Schoolhouse Rock, 2023 Reboot

If you watched Saturday morning television in the United States between 1973 and 1984, you probably remember the educational film shorts that aired between the cartoons, known as "Schoolhouse Rock." Those animated segments featuring cheeky commentary set to catchy music, focused on specific themes in the areas of mathematics, science, social studies and grammar. I was a little old for them but one segment that immediately comes to mind was called Conjunction Junction which you can watch here. Another was about how laws are made in Congress called I'm Just a Bill.

It's probably safe to say an entire generation of Americans remember the concepts they learned on Schoolhouse Rock better than the ones they learned at school.

Today, while we're falling behind the rest of the world when it comes to our knowledge of math, science and language skills, Americans are getting a full-blown education in social studies, at least in terms of American law and government, thanks the hottest show around, featuring the escapades of one former president and his multiple run-ins with the law. 

Of course, like Saturday morning cartoons, the wall-to-wall media coverage of the travails of the exPOTUS is not to everyone's taste. To others such as myself, it's like a train wreck we can't turn our eyes from.  

Lucky for us because it provides a valuable lesson reminding us of many things we forgot from school about the Constitution, American politics and jurisprudence.

A lot of Americans myself included, may only have spotty knowledge about our Constitution, but we sure think we know a lot about its First Amendment, especially the part guaranteeing our freedom of speech. 

We all understand, or so I hope, that freedom of speech/expression is one of the linchpins of any democracy.

But we're learning, thanks in part to this version of Schoolhouse Rock, that like all freedoms, freedom of speech does not come without responsibilities. One cannot express a controversial opinion for example and expect it to be immune from consequences such as harsh judgement, public humiliation or even (in some cases) the loss of a job, just to name a few.

Nor is it absolute. The First Amendment itself does not enumerate limits to speech. That has been the role of the Supreme Court and over two centuries of precedent. 

Here are just some of the categories of speech that the Court has deemed not protected by the First Amendment. Engaging in them can land you into serious trouble with the law:

• Speech that violates intellectual property rights: You can't use someone else's speech or ideas and claim them as your own. 
• True threats: Statements that can reasonably be construed as an intent to inflict harm on the recipient. 
• Fighting Words: Statements that can reasonably be construed as intending to provoke a violent response.
• Child pornography: No explanation necessary.
  
• Incitement: Speech designed to provoke the commission of a crime.
• Defamation and Libel: False statements designed to injure a person's reputation.

As you might imagine, there is a great deal of latitude here, making the judgement of whether speech rightly falls under any of these categories challenging, and quite difficult to prove in a court of law. That's why lawyers get paid the big bucks.

Years ago, working in a photography department in an art museum, our chief curator was sought out by lawyers representing a couple who was under suspicion of producing child pornography. They had taken nude photographs of their young children and were turned in to the DCFS by the lab that processed their film. The curator was asked if the photos had any "artistic merit" or if he thought they were exploitive and pornographic. He referenced works in our collection of a similar nature by established artists such as Sally Mann, but in the end, took the route of Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart who had this to say about pornography: "I know it when I see it." Then as Justice Stewart did when writing for the majority in a 1964 obscenity case, our curator added (in not so many words): "and this ain't it."   

Unfortunately, many of the limits to free speech can best be judged by the standard, "I know it when I see it", meaning there are few objective criteria to determine if certain forms of expression fall into the realm of non-protected speech. 

Not surprising then, there is a rigorous burden of proof required to convict someone of crossing the line into unprotected speech meaning that courts when in doubt, generally err on the side of the literal interpretation of the First Amendment.

Take the most conspicuous example of all the actions that got the exPOTUS into hot water with the latest federal indictment which happened before our very eyes, the attack on our Capitol Building on January 6, 2021. That morning from the Ellipse, just south of the White House, the soon-to-be ex-president gave a speech instructing his supporters numbering in the thousands, to march up Pennsylvania Avenue to the Capitol to protest the certification of the new president, scheduled for later that afternoon. 

In the speech he said this:

All of us here today do not want to see our election victory stolen by emboldened radical-left Democrats, which is what they're doing. And stolen by the fake news media. That's what they've done and what they're doing. We will never give up, we will never concede. It doesn't happen. You don't concede when there's theft involved.

One of the pieces of evidence of a "stolen election" he cited is that in the presidential election held in 2016, he received 66 million votes while in 2020 he received 75 million, more votes than any candidate for president had ever received before. 

Unfortunately for him, his opponent in 2020 received 80+ million votes in the general election, and where it really counted, his opponent won the Electoral College by the same amount of votes the out-going president won against Hillary Clinton in 2016. If you remember, the exPOTUS declared that victory "a landslide", even though he lost the popular vote by three million votes. 

But the exPOTUS begged to differ, He added:

And by the way, does anybody believe that Joe had 80 million votes? Does anybody believe that? He had 80 million computer votes. It's a disgrace... Take third-world countries. Their elections are more honest than what we've been going through in this country. It's a disgrace. It's a disgrace...

We will not let them silence your voices. We're not going to let it happen, I'm not going to let it happen.

He then went on to thank Rudy Giuliani and John Eastman, otherwise known as co-Conspirator One and co-Conspirator Two in his second federal indictment, for their stalwart efforts attempting to keep his presidency alive past its expiration date. It was Eastman who came up with the idea that Vice President Pence could reject the tally of electoral votes up on Capitol Hill that day (he really couldn't) and send the results back to the states where they would hopefully return a more favorable result for the president. He went on:

And he (Eastman) looked at Mike Pence, and I hope Mike is going to do the right thing. I hope so. I hope so.

Because if Mike Pence does the right thing, we win the election.... He has the absolute right to do it. We're supposed to protect our country, support our country, support our Constitution, and protect our constitution...

And Mike Pence is going to have to come through for us, and if he doesn't, that will be a, a sad day for our country because you're sworn to uphold our Constitution.

After rambling on for about an hour about how unfair losing the election was, he closed by saying this:

And we fight. We fight like hell. And if you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore.

