Category: Uncategorized

We, in common with a great many traditional American citizens, have been alarmed concerning the current threat to our Democratic Republic posed by the autocratic policies of Donald Trump and his cavalcade of cultish sycophants. It would seem superfluous to reiterate the previously noted myriad of fascist policies and executive orders promulgated by this declared, “would-be” dictator.

In earlier writings, we have expressed our view that the Nation will, ultimately, recover from this present nightmare, as it has at other times of National stress, and return to its uniquely humanistic democratic policy.

Further contemplation has led us to another (non-historically based) foundational basis for such optimism, notably possessing metaphysical and sociological resonance, and significantly furnishing an additional sense of positive expectation.

Trump has presented the American citizen with an unfamiliar and unorthodox pattern of executive policies and unfamiliar expectations, contrary to the experiencial understanding, of his citizenship experience accumulated over the one-and-a-half centuries of the universal and expected American way of life; singularly featuring liberty, legal equality, and, notably, limitations on governmental authority as provided in the Constitution’s “Bill of Rights.”

Donald Trump’s famous (and infamous) public declaration of intention to be a dictator, communicated from his singularly egoistic and impenetrable bubble, reductively and thoughtlessly omitted to consider America’s historical record of democracy, freedom of expression, and opportunity; a reductive assumption, consistent with his characteristic denial of empirical reality.

From the limited view of his impenetrable, bubble, Trump looks eastward at the oligarchic government of his bromantic friend, Putin, and other like autocratic polities existing in China, North Korea, Hungary, and Saudi Arabia, and longs to enjoy their status as “Supreme Leader” of a downtrodden and doggedly obedient population. Donald Trump wants power, unlimited by the Constitution or the rule of law, and religious-style admiration from blindly “loyal subjects.” He, like other tyrannical leaders, wants full military parades, large pictures of himself at prominent venues, and unlimited monarchial wealth, albeit simultaneously with the denial of the basic needs for life and health of the ordinary citizen. He has taken executive action to eliminate scientific research and humanitarian assistance, to intimidate Universities and other institutions of learning, to assure himself of a more docile and compliant population, and has surrounded himself with a veritable menagerie of loyal incompetents to serve his needs in the running of the country. When added to the striking plethora of impropriety and criminal behavior, as mentioned in earlier writings, the mainstream American citizen has sufficient cause to be concerned. Moreover, legal action to date has not been sufficiently effective.

Nevertheless, we are fully confident that, from a metaphysical perspective, the American way of life will doubtlessly prevail over the potential unfamiliar and constricted future of hapless fascist worship accompanying an autocratic despot. It is our pragmatic expectation that the history and expectations of the salutory franchise of personal agency, a cultural concomitant of the American democratic lifestyle, will doubtlessly prevail; no diner will choose a limited menu of watery soup and stale bread when he has had a prior lifetime of more acceptable and savory menu choices.

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There are few experiences, singularly capable of revulsion and disgust, comparable to the shocking highway sight of a wild animal crushed by an automobile (often further enhanced by the impact from later autos). The futility of our unsuccessful attempts to look away or avoid the nightmarish sight is beyond our rational understanding.

For analogous reasons, we have failed, of late, in our determined attempts to avoid commenting on the revolting subject of Donald J. Trump and his repulsive MAGA acolytes. It appears that we have been haplessly drawn to the allure of his dystopic persona and behavior, with the comparable inability to look away from the nauseating appearance of mangled, bloody animals on the highway.

It appears that we cannot look away from the sight of the malign, deceitful, and harmful activities of the Orange Presence, energetically supported by his demonic, T-shirted, baseball-capped, billionaire autistic confederate, in a purported mission to eliminate “Waste and Abuse” from the government.

The American public has sadly witnessed the virtual carnage of its Federal Civil Service, including the existentially vital health research facilities of the NIH, CDC, and others, the reduction in tax enforcement personnel of the IRS, elimination of the essential Education Department, hobbling of the FBI, and the Nation’s intelligence services, the reduction of services of the Veteran’s Services, already significantly backed up, the threats to citizen health and safety by the curtailing of health, food, water and medicinal regulatory agencies and the basic superstructure of our utilitarian Federal Civil Service.

