that easy — just a wave of the hand? If not, what’s the process? Wouldn’t a genetic predisposition or some factor in one’s early life play a determining role?

If someone does not smile at you, be generous and offer your own smile. Nobody needs a smile more than the one that cannot smile at others.

Would you agree that people have a repertoire of smiles, among which is a perfunctory smile? Isn’t a perfunctory smile no more than a concession to good manners? Is this the smile you have in mind?

Who are these people who cannot smile to others? Even sociopaths, among them serial killers, are known to smile.

The greater the level of calmness of our mind, the greater our peace of mind, the greater our ability to enjoy a happy and joyful life.

Isn’t this a tautology? If not, you must be saying that “calmness” has plateaus, like “stillness,” “peacefulness,” “tranquility,” and “serenity.” How are you able to identify these plateaus?

Will sedation take me to a higher plateau?

Are you simply confessing that you’re a pothead?

The more we care for the happiness of others, the greater is our sense of well-being.

What evidence do you have that the correlation is continuous? Will our sense of well-being scale up as we drop more money from more helicopters? As we give more bags of groceries to more food banks? Is this a path to Nirvana?

True friendship develops not as a result of money or power but on the basis of genuine human affection.

Isn’t this a truism in virtually every culture? Can you say what genuine human affection is the result of?

When you talk, you are only repeating something you already know. But if you listen, you may learn something new.

Asking a question, speculating, negotiating, persuading, bantering, imagining out loud, and ordering from a menu are cases of talking, but are they cases of repeating what we know?

Further, if a listener is intent on learning new things, isn’t it necessary for teachers to repeat what they already know?

Women have the capacity to lead us to a more peaceful world with compassion, affection, and kindness.

Is this a cry of injustice at the universal practice of treating women as second-class people, or is it a claim that women have a special gift? Will you acknowledge there are politically prominent women who spread hatred and divisiveness.

Unfortunately, I can’t offer an assessment of the Dalai Lama. I’d need his answers and any followup questions and answers. I can say that I get a strong sense of honesty and goodwill. I see the influence of Buddha, Christ, Gandhi, and Martin Luther King, but I also see oversimplification and a streak of irrationality at the heart of his teachings.

I hope that among my readers there are some with deep pockets and friends in high places. I’d like them to think of this post as my job application to the IIA.

A change of perspective

It looks like my father was right about UFOs. Back in the Fifties, the decade of my adolescence, a spike in UFO sightings made him a believer. “I think visitors from another planet are having a look at us,” he said with enthusiasm. Not dread or concern — enthusiasm.

As it happened, the school I attended was introducing me to science, the hardest of hard-nosed disciplines. I said, “Dad, that’s just not possible.”

My certainty startled him. “What? You doubt there’s other intelligent life in the universe?”

“No, just the opposite. The universe is so vast that it’s mathematically impossible for us to be alone.” He seemed relieved that I wasn’t an ignoramus.

“Good. And it also stands to reason that some of the sentient beings out there are below our level of development and some are beyond it. In fact, some must have technologies that far exceed ours.” I agreed, of course.

“So, their visits are possible,” he said with satisfaction.

Now I had him. “Dad, it doesn’t matter how advanced they are. There are statements in physics called laws. They are the rules that all the matter and energy in the universe obey. Einstein showed that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light — no atom, no comet, no spaceship. And if any spaceship approached the speed of light, its mass would grow to the point that any life aboard would die. But suppose a UFO somehow could travel near the speed of light. Its voyage would be doomed because the planets that orbit distant stars are so far away that the journey to Earth could take thousands or millions of years, even at that extreme speed. And how would they know the Earth was worth visiting? Even if they had a miraculous telescope that could show closeup TV pictures, the pictures would be of Earth as it was before any human had been born. They’d have no way of knowing we were here!”

Surely he could have no more to say, but he did. “What’s a law today may not be a law tomorrow. Remember, we’re imagining a civilization that may have practiced science much longer than we have. Say, a million years longer. It’s hard to believe that what limits us today will still limit us in a million years.”

He didn’t shake my skepticism, which persisted for decades. I did get a bit rattled when string theorists started talking about 11 dimensions of reality and when I began learning about the claims of quantum physics. I was fine with molecules and atoms, and even with quarks and gluons, but superposition and entanglement seemed a bit much. Next the Higgs boson came along, a particle that imparts mass to other particles. Modern physics was clearly in post-Einsteinian territory. Nevertheless, in all that new science, there was nothing to give hope to UFO enthusiasts. Not until October 19, 2017 came along.