As we all know, Mike Pence didn't do "the right thing" by the exPOTUS that day, and the mob at the Capitol quickly got wind of it. Soon, shouts of "hang Mike Pence" were heard by throngs of Trump supporters, some of whom had the foresight to bring makeshift gallows, should the need for one arise. The mob would eventually breach security and break into and attack the most potent symbol of our democracy. To make matters worse, the soon-to-be ex-president did nothing to stop the attack. Instead, he threw gasoline on the fire by tweeting the following, AFTER he learned that the mob was calling for Mike Pence's head:

Mike Pence didn't have the courage to do what should have been done.

Fortunately, the Vice President, the Speaker of the House, and the members of Congress who were in the crosshairs of the mob, all escaped the ordeal unharmed, largely thanks to the quick thinking and heroism of the Capitol Police. 

Unfortunately, five lives were lost that day including members of the Capitol Police. About 150 officers including metropolitan police and those from other agencies were injured. At least four officers took their lives in the months following the attack. 

Whether you call it an insurrection, an act of domestic terrorism, a riot, or merely a spirited protest that got out of hand, it's impossible to make the case that serious crimes were not committed that day by supporters of the president. And one would have to be delusional not to place at least some of the responsibility for the violence and loss of life on the words and actions of one Donald J. Trump on January 6, 2021, and the weeks leading up to it.

So, it would seem reasonable by the definition of the term mentioned above, that the exPOTUS should be charged with incitement, as without his election lies, his calls to interfere with the process of confirming his successor, and especially his very public pressure on and ultimate denouncement of the Vice President, none of this would have happened. That fact was confirmed by many of the rioters who were convicted of and are now doing time for their crimes that day, who insisted they were there to do the ex-president's bidding.

And if you believe as I do that the attack on the Capitol was indeed an insurrection (defined as violence against lawful civil authority with the intent to cause its overthrow) AND believe that Trump incited it, then he could be charged with an even more serious crime, sedition, which is defined as "the crime of creating a revolt, disturbance, or violence against lawful civil authority with the intent to cause its overthrow." 

In other words, inciting an insurrection.

To my eyes, I know an insurrection when I see one, and that's exactly what this was.

And I know incitement when I see it and sure enough, this has all the hallmarks of it.

The problem is, you may not see it that way. You might reasonably point out that in his speech, the president did not tell the crowd to break into the Capitol. You might also reasonably point out that at one point in his speech he told his supporters to demonstrate peacefully, or that he was not present at the Capitol at the time of the attack, (even though it appears that he intended to be). More importantly, any one of the twelve jurors picked to decide his fate may legitimately see it that way too, which would result in a hung jury if they cannot be persuaded otherwise by the other 11jurors. 

In the weeks since Special Prosecutor Jack Smith released his latest indictment, the exPOTUS and his supporters have gone all out to use the First Amendment as their primary defense, saying he is being accused of very serious crimes when all he was doing was exercising his freedom of speech.

Do they have a point?

No they don't, because the exPOTUS is not being charged either with sedition or inciting the attack on the Capitol.

Federal prosecutors don't enjoy having a high conviction rate because they choose to prosecute cases that stand a good chance of losing.

Even though he could have charged the exPOTUS with incitement of the mob that attacked the Capitol, Jack Smith, one of the best in the business, steps ahead of the ex-president and his defenders, took a pass on that one.

Instead, in the introduction to his indictment, Smith points out that the president like every American is guaranteed by the First Amendment, freedom of speech, including speaking in public about the election, and even to make false claims about it. The document goes on to point out the numerous recourses available to candidates to contest a disputed election including recounts, audits and legal challenges, all of which the exPOTUS took full advantage of. Once all legal means proved unsuccessful, the indictment alleges the exPOTUS and his co-conspirators, attempted other measures to challenge the election, outside of the law.

In the 45-page August 1st indictment which you can find here, the ex-president was charged with four counts of conspiracy to overturn the legitimate results of an American election, and the obstruction official government proceedings, all in violation of statutes listed in the main criminal code of the federal government of United States, Title 18.

The four counts and the statutes they violate are as follows:

1. Conspiracy to Defraud the United States (18 U.S.Code §371)
2. Conspiracy to Obstruct an Official Proceeding. (18 U.S.Code §1512(k))
3. Obstruction of and Attempt to Obstruct an Official Proceeding. (18 U.S.Code §§1512(c)(2),2)
4. Conspiracy Against Rights (18 U.S.Code §241)

In the legal sense, conspiracy is defined as two or more people planning a crime, then taking steps to implement that plan. The crime itself does not have to be committed.

Count one is referring to the electoral process as established by the Constitution. The defendant and his co-conspirators are accused of conspiring to overturn that function through "dishonesty, fraud and deceit" by falsely insisting the election was "stolen".

Remember, merely talking about committing a crime does not make a conspiracy.

The means by which they carried out their fraudulent enterprise to subvert the electoral process include:

• Pressuring government officials in states where the defendant lost by a relatively small amount, to replace the electors who would cast their votes for the legitimate winner of that state, Joe Biden, to electors who would cast their votes for the defendant. 
• Pressuring state government officials through the supposed authority of the Justice Department (who was not in on the plan), to conduct sham investigations into their elections. 
• Attempting to enlist the aid of the Vice President to "fraudulently alter the election results."

Counts Two and Three refer to the obstruction of the January 6, 2021 joint session of Congress to confirm the election of the next president, both the conspiracy and the actual act.  

The indictment concludes with Count Four. Here are the allegations in their entirety:

From on or about November 14, 2020 through on or about January 7, 2021, in the District of Columbia and elsewhere the Defendant,

DONALD J. TRUMP

did knowingly combine, conspire, confederate, and agree with co-conspirators known and unknown to the Grand Jury, to injure, oppress, threaten, and intimidate one or more persons in the free exercise and enjoyment of a right and privilege secured to them by the Constitution and laws of the United States -that is, the right to vote, and to have one's vote counted.

(In violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 241).

Despite being a well put-together indictment, it is still far from an iron-clad, slam-dunk case against the exPOTUS. 

As we've all read and heard ad nauseam over the last few months, the exPOTUS is the only president ever to have been indicted. Clearly, we are in uncharted waters here. Add to that the former president is currently a candidate for president who if nominated by his party, will be running against the current president whose Justice Department will be prosecuting him.

I pointed out in this post why I believe the accusations of the current president "weaponizing" his Justice Department against a political opponent are meritless. But the prosecution will have to convince that to all twelve jurors at the trial.

