Our Misplaced Priorities

 Just browsing the headlines today in the Washington Post:

Virginia Thomas urged White House chief to pursue unrelenting efforts to overturn the 2020 election, texts show

Race hovered over Ketanji Brown Jackson’s confirmation hearing

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton goes after puberty blockers

Ted Cruz held up ‘The End of Policing’ in a hearing. Sales soared.

It’s Pride Week in Austin schools. The Texas AG says that’s illegal.

Then we find stuff that's buried on page A6 somewhere, or not even making much news.

The number one killer of adults ages 18-45 is fentanyl poisoning. COVID-19 is indeed a public health crisis that in my opinion we're not done with yet. But fentanyl is killing people, companies are making money by illegally distributing this killer, and we seem to be impotent against that threat. 

Public education continues to be under attack from the segregationists, this time in the guise of all manner of culture war issues like puberty blockers and critical race theory and Pride Week. Meanwhile, our kids keep falling behind in math and science and reading and writing while the politicians argue over masks and whether little Johnny should wear a dress. And those kids will not be able to compete in the 21st-century global economy, leading the world in the 21st-century global energy transition.

And speaking of the 21st-century global energy transition, Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine has opened the eyes of the West to the perils of dependence on crude oil imported from bad actors like Russia, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Venezuela, and others. The price of gasoline won't matter when most vehicles on the road have electric motors instead of internal combustion engines. The price of propane won't matter when you heat your home and your water with a very efficient electric heat pump. The price of fuel won't matter when your forklifts and your golf carts have batteries instead of fuel tanks. 

But instead of tackling hard issues head on, in good faith, we spend our political energy fighting over bullshit.

Ukraine

 It's time for the United States and NATO to step up against Putin's aggression. It appears that the Russian army is bogged down in its attempt to control Kiev. The real front is along Ukraine's coast, from Mariupol to Odesa. 

I suggest sailing the USS Harry S. Truman carrier strike group from the Eastern Mediterranean through the Bosporus into the Black Sea, in a show of freedom of navigation. This would, in my opinion, provide a huge distraction to Russia's Black Sea fleet, in particular dissuading the Russians from conducting amphibious assault operations along the coast of Ukraine.

3/24/22 My friend Bill Everett posts this on his blog: The war in Ukraine is not only a struggle over autocracy versus democracy (and not simply over the value of national sovereignty). It is a struggle over the degree to which Christian churches will align themselves with nationalisms and imperial versions of “Christendom.”

Running List of Quotes

 Just a running list of quotes, this being a handy place to keep them.

"Our army manned the air, it rammed the ramparts, it took over the airports, it did everything it had to do, and at Fort McHenry, under the rockets' red glare, it had nothing but victory." - Donald Trump

The gospel doesn't need a coalition devoted to keeping the wrong people out. It needs a family of sinners, saved by grace, committed to tearing down the walls, throwing open the doors, and shouting, "Welcome! There's bread and wine. Come eat with us and talk." This isn't a kingdom for the worthy, it's a kingdom for the hungry." - Rachel Held Evans

"Beware of any Christian movement that demands that government be an instrument of God's wrath but never a source of God's mercy, generosity, or compassion." - Rev. Benjamin Cremer

“Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: “there must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.” - Frank Wilhoit

America's billionaires could give everybody in the country a $3,000 stimulus check and still be richer than they were before the pandemic. - Robert Reich

"Billionaire" isn't a qualification. It's the description of a person who is hoarding more resources than they could use in 100 lifetimes while other people are starving. It's the name for a human dragon sleeping on its pile of rubies and gold. 

Benjy Sarlin on Twitter: "These seats always get talked about like they're an objective Best Lawyer Award for whoever got the highest on the Lawyer test. There are 1000s of people who could do this job fine at any moment. WH's consider lots of factors starting with ideology, it's not like an MVP vote."

“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day. — 'Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.' — Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson

“If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you.” -  Lyndon B. Johnson

“I asked a man in prison once how he happened to be there and he said he had stolen a pair of shoes. I told him if he had stolen a railroad he would be a United States Senator.” - Mother Jones

the homeschooled college dropout Annapolis reject divorced-after-8-months driving-with-revoked-license gun-totin lawsuit millionaire cross-dressing insider trading  and my very own ex Congresscritter Madison Cawthorn

“Science isn’t Burger King; you can’t just ‘have it your way. Take notes, Madame Speaker. I’m about to define what a woman is for you. “X chromosomes, no tallywhacker. It’s so simple.”

