Blogpost # M. 315 ON “DISPLACEMENT”

We have identified two distinct contextual uses of the noun “displacement” ubiquitously employed by xenophobes, viz., racial and cultural. The Nation and the World are best familiar with the noun concerning the widespread and biased ideation that a perceived inferior or odious species will invade and overrun a superior and singularly appropriate race of inhabitants. This species of xenophobia is the toxic mantra of all Nationalist White Militias and, as well, the neurotic ideation of many reductive thinking, grievance-driven individuals.

It is this irrational bias that has universally resulted in the cruel repression of those members of humanity who, haplessly, were born with a skin color other than white, or perhaps into an ethnos ascribing to spiritual beliefs other than Christianity. Man’s execrable history of the resultant acts of tragic inhumanity has evinced itself in wars, religious Inquisition, and a shameful plenitude of misery and human tragedy.

World history has, in notable part, been written by the universal pandemic of toxic prejudice, empirically metastasized by the perpetuation of vile, unscientific, and mythical delusions of racial and ethnic superiority. The best-known, egregious examples in history include the Spanish Inquisition, the Hundred Years’ War, the pillaging and rape of South America by rapacious Spain and Portugal, the American Civil War, the Native American Removal Act (“The Trail of Tears”) the American CivilWar, the inhuman tragedy of American, negro chattel slavery, and the monstrous tragedy of thde Holocaust.

The outlandish contextual delusion of the xenophobic racial bigot is that the iconic American will be tragically replaced by non-Christian (heathen) members of an empirically inferior race. It is demonstrably ironic and mentally dissonant to note that the apocryphal Jesus, as theologically portrayed in the New Testament, is empirically and undeniably a dark-skinned, Palestinian Jew,

The attenuation and ideal elimination of the un-American and dehumanizing institution of racial prejudice, through constitutional provision, and Congressional legislation ensuring the moral enforcement of equal rights, notably voting, are accepted expressions of the avowed American tradition of equality; but to date, have not been sufficiently successful in the effectuation of such aspirational justice.

Our readings inform us of a somewhat divergent. xenophobic fear of “replacement,” analogously biased, albeit less profoundly anthropological. It is the neurotic fear of what we have chosen to label “cultural” replacement. This ethnocrastic-cultural ideation finds itself viable among certain citizens of historically established ancient cultures, such as France and England to the effect that immigrants from foreign cultures would pollute the established culture of such a nation, possessing such a valuable and singular culture, and disasterously incorporate their less desirable folkways. in replacement of the invaluable cultural ethos of the country to which they immigrated. We would term such extreme national prejudice “cultural ethnocentricism,” or, dynamically,” as cultural replacement.” By significant example, Albert Camus, the internationally celebrated French novelist and thinker, was a proponent of such cultural hybris.

The first category of delusional “replacement’ is, in reality,” a paranoid excuse for plain and simple racial hatred. The second, cultural replacement,” would have no rational context in a Nation of immigrants, espousing, “E Pluribus Unum.”

-p.

Blogpost # M. 314 ” WINNING THE GOLD”

The existential damage empirically inflicted upon our Democratic Republic by Donald Trump’s unprincipled and dystopian policies, having its etiology in his singular egoistic and neurotic perception as a “winner” or, heaven forbid, a “loser,” has tragically accomplished the dirty work of its foreign enemies. His all- pervasive divisive weakening of the American Nation, morally, economically, and sociologically (viz., demeaning education and intellectual advancement, promotion of falsity and ‘alternate facts,” tanking the Nation’s stable economy, demeaning national military service (“suckers and losers,”) attack on the Nation’s media, tactical appointment of inappropriately, incapable, albeit loyal, Cabinet Ministers, the creation of a privately loyal legal authority, as opposed to a nationally dedicated, federal legal apparatus, his irresponsibled dessimating of the Federal Civil Service and societal protective regulations, contrasted with his adamant support of polluting, big industry, his autocratic prosecution of free speech as well as citizen indivdual liberty and equality, his executive action, based upon his perverse ideation that he is above the strictures of the law, his lack of societal moral compass and plain human decency, his intimate friendship with Amedrica’s enemies and most recently his un-American, Gestapo-like war against Hispanic immigrants, inclusive of their arbitrary arrest, imprisonment and banishmednt to foreign torture prisons, without a glimmer of due process

Such egregious acts, weakening the Nation’s spirit and resolve, could never be as empirically successful if imposed by a foreign enemy, regardless of the efficiency of its insidious program of espionage.