That was an exciting day for astronomers at the Pan-STARRS1 telescope on Maui. Their mission is to track comets and asteroids in Earth’s vicinity. They thought they’d caught sight of a comet, but one unlike any that had ever been seen. It wasn’t outgassing — leaving an evaporation trail — as comets do. On the other hand, it wasn’t an asteroid because it was accelerating on its course out of our solar system. Its shape was elongated, about a quarter-mile long and a tenth as wide. No one has ever observed a celestial object with a similar aspect ratio. Its trajectory showed it had been traveling for hundreds of millions of years from one of four possible star systems. Maybe it was something manufactured, like a space probe. Holy crap! That would mean an extraterrestrial intelligence existed! In this spirit, it was named ‘Oumuamua, Hawaiian for “scout.”

Ever since, cosmologists have been torn between two camps. One holds that ‘Oumuamua is very rare but nevertheless an object found in nature. The other holds that it is alien made. Of the explanations by those in the former camp, all but one has been discarded. It holds that ‘Oumuamua is a glacier of frozen nitrogen that was flung into space when a planetoid was destroyed. Supporters point to the fact that nitrogen glaciers have been observed on Pluto. Hmm… Maybe I missed something when I read this. A dwarf planet explodes and shoots debris into the cosmos. One of them is a huge chunk of frozen nitrogen. An eon later, that improbable chunk enters our solar system and accelerates on its way out. Oddly, there’s no observable nitrogen outgassing. In fact, there’s no observable nitrogen! Laughable.

Even though ‘Oumuamua’s passage is a jaw-dropping event, reported UFOs presumably don’t arrive here after an eon of travel. I don’t claim to be a reader of alien minds, but it seems unlikely that an intelligent creature would sign up for such a voyage. So the problem of the transit time still needs to be addressed. It happens that I found a news story that does exactly that.

Einstein showed us that space and time — spacetime, as he called it — is curved by gravity. Substitute other verbs if you like — warped, bent, folded, compressed, dilated — all of them are apt descriptions of what can be done to spacetime. With this as their inspiration, a team of NASA engineers and physicists have demonstrated mathematically that if a bubble of negative vacuum energy could be formed, its attraction to the outer positive vacuum energy would create a means of propulsion by compressing the spacetime that lay ahead. Potentially, enormous distances could be traversed in very little time. The bubble would not move faster than the speed of light, but it would cause the spacetime between here and there to decrease by orders of magnitude. The NASA team plans to create such a bubble, beginning on an extremely small scale.

So I can now imagine an advanced alien civilization becoming the masters of spacetime and journeying to our world and back in much less than a lifetime. This leaves the question of how they would know we’re here. It turns out to be easy to answer. We’ve just deployed the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), a device that can capture images of distant objects as they were when the universe was very young. The data it collects will lead to discoveries that were never before possible. For example, we’ll be able to determine whether any of a planet’s reflected light is artificial. Artificial light is a biosignature — a substance or phenomenon that indicates the presence of life. It would signal, in this case, the presence of intelligent life. We’ll also be able to detect chirality. This is the property of a molecule whose mirror image is not the same as itself. Chiral molecules are the building blocks of life, like proteins and nucleic acids. A civilization capable of intergalactic travel would surely be able to launch telescopes toward dozens of star systems. The telescopes would be superior to the JWST, probably more compact, and programmed to detect life.

The clinchers for me were an article published in the The New York Times in 2017 and a “60 Minutes” segment broadcast last year. I came upon both a few weeks ago. The Times article, “Glowing Auras and ‘Black Money’: The Pentagon’s Mysterious UFO Program,” describes how credible people have battled with the Pentagon to conduct an earnest, open, and ongoing investigation of UFO sightings. The “60 Minutes” segment contains riveting interviews and videos that lead to inescapable conclusions about UFOs. I challenge any UFO doubter to look at these and come away with their convictions intact. It seems certain to me that we’re being visited from afar. My only uncertainty is whether there are living beings aboard. It may be that the objects are probes loaded with artificial intelligence. For the most part, that is how we’ve chosen to explore our solar system.