Fraud may be a difficult issue to prove. If deep-down in the recesses of his mind the defendant truly believed that the outcome of the election was "rigged" against him, could he really have been committing fraud which is defined as "wrongful or criminal deception intended to result in financial or personal gain"?

In other words, if he truly believed the election was stolen from him, he wasn't practicing criminal deception, as state of mind is a key factor in determining guilt or innocence. 

Nevertheless, rigged or not, he still participated in illegal means to overturn an election, that much is certain. In the indictment there is a plethora of evidence to support the idea that the exPOTUS knew he lost the election fair and square, but on this too the prosecution will have to convince all twelve jurors. 

Then there is the idea of "Conspiracy Against Rights." 

Here is the opening of Section 241 of title 18 of the United States Code which according to the prosecution, justifies the charge of Conspiracy Against Rights:

If two or more persons conspire to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any person in any State, Territory, Commonwealth, Possession, or District in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by the Constitution or laws of the United States, or because of his having so exercised the same... they shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.

This statute was written after the Civil War and its chief purpose was to prevent the intimidation of black people attempting to vote. It was used extensively during the modern Civil Rights movement of the twentieth century for the same purpose. 

Once again it will be up to the prosecution to prove to all twelve members of the jury, that the statute applies to this particular case.

Regardless of one's feelings about the exPOTUS, our system of justice demands that he is innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Like everyone, he is entitled to his day in court and to a competent defense. 

Also like everyone, if found guilty, he should be held accountable for his actions, regardless of his past job and his aspirations for future employment. 

In this particular case, there is very little in doubt about his actions and those of his co-conspirators. What is in doubt and what the outcome of a potential trial will determine, is the legality of those actions. 

I'm obviously not a lawyer so my opinions on legal matters are of little worth. But as the facts of this case are not much in question, I can say with a great deal of certainly that those actions, illegal or not, were wrong. Very wrong. They run counter to the very idea and spirit of a Democratic-Republic, the system of government we have kept alive in this nation for nearly a quarter of a millennium, the system of government every president is responsible for upholding.

I used to think the term "existential threat to democracy" when applied to this exPOTUS was hyperbolic, but I no longer do.

It's interesting to hear people who clearly support his bid for another term as president tear apart the indictment, which I suspect many of them have not read, saying that what the exPOTUS did may have been wrong, but the prosecution cannot prove that the actions were illegal. 

That perplexes me because if they admit what he did was wrong, why would they still support him?

For instance:

OK it was wrong for him to watch on TV as his supporters broke into the Capitol, cheering them on as they used flag poles as weapons against the Capitol Police and others, causing grievous injury to many, threatening the lives of his Vice President and other elected officials, and doing absolutely NOTHING to stop it. 

But it may not have been illegal so...

It was wrong to place the burden on his Vice President to do something completely out of his authority, then set him up as the fall guy, placing him in great peril simply for doing the job the Constitution required of him.

But it may not have been illegal so...

It was wrong to single out by name, dedicated, private citizen poll workers doing their job in Georgia, seriously compromising their safety and wellbeing by falsely claiming they were changing votes for him into votes for his opponent. 

But it may not have been illegal so...

It was wrong that co-Conspirator Four in the August 1 indictment, a mid-level Justice Department official and the president's pick to become acting AG in the waning days of his presidency, suggested invoking the Insurgency Act to have the military put down protestors when informed by others in the president's inner circle that there would be an uprising if the president overturned the election.

But it may not have been illegal so...

It was wrong to threaten state government officials with legal action if they didn't overturn the results of a legitimate election or "find" just enough votes in their state to put him over the top. 

But it may not have been illegal so...

It was wrong for him to not accept the results of an election proscribed by the Constitution after exhausting all his legal recourses to make sure it was fair, then throw this country into turmoil, threatening a constitutional crisis simply to remain in office, mocking our century's old tradition of a peaceful transfer of power.

But it may not have been illegal so...

And on and on and on.

Then there's this:

The indictment shows the ex-president received the advice of dozens of legal experts on his team including his own Attorney General, all telling him there was no evidence of election fraud significant enough to have changed the results of the 2020 election. It also mentions over sixty failed lawsuits, several audits and recounts, all refuting his claims of a stolen election. If after all that the exPOTUS continued to believe as his supporters claim he did, that he should have won the election, then he is a delusional fool with a pathologically flawed sense of judgement, as opposed to a mere fraud. 

Take your pick. Could the bar possibly be set any lower than that?

Maybe it's just me but I wouldn't want either a fool or a fraud as president. 

What Jack Smith's reboot of Schoolhouse Rock teaches us is that comprehensive as our laws may be, the framers of our Constitution and the legislators who have written our subsequent laws, didn't think of everything. For example, much to nearly everyone's surprise, there is no statute preventing a convicted felon from running for and serving as president, even from behind bars, something we may be confronting in a short time. 

In order to ensure that wrongdoers face justice, sometimes lawyers representing the State and the Federal Government need to be creative, as the Special Prosecutor, as well as the District Attorney of the State of Georgia Fani Willis* have been with their indictments.

That may or may not work in their favor as far as getting convictions but one thing is for certain. The most valuable lesson in this whole mess is this:

Just because something is not illegal does not mean it is not wrong.

Our country is at a crossroads and we need to think quite seriously about what kind of nation we want to be. Do we want a nation led by public servants who are democratically elected, controlled by the rule of law and a system of checks and balances, the most salient of which are term limits and a quadrennial re-election process? 

Or do we want to be led by an authoritarian ruler-for-life who does as he pleases and answers to no one or nothing other than his own whims? 

That seems like a simple choice. Unfortunately, I'm afraid the "Founding Fathers" overestimated us. It apparently never occurred to them in their wildest dreams that a significant number of Americans would go for choice number two.

 

*CODA This article was begun before the State of Georgia released their own indictment of the exPOTUS on August 14, which is why I focused on the August 1 Federal indictment rather than on both. Interesting that the two prosecutors, Jack Smith for the Federal government and Fani Willis for the State of Georgia, took much different approaches to their indictments. One could say the former used a scalpel and the latter a chain saw. It will be interesting to see how it all these 91 criminal counts pan out.  

A Little Context Please

A radio interview the other day confirmed my suspicion that the outrage over the State of Florida's recently published history standards for K-12 public schools, needs a little more examination.