The contextual travesty of the Trump Presidency is not the only instance of a flawed Presidency. Andrew Johnson’s shameful, forced removal of the Cherokee Nation and other indigenous tribes from their fertile ancestral home in the Southeast, to the dusty, infertile, and windy “proper Indian Territory” of Oklahoma (Indian Removal Act of 1830) was analogous to Trump’s authorization of a black-hooded assault, analogous to the nightmarish Nazi “Kristallnacht,” but arguably less sxuc dessfully genecidal. Andrew Johnson’s impeachment for illegal political appointment is, in general, factually similar to Trump’s shamefully egregious self-interested cabinet appointments of completely incapable and systemically immoral, but loyal, officials, judges, and Cabinet Officers. Nixon’s derogation of the Nation’s criminal law (“Watergate) was unprincipled and arrogant, as is Trump’s universal disrespect for the Constitution and the law of the land; however, the latter’s universality of miscreance exceeds the former in its ubiquitous universality and sustained impact.

We have witnessed the historical event in which Donald J. Trump has, at long last, indisputably, established himself as a “winner,” albeit of the perverse competition for the gold medal for human depravity.

“Mazel Tov!”

-p.

Blogpost # M. 313 NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC

The dynamics of seasonal migration of many of the Planet’s natural inhabitants are eternal, predictable, and constitute an empirically accepted phenomenon. The filmed sight of wildebeasts kicking up clouds of dust on their ardous way to seasonal sources of water, spectacular undulating waves of blackbirds on their way to southern climes, hump-back whales traveling vast distances to find a mate, reindeer (caribou) migrating up to 3,000 miles, sockeye salmon swimming more than 1,000 miles, and an additional plethora of the planet’s natural species, predictably moving to distant climes for survival and reproduction are a “given” in the eternal planetary geometry,

By contrast, the immigration of the human species for purposes of survival or the prospect of an acceptable life is, beset with barriers imposed by plain bigotry or selfishness, empirically attributable to right-wing (MAGA) adherents of Donald Trump. The existential migration of the birds and beasts is accepted, even idolized, yet the immigration of desperate humanity, by contrast, is vehemently opposed by reductionist bigotry and perverse politics; dissonantly, in a Nation populated by former immigrants and their progeny. Like other phobias, xenophobia is not rational or, if minimally rational, amounts to selfish and immoral prejudice

Yet it is undeniable that a sizeable population of Americans, notably, inclusive of the cult-like lemmings who accord religious homage to Donald Trump, appear to be guiltless, in fact, pseudo-patriotic in their reductive lack of humanistic empathy. The welcoming tradition, admirably articulated by the totrch-holding Statue of Liberty prominently standing in New York’s East River, welcoming Emily Lazarus” huddled and frightened masses,” has been debased in a paranoidal scheme to avoid the replacement of acceptable American citizens with foreign terrorists and despicable national rejects; in fact, the contextually perverse parties are the xenophobic miscreants and not the oppressed immigrant, the latter, merely seeking an acceptable life for themdselves and therir families.

The inhuman treatment of needy and vulnerable refugees, desperately seeking the Nation’s traditional offer of compassionate refuge traditionally accorded by our Nation has, with the authorization, financial support, and the encouragement of the extant and excreble President, Donald J. Trump, been denigrated and unjustly criminalized. The Nation’s unprincipled Chief Executive has authorized and directed a dystopian, masked, Gestapo-like organization to compliantly torture, imprison, and banish to foreign torture prisons, “illegal” immigrants (officially identified by their tan -colored skin and Hispanic vocabulary) without just cause or due process. A reign of terror, amounting to a modern, Nazi-style “Kristallnacht, has been nightmarishly reprised in our Democratic Republic.

Migrating animals and birds are solicitously afforded the appropriate sympathetic protection of groups such as the ASPCA, the Wildlife Fund, and the Sierra Club. By shameful contrast, needy and vulnerable human migrants have few such dedicated champions.

-p.

Blogpost # M.312 “PLAYERS”

Based on the confirming authority of past experience, we find ourselves in accord with William Shakespeare’s eternally famous observation, “The world’s a stage and all the men and women merely players.” The statement, albeit phrased in theatrical vernacular, is empirically descriptive of man’s ubiquitous “roles” in society; the prescribed roles of early childhood, teenager, young adult, and parent have their respective nuanced costume and predictable theatrical dynamics.