The discoveries we’re making about extraterrestrial life will accelerate in the next decade and seem likely to grow geometrically thereafter. We know what the consequences of these discoveries will be because we’ve seen them before. Once we thought Earth was at the center of everything. Then we learned that the Sun was the center of everything, and “everything” was our solar system. For a long time, espousing this belief was heresy. Then we learned that many of the visible stars were galaxies, and the Sun was a relatively minor star in an outer arm of our galaxy, the Milky Way. Then we learned that, by the latest estimates, there are 2 trillion galaxies in the universe. Now there are mathematical models that predict the existence of multiple universes. Now astronomers tell us they’ve discovered nearly 5,000 exoplanets, and the counting has barely begun. A very small percentage of exoplanets resemble the Earth in size, mass, atmosphere, temperature, and the presence of chiral molecules. An actual twin hasn’t been found. It follows then that an intelligent life form on another planet will not look like a human being.

Throughout history, anything thought to be at the center of existence has been an ignorant guess. When it eventually sinks in that neither God nor humanity is at the center, it will be a bitch to stay grounded. To say these are unpleasant prospects is a grim understatement. The only remedy I see is to collectively forge a value system whose logic and appeal will form a new, durable center. That is likely the greatest challenge humanity will ever face — greater than controlling the climate, greater than extending longevity, greater than reaching the unreachable stars.

Axioms

Mr. Dinkel taught me all about axioms in my high school geometry class. You begin with a set of self-evident truths — axioms — and from them you derive all the complex postulates of Euclidean geometry! I was astonished that so much knowledge could be derived simply by using logic.

Much later it occurred to me that each person is a kind of Euclid. Each of us comes to see the world as a set of self-evident truths and, consciously or unconsciously, each of us extrapolates a worldview from them. The difference is only this: when Euclid stated that the shortest distance between two points on a flat surface is a straight line, he was irrefutably correct. Our axioms, however, are different. They are self-evident truths to each of us but not necessarily to our neighbors, who have their own sets of axioms. And here’s the fascinating bit: the lack of a consensus about personal axioms does nothing to weaken our convictions about their truth. That’s one of my axioms — what you might call a “meta-axiom.” It makes coexistence challenging.

I was talking to my neighbor Luann the other day about the chaos that besets our country, and I asserted that clashing axioms were at the root of it. I thought I saw a glint of interest in her eyes, so I dared to ask a probing question. Here’s how our conversation went …

I’m curious about your axioms, Luann. Would you mind telling me what they are?

Well gee, Ken. I’m not sure I have any. I’d really have to think about that.

I understand. Because they’re self-evident, we don’t bother to think about them. But nonetheless, we have them.

Hmm … You say self-evident. Ah, … God exists! That’s gotta be an axiom!

It certainly has the ring of one. I suppose there are a great many axioms that go along with that one.

Yeah. Like God is good and all-powerful and all-knowing and loving. But it’s hard to go further because God is also mysterious.

What about all the ideas associated with God? Any axioms about heaven and hell and sin?

Oh sure, but for all those things I rely on the Good Book. It’s a gold mine of truths.

A lot of people agree. It’s must be a great solace to have God’s words with you.

It is, Ken, but you have to understand that the Bible has been translated many, many times. In each translation it gets a little corrupted, so it’s up to us to use some common sense when we read it.

Good point. Can you think of an example of how you use your common sense?

Easy. For example, ‘Thou shalt not kill!’ Now, that commandment should be, ‘Thou shalt not kill the innocent.’ If you want to say that like an axiom, I guess it would be, ‘It’s a sin to kill the innocent.’

Why would you add “the innocent”?

Because it’s obvious that killing the unborn is sinful, but killing a murderer or an enemy soldier isn’t. That’s the only sensible way to think of it.

Interesting. You know, to me sin is a complicated idea. There must be axioms that help you understand it.

It’s really not all that complicated. Here’s an axiom for you, Ken: Sin is anything offensive to God.

But Luann, why would God create people who where capable of offending Him?

Because God wanted people to have free will. Here’s another axiom: Sin exists because free will exists.

You’ve really got the hang of this! So God created a world in which it was certain that people would offend Him at times. And I suppose it was inevitable that some people would be more offensive than others.

That’s exactly how it turned out. You have people who are mostly pious and people who are mostly ungodly. It’s sad how so many people start out good but then their understanding of the righteous path gets all twisted. You might say they become twisted people, and all because of free will. Like I told you, God is mysterious.