The interviewee, William Allen, was one of the contributors to the state's recently published list of standard guidelines regarding the teaching of history, in his case, the section on black American history.

Most of the outrage generated by this outline of study that otherwise reads like standard issue thought on black history from slavery through the Civil Rights movement, comes from one line.

The line in question is classified as a "benchmark clarification" and it is part of this item of study, (for reference, number SS.68.AA.2):

Analyze events that involved or affected Africans from the founding of the nation through Reconstruction.

 One of the sub-categories of the item is the following:

Examine the various duties and trades performed by slaves (e.g., agricultural
work, painting, carpentry, tailoring, domestic service, blacksmithing,
transportation).

Which is followed by this benchmark clarification, the subject of all the controversy:

Instruction includes how slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be
applied for their personal benefit. (emphasis mine)

Now that you hear it in its proper context, doesn't it sound a little better?

I didn't think so either.

Dr. Allen insists that what he and his fellow contributors to the new curriculum were trying to convey is NOT that black Americans have the institution of chattel slavery to thank for the skills their ancestors learned, but rather pointing out that after emancipation, former enslaved people, despite the tremendous odds against them, took their destiny into their own hands. Some of the skills they learned while under bondage, helped them survive their ordeal of life in the Post-Reconstruction South. In his words:

It is the case that Africans proved resourceful, resilient, and adaptive, and were able to develop skills and aptitudes which served to their benefit, both while enslaved and after enslaved... It was never said that slavery was beneficial to Africans.

Dr. Allen said he and his co-authors chose to emphasize the story of black people in the United States as being an example of the triumph of the human spirit, rather than merely a story of oppressors and victims. He then went on to use Frederick Douglass and Ida B. Wells as prime examples of his argument.

I'll take Dr. Allen's word on his and his colleagues' intentions. Nevertheless, that doesn't change the fact that as written, the clarification itself is tone deaf. 

The line which has come to define the entirety of Florida's new set of standards for the majority of Americans, has been condemned by both the left and the right. Upon release of the document, Vice President Harris before flying down to Florida to lambast the new standards in person, said:

Just yesterday in the state of Florida, they decided middle school students will be taught that enslaved people benefited from slavery... 

They insult us in an attempt to gaslight us, and we will not stand for it.

Also focusing on that one line, Republican senator and presidential candidate Tim Scott from South Carolina who like Dr. Allen is a black conservative, said this:

There is no silver lining ... What slavery was really about [was] separating families, about mutilating humans and even raping their wives,.. So, I would hope that every person in our country — and certainly [those] running for president — would appreciate that.

It seems the one politician who stands by the wording of the sentence, is the guy who deemed that re-evaluating history standards was necessary in the first place, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. True to form, when first confronted by the questionable statement. DeSantis became defensive. Like a child caught red-handed with a note making fun of the teacher, the first words out of his mouth were " I didn't write that."

Then he attacked the VP, the "woke mob", and even fellow Republicans who objected to the line, for spreading lies about the standards.

It's all very silly because there was a simple fix DeSantis could have employed that would have avoided the mess in the first place. He could have responded that in no way is anyone hinting at a silver lining to slavery, that the confusion stems from a poor choice of words, that these standards are still a work in progress, and that the misleading line will be struck and re-written.

DeSantis could also have brought up truthfully that his state is one of only twelve states in the nation that has mandated the teaching of black history in its public schools. He could also have correctly pointed out that he is personally responsible for signing a bill that required the teaching of The Ocoee Election Day Massacre in Florida schools (see below).

But he didn't bring any of that up.

The idea that former enslaved people used some of the skills they learned while under bondage in order to survive life as free people under an extraordinarily difficult situation, is not controversial nor debatable. It is in fact so obvious that it hardly needs mentioning. Despite that, it is a part of existing standard curricula around the country, including the one preceding this one in Florida. The objectionable part boils down to the use of two words, "personal benefit." The choice of those words in this context implies (although does not necessarily mean) that lives of people were improved from having been enslaved. It also implies the laughable idea that before they were enslaved, the African people who were brought to this country in chains had no discernible skills of their own.

As we live in an age of sound bites, the message that black people in this country personally benefited from being enslaved is now the takeaway from these new Florida standards in the minds of most Americans. The obvious conclusion is that the whole point of this exercise is to lessen the immorality and injustice of slavery, to make white enslavers look not so bad, and their descendants several generations removed, to feel not so guilty. With the words "personal benefit" in place, any explanation attempting to prove otherwise falls upon deaf ears.

Unfortunately, his insistence on being a culture warrior makes DeSantis go to great lengths to avoid being perceived as having said or done anything "woke". One of those lengths is being on the wrong side of history. This is not the first time. In this case, by not insisting the new standards be re-worded to avoid sounding as if they had been written by the Klan, he handed an easy bone of contention, gift wrapped to his opponents. 

Democrats and Independents alike, as well the Republicans who are running against him in his party's nomination for the 2024 presidential race, all will personally benefit from DeSantis's boneheaded intransigence.

Oh well, that's his problem not mine. 

But I do have a bone to pick with the Left of MAGA crowd, my own tribe, who keep dwelling on the personal benefit theme.

It isn't because the idea is not horrible and disgusting on its own, but because there are other issues with this new set of standards.

Let's begin with the Ocoee Massacre mentioned above, and the other atrocities mentioned below, found  in Section SS.912.AA.3.6 of the standards:

Describe the emergence, growth, destruction and rebuilding of black communities during Reconstruction and beyond. 

Benchmark Clarifications:
...
Clarification 2: Instruction includes acts of violence perpetrated against and by African Americans but is not limited to 1906 Atlanta Race Riot, 1919 Washington, D.C. Race Riot, 1920 Ocoee Massacre, 1921, Tulsa Massacre and the 1923 Rosewood Massacre.

Again the emphasis is mine. Once more, the questionable nature of this clarification comes down to two words, in this case, "and by". The examples given in Clarification 2, all involve the massacre of dozens of black people. In each case there was indeed violence perpetrated by black people but by any reasonable standard, that violence was either in self-defense, or defending the justice of others (i.e.: preventing people from being lynched). As written, the authors are conflating the racist vigilante mob violence of one group with the other group reacting to it in self-defense, implying that both sides are equally responsible for the atrocities. I invite you to look up these tragic events to arrive at your own conclusions.