It is to be frustratingly noted that these vitally important agencies were legally created by Congressional action, not the Executive, and, notably, that no evidence of “Waste and Abuse” has been proffered, no relevant Congressional Inquiries or Hearings convened, but simply, Trump’s authoritarian acts, accomplished with the arbitrary wave of his Royal Scepter (Trump’s “Sharpie”). The crippling effect on the operation of government, the loss of employment by thousands of dedicated civil servants, the inconvenience and hazard caused to the American public and its environmental health, it appears, was deemed less important to this egoistic President, than the overt demonstration of authoritan power. Any contemplative observer, with requisite information, can easily determine that any possible savings are far outweighed by the pragmatic hampering of the Nation’s day-to-day operation. and notably, Trump’s cruel demonstration of autocratic power,

Trump, a billionaire, improperly employing his office to accumulate millions of dollars for himself and his family. has insensitively expressed the intention to curtail Medicaid and Medicare, the vital health services of the poor and middle class, as well as the Nation’s program of social security. Marie Antoinette may have been less heartless when she famously declared, “Let them eat cake.”

Our “snake oil,” authoritarian, Chief Executive, who ubiquitously purports to be of unique service in “eliminating governmental waste and abuse,” has officially expressed the desire to have a full Military Parade (in the style of his fellow dictators) to celebrate his birthday. The Parade, as reported, is estimated to exceed Forty-Five Million dollars in cost, not including the extensive repairs to the roads caused by the birthday celebratory military tanks and heavy military artillery.

So much for “eliminating waste and abuse” and the nauseating aesthetics of roadkill.

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We have elected to take a brief, needed break from the exhaustive subject of the orange, “would-be” King, arbitrarily dispensing ego-driven Monarchial decrees with his soft-tipped “Sharpie,” and, for the moment, consider the pleasant subject of the arrival of the pleasant month of May. The “Merry Month of May” (Thomas Dekker, 1572-1632) is singularly delightful: sunshine, emerging daffodils and tulips, scampering woodland critters, newborn pups, warm rain, and kind breezes.

However, May is officially designated as “Mental Health Awareness Month,” and we find ourselves obliged to reprise an alarming subject to which we have frequently made reference.; namely, the recent reports of widespread mental disturbance, depression, and anxiety, particularly observed relative to the young.

We do not profess the adequate competence to discuss those cases having their etiology in matters other than those perceptively societal; yet have consistently maintained that most of such empirically observable health conditions, in our view, are the proximate result of society’s change from identifiable, personal and emotionally rewarding interaction to cold, impersonal, digitalized “smartphones.” We humbly acknowledge the risk that this generalized observation may, initially, be perceived as overly ” reductive.” Nevertheless, we are of the view that this impactful cause has been anecdotally and widely demonstrated.

To avoid misunderstanding, we affirmatively endorse the view that the exponential development of computer prowess has had ubiquitous utility in industry, media, scientific and medical inquiry, in business, and in countless other applications, but is societally and personally neither emotionally satisfactory nor salubrious in place of personal communication, as in person to person, telephone communication or written correspondence. In sum, it is our view that the need for human communication, restricted to the “smartphone,” depersonalizes and isolates the individual. We will elucidate further.

A referential “self-image,” or personal identity, is existentially vital to participation in the societal milieu. The healthy, societally adjusted individual, in the course of his personal interaction with others, relative to his perceived effect on others, and, the nature and effect of their responses to him, in time, develops a referable self-image and a consistent identity, i.e., comes to know himself, His acquired and developed personal identity is the “home office,” or perceived identity from which he speaks and chooses to act. The development of personal identity and self-image is, in large part, the reflective product of personal interaction with others. This requires the recognition of the voice on the telephone, nuanced expression, singular point of view, and other referential qualities that render such interactions personally meaningful and referentially notable. It is our view that our persona, in notable part, is colored by the observed consistency of other persons’ perceptions.