"Christians are usually sincere and well-intentioned people until you get to any real issues of ego, control power, money, pleasure, and security. Then they tend to be pretty much like everybody else. We often given a bogus version of the Gospel, some fast-food religion, without any deep transformation of the self; and the result has been the spiritual disaster of "Christian" countries that tend to be as consumer-oriented, proud, warlike, racist, class conscious, and addictive as everybody else-and often more so, I'm afraid." - Robert Rohr

“Using a different colored pencil to shade the solution of each inequality in a system will make identifying the solution of the system of inequalities easier.” - Precalculus with Limits

@NobleSpencer on Twitter: "Fascinated by how the behavior of the people who took 3 pieces of pizza at the pizza party because they thought it would run out and the people who took 1 piece for the exact same reason is such a perfect encapsulation of American beliefs about community."

"When the establishment turned their guns on me, when the Uni-party coalesced to defeat an America First member very few people had my back. On a mission now to expose those who say and promise one thing yet legislate and work towards another, self-profiteering, globalist goal. The time for genteel politics as usual has come to an end. It’s time for the rise of the new right, it’s time for Dark MAGA to truly take command. We have an enemy to defeat, but we will never be able to defeat them until we defeat the cowardly and weak members of our own party. Their days are numbered. We are coming." - Madison Cawthorn on Instagram, 5/19/2022

"...if our liberty demands the occasional massacre, then conservatives ought to make that case." - Jamelle Bouie

"Take notes, Madam Speaker. I'm about to define what a woman is for you: XX chromosomes, no tallywhacker." - Madison Cawthorn

"It is by no means enough that an officer of the Navy should be a capable mariner. He must be that, of course, but also a great deal more. He should be as well a gentleman of liberal education, refined manners, punctilious courtesy, and the nicest sense of personal honor." - John Paul Jones

Cause everybody's got a pistol
Everybody got a .45
The philosophy seems to be
At least as near as I can see
When the other folks give up theirs, I'll give up mine.  - Gil Scott-Heron

“It’s a horrible, horrible situation, and we’re not going to fix it. Criminals are gonna be criminals. And my daddy fought in the second world war, fought in the Pacific, fought the Japanese, and he told me, he said, ‘Buddy,’ he said, ‘if somebody wants to take you out, and doesn’t mind losing their life, there’s not a whole heck of a lot you can do about it.’” - Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN)

"Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion." - Edmund Burke, speech to the electors of Bristol, November 3, 1774

"A man in the pursuit of deer, elk, and buffaloes might carry his rifle every day for forty years, and yet it would never be said of him that he had borne arms; much less could it be said that a private citizen bears arms because he has a dirk or pistol concealed under his clothes, or a spear in a cane." - Tennessee Supreme Court, 1840

“Though we cannot think alike, may we not love alike? May we not be of one heart, though we are not of one opinion? Without all doubt, we may. Herein all the children of God may unite, notwithstanding these smaller differences.” ― John Wesley

"The Gospel of Christ knows no religion but social; no holiness, but social holiness.” - John Wesley

“Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as ever you can.” ― John Wesley

“Bring me a worm that can comprehend a man, and then I will show you a man that can comprehend the Triune God.” ― John Wesley

Hawkeye: War isn’t Hell. War is war, and Hell is Hell. And of the two, war is a lot worse.
Father Mulcahy: How do you figure that, Hawkeye?
Hawkeye: Easy, Father. Tell me, who goes to Hell?
Father Mulcahy: Sinners, I believe.
Hawkeye: Exactly. There are no innocent bystanders in Hell. War is chock full of them — little kids, cripples, old ladies. In fact, except for some of the brass, almost everybody involved is an innocent bystander.

It is not possible to preach lawlessness and restrict it. - Atlanta Journal-Constitution editorial, October 13, 1958

“Here is this guy who comes out with his manifesto, holding the Confederate flag and had just hijacked everything that people thought of. We don’t have hateful people in South Carolina. There’s always the small minority who are always going to be there, but people saw it as service, sacrifice and heritage. But once he did that, there was no way to overcome it.” -- Nikki Haley, four years after the massacre at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston.