My main objection to the new standards however is the motivation to create them in the first place.

This is what DeSantis had to say in a press release announcing his signing of what has become known as the 2022 "Anti-Woke Act."

No one should be instructed to feel as if they are not equal or shamed because of their race. In Florida, we will not let the far-left woke agenda take over our schools and workplaces. There is no place for indoctrination or discrimination in Florida.

I might be a little dense here but doesn't singling out "the far-left woke agenda" imply some indoctrination on the part of the Governor? 

Enter The 1619 Project.

The brainchild of Nikole Hannah-Jones, a journalist for the New York Times, The 1619 Project is a substantive look at American history, bringing the institution of slavery to the forefront of issues that shaped this country. The initial publication of the work was in the August 19, 2019 issue of the New York Times Sunday Magazine, marking the 400th anniversary of the voyage of the White Lion, a ship carrying what many regard to be the first group of African people to these shores to be sold as slaves. So intertwined is slavery to American history according to Hannah-Jones, she uses that date to mark what she considers to be the true origin date of this nation.  

Since its original publication, The 1619 Project has been distributed as a podcast, a book, The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story, a film, and a curriculum distributed to schools around the country.

The work has received numerous accolades and awards including the Pulitzer Prize for commentary.

1619 has also been roundly criticized for its historical inaccuracies. Shortly after its first publication in the magazine, The Times received a letter written by Princeton historian Sean Wilentz and co-signed by four other eminent historians, James McPherson, the author of the influential Civil War history The Battle Cry of Freedom, Gordon Wood, Pullizer Prize winner for his book: The Radicalization of the Revolution, Victoria Bynum, author of The Long Shadow of the Civil War: Southern Dissent and its Legacies, and James Oakes, author of Freedom National: The Destruction of Slavery in the United States, 1861-1865. 

The letter accuses the author of among other things: a "displacement of historical understanding by ideology." The signees contend that 1619 gives the impression that slavery was a uniquely American phenomenon, that it is intrinsically tied to Capitalism, and that the project is unfairly dismissive of Abraham Lincoln and his role in emancipation. But chiefly the authors object to this line from Hannah-Jones's introductory text: 

Conveniently left out of our founding mythology, is the fact that one of the primary reasons the colonists decided to declare their independence from Britain was because they wanted to protect the institution of slavery.

It should be noted that several other notable historians were approached to sign the letter but refused on the grounds that they felt the importance of reframing "our understanding of American history by placing slavery and its continuing legacy at the center of our national narrative" in words taken from a promo for the book, outweighs the inaccuracies. 

One of those historians is Leslie M. Harris, professor of history at Northwestern University, and author of In the Shadow of Slavery: African Americans in New York City, 1626-1863. In an article for Politico, Professor Harris writes about her work with the New York Times, verifying some of the details of 1619 before it went to press. Professor Harris in her words, "vigorously disputed the claim" that the preservation of slavery was central to American Independence, but to no avail, they went with it anyway.

Dr. Harris's Politico piece titled I Helped Fact-Check The 1619 Project. The Times Ignored Me, is well worth reading. You can find it here.

Also worth reading is New York Times Sunday Magazine editor Jake Silverstein's response to Professor Wilentz's letter here. Silverstein makes an eloquent, if not all together convincing argument for refusing the letter's request to correct the factual errors in 1619 save for one. They grudgingly agreed to change the part in the introductory text that reads: "one of the primary reasons the colonists decided to declare their independence from Britain was..." to "one of the reasons some of the colonists..."

As for the rest of the inaccuracies well, they're still there.

That's a shame because in my opinion, the lack of attention to getting things right in any historical work, runs the risk of invalidating the entire work. 

In his piece, Silverstein quotes our friend Ron DeSantis:

...the folks who created [The 1619 Project] said that the American Revolution was fought primarily to preserve slavery. Now, that is factually false. That is something that you can look at the historical record. You want to know why they revolted against Britain? They told us. They wrote pamphlets, they did committees of correspondence, they did a Declaration of Independence. ... I think it’s really important that when we’re doing history, when we’re doing things like civics, that it is grounded in actual fact, and I think we’ve got to have an education system that is preferring fact over narratives.

Silverstein then goes on to refute the Governor:

A curious feature (editor's emphasis) of this argument on behalf of the historical record is how ahistorical it is. In privileging “actual fact” over “narrative,” the governor, and many others, seem to proceed from the premise that history is a fixed thing; that somehow, long ago, the nation’s historians identified the relevant set of facts about our past, and it is the job of subsequent generations to simply protect and disseminate them.

I couldn't agree more that history is not a fixed thing, or that once history is written, it should forever be a closed book. 

The following may be a little hard to decipher but I think the exPOTUS and I differ on this issue:

I just look at—I look at school. I watch, I read, look at the stuff. Now they want to change—1492, Columbus discovered America. You know, we grew up, you grew up, we all did, that's what we learned. Now they want to make it the 1619 project. Where did that come from? What does it represent? I don't even know.

But facts are facts and Nikole Hannah-Jones is no more entitled to her own facts than Donald Trump. As much as I hate to say this, DeSantis is right here, at least to some extent. The "Founding Fathers" themselves (not the historians), left us all sorts of evidence of reasons why they demanded independence, including the Declaration of Independence itself. 

Well you say: "of course they're not going to openly demand the right to enslave people as even in the late eighteenth century that was a contentious issue." And it is a fact that many of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, including its author, were enslavers who certainly had a personal stake in the matter. But it's also true that many of the signers were opposed to slavery and would not have put their personal stamp on such a document if maintaining slavery was indeed one of the main arguments for independence. 

But the proof in the pudding that Hannah-Jones's position on the matter is a non-starter is that there is scant evidence that Britain in the 1770s had any inclination of eliminating slavery in the American colonies. The fact is the British themselves personally benefitted quite nicely from slavery in the American colonies even after their independence, as is pointed out in one of the episodes of The 1619 Project. Therefore, while the idea of protecting slavery might have been on the minds of some of these men, the premise that preservation of that dreadful institution was one of the main causes for independence is a wild stretch at best.

But is it a deal killer as far as The 1619 Project goes?