When society chose, for facile convenience, to eschew societally existential personal, familiar, and expressive interaction in exchange for cold digital images, reflected on a small, handheld screen, temporally exchanged at some random, possibly irrelevant time, it sufferred the impersonality of solo conversation, lacking identifiable personal nuance, spontaneity, and emotional expression; thereby, the route to the natural and useful acquisition of persona and identity was sadly and unhealthily eliminated. For the young generation, particularly, not having the personal experience of years of interactive communication, this facile but emotionally harmful “progress” has resulted in personally devastating and unhealthy results.

The curtailment of vitally required developmental, interactive relations took its toll in the myriad reported cases of anxiety and depression, most notably, among the young. Loneliness, feelings of isolation, and lack of the interactive benefits of personal development, of the security of personal identity, and social status.

Numerous essays and reports appearing in the Atlantic and other reputable sources, re that in recent years, adults have been socializing less, having fewer neighborhood backyard barbeques, parties, even marrying later; which we presune to be the by-product or consequence of the modern “benefit” of communication by computer particularly, the use of handheld phones, in place of meaningful social contact.

We do not Pollyannishly expect a return to the previously more healthful forms of personal communication; life seems to instruct the contemplative observer that conveniences, regardless of their observably negative toll, will nevertheless persist. We might, however, recommend more salubrious social get-togethers, town meetings, dances, club activities, backyard barbeques, book clubs, and other social engagements for adults, and more interpersonal contact, team sports, clubs, dances, and considerably less “smartphone” interaction for the young.

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• Title borrowed from a book by David Riesman

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For years, we have been entirely and frustratingly unable to comprehend the contemporary political scenario, which bizarrely features an incompetent, immoral, and neurotically egocentric individual who succeeds in getting elected to the august office of the American Presidency, and despite committing heinous criminal offenses against society and the Nation, remains in office uncensured and officially blameless; who causes hordes of individuals to be arrested, cdeported and incarcerated on little or no evidenced of wrongdoing?

Can the American law and tradition of “equality under the law,” or the system of due process entitlement of every person, be universally applicable, but with the singular exception of Donald J. Trump? This conundrum has severely vexed us for several years until our present bizarre conclusion.

Trump is remembered as demagogically causing a large audience to cry out, “Lock her up!” “Lock her up!” referencing Hillary Clinton, his political opponent in his first race for the Presidency, for the technical offense of having some official data on her private server. Yet there is no cry for punishment and incarceration regarding Donald Trump, who has committed a plethora of offenses of personal and National implication. Notably disturbing is the fact that much of Trump’s criminal actions have actually been revealed to the public on television, inclusive of vote extortion and corruption. treasonous liaison with enemies of the Nation, feloniously withholding top secret documents, dangerously storing the latter in accessible places, payment of “hush money” to prostitutes, and fraudulently covering up such acts, treasonous liaisons with, and support of Christian White National Militias, incitement and support of a violent insurrection against the United States Capitol Building, resulting in death and serious injury to Ca;pitol police and others, in addition to death threats to the Vice President and the intimidation of legislators and others in the beseiged Capitol Building, disgracefully praising and then officially pardoning the offenders, gross and numerous violation’s of the Emolument Clause of the Constitution by various nefarious but personally profitable transactions, virtually transmogrifing the reverenced Oval Office into a virtual shopping mall ( including sneakers, bibles, baseball hats, cologne, viodka, etc.), profiting from leasing Trump owned hotel rooms and other Trump owned facilities to foreign representatives and the public, publicly revealed tax and corporate conspiracy and fraud, consistent official mendacity, libel and slander, extortion (including that nefariously practiced against the beleagured Ukraine), and a virtual cornucopia ((more aesthetically stated, “a full dumpster”) of other reprehensible misbehavior.

Such an illegal morass of criminal and improper record of palpably evil behavior was incredibly exacerbated by the recent intended acceptance gift (“bribe”) of a $400 million airplane from Qatar.