“In honor of our great Veterans on Veteran’s Day we pledge to you that we will root out the Communists, Marxists, Racists, and Radical Left Thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our Country, lie, steal, and cheat on Elections, and will do anything possible, whether legally or illegally, to destroy America, and the American Dream…. Despite the hatred and anger of the Radical Left Lunatics who want to destroy our country, we will MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN.” - Donald Trump

“Today I am taking sides. I am taking the side of Peace. Peace, which I will not abandon even when its voice is drowned out by hurt and hatred, bitterness of loss, cries of right and wrong. I am taking the side of Peace whose name has barely been spoken in this winnerless war. I will hold Peace in my arms, and share my body’s breath, lest Peace be added to the body count. I will call for de-escalation even when I want nothing more than to get even. I will do it in the service of Peace. I will make a clearing in the overgrown thicket of cause and effect so Peace can breathe for a minute and reach for the sky. I will do what I must to save the life of Peace. I will breathe through tears. I will swallow pride. I will bite my tongue. I will offer love without testing for deservingness. So don’t ask me to wave a flag today unless it is the flag of Peace. Don’t ask me to sing an anthem unless it is a song of Peace. Don’t ask me to take sides unless it is the side of Peace." Rabbi Irwin Keller, Oct. 17, 2023

Haywood County Schools Facilities - LOCAL ISSUE

 Local education facilities have been in the news in recent months here in Haywood County. First, there is the construction underway for the new Shining Rock Classical Academy near Lake Junaluska, which will cost in the neighborhood of $15 million. And there is the recent report of the Board of Education discussing facilities needs for our public schools. 

The public school effort kicked off a few weeks ago with a brainstorming session by the Board of Education. Among the things reported on the wish list:

- A shared vocational high school, where students would be transported from their traditional schools for part of the day. This would be a new facility.

- Swapping the current middle school and high school campuses. The current Waynesville Middle School campus would house Tuscola HS, the current Tuscola campus would house Waynesville Middle School, the current Canton Middle School campus would house Pisgah HS, and the current Pisgah HS campus would house Canton Middle School.

- Artificial turf for the football field at Bethel Middle School.

- Reopening Central Elementary School in Waynesville.

- Enlargement of weight training rooms at Pisgah and Tuscola High Schools.

The current public school facilities are woefully aged. The newest elementary school, Bethel Elementary, is nearing 20 years old. The next newest, Clyde Elementary and Hazelwood Elementary, are 25 years old plus. Tuscola and Pisgah High Schools were occupied as new facilities in the mid-1960s. Canton and Waynesville Middle School campuses have buildings that are nearly a century old, and Bethel Middle houses fewer than 300 students.

My thoughts:

1. It is time to consolidate the high schools into one comprehensive high school in a brand new facility. Get over the cross-county rivalry and come together. That will probably cost $75-100 million. That would include the vocational/tech/STEM components, in one place.

2. Move the middle schools to the current high school campuses, and consolidate Bethel Middle into the other two schools. 

3. Build a new elementary school to replace the current Junaluska Elementary School, and make it large enough to accommodate students who might otherwise go to the reopened Central facility.

4. Tear down the current Canton Middle and Waynesville Middle campuses, and sell the properties for development.

Two Weeks In - the Biden Presidency

Two weeks into the presidency of Joe Biden, and already the nation is in a discernable cooling off period after four years of daily pot-stirring by the former tweeter-in-chief. There has been a collective exhale with a return to normalcy.

- Daily press briefings by White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki hearken to the fictional West Wing's C.J. Cregge, with honest answers, wit, and humor.

- Biden's nominees for high office, many of them already sworn in now, are a collection of experienced experts in their fields.

- In his White House meeting with ten US Senators this week concerning the COVID-19 relief package, President Biden participated cordially, and respectfully stood his ground on the size and scope of the bill.

- In a sweeping number of executive actions, President Biden has attempted to restore humanity to the power of government to affect the lives of the vulnerable.