Well, it is for the folks who let it define the entire work, just as the part about people benefiting from the skills they learned as slaves is a deal killer to the people who let it define the new Florida outline.

It certainly is a deal killer to DeSantis who has banned the 1619 curriculum from being taught in Florida public schools. The new Florida curriculum outline in fact owes its very existence to The1619 Project and the strong backlash to it. Florida is not alone as several other states have done the same.

It may be likely that even without the historical inaccuracies those states would have still banned the 1619 curriculum for its central theme of race and racism. The inaccuracies just give them legitimate justification. That is unfortunate. It is also unnecessary. Even though Hannah-Jones's idea of slavery being central to the American Revolution fits perfectly into her thesis, her thesis doesn't suffer one bit from dropping the idea which more than likely is not true.

It doesn't change the fact pointed out by Jake Silverstein that "Enslavement is not marginal to the history of the United States; it is inextricable." 

It doesn't change the idea that rings so true, the title of Nikole Hannah-Jones introductory essay: "Our democracy's founding ideals were false when they were written. Black Americans have fought to make them true." 

If you don't believe that, read my previous post.

And it doesn't change what I consider the most valuable aspect of The1619 Project, giving a voice to the people who were up until now voiceless, enslaved people themselves. 

Despite its faults, The1619 Project is a valuable addition to the canon of works dealing with American history. Just like any historical text, it should never be considered the final word on its subject. Perhaps the silver lining to its drawbacks is that as a study tool, students can learn to judge for themselves, discerning fact from narrative and ideology, thereby developing their own critical thinking skills.

Now that's something from which we can all personally benefit.

When Rights Collide

The recent spate of controversial decisions made by the U.S. Supreme Court has gotten me thinking about rights and the role of law in our life. 

As I've gotten older, I've become more libertarian in my views. The libertarianism I speak of is not the political movement (spelled with an upper case "L") which concerns itself mainly with laissez-faire capitalism, but rather the more general meaning of the word, stemming from its root, that is to say, liberty. In other words, I believe a society such as ours which claims to be "free", should allow its citizens to be well, free, so long as their freedom doesn't impinge on the rights of others.

Pay close attention to that last part.

I believe people should be free to live their lives as they choose with governmental interference kept to a minimum. 

I believe people should be free to love and to marry whomever they please, and to identify themselves however they see fit.

I believe that people should be free to obtain the health care they and their physician (not their state legislator, or governor) feel is necessary to keep themselves well. 

 

I believe that people should be free to practice whatever religion they chose, or none at all. 

I believe that educators, with the input of parents, should be free from the government deciding what they should teach or what books their students should be allowed to read.

I believe that people should be free to speak their minds, even if what they have to say is unpopular.

That last part, freedom of speech, is so important in our society, that it is guaranteed in the first section of the "Bill of Rights" of our constitution, along with the freedom of religion, freedom of the press, the right to peaceably assemble, and the right to petition the government for redress of grievances. As a side note, for those who believe that nowhere in the Constitution can the phrase: "separation of church and state" be found, they are correct. Instead, before any of those rights mentioned above, the very first clause of the First Amendment of our Constitution unequivocally declares that: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion", which means exactly the same thing. 

Anyway, two of those rights enumerated in the First Amendment, speech and religion, figure prominently in one of the Court's latest controversial rulings. The case is identified as 303 Creative LLC vs. Elenis and it could prove to be a landmark decision in the realm of public accommodation in the United States. 

The case involves a Colorado website designer who is looking to branch into creating sites revolving around weddings. The designer, Lori Smith, wanted to post a disclaimer on her own website saying that due to her Christian faith, she would not be accepting business from gay couples intending to get married. However, she learned that such a notice violated Colorado law stipulating that public businesses could not discriminate against people based upon their gender identity or sexual orientation, among many other things.

Smith decided to sue, claiming that the Colorado law violated her First Amendment right to freedom of speech.

When the Supreme Court ruled in Smith's favor a couple weeks ago, I have to say that I agreed with the decision to some extent. Let me explain:

First of all, the inevitable and reasonable question arises: do I believe it's OK to discriminate against people because of their gender identity or sexual orientation? To that I would answer no, I believe it is wrong. But I would add that it is imprudent to make laws against everything that we believe is wrong. It is wrong to be rude to people, but it is not against the law, nor should it be. It is wrong to lie, but unless a lie is told under oath, it is not against the law. It turns out many things are ethically wrong, but not illegal. 

Laws are created essentially to solve conflicts in society when people left to their own devises cannot solve them on their own. In a civilized world, (the jury is still out on that one concerning this world I'm afraid), people solve problems and conflicts all the time on their own without having to turn to the law, which I would argue is a good thing most of the time. However sometimes the solution is worse than the problem, which is where laws become necessary.

In Ms. Smith's case, it seemed perfectly reasonable to me to explain up front to potential clients that because of her beliefs, she wasn't comfortable promoting gay weddings, but would gladly provide the clients in good faith, a list of designers who would. I would argue this is indeed serving potential clients as finding someone to perform a service is more than half the battle.

Besides, if I were getting married, something I've already done twice and have no intention of doing again, the last thing I would want is to have someone working on the event who did not approve of my lifestyle or my marriage. 

That thought had been running through my head ever since another case went before the Supreme Court a few years ago. The case, Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, involved a baker who refused to provide a wedding cake to a gay couple. Again, I believed that while I didn't agree with the baker's motivations or actions, I felt this case and others like it could have been resolved without involving the courts, especially in our day and age of the internet, where the couple could go online and fight the case in the court of public opinion, often with more effective results than in a court of law. (Please bear in mind that until recently I wasn't aware of the specifics of this case, see below).

However...

Let it be known that's what I believed two weeks ago but having given it a considerable amount of thought since then, have changed my mind and have done a complete 180.

The post you're reading was originally intended to be a half-baked defense of the Court's decision based upon my half-baked libertarianism. Given my previous ambivalence on the matter, I'm not entirely sure what inspired me to write the following two sentences, but I stand by them today and will until my dying day:

There are two essential ingredients for a democracy to work, the first is that the minority must accept the decisions of the majority. The second, at least as important as the first if not more, is that the majority must accept the rights of the minority. 