In the distorted fun house mirror of Trump’s own ubiuquitous criminality, where scores of individuals can be arrested and deported to a foreign torture prison, without due process simply for sporting assorted tattoos, the only conclusion possible is that Trump (himself with multiple adjudged felonies and standing criminal indictments) is as effective a mass hypnotist as well as a snake oil demogogue; and the American population finds itself in a state of deep hypnosis.

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The iconic Statue of Liberty, the eternal symbol of welcome, holding aloft her beacon-torch and enhancing the National significance of New York’s East River, is the American Nation’s standing invitation, in Emma Lazarus’s words, ” to all the huddled masses, yearning to be free.” While pragmatically, considerations of economics, security, and humanism are appropriate to maintaining a manageable and fair immigration policy, unhappily, certain supplemental ly contested political issues have caused the subject to be shifted to the politics of the executive branch.

President Donald J. Trump has arbitrarily chosen to employ his executive power to severely limit American immigration, a policy inarguably antithetical to the American humanistic tradition as espoused by Lady Liberty and Ms. Lazarus.

Refugees, fleeing their native countries for fear of political persecution or death, have recently been reviled and programmatically sent back to their country of origin to suffer their dreaded fate by the Trump-MAGA policy founded, perceptibly, upon their reductive, bigoted xenophobia. As we have often stated, America can be appropriately described as a Nation of immigrants and their progeny. It would, inarguably, seem callously selfish for it to maintain a policy that would deny entrance to foreign refugees or, generally, to immigrants seeking a better life.

Donald Trump’s zero-tolerance policy has, in stereotypically fascistic manner, authorized a governmental militia of Gestapo-like (often masked) individuals (“ICE”) to summarily arrest, at homes, church or on the street, foreigners deeme4 suspect of being “illegal” (unregistered) aliens; and, in many cases, splitting up families and deporting individuals to foreign countries (previously remunerated by the Trump administration) for indefinite incarceration and predictable torture, notably, without the due process guaranteed by the Constitution to “all persons.”

Mainstream American citizens have, uniformly, been shocked and frightened by this unprecedented, draconian, un-American policy, and entertain the hope that such outrage will be ultimately and appropriately addressed by the responsible (i.e, non-MAGA appointed) judiciary.

Trump, ( himdself, a convicted criminal and adjudged woman abuser,) availing himself of his characteristic serial mendacity, represents that his motivation is based upon his solicitous desire that “criminals and rapists” be denied entry, for the welfare of our Nation’

The true, pernicious motivation of Trump’s (and MAGA) restrictive grant of the benefits of “refugee status was irrefutably made public by hispublic welcome to dozens of white South African immigrants (“Afrikaners”); which irrefutably uncovers the malign truth of his contrasting restriction against needy immigrants from Sudan, Central America, and Afghanistan. The policy is incriminating proof and admissible evidence that the Trump-Maga motivations regarding immigration are blatantly racial, regardless of their purported claim of protecting the Nation.

It is no less than revolting to recall that it was the minority ruling class of White Afrikaners who persisted in the egregious “Law of Apartheid” in South Africa until 1994.

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We may have missed the mark in our previous presumption that Donald Trump, as a permanent resident of his personal, impenetrable bubble, is, by such bizarre mental confinement, perceptively unaware of the Nation’s Constitution and Rule of Law. He has routinely undermined both, causing Americans to feel less safe. Upon further contemplation, we have come to see that his pernicious actions including, firing vitally needed public servants, dissolving federal agencies, taking taxpayer money from our communities, tactically firing inspector generals, and notably, by his all- pervasive failure to adhere to societal moral and legal mandates, that his motivating dynamic is more accurately described as blatantly and shamelessly, intentional.

Based on his exemplary record of self-serving and bizarre behavior, we, in our previous perception and writings, had ubiquitously described his persona as neurotically incapable of awareness or recognition of the humanistic social contract and, secluded in his singularly impenetrable mental bubble, oblivious of the Nation’s rule of law and its societal standards of propriety,

With appropriate apology, we have come to the alternative, accurate perception of his true repulsive sociopathic persona. Our confident view is that Trump is, in plain fact, demonstrably cognizant of the societal and legal rules of the road, but, in his diagnosably sociopathic arrogance, perceives himself, singularly and imperiously, not bound by such societal strictures. Such an amended understanding as to Trump’s speciously neurotic sense of exclusivity is conceptually consistent with his sociopathic self-image. Stated differently, we have become obliged to assume that in some primitive section of Trump’s brain, there is, in fact, a basic awareness that no society can endure without ubiquitous ground rules; it is simply that the kingly orange haszmat does not see them as personally relevant to or binding on “HIM.”