It’s funny that you describe some people as twisted. It’s like you’re calling them perverts.

Good one, Ken! That sure sums it up. Yeah, all those people who say that baby killing is OK, and election stealing is OK, and needle rape is OK, but having guns is not OK — they’re perverts all right.

That draws a pretty stark line between you and “those people,” Luann.

Well, there is one! But, say. Now that you know so much about me, it’s fair that you share about yourself. Tell me about your axioms, Ken.

I could see she had me boxed in. It seemed I had to tell her the truth, so I did. I told her that my axioms were just the opposite of hers — no God, no sin, no free will, the right to an abortion, the need to regulate gun owners, the willful ignorance of Big Lie supporters and antivaxxers — the whole ugly contrast. Her face grew sullen. She stared at the ground and finally said, “Ken, I gotta go.”

Without another word, she turned and left. I was sure she was thinking the P-word.

Interview with a gadfly

It’s been a long time since this blog hosted an exclusive interview. The Covid pandemic probably has had a lot to do with that, as it has a knack for shutting things down. But now interviews are back, and coincidentally enough, the topic of this one is the Covid pandemic. The interviewee is a highly placed official in the CDC who insists on concealing his identity. His acceptance letter was signed “M. A. Gadfly,” a whimsical pseudonym.

We met at the offices of the San Francisco Department of Public Health. I was led to a small conference room and was shuffling through my notes when a head peered into the room. “Hi, Ken?” I nodded and stood. “I’m Murray,” said the head.

He was wearing pale blue jeans and a dark blue, silk shirt with a glorious burnt orange plumeria decorating the front. My preconceptions of him were shattered.

Mr. Gadfly, hi. I’m delighted you agreed to this interview. The Scratching Post is in your debt for giving heft to our modest journalistic efforts.

Please, Ken, it’s Murray, and the debt is mine. I’ve been stoppered up for more than a year, watching the criminal ignorance of the Trump Administration and lately the burlesque posturing of the Biden Administration. I’m desperate for an outlet, somewhere to howl and rant. You, Ken, are my outlet. (His eyes twinkled.)

Murray, I think anyone with their head on straight has been aggrieved by the tragic void that was Trump Covid policy. But I’ve yet to hear anyone from the medical community go after Biden. Am I correct that you’re prepared to take some shots at him?

You are. Both administrations can be faulted. My criticisms of each differ in kind and degree. Biden’s errors mostly register as gaffes, bobbles, and thoughtless knee-jerks. Trump’s errors were monstrous cases of ignorance, apathy, and despotic arm-twisting. If you don’t mind, I’d like to focus on Biden. His miscues haven’t had much exposure. Trump’s disasters are well documented and, frankly, I’m just done with him.

Fine, Murray. Are your criticisms of Biden politically based, medically based, or both?

Both. Let me start with the medical component. According to current stats, 35% of Americans have been “fully vaccinated” against Covid. How should we interpret that phrase? I can think of only one interpretation: you can’t get Covid, no way, no how. If it were nevertheless possible, what on earth would the phrase “fully vaccinated” mean? “Mostly protected, maybe”? That would be absurd and a repudiation of medical science. It’s like the old saying about being pregnant — you are or you aren’t. There’s no in-between.

That doesn’t mean the vaccine’s protection is forever or that the virus can’t mutate into a form beyond the vaccine’s ability to contain it. There are platoons of immunologists with an eye on these matters, and I’m sure they’ll sing out if the status quo begins to fade. That time may come eventually, but it makes no sense to curtail human activity and wait for it.

So what are you saying? Biden should declare victory, like Trump wanted to do at Easter last year?

Well, pretty much, yes. Biden should call in his medical experts and say, “I want us to jump in the water with both feet. That means no more insistence on wearing a mask, anywhere. No more avoiding crowds, vaccinated or not. We can all resume our 2019 lifestyles without qualification. Now, if you disagree with me, you have 3 weeks to talk me out of it. And you’d better have a damn good argument. Otherwise, I’ll declare victory in 3 weeks and a day.”

My God, Murray! Surely, the vaccines will fail in some people. And the unvaccinated, with a collapse in social distancing, will be much more likely to get Covid from each other and from the vaccinated!