After 10 p.m. Eastern time last night, President and Dr. Biden visited the Capitol to pay respects to Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick, killed in the line of duty during the January 6 attempted coup d'état. There were no speeches, no exchanges with reporters, no tweets. Just the President and First Lady, saluting and giving the signs of their own Roman Catholic faith, in respect and humility.

Refreshing, indeed.

Political Division in America

My political leanings are no secret, so no one who knows me should be surprised that I am excited to see noon on Wednesday, January 20.With that said, this inauguration will be like no other in American history, with perhaps the notable exception of Abraham Lincoln's inauguration on March 4, 1861. From the Wikipedia entry for Lincoln's first inauguration: 

On Inauguration Day, Lincoln's procession to the Capitol was surrounded by heavily armed cavalry and infantry, providing an unprecedented amount of protection for the President-elect as the nation stood on the brink of war. During the 16 weeks between Lincoln's victory in the 1860 presidential election and Inauguration Day, seven slave states had declared their secession from the Union and formed the Confederate States of America.

This week, some 25,000 National Guard soldiers, plus no doubt the entire alphabet soup of Federal and District of Columbia law enforcement, will be deployed to safeguard the Capitol and the new President and Vice President.

Those who have studied beyond the 11th-grade high school American History class full of platitudes and thinly-veiled jingoism understand that political division has characterized our public discourse from the very beginning. We lump our Founding Fathers and those we call the Framers of the Constitution into a monolithic group, oblivious to the deep ideological differences and personal rivalries that drove many of the decisions they made. Many considered Patrick Henry ("give me liberty or give me death") a kook, Thomas Paine (author of Common Sense) a whacko, and Alexander Hamilton devoid of principle other than advancing his own ambition. The personal animosity between Thomas Jefferson and John Adams is well documented, as is their eventual reconciliation. But the fact that George Washington himself was not universally idolized among those early politicians is not as widely known.

In his excellent biography of Benjamin Rush, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, historian Stephen Fried recounts a letter from former President John Adams to Dr. Rush, his old friend from the heady days of Philadelphia in 1776. Adams writes in February, 1805:

Is virtue the principle of our Government? Is honor? Or is ambition and avarice adulation, baseness, covetousness, the thirst of riches, indifference concerning the means of rising and enriching, the contempt of principle, the Spirit of party and of faction, the motive and the principle that governs? These are Serious and dangerous questions; but serious men ought not to flinch from dangerous questions.

Two centuries later, the questions raised by Adams deserve our attention again, as they do in every generation. 

Rethinking Corporatism

The reaction of internet platforms like Twitter and Facebook to the events of January 6, 2021 has drawn lots of pushback from the right wing. Many have voiced concern over the First Amendment implications. But others have a more nuanced criticism that acknowledges that the companies' content-based bans don't have a First Amendment problem.

Pundit Charles Lane of the Washington Post lays out the alternate case in his January 11 opinion piece. He writes: "Private companies or not, Facebook, Twitter and the rest face exactly the same problems a governmental agency would face in establishing consistent, principled — and universally accepted — criteria for what to allow and what to forbid." Mr. Lane basically says that because we have allowed these companies to become so big and so important, we must apply the free speech standards to them as if they were the government.

Except that Mr. Lane and others want to have their cake and eat it, too. They want the government to exempt corporations and other business entities from civil rights laws, as in the case of the bakery's free exercise of religion in refusing to bake a cake for a gay wedding. They applaud the craft supplies retail chain's free exercise of religion in denying its employees health care coverage that is mandated by the government. And they profit greatly when corporations and other business entities exercise their free speech rights through huge campaign contributions.

But what about the individual's right to speak? Well, first, the free speech right doesn't come with a guarantee of a platform. Just as there are other bakeries, there are other internet platforms for communication or "social media." That said, laws that apply to public accommodations (like bakeries) guarantee individuals in specific protected classes access to those public accommodations. Insurrectionists, seditionists, and inciters of violence are not protected classes, and that criminal speech is not protected speech.

When we endow the corporation with freedom of speech (long before Citizens United), or the free exercise of religion (Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. or Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd.), or the power to confiscate property (Kelo, or look up compulsory pooling) we strengthened the bond between the economic power of commerce and the police power of the state, against the rights of natural persons. When these corporate behemoths become so big as to stifle competition, maybe it's time for some Teddy Roosevelt-style trust busting, IMHO.