Our thematic concern, nevertheless, relates to the extent and quality of the “inner life” of the ubiquitous role-playing citizen, i.e., the extent to which he achieves a sense of individualized identity, personal self-image, and responsible ethics. The utilitarian function of a skilled plumber, by illustrative example, might ideally be accompanied by a personal sense of contemplative identity and mature perspective. Analogous to the pragmatic need of society for ubiquitous utilitarian skills, the individual’s attainment of a fulfilling life (and, pragmatically, the establishment of a valuable citizen) requires the positive development of a stable and referable self-image and a mature, contemplative perception.

Thematically, we have, of late, sadly been obliged to observe society’s general reluctance to strive for the personal attainment of understanding and contemplative depth, by eschewing the benefits ol advancement through, among other things,, the rewarding activities of reading, intellectual discourse, and personal contemplation, in favor of faciile and impersonal digital interaction, the search for a convenient route to financial success, supplementing the populist desire for readily available, ephemeral entertainment. The classical aspiration for intellectual growth and metaphysical understanding has regrettably declined in favor of short-sighted materialistic goals and stereotypically evinced symbols of success. Many students attend institutions of higher education as the singularly required route to good jobs, rather than the acquisition of knowledge and personal growth.

Academic professionals advise that many of today’s college-level students cannot meet the most basic requirements of higher education, viz., do not read books, cannot write effective essays (some currently hobble their educational growth by falsely employing the convenience of A-I writing), and in derogation of the appropriately contextual challenge of intellectual curiosity, seem driven by the pragmatic desire for high grades, beneficial on employment-seeking resumes.

We are deeply concerned about the reported nature of contemporary students in higher education, no longer motivated by the laudable desire to advance their personal store of knowledge and intellectual understanding.

Our bitterness is painfully exacerbated by our recollection of our long-past college attendance (accompanied by the attendance of several other first-generation Americans) at Brooklyn College, who, universally, demonstrated a hunger for enlightenment and understanding, and who relevantly worshipped their knowledgeable professors and appreciatively imbibed their imparted enlightenment. Sandwiches brought from home, to be eaten at the college lunchroom, were invariably accompanied by serious debate about Kant, Marx, Engels, and the political and social issues of the day, such as “McCarthyism.” “Academic dilemmas were hotly debated, and exotic theories were propounded and excitedly disputed over stereotypical tuna and tomato on rye. Lunch was an extension of academic activity as well as an enjoyable social experience.

We were enabled to beneficially replicate the ardent desire for the accessibility of advancement and understanding in our days of higher education, and notably, in the progress of our future lives. This dedicated and perpetual inclination has reliably continued to enrich our lives to the beneficial extent of mitigating the natural experience of disability and joint pains attributable to Man’s late period of life, notably rendering the profound pleasure of life’s potential for rich and desirably rewarding experience

By impactful contrast, the failure to avail oneself of the challenges and richness of an inner contemplative life is empirically productive of a bland, disappointing life experience; the motivation for reductive and thoughtless rebellion that ultimately results in disappointment, grievance, and the rebellious inclination to vote for a morally perverse and societally atavistic candidate such as Donald J. Trump.

-p.

Blogpost # M. 311 “PLAYING” THE FRANCHISE (pliny blog editorial)

One man, one vote, is the definitional dynamic at the very heart of democracy. The constitutional assurance of the voting franchise mandates that every vote shall be counted and have an equal impact. Accordingly, the Constitution mandates the taking of an official population count (“Census) every 10 years; the impactful result is determinative of the democratic allocation of seats in the House of Representatives, reflective of the population of the voting districts.

The unconstitutional tactic of manipulating or rearranging map-defined voting districts, outside the mandated census to favor a political party, is a clear perversion of the democratic process, known as “gerrymandering.” Our readings advise that such unconstitutional manipulation involves “cracking,” or deleting the voting impact of an opposing party, or “packing,” the increase of such voting power. The perverse result is an empirical dystopia in which the politicians pick their voters, rather than voters picking their politicians.

Recent media reports indicate that in response to an intended Texas Republican Party tactic to untimely and percersely gerrymander the State’s voting map, wrongfully gaining five additional Members of Congress, have taken the irregular, but procedurally effective tactic of leaving the State, thereby preventing the mandated Legislative caucus, as a roadblock to the passage of such an errant Bill.