Ken, that reaction is hysterical. First, of all the people infected by Covid, about 0.00001 percent had been vaccinated. The odds of a bullet-proof vest not stopping a bullet aren’t nearly that good. Second, it’s hard to imagine the unvaccinated becoming more irresponsible than they are now. If anything, the knowledge that all the rails are down should encourage some to get vaccinated. Third, there is a growing body of evidence that the vaccinated do not transmit the disease. The optimism of May, 2020 was as incredible as the optimism of May, 2021 is credible, and for one simple reason — we now have vaccines. They flip everything.

What about the political ramifications of “declaring victory”? Won’t both parties call Biden a flip-flopper?

Ah, I planned to get to that. The answer to that is the same as to much else in politics. It depends on how you spin it.

I have a queasy feeling that you’re going to spin spinning.

Indeed I am. Why must spinning always be pejorative? It doesn’t necessarily mean lying or distracting. It can also mean communicating more effectively by using clarifying rhetorical devices. I think Socrates was a spinner, in the best sense. If Biden likes my advice, he only needs to point out that a sensible person changes his thinking when the facts change: we didn’t have a vaccine then and now we do. Instead, Biden and his spokespeople have for months played the “they said black so we say white” game.

But won’t your plan in Biden’s mouth strike many progressives as a betrayal?

Some, for sure. But many more conservatives will have a positive reaction. “So, Joe now supports real freedom. I can go where I please, mingle as I please, live as I please. Free again!” They’re simpletons, but they’ll be simpletons in Joe’s camp. Declaring victory would actually be an act of political healing …. How’s that for spinning?

You’ve convinced me, Murray, at least for the next 15 minutes, or until the Murray Effect wears off.

C’mon, Ken, cut me some slack. Maybe it’ll get stronger.

A case of ambivalence

Words With Friends (WWF) is a Scrabble knockoff that can be played on a variety of computer platforms. I play mostly on my Macbook and infrequently on my iPhone. You can also play it on PCs, Android phones, and God knows what else. I can’t recall when I started playing — maybe 7 years ago? You could say that anyone who plays a game for 7 years must love it, and I do. But I also hate it.

It diverges from Scrabble in many important respects. For example, it’s undergirded by a different master dictionary, one that strives to offend no one. If you try to play profane words, you strike out. WWF knows nothing of their existence. The goody-two-shoes facade is a bow to Facebook, which offers WWF on its interface. Facebook wants only good, clean fun. (Disinformation and disparagement are OK, so long as you don’t cuss or badmouth someone’s mother.)

WWF knows it’s a buzzkill if your opponent is clobbering you, so it’s happy to offer a helping hand, just so long as you’ve got enough coins to pay for the favor. (You earn coins as you play, or you can buy them with real money.) When the board gets tight, you can pay to see where there are openings for your letters. In fact, on an iPhone you can pay to see the best place to play a word. If you’ve got a load of vowels or none at all, you can pay to throw the lot back into the letter bag, draw a fresh bunch, and not even forfeit your turn! Moreover, your opponent gets no notice of this ploy. For all they know, you’re playing a disciplined game. This nonsense makes skillful play almost beside the point, but what the hell — remove challenges from the game and everyone can play on merrily and enjoy the, uh … camaraderie.

Note: WWF won’t outright tell you what to play, but it might as well. There’s a website for lowdown skunks that lists all the words your tiles can make. Possibly one of the words will contain all your tiles and earn you 35 bonus points. But be advised: if you use this site, you will burn in hell! I’ve matched words with about a dozen players who are damned. How can I tell? When an opponent uses a word like GHERAO or INDULIN or OCTROI, I ask where they’ve seen the word before. The answers are always entertaining. One woman said she came by her amazing vocabulary from playing against her genius grandfather, and besides, she found it by reading the Scrabble dictionary.

WWF is more tolerant of short words than Scrabble is. For example, try playing EE, FI, IO, JA, JE, OO, OU, VU, or YI in Scrabble. You’ll be shot down, but WWF has no complaints about them. Actually, I think this is a good thing. Some of the highest scores you can get in either game come from playing a word alongside an already played word, making a number of 2-letter intersections. For instance, look at the word MOANING when it’s played alongside OBTUSE:

You’ve also played the words OM, BO, TA, UN, SI, and EN, and you get credit for each of them, adding 21 points to your score. OBTUSE MOANING (like crying over spilled milk?) is worth a total of 70 points! It takes a good player to see that such a play is possible. I don’t mind that some permissible 2-letter words, like EE and VU, are nonsense. I see them as “hooks” that I can use to my advantage. They add richness to the game.