The following recognizable traits, we understand, are traditionally and diagnosibly concomitant with sociopathy: defining oneself by, an overweening sense of self-importance, a sense of power over others, manipulative prowess, the aspiration for greater power, and the absence of any discernible sense of guilt. The foregoing adjectival description might adequately serve as a final sketch before the traditional painting of the Presidential portrait of Donald Trump.

We can painfully recall an incident when our protagonist rudely and without a trace of sympathy chose to mimic the symptomatically shaking body and voice of a palsied reporter, dutifully questioning him, on public television. The crass billionaire with gold residential bathrooms who, with an empty conscience, strives to cut needed support to starving third world countries and eliminate the empathic programs of governmental empathy, such as FEMA, Social Security, Medicaid, as well as the Nation’s medical research services, merits little ameliorating sympathy.

In past writings, we have proscriptively suggested that as a mandatory prerequisite to their nomination, all aspiring Presidential candidates be responsibly vetted, as an assurance of basic acceptability, characterologically and experientially, to hold the august office of the American Presidency; just as a job interview is universally required to apply for far more mundane employment. We will continue to do so with the ample, additional evidence of the ill-suited present Chief Executive..

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It is our somewhat radical, but sincere view, that, consistent with the universal American principles of “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness,” Equal Protection of the law, and individual human dignity, in general, the approval of abortion in the “landmark case” of Roe v. Wade, was in reffect, legally superfluous, and its abhorrant reversal, erroneous, and of no fundamental legal import. Our opinion is obviously not in sync with the current understanding of the controversy and the legal impact of the overturn of the famous case.

We have always disagreed with the public perception that Roe v. Wade was the genesis of the woman’s (natural) right to determine highly personal matters in her own life, relevantly, the choice to bear children or not, and that Roe’s overturn disturbs any metaphysically fundamental principles. To our perception, such a publicly accepted view seems legally and logically inconsistent with the Nation’s avowed liberty regarding personal freedoms, constitutionally afforded to American citizens, viz., the overturn of Roe v. Wade, is understood to have led to a perceived proscription against abortion. In our view, this understanding would result in a singular proscription against the citizen’s personal choice of lifestyle, analogous to the elective choice of marriage and/or personal choice of spouse, inarguably, outside the purview of any polity which historically avows individual freedom and liberty.

In our nuanced, but sincere contemplation, Roe v. Wade did not grant, nor is it the source of, the woman’s right to determine the configuration of her own family, but can effectively be understood to have recognized that natural right. Its reversal, presumably, under unconstitutional pressure from the religious right, was not only tragically injudicious and violative of the “Establishment Clause” of the United States Constitution, but constituted an autocratic exercise of tyranny, unbecoming to, and inconsistent with personal freedom espoused by the Founding Fathers; however, it is our belief that it should not be read as denying women the right of abortion.

Our Democratic Republic is now under great pressure, stemming from the autocratic policies of the Trump-MAGA Administration, regarding the latter’s castigation of the Constitution and its Separation of Powers, the denigration of America’s media, the attack against its educational institutions from Grade school through University, the devastation of its health research institutions and federal civil service, the cruel elimination of government programs of assistance such as Social Security and Medicaid, the foolhardy elimination of health and environment protective regulations, the fouling of our traditionally salutary relation with our traditional allies, the despoilation our favorable economy, and a full and foul dumpster of assorted MAGA detritis vitally mandating amelioration by the informed, mainstream citizenry at election time.

It is of existential importance that such a nightmarish, dystopic Presidential holocaust be brought to an end. We optimistically believe that the Nation, having ubiquitously experienced the intense pain of the aberrant Trump Presidency, will administer to it the coup de grace (See Blog # 272, ” THE ANCIENT LESSON”).