We have experienced mixed feelings, relative to public assertions by certain State Governors, like New York and California, of an anticipated defensive response, amounting to the replication of the Texas legislature’s unconstitutional gerrymandering; consistent with the aggressive populist aphorism, “fight fire with fire.” Such tactical political response, while emotionally understandable, is inarguably dissonant with the avowed principles of the Democratic party, to uphold the tenets of the U.S. Constitution, albeit in retaliation for, and defense of, the errant tactics of the Trump Administration. Even in the event of tactical success, the victory would be pyrrhic, resulting in yet another unprincipled assault upon the presently beleaguered Constitution.

It may be necessary and would certainly be historically preferable to undertake the arduous legal procedure of amending the Constitution for the effectuation of the warranted needed rather than being complicit with the MAGA-Trump miscreants in their unprincipled disregard of our Nation’s existential Constitution.

-p.

Blogpost # M. 310 BOOTLEG TERMINOlOGY

The dystopian state of our body politic is a cogent reminder of the existential threat posed to the democratic Republic by a significant inventory of inadequately educated, reductionist citizens. In a Nation whose aspirational mantra is “Government by and for the People,” the intrinsic characterological quality of its constituent citizens is tautologically vital to such avowed resolve.

The extant Presidential Administration attained the power and celebrity of the historic Oval Office, in large part, by demagogic, “Snake Oil “promises to the perpetually aggrieved populist and by its perpetration of distorted, highjacked terminology, readily incorporated into the sophomoirical vocabulary of the poorly informed American underbelly. It may be useful to compare and contrast the propagandistically accepted context with the legitimately intended lexicon. Three illustratively prominent distortions are: the terms “Socialism,” “Woke,” and “DEI.”

“Socialism” is not an epithet, despite its highjacked use, but, instead, a political-economic theory relative to government ownership and control of commerce and industry. There has, to our knowledge, not been any prominent American candidate for high office in the Nation who supports, or entertains that theory. Nevertheless, at the suggestion of a compassionate or empathetic governmental program, right-wing, MAGA-oriented politicians attempt to derogate them by employing the highjacked epithet, socialist.” Such responsible government programs include social security, disability, health insurance, pregnancy leave, financial support of food programs for poor schoolchildren, and general aid to the needy, which are derogated by the right-wing as being “socialist” and ipso facto objectionable.

Two additional cogent considerations might be considered relative to this bugbear. The first is that such castigated, humanistic relief is needed, availed of, and valued by all recipients, including its detractors. Another is that such programs of compassionate capitalism have empirically discouraged other exotic systems, including socialism and communism, from taking root in our Democratic Republic.

“Woke” and DEI are concepts that have a realistic and valid context in the irrefutably empirical observation that those with other than “white” colored skin observably experience more difficult in gaining admission to institutions, golf clubs, obtaining financing, and employment (viz,. “white privilege.”) The moral effort of DEI to rectify this empirically unAmerican injustice is an appropriately American aspiration for equality, in sync with the avowsed American trasditiion. The hijacking of such terminology by right-wing desecrators of the aspiration for universal National equality is shamefully unjust and a desecration of American tradition.

-p,

Blogpost # 309 HATE AND CHUZPAH*

The well-worn expression, ” My mind’s made up, don’t confuse me with facts,” is an expression of sardonic critique and, unfortunately, an apt description of the dynamic of governance of the systemically ignorant Trump and his entire dystopian Administration. The deplorable element of irrational bias, tactically encouraged by Trump’s atavistic promulgation of non-factual ideations rather than confirmable facts, provided the key to his surprising election victory. Notably, it was the large horde of the Nation’s compliant underbelly of grievance-ridden, populist reductionists, in large part, that was existential to his (ill-fated) election.

Trump’s dystopian and undemocratic policies encouraged and signified his role as the avatar of shamelessness. atavistic, un-American prejudice and consummate immorality, which derivatively and ubiquitously seem to presently rule the day. Notably, it was from the influential members of such an ignorant horde of the Nation’s underbelly of populist reductionists that, elected Donald J. Trump was elected to the Oval Office, and from which his self-serving selection of atrocious political lieutenants was made.

Dynamically catalyzed by the devolution of Trump’s dystopian, morally bankrupt rule as the Nation’s Chief Executive, America’s underbelly of systemic bigots and anti-democratic-leaning populists, resultingly, felt ratified and encouraged. The American tradition of liberty and equality was sadly transmogrified into false and conspiratorial ideations of imminent danger, presumably emanating from the Nation’s diverse category of minority racial and religious populations. The shameless existence of atavistic prejudice publicly raised its fearsome head by the paranoid conspiracy cult of the MAGA sycophants.