Sadly, there’s a fly in the ointment. Zynga, the producer of WWF, doesn’t have a single master dictionary — it has at least three! On my iPhone, for example, JE is recognized as a word; on my Macbook, it is not. And when I ask Google if FU is a valid word in WWF, the answer is yes, yet FU isn’t valid on either my iPhone or Macbook.

Whatever platform allows FU is probably Zynga’s flagship platform. If you play on a different one, you’re playing at a disadvantage. The fact is, Zynga is simply a slouch when it comes to maintenance. Their motto must be: “Consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.”

WWF has become a haven for mediocre players and cheats. It might have been a challenging site for word game lovers, but Zynga took a pass, and WWF evolved into a hookup site, a place for giggles and flirting.

If your profile picture is in the pleasant-to-attractive range, you’re bound to get game requests from members of the opposite sex. Whenever I post a picture of myself that won’t frighten children, I’m hit on, not constantly but every so often. At first, I thought it was funny, but eventually my annoyance grew. These people would play a few words, see that I’m playing in earnest, and go days without putting a word down. Eventually, they’d resign or default after a 2-week silence, never to be heard from again.

These days, I use a standard line of chat that’s a guaranteed flirtation killer. Here’s a recent example:

Me: Hi Ava.

Ava: I’m not Ava. I gave WWF a fake name.

Me: Oh, so what’s your real name?

Ava: It’s really Peggy.

Me: Good. I’ll call you Edna.

Ava: Haha. Is your name really Ken?

Me: Yes.

Ava: Glad to meet you, Ken. Are you married? [The game killer.]

Me: Yes, happily.

Ava: That’s nice.

Me: I’m also old, frail, and hard to look at.

Ava: What do you do?

Me: Nothing. My wife and I live on our Social Security.

Disconnect. Game over.

The developers at Zynga are certain to continue their campaign against skillful play. That’s what they’re paid to do. WWF critics are asking, “What outrage is next?” One of them has sarcastically predicted a Request Letter button. Click it and you’d be prompted for a letter you want added to your rack. Imagine you’re holding UIZ and could cover a Triple Word Score square if only you had a Q. The Request Letter button is made for you! Without it, you’d have have to figure out how to manage a UIZ holding. That could be tough, especially late in the game.

I’m drawing a line in the sand. One more skill-leveling “feature” and I’m gone.

In defense of President Trump

Note: When the Mueller Report was given to Attorney General Barr, this post was three-quarters written. I have the same convictions now as I had then, so I’ve made no amendments. The only new thought I’ve had is that the interviewee in this post is probably correct in saying there is no chance that Trump will be impeached and convicted.

The Scratching Post brings you yet another scoop — an interview with President Trump’s secret lawyer. This guy is very protective of his identity. I talked with him and still don’t know who he is. Even Trump’s other lawyers, whose work he coordinates, don’t know who he is. He communicates with them only through written directives. At least I’ve had the opportunity to hear a voice, though probably a disguised one.

He called me two weeks ago and said he wanted to get the word out to the 33% of Americans — he calls them the “Glorious Third” — who will take their love of Trump to their graves. “They deserve to know,” he said. “President Trump will serve out his entire first term. 100%.”

Here’s the rest of our conversation. I’m identified as Me, and he’s identified as SL (Secret Lawyer).

Me: How can you be so sure? I mean, he’s sitting at the vortex of a cesspool.

SL: Ha! You want to think so. You and the other America Haters have a maniacal need to think so. I only ask that you be specific about the accusations you think will drive him from office. I’m prepared to show you why none of them is impeachable.

Me: Wow! Talk about an embarrassment of riches! OK. How about the never-built Trump Tower Moscow, or the “Moscow Project,” as Team Trump called it. Throughout the 2015-16 campaign, Trump lied: “I have nothing to do with Russia” and “I know nothing about Russia … I don’t deal there.” Of course not. Putin and his oligarchs are vile people, and any money-making connection would repel voters.

Trump actually signed a letter of intent to build the tower. He planned to sell the idea to voters gradually, after the election. But his plans were spoiled by the FBI’s investigation of collusion, aka conspiracy, with Russia to tilt the election. Do you deny any of this?