However, assuming that our positive prognostication is realized, the Nation’s message of liberty will remain unfulfilled until the Nation, additionally revitalizes the metaphysical understanding that its female citizens are legally vested with the requisite legal assurance relative to their legally implicit personal agency to determine all personal matters of their private anatomy and their personal lives.

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As traditional American citizens, we have been shocked and appalled at the Gestapo-style program of unannounced, summary arrests of peaceful and law-abiding immigrants by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (“ICE”) most especially, the denial of constitutional “due Process” guaranteed to all “persons.” Such cruel and un-American practice is fully consistent with the Trump Administration’s right-wing, biased program of prosecution of foreigners; under the zealous administration of an Adolph Eichmann-like psychopath, Steven Miller. We have chosen to remain hopeful such shameful, un-American travesties will soon legally be abated.

Our shock and angst are greatly exacerbated by the disconcerting and dystopic sight of the arresting ICE officers’ practice of wearing black facemasks and thus adding a bizarre Dark Ages Inquisition-esque atmosphere to their shameful violence. It may be noted, historically, that neither the Nazi Gestapo, the Communist KGB, nor the East German Stasi, sported masks in the respective courses of their political malefaction.

Masks, functionally, are objects worn on the face for protection, disguise, theatrical purposes, or religious, ethnic traditions. Notably, the prophylactic use of face masks, recommended by the publicly responsible medical profession, during the COVID pandemic was denigrated by the MAGA- Trump political adherents, who, in their lemming-like cultish worship of the excrable Orange Deity, opposed the wearing of the recommended, health protective masks.

The televised arrests are irrefutably unconstitutional, obscene, and un-American, nevertheless, we are optimistic that such practice of political arrest, with or without face masks and the outrageously unconstitutional denial of due process, will soon be addressed by the judiciary.

Our observational question is an obvious one: If the arrests are legally legitimate law enforcement activities, why is there a necessity to disguise the arresting officer in a black mask? We would be considerably happier if the use of masks were reserved for Halloween and to the Lone Ranger.

And, considering Donald Trump’s recommrndation to keep felons, rapists and criminals out of the country; we are willing to pack his golden suitcase and make a quick telephone call to the airport taxi.

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The Greek classic playwright, Aeschylus, consistently articulated the theme, “Wisdom through Suffering,” in his venerable theater works. Said theme, in its ultimate empirical wisdom, has notable resonance in these contemporary times of despair and angst, consequential to the dystopic state of our formerly admirable Democratic Republic.

Analogous to Man’s health, the American body politic, salubriously affording personal liberty and freedom of expression, is empirically vulnerable, mandating diligent and dedicated nurturance; notably, in a Nation affording the universal right to vote, and, worrisomely incorporating a sizeable population of inadequately educated and poorly informed citizens rendering the Republic’s successful operation and endurance of policies, “by and for the people,” an eternal challenge.

Such challenge, as ubiquitously evidenced in American history in times of political stress, such as the Civil War and Restoration Eras, the Great Depression of 1929, and the roiling national opposition during the period of the Vietnam War, has been regrettably reprised by the populist elevation to ther Oval Office of Donald J. Trump, a demonstrated egocentric, incompetent, charlatan and declared autocrat.

The Trump Presidential Administration has been singular in its unprincipled rejection of the Constitution and the rule of law, abrogation of citizen rights, its policy of “Retribution” against all perceived political opponents, shameless deletion of programs of compassionate health and financial assistance to citizens and needy nations. elimination of agencies for health research, wrongful control over Universities and other salutary institutions of learning, his autocratic castigation of the established media, summary arrest of immigrants, and their summary banishment to foreign torture jails entirely without due process, pardoning of seditious insurrectionists loyal to him, while ubiquitously denying citizens’ rights assured by the constitution, inclusive of interference with the vote, and, additionally, shamefully enriching himself and his family, in violation of the Constitutional “Emolument Clause” and the high office’s implicit and officially sworn fiduciary duty.