It has been our confident belief, consistent with he primacy of the empirical theory of John Locke and a host of venerated philosophers, including Erasmus, Descartes, Newton, Bacon, Voltaire, and, none other than the classically revered Socrates, that man’s sole source of knowledge is derived from his life’s (learning) experience. As a corollary to such understanding, we have chosen to believe that the anti-humanistic, regressive element of prejudice, or bias, is taught or is the product of variable environmental experience and, accordingly, it is pragmatically feasible, with appropriate dedication, to be assuaged, or even eliminated.

The metaphysical etiology of the disease of bigotry, in our view, can be beneficially recognized and employed for such a purpose. As cogent illustration, we cite two markedly different, but thematically representative, categories of our theory concerning the etiology of the diverse plethora of shameful and invideous categories of deplorable bigotry: (1) race prejudice and (2) literary censorship.,

(1) [Racial prejudice]: We would declare that the dynamic definition of racial prejudice encompasses the negative emotional reaction to members of a group and the associated acceptance of communication of negative racial stereotypes against them; specifuically, the delusional belief that there is a link between physical traits and those of personality and other features that are implicitly (and therefore, presumably) deemed personally or societally objectionable.

In our almost nine decades of empirical experience, we have observed that in environments where daily, routine interaction between diverse members of society is a salubrious preventative of racial discomfort and, worse, hatred. In our ubiquitous experiences of maturing, higher education, military, and simply mundane daily experiences, we have observed anecdotal expressions of overt and subtle racial prejudice. Living in cosmopolitan New York City, an amalgam of cultural, ethnic, and, contextually, racial diversity, we accordingly find it unnatural to harbor feelings of hatred or discrimination, relative to the subject of diverse skin color or religious affiliation. This experiential inability may vary in degree in the case of small, rural white enclaves.

It is our thematic proposal that the existence of discomfort or even fear and hatred of diversely appearing human beings is the proximate resultant of the scarcity of mutual association and the result of the lack of normalizing interactive communication; the consequence of which has been negative ideation and feelings of peresonal insecurity.

It is our view that were members of society to beneficially participate in neighborly interaction with others of ubiquitous color and ethnic culture, the age-old problem of racial paranoia would, by such enlightening experience, gradually morph into a long-awaited and just extinction.

(2) [Book Censorship]:

In sync with our proposition that the ubiquitous phenomenon of bigotry has a common etiology, the consequence of the experience of the bearer of that disgraceful trait, it is our view that those who hubristically arrogate to themselves the delusion that certain books are harmful to societal mores are the perverse products of empirical ignorance. Aside from our disgust relative to the plai arrogance expressed by such self-appointed arrogantly delusional undertaking, it is our view that such presumed arbiters of literary acceptability could not rationally be systematic, participatory consumers of literature and, as a practical matter, are not rationally or suitably equipped to be an arbiter of published literature.
Literature should never be properly beholden to the subjective evaluation of others, most especially, those who are less than dedicated readers, but nevertheless, arrogate to themselves the unconstitutional and neurotically arrogant role of supervisor of literature or the beneficent societal, “moral protector” of the free exercise of the constitutionally guaranteed freedom of expression.

-p.

Blogpost # M. 308 THE NIGHTMARE

A “nightmare” is a frightening or disturbing dream that often awakens the sleeper, causing feelings of fear, terror, or anxiety. Unlike bad dreams, nightmares are typically vivid and memorable, with strong emotions that can linger after waking. The Nation’s present nightmare is of such bizarre intensity as would exceed the most “eldritch” tales of H.P. Lovecraft or the horror stories of Stephen King.

The contextual nightmare scenario is so dystopian and bizarrely Kafka-esque as to engender cogent feelings of terror, disbelief, and the disquieting aesthetics of viewing highway “roadkill.”

In said thematic nightmare, we painfully observe the singularly frightening elements of (a) an orange-hair colored monster, (b) his selected cabal of disolute and degenerate assistants, (c) a hapless cult of lemming-like adherents, and (d ) the support of a dystopian, masked, violent horde of Gestapo-like police.

The hapless victims of the orange monster, in the nightmare scenario, are people (families or parts thereof), who offend against the Orange Ogre’s hatred for people, sufficiently objectionable and profoundly guilty of public appearance with tan colored skin; most especially, those egregiously guilty of intentionally and wantonly speaking Spanish in English-speaking America.