The problem with libertarianism's objection to legislation in all but the most serious of cases, is that it assumes people will do the right thing because it generally works in their own self-interest. You know the drill, "do unto others as you would have them do unto you", "what goes around comes around", "instant karma's gonna get you" and all that. Unfortunately, it doesn't take much living in the real world to realize that it doesn't always work out that way. 

That's why we need laws to protect the rights of minorities, in fact, those laws are the bedrock of our democracy. 

Many of the first ten amendments to the Constitution, especially the first one, indirectly address the rights of the minority. Ironically, The Bill of Rights was written at a time when owning people was still legal. On December 15, 1791 when the Bill of Rights was ratified, eighteen percent of the U.S. population was enslaved, including a little over two percent in the Northern States alone. The Bill of Rights, the cornerstone of safeguarding our liberty as American citizens, did nothing to change that.

It would take a Civil War seventy years later, to eradicate what has come to be known as "America's original sin" once and for all.

One of the most consequential amendments to the constitution, the Fourteenth, was adopted on July 9th, 1868, three years after Lee's surrender at Appomattox to Grant.

Here's the meat and potatoes of the Fourteenth Amendment, Section One:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

As clear as legal writing can be, the Fourteenth Amendment declared who will be granted the full rights of citizenship in this country, that no person, citizen or not, shall be punished without due process of the law, and that everyone residing in the United Sates, legally or not, is granted equal protection of the law.

But there was still a lot of work to do. The Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution, known as the "Reconstruction Amendments", were written during the period around the end of the Civil War. In a nutshell, the thirteenth amendment officially abolished slavery, and the fifteenth prohibited the government from denying the right to vote on the basis of race. (Women would have to wait another 50 years for the adoption of the Nineteenth Amendment which granted universal suffrage in the United States.) 

Anyone with a sense of U.S. history knows that the post-Reconstruction was a particularly dreadful time for black people in this country, especially in the South. It is the time that gave birth to the KKK, Jim Crow segregation laws, public (and private) lynchings, and illegal disenfranchisement. With virtually no one willing or able to enforce them down south, it was as if the reconstruction amendments did not exist. 

Despite the non-violent movements that confronted the treatment of blacks in the U.S., led by estimable figures such as Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, Ida B. Wells and W.E.B. Du Bois, it would remain that way, virtually unchanged for nearly three quarters of a century. 

I think it's fair to say that the modern American Civil Rights movement began in earnest at the end of the Second World War in 1945 when black members of the armed forces who served this country with distinction in Europe and the Pacific, returned home to their previous lives as second-class citizens. This grave injustice did not go unnoticed, even outside of the black community.

As I've written in this space before, one of the first great, symbolic victories in the modern American Civil Right Movement came on April 15, 1947, when Jackie Robinson entered the previously segregated baseball Major Leagues and played his first game with the Brooklyn Dodgers. Quoting myself:

Jackie Robinson (may have only been) a ballplayer and much of his legacy is wrapped around a game. But back in the day, baseball wasn't different from any other institution in the United States in regards to race, it was simply more public, and the integration of the game brought the issue of racial injustice in this country to the forefront. 

Soon to follow were the harrowing, trailblazing events and the people who inspired them that symbolize the American Civil Rights movement and would change this country forever. I won't go into detail here as I believe the mere mention of the following names and events should be sufficient to anyone with a modicum of understanding of American history:

• Emmett Till
• Thurgood Marshall
• Rosa Parks
• Medgar Evers
  
• The Lunch Counter Sit-Ins
• The Freedom Rides
• The Birmingham Campaign
• The March on Washington
• The Selma to Montgomery March
  
• Martin Luther King

to name just a few.

And yet, people were still unmoved by injustice, so it took laws to make real change. Again, I won't go into much detail here, for more information you can look up these groundbreaking SCOTUS decisions, executive orders, acts of Congress and amendments to the Constitution, all made possible by the Fourteenth Amendment:

• Executive Order 8802, which outlawed discrimination based on race, color, creed, and national origin in the federal government and defense industries.
• Executive Order 9981 which officially integrated the armed forces.
  
• Brown vs. Board of Education which declared state sanctioned segregation of schools unconstitutional.
  
• Bailey vs. Patterson which prohibited racial segregation of transportation facilities.
• The Twenty-fourth Amendment, which eliminated the poll tax as a requirement for voting.
  
• Loving vs. Virginia which affirmed the right to inter-racial marriage.
• The Civil Rights Acts of 1957, 1960, 1964 and 1968
• The Voting Rights Act of 1965
• The Equal Employment Opportunity Act of 1972

Most relevant to the topic of at hand is The Civil Rights Act of 1964 which among other things, prohibited discrimination in public accommodations, facilities, and schools.

From that point on, from a legal standpoint at least, black people no longer would be required to sit at the back of the bus, figuratively and literally.

But it didn't stop there. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 insured that those guaranties of the right to not be discriminated against would be extended to other groups who had a long history of being marginalized in American society. In addition to race, the categories that were deemed protected classes under the anti-discrimination statutes as spelled out in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 were age, national origin, religious beliefs, gender, disability, pregnancy and veteran status.

In addition to these categories, states were free to add their own protected classes of individuals, including sexual orientation and gender identity. Colorado did so on May 29, 2008, officially banning discrimination of the LBGTQ+ community in housing, public accommodation and advertising. In 2021 the state expanded these protections to employment.

 

As of this writing, about 20 states include sexual orientation and gender identity as protected classes.

In the Masterpiece wedding cake case, the couple who were refused a cake for their wedding, filed a complaint with the Colorado Civil Rights Commission against the baker for what was a clear violation of the state's public accommodation anti-discrimination law. The Commission ruled in favor of the couple and required the baker not only to provide cakes for gay weddings but also to:

change its company policies, provide 'comprehensive staff training' regarding public accommodations discrimination, and provide quarterly reports for the next two years regarding steps it has taken to come into compliance and whether it has turned away any prospective customers.

The baker responded by ceasing to bake wedding cakes entirely.* He also sued the CCRC on the grounds that the law violated his first amendment right to freely exercise his religion. That case made it to the Supreme Court. The case which seemingly pitted two fundamental rights against each other, stymied moderate members of the Court such as now retired Justice William Kennedy who while on the bench, was the court's staunchest defender of the First Amendment AND gay rights. 