SL: No, it’s substantially true. What you’re ignoring is his certainty that America was on an adversarial course with Russia that would end in disaster. He deliberately took a more accommodating stance and steered a friendlier course, one that would lead away from belligerence and toward mutual economic benefit. Yes, he lied. He’ll say anything to avoid political trouble. Is it unusual for a politician to do that?

Me: It’s unusual for a politician to say the exact opposite of the truth repeatedly and vehemently. There are lies and there are Goebbels-style lies — Big Lies. And by the way, his vision is not of world peace but of getting richer still and joining the Malevolent Order of Strong Men.

SL: Do you really think a jury of Senators is going to take out its calipers and say, “Let’s see … here we have a Scale 7 Bill Clinton lie. This lie about Russian collusion is probably a Scale 9. Let’s agree to draw the line at 8 and find President Trump guilty on the conspiracy charge”?

As for him benefiting financially from the Moscow Project, can we say for sure it was his primary motive?  Why couldn’t he have reasoned thus: “I’m rich and famous — maybe enough to persuade people to think differently and create more harmony in the world. Of course, I can’t be convincing unless I personally have some skin in the project”?

Me: That’s staggeringly naive.

SL: Will 67 Senators think so? Not a chance.

Me: Well, let’s see if your whitewash extends to obstructing justice. Trump has done that so many times and in so many ways that my memory rebels at the task of offering a satisfactory list. But I’ll do my best …

In January of 2017, Trump asked James Comey for a pledge of loyalty. In effect, Trump asked, “Jim, if your Russia investigation were to find something incriminating, would you sweep it under the rug for my sake?” The following month, after telling Jeff Sessions to leave the room, he said to Comey, “I hope you can let this go,” meaning the investigation of Michael Flynn and his Russian ties. Then in March, Trump asked the then C.I.A. Director and the Director of National Security to persuade Comey to back off the Flynn investigation. Finally, he harassed Comey with phone calls, fired him, and explained that Comey had been pursuing “a made-up story.”

Trump followed up with a campaign of bullying the FBI, the subsequent Mueller investigation, and Rod Rosenstein, who supervised Mueller. With slurs of “phony,” “fake,” and “witch hunt,” and a drumbeat of “no collusion,” he hoped to excite the public into demanding an end to investigative work. Later, he tweeted about every arrest, indictment, and court appearance of his partners in crime, hoping again to steer the course of events by shaping public opinion. He was openly testifying on matters of justice, something forbidden to presidents.

SL: Consider the immensity of President Trump’s vision for America. He saw that ever since the Reagan Era, America had been shooting herself in the foot. Our relations with our so-called enemies, our immigration policy, our trade policy, our views on climate change, our tax structure, our assumptions about entitlements — they all had to change, in most cases drastically. But how to execute such a profound change of direction? It’s not possible without taking an active hand in shaping public opinion. Hence the rallies, the forceful use of Twitter, the character attacks, the denials and redirections, and the insistence that the electorate not let Democrat vengeance distract from his policy initiatives. It was a calculation and a courageous risk.

It also explains the president’s attacks on Big Media. Their job, like his, is to shape public opinion. And they were doing so in a way that abetted all the harm done in the past 30 years. Clearly, they are the president’s rivals, and their challenge had to be met. Another courageous risk.

Me: Good God! You’re saying that obstruction, a web of lies, and persistent attacks on a free press are justifiable if they defend a president’s vision for his country.

SL: I wouldn’t put it quite that way, but yes. The fact that he was constitutionally elected is a validation of his vision by the people. He asked, “Do you like my ideas?” and they said, “Yes.” And in 2016, the people went further and elected a House and Senate to support him. Everything President Trump has done was derived from democratic empowerment. To drive him from office would be a betrayal of everyone who voted for him.

Me: Rubbish. First of all, he lost the popular vote, so he had no mandate whatsoever. To try to stand 30 years of history on its head in those circumstances isn’t courageous; it’s dangerous and stupid. Second, public opinion isn’t immutable; it’s in constant flux. Last year, the Republicans lost the House. I think they’ll lose the Senate in 2020. You’re confusing an election with a license to commit mayhem.

SL: We’ll have to see which of us the Congress finds more convincing. And we’ll have to wait until 2020 for this headline: President Wins Re-election! On that day, you’ll have nothing more to say.

