Thoughts on the latest Trump reversal in court.
What our secular royalists refuse to understand is that the Constitution is addressed to agents of government and outlines their duties and obligations for the purpose of insuring they do what they are told. The people govern. It almost looks like an accident how that phrase is inserted and the reference to “powers” is somewhat misleading because, like “rights,” the real object is to spell out obligations. Civil rights are, after all, the obligations of citizenship: to vote, to serve on juries, to hold public office, to petition for laws, to provide support and to enforce the laws. What makes them different from the obligations of public officials is that the citizen’s obligations are optional when it comes to performance. The public servants’ duties are not optional because he takes an oath to do what the Constitution says and because s/he surrenders self-interest in exchange for getting paid.
Our public servants are not supposed to distributed public assets in order to promote their retention in office or enhance their worth after they leave. Limiting their term of service does not justify acting like the unjust steward in the Bible. It does not eliminate it either. Like the poor, we will undoubtedly always have unjust stewards among us. Indeed, the former may well be the consequence of the latter. When we let predators into the larder, they are likely to eat us out of house and home.
Thoughts on Session’s testimony to the Senate
What a goodly number of our public servants do not understand is that when they accept an official position, they surrender the rights guaranteed by the Constitution. There is no right to privacy when it comes to a person’s official duties and obligations. This is an issue that has been a challenge ever since the FOIA was passed. Closed Congressional hearings to cover up malfeasance were a compromise to protect the bureaucracy.
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List of properties Trump resigned from
In reverse order. Click on thumbnail to embiggen.
Sycophants on Parade
Call and response, the ritual of religion, in a secular situation.
It is, apparently, the mode of the Con to have people identify themselves and pledge support for the “leader.” “Personal responsibility” means that the individual responds (appropriately) when called upon. I’ve never been to an AA meeting but suspect it is the same. This ritual goes one step beyond calling the roll in a classroom to establish the teacher’s control. The response is effectively a sign of subordination. The language is indicative: “leader” “honor” “blessing” “deserving”
The cult of personality can only be properly understood when one recognizes that the essence of the cult is coercion. People are “honored” and “blessed” and “deserving” for subordinating themselves to the “leader.” Ass-kissing isn’t about the ass; it’s about sublimating the disgust occasioned by the act. The psychological process is similar to, but not as extreme as, a mobster’s initiation.
There is no interaction with the material world in the cult. No practical achievement of any kind. The meritocracy is not about action; never mind affirmative action. The meritocracy is about subordination and the result of subordination is the leader. Every individual is dispensable. In the cult of individualism, the individual person does not count. I suppose that’s ironic, but the Cons do not get irony.
Other people’s money
Since money is a figment of the imagination manifest in material tokens (currency) and money doesn’t really belong to anybody, does a person’s attitude towards money change based on his perception of whether the money is his own or somebody else’s?
It there a presumption based on any evidence that one is more or less careless when handling other people’s money or one’s own?
Cut grass and then it started to rain.
Nothing else to add.
Oh, the latest news is that Preet Bharara refused to take a phone call from the Dude and 22 hours later he got fired. Gangster movies are popular. Having one in the White House maybe not so much.
Stealing our trees.
Is this the equipment that was used to invade our forest, steal our trees and leave a mess in the area adjacent to the Historic Brunswick-Altamaha Canal? Since Glynn County personnel are not answering queries from the public, there is no option but to expose what actually goes on in a county that touts a “pristine” environment and proclaims itself a “premiere” tourist attraction in the whole Southeast of the U.S.
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How the public enforces the law.
Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy makes a practice of delivering lectures on the U.S. Constitution and one of his conclusions is that, ultimately, citizens enforce the law. But, how do they do that?
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Hero worship?
Self-enhancement.