The hungry monster-protagonist possesses an insatiable appetite for destructively devouring institutions of higher education, governmental programs of empathic relief, such as Medicaid, Medicare, ubiquitous saluary health regulations, inclusive of those relevant to the ever increasing, potential armageddon of “Global Warming,” the institutional media and National Public Radio and Public Television, programs designed to assure equality of opportunity such as, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, The Americans With Disabilities Act (1990), “Affirmative Action,” “DEI,” and the essential relevance of the U.S, Constitution.

The monstrous protagonist of our appalling nightmare is bent on destroying the normative and existentially societally exigent concepts, including “truth” and verifiable fact, empathy, and human enlightenment, intellectual progress, indeed, the ubiquitously basic and civilizational moral compass. His all-consuming, reductionistic egoistical self-regard completely dominates the entire available space in his insular, reductive bubble, leaving little facility for the mature regard for anything or anyone au dehors such singularly reductive and neurotic mentality. Such an outre perspective dynamically promotes a lifestyle and a resultant governing style, patently in dissonance with basic humanism and limited hubristic self-regard.

The tragic sequelae of such an aberrant persona make such an orange monster unfit and emotionally incapable of sanely steering the ship of state and filling the role of an appropriate leader of the Nation and the Free World. The American Nation must awaken from this egregiously terrifying nightmare and effect a surgical excision of its nightmarish, cancerous invasion of our traditionally venerated, capable, and humanistic governance.

-p.

Blogpost # M.307 BIRTHDAYS, A REAPPRAISAL

As Melissa Swine was exiting the Mall Cosmetics Store, she was greeted with a celebratory, “Happy Birthday” by her neighbor and close friend, Sara Epicac, who was shopping in the nearby shoe emporium. Melissa smiled in gratitude and responded: ” Oh, I don’t bother with birthdays; not since I reached 48.” The suggestion, implicit in the social response, was that growing older is a negative enterprise, to be disregarded and bravely endured. Analogous responses, ubiquitously articulated in age-similar social interactions, reveal an erroneous and jejune appraisal of the natural phenomenon of aging. The latter, in our perception, while a boon to the cosmetics industry, nevertheless, cogently and appropriately calls for appropriate and thoughtful reappraisal. It might be useful to discuss the subject of age in the ubiquitous context of “Birthdays.”

Birthday celebrations for the young are happy and loving events; family and friends, birthday cake, and presents are the traditional phenomena designed to make the child happy and personally assured of love and ratified personal identity. In our view, such events, in reality, are fundamental expressions of parental gratitude for the child, despite the overt appearance of child-oriented observances.

The perennial observance of Birthday parties, aside from the traditional cake and presents, is, in essence and metaphysical reality, a celebration of the continued existence of the relevant individual and an overt reaffirmation of the secure recognition of place in the family. As the child matures, the succeeding birthday celebrations reaffirm the continued existence of the celebrated individual in the loving familial entity and, notably, his personally evolving maturity. As to the latter, each succeeding birthday assures the maturing individual of his continuing aspirational progress to maturity and independence.

The introductory, fictional conversation between “Melissa” and “Sara” at the outset of this writing is intended to portray what we eternally perceive as a ubiquitous lack of understanding of life and the absence of maturity of perception of empirical reality.

Admittedly, growing old is ineluctably inclusive of the loss of physical prowess and observable changes from youthful to older appearance; nevertheless, growing older is not a toxic disease. The loss of natural prowess is valuably compensated, for contemplative individuals, by a singular increase in mature perspective and understanding of life and the world. Wisdom and experience bring empirical understanding to past dilemmas and insecurities

Age, for those who have led contemplative lives, is understood and revered analogously to the valued maturity of fine wine. With increasing age and experience comes the positive understanding of others and, notably, of oneself. Gray hair and changes in skin texture may be accompanying traits to an inner sense of mature perspective and wisdom, the invaluable concomitant of a “fulfilled life.”

In a few quick months, we will attain the age of 89, for which we are celebratively happy and grateful.

-p.