Me: I’d have more than ever to say … but let’s move on to another subject, that of secrecy. I’ve never heard of a meeting between an American president and a foreign head of state — not until Trump came along — that was conducted in complete secrecy. Take Trump’s meetings with Putin and Kim. All we know of them come from staged press conferences.

Our president speaks for us, yet we have no idea what he says or how his opposites respond. A democracy can’t function in the dark. Its lifeblood is uncensored, unvarnished information. The act or withholding information from a democracy is a criminal act, a killing act.

SL: You’re letting your imagination run wild. I can tell you exactly what Trump talks about with Putin. The same thing he talks about with Kim: economic development. You’ll recall that he showed Kim a film on how North Korea’s beachfronts could be turned into leisure meccas. We’d help them do it. Everyone would be richer and happier. It’s no different with Putin. The idea of a Trump Tower Moscow is certainly alive and well. No doubt there are other construction projects on the table. Cooperative building and new wealth: that’s the president’s recipe for peace.

Me: That’s a plausible guess, but still a guess. I wouldn’t bet the farm on it, nor would any sensible person. But let’s say your guess is correct and the sole subject of these meetings. Then Trump’s idea of foreign policy is to form a syndicate of bosses bound by mutual greed. They would maintain power by keeping their undersecretaries rich and running massive propaganda machines. It’s dystopian as hell.

SL: Is creating universal peace and prosperity dystopian? You have an odd way of thinking.

Me: It’s clear that our values are irreconcilable, but permit me to go down one more avenue and we’ll call it a wrap.

Do you think Congress should impeach and remove a president for being a swine?

SL: What? I don’t know what you mean? Clarify, please.

Me: Sure. A swine is a person who’s behavior is coarse, callous, contemptible, and disgusting. There are connotations of being ignorant and uncivilized.

SL: Well, if the House thinks swinishness is a high crime or misdemeanor, it’s impeachable; if they think it isn’t, it’s not. Of course, the article of impeachment would have to justify that slander with some hard facts. You can’t just name-call.

Me: Of course not. The article would say: President Donald Trump is an irredeemable swine. He was a swine when he spread xynophobia and ethnic hate to win the support of bigots; when he said there were “some very fine people” among the neo-Nazis and white supremacists in Charlottesville; when he permitted the Department of Homeland Security to separate children from their parents without making any provision for reuniting them; when he used the threat of deporting Dreamers as a bargaining chip for his border wall; when he shut down the government for 35 days to coerce support for his border wall; when he declared a national emergency to appease his political base; when he feigned sympathy for the victims of mass shootings without any intention of regulating the sale and possession of firearms; when he dismissed the findings of national security experts and deferred to the opinions of Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un; when he dismissed the findings of climate scientists; when he had affairs with women, told a middle-man to pay them for their silence, repeatedly lied about it, reimbursed the middle-man, asked him to lie to Melania Trump, and falsified financial disclosure statements to hide the reimbursements; when he ordered the withdrawal of troops from Syria, permitting Assad and Putin to create whatever havoc they liked; when he tried for months to kill Obamacare and lied about the coverage that other health plans would offer.

SL: Are you quite through? … Don’t you see it’s all a matter of opinion? There are tens of millions of Americans who think he’s a savior — quite the opposite of a swine. They say God arranged for his presidency. God throws a lot more weight than the Russians.

Me: You’re talking about the “Glorious Third.” I call them the “Deluded Third,” the Trump enablers. If their numbers grow, they will surely sink the country. Hell, they may sink the country anyway!

I think this is where we should conclude. You’ve presented your defense, and I have to say that it might succeed. That’s a terrible thought, but you’ve stuck it in my head. With that concession, I’ll say goodbye.

SL: If I’ve actually made you a realist, the time we’ve taken has been well spent. Goodbye.

My takeaway from that conversation is a dark one. One day — maybe in months, maybe in years — Trump will be a private citizen again, hopefully in prison. But on that day, sunlight and fresh air will not have returned. Minority presidents will come again, just so long as the Electoral College stands. The Senate will still be filled with ignorant reactionaries, just so long as both densely and sparsely populated states have the same number of senators. The House will not represent the people, just so long as gerrymandering is legal. And occasionally, evil people will occupy the White House with impunity, just so long as presidential misbehavior and impeachable behavior remain so loosely linked. Brothers and sisters, a shitload of reform lies in front of us.