We are obliged to relate that our historically admirable Democratic Republic has, under the errant tutelage of the Trump Administration, in the space of a short few months, been tactically transmogrified into a dystopic nightmare, resulting in prevalent feelings of despair and confusion among traditional American citizens. The latter tragic occurrence painfully anticipates four long years of predictable shame and tyranny, resulting from such cancerous attack upon the Nation’s body politic as relevantly equivalent, in effect, to the Constitutional proscription against “cruel and unusual punishment” and the opportunity to surgically excise such cancerous incursion from the American body politic, more than an additional three long years of the Nation’s predictably agonizing future.

We would offer in thematic mitigation to this “Devil’s Island” nightmare, possibly, a measure of material benefit from the experience of such painful and extended angst. We suggest that the same may be garnered from the aforementioned, ancient (5th Century) Greek tragedian, Aeschylus, the proponent of the universal theme of “wisdom through suffering.”

It is our belief and expectation that the evil orange cloud presently suffocating our historically venerable Democratic Republic will lift, and the relieved citizenry will have beneficially learned from its painful experience to remain more actively vigilant and affirmatively protective of our Democratic Republic’s precious and ever-vulnerable endurance.

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As a prefatory statement, we do not intend to castigate the human inclination to religious or otherworldly beliefs. We consider “faith” a naturally occurring supplement to the innate limitations of human cognition. Its existential utility resides in reconciling the most profound metaphysical mysteries whose origin and nature are beyond the prowess of the mental capabilities as evolved in the homo sapiens. The nuanced style and characteristics of various “belief structures” are usually inherited and taught to the young, becoming a significant ingredient in their cultural upbringing and perceptions.

The sad history of group accepted cultural beliefs at times in Man’s checkered history led to the wrongful prosecution of non-believers (including believers in an alternate style of “faith”), warfare, and unnecessary human tragedy. However, the overzealous evangelistic history of religious faith does not detract from our recognition of the utilitarian dynamic of non-factual belief and its beneficial role in, among other matters, ameliorating the fears of the “unknown.” That the “Sun God” died after the Fall and was resurrected in the Spring was an outcome of Man’s discomfort with the bizarre mystery of seasonal change.

We have elected to overlook the historical record of communal faith relative to its anecdotal need to enforce its belief system upon other human beings. We also recognize the utilitarian benefits of common religious belief in its contribution to the human need for societal and personal identity, and its communal role in softening the ultimate tragedy of death. In sum, we affirmatively recognize the pragmatic service rendered by ” faith belief” in the existence of a universally stable and all-powerful governor of matters beyond Man’s ken.

Nonetheless, we have observed that, in sync with many others who enjoy great intellectual and moral veneration, including: Locke, Descartes, Kant, Leibniz, Hume, Erasmus, Bacon, Hobbes, and Spinoza, that the progress of Mankind, socially, intellectually, and morally is more efficatiously, accutely and justly accomplished by the enlightenment derived from empirical experience as opposed to culturally derived, atasvistic belief in non-factual, superior powers.

Penicillin and the polio vaccine were not discovered by “faith,” nor were the railroad and the airplane products of religious inspiration. The scientific method of inquiry, was the source, as distinguished from non-factual belief in superior, omniscient entities; as in all other discoveries, such as Copernicus and the heliocentric understanding of the Solar System, viz. that the Earth travels around the Sun, and not the other way around. The latter erroneous theory was based on the universal religious belief that “Man” is the “Center of the Universe.” The atom, for better or worse, was not split by religious ritual, but rather per the natural law of physics. Hungry people should be fed, not because it is pleasing to the Deity, but based on the human capability for empathy. People do not go to “heaven” as a reward for good deeds, but enjoy a good conscience in their elder years. Morality is not enforced by punishment in some “afterlife,” but experienced or fondly recalled by others.

It is our respectful view that religion has certain cultural and social interactive benefits, however, ultimate enlightenment by human reason derived from empirical experience is the sole route to Mankind’s ultimate realization of its award of Natural Evolution’s golden Trophy.

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