Blogpost # M. 306 “BUY”-PARTISAN POLITY

Our venerable 18th-century Founders, while prescient, could not have anticipated the current infestation of termite-like damage to the underpinnings of the edifice of their creatively constructed radical Democratic Republic. The tripartite design of its political architecture, each branch having requisite authority over the others, to assure the Nation’s proper governance, to achieve the intended “government, “By and for the People.” Empirical assurance of such constitutional democracy was afforded by the invested authority of the Judiciary branch, the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court of the United States (“SCOTUS”) was granted the ultimate authority to review and determine all issues arising, relevant to the proper stewardship of our constitutional Republic. Such assurance of constitutional propriety, dynamically supplemental to a mutual “Checks and Balances” authority of the three branches of the polity (“Separation of Powers”), was construed as a dynamically empirical guarantee of the stability of an intended “government,” by and for the People.”

The advent of a constitutional debacle, the proximate consequence of influential, wealthy, self-interested citizens in their excessive desire for power and further material riches, was not then temporally considered nor conceivable.

Until the unfortunate precedent-altering case of Gore v Bush (2000), the Supreme Court was the empirical cause for the consummate assurance, through its assigned responsibility of “Judicial Review,” of compliance with the provisions of the Constitution. Consistent with the basic concept of “Separation of Powers, any litigant aspiring to have his case accepted for determination by SCOTUS was mandated to present an application, known as a “Writ of Certiorari,” successfully demonstrating that the issues of the relevant case are not political nor have any indirect political resonance. The mandated proscription of politically impactful matters proved to be successful in the traditional maintenance of judicial objectivity, confining the determinations and findings of the ultimate Court of last (final) resort to its laudable duty of the objective determination of material legal issues.

The\ turning point represented by the Supreme Court’s acceptance and determination of the “political” case of Gore v. Bush proved to represent the morphing of a SCOTUS, unprecedentedly, to a judicial body, regrettably open to political influence, and shockingly, to instances of individual judicial corruption.

The politically infamous Taxpayer United case, erroneously accepted and determined by SCOTUS, in our view, opened the floodgates to a sustained mortal attack on democracy. The Court promulgated the anti-democratic proposition that a corporation may not be legally limited as to its political contributions. Money in politics has historically been the arch-enemy of democratic equality in its toxic impact on the significance of the individual citizen’s vote. The ensuing, profound distress at its profoundly negative impact on the democratic standard of the equal vote is only surpassed by its telling, sophomoric rationalization.

The High Court, in that unfortunate case, ruled that a corporation is a legal “person” and, accordingly, statutory limitations on corporate political contributions were an unconstitutional infringement on freedom of speech. Such evident stretch of reason and the plain inanity of the Court’s reasoning are demonstrative of the corrupt insincerity of the presiding Court. First-year law school freshman and every entrepreneur is aware that the statutorily created ability for a fictional status of”person” is solely related to a business entityvehicle of (having its origin in the time of Queen Elizabeth) that merely confers the requested status of a legally fictional “personhood” to corporate business entities, for the limited purpose of thereby limiting the individual liability of the entrepreneur ( N.B. debtors went to prison in Elizabethan England) and thereby encouraging new enterprise. The cocept is universally understood not to represent humanity.

Since every law school freshman and business entrepreneur is aware of the routine and statutorily permissible use of the vehicle of a fictional “person” in the context of corporate business, it is manifestly ineluctable that the eminent justices of SCOTUS, indeed, know it as well. This flagrant gift to the well-healed and influential corporate world constituted a mortal blow to the existential one-man, one-vote dynamic of our traditionally vaunted definitional democracy, and is sadly demonstrative of the decline of our Highest Court.

Rather than the designated existence and availability of an ultimate Court constituted for the rendition of just constitutional guidance, SCOTUS has thus tragically descended to the level of an unpredictable (and worse, corrupted) overseer of legal rectitude. The unpredictable acceptance of the influence of individuals, characterized by the collaboration of riches and influence, empirically led to the institutional decline of the High Court, and opportunistically availed the donors of the novel opportunity remunerative and otherwise, to manage Justices open to political and religious influence.

[ N.B. excluded from this reluctant critique are Justices Sotomayor, Kagan, and Jackson. The latter three Justices are demonstrably and admirably unwavering in their moral and principled dedication to constitutional rectitude, but unfortunately, are numerically outvoted by the other principally vulnerable SOCUS Justices.]

A traditional Supreme Court, evincing Justices emulating the venerable record of their traditionally venerable predecessors, would be a determinative buffer against the errant and outrageously un-American, autocratic policies of the extant shameful and dystopian Chief Executive and his menagerie of sycophantic followers.

-p.