So the Court punted. 

Their decision in that case was inconsequential, it rested on a technicality, namely that the CCRC erred in its ruling by using disparaging words about religion, which led Kennedy to write in his majority opinion: "religious hostility on the part of the State itself" violated the "State's obligation of religious neutrality." The court ruled 7-2 in favor of the baker, the dissenting votes coming from the Justices Sonia Sotomayor and the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

With Ginsburg and Kennedy gone, both replaced by far more ideologically conservative judges, the table was set for a different outcome with the 303 case. The plaintiff argued what separated her case from the one preceding it, is that in the role she hoped to play in her new business, she would be writing copy to accompany pictures posted on the wedding websites. As she objected to gay marriage, she claimed she would be forced to write something she didn't believe in, thereby violating her First Amendment right to freedom of speech.

Six justices made up exclusively by the ideologically conservative branch of the Court agreed with her. The remaining three dissented.

This ruling is consequential because in it, the Court is saying that it is indeed OK to discriminate in some cases. Defenders of the decision say the ruling is very narrow in that it only concerns cases where a business is required to provide language, a protected right, rather than say, just a cake. But wait a minute, can't a baker claim his or her cake is a work of art, therefore a form of personal expression which could also be considered protected by the First Amendment?. What about a wedding photographer or a musician?

We don't have to stop there, what about business owners who are morally opposed to mixed marriages? Or folks whose religion teaches them that blacks Jews and Catholics are devil worshipers? Believe me, those people are out there, not just a product of my imagination.

Which begs the question, what if the plaintiff in the 303 case had instead sued to refuse service to Catholic couples, how would the six conservative justices, five of whom are practicing Catholics, have voted?

I can't say for certain, but I have a sneaking suspicion that the outcome of this case would have been different, assuming the Court would have even bothered to hear the case at all.

Regardless, as a result of this ruling, messages like "Gays not served" and "Blacks, Jews and Catholics not welcome" are now AOK according to this court's ruling, at least in some cases. 

What's next?

We'll have to see as we can now expect a whole new slew of lawsuits coming before the court, claiming the plaintiff's First Amendment right to discriminate.

Yes I know, my argument here predicting all sorts of terrible things that might result from this decision, could fall into the category of a slippery slope logical fallacy. But here's the thing, if you want to change something big in the courts, you have to start small. I'm not questioning the motivations of the two plaintiffs in these cases. I have little doubt the baker and the web designer are sincere in looking after their own interests, protecting their faith and respective businesses. Challenging the law is their First Amendment right after all.

But sustaining a lawsuit all the way through to the Supreme Court takes tremendous resources which few individuals have. Typically, there is an interested third party, usually an organization with deep pockets and an agenda or axe to grind who takes up causes such as this to provide the funding and the legal expertise to make cases like these possible.

Sure enough, both plaintiffs were represented by a group called the Alliance Defending Freedom, a Christian advocacy group who in their mission statement declares itself to be:

the world’s largest legal organization committed to protecting religious freedom, free speech, marriage and family, parental rights, and the sanctity of life.

From their website:

ADF is working to secure Generational Wins in the five key areas.

Those five key areas are:

• "Guaranteeing the right to life from conception to natural death."
• "Restoring religious freedom as a fundamental right."
• Securing free speech for all."
• "Guaranteeing the fundamental rights of parents to direct the upbringing and education of their children."
• "Ensuring the law respects God’s created order for marriage, the family, and human sexuality."

From my experience, whenever a Christian organization claims it is working to "protect religious freedom", what they are really working for is the right to impose their religion on others.  

Rest assured that for the ADF, the First Amendment in these two cases is only a means to an end, they have much bigger fish to fry.

Here from their website is a detailed description of the group's efforts to help successfully overturn Roe v. Wade. Pay close attention to the small steps they took before the big leap.

Now that item number one of their "Generational Wins" to-do list is checked off, the two victories regarding denying public accommodations for LGBTQ+ people could be the first steps necessary for them to check off item number five, "respecting God’s created order for marriage".

In other words, getting the Supreme Court to overrule Obergefell v. Hodges, the landmark 2015 decision, ruling that the right to marry is guaranteed to same sex couples by the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Justice Clarence Thomas, who not surprisingly voted in the minority in Obergefell, has publicly invited like-minded parties to bring cases to the Court that challenge rulings he does not like involving not only the right to gay marriage, but sexual acts between consenting adults (Lawrence v. Texas) and contraception (Griswold v. Connecticut). In his concurring opinion to the case that overturned Roe, Thomas wrote:

In future cases, we should reconsider all of this court’s substantive due process precedents, including Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell.

This Court has a track record of taking away rights Americans have enjoyed by for decades by overruling precedent, and it is clear that Thomas intends to keep on doing it.

It would be interesting to hear Justice Thomas's views on yet another due process precedent, Loving v. Virginia, the overruling of which would invalidate his own marriage. 

There are more fundamental issues with this case than the dreadful consequences that may likely result from this decision. I understand how some people might resent the comparison of someone like Rosa Parks, who was arrested for not sitting in her proper place on a bus, to a couple who were denied a wedding cake. But grave injustices and not quite as grave injustices are both injustices. If we are going to have laws that prohibit businesses from discriminating against particular groups of people, something I believe the majority of Americans support, we can't cherry pick the offenses we feel are "worthy" from others we feel are not. If it is illegal to ban black people from being served at your place of business, it is illegal (in the states where they are a protected group), to ban LBGTQ people. Equal protection under the law means just that. It shouldn't be that hard to figure out.

In a perfect world, we wouldn't need laws, we'd all be able to figure out how to do the right thing on our own. As we saw above, the laws that protect against discrimination written over the last eighty years or so, have helped set us on the course of being a more free, equitable and just society, something we should all be on board with. We still have a lot of work to do to get to that place and it doesn't help that this Court is hellbent on setting us backward a half century or more. 

Funny, in the process of writing this post, I went from being OK with this decision to believing it is an unmitigated disaster.

Guess I should turn in my libertarian card. 

CODA

*Getting out of the wedding cake business entirely is a very reasonable solution to the problem for the baker who didn't want to bake cakes for gay weddings. Come to think of it, it's a good rebuttal to the argument that someone's First Amendment rights are violated when their work requires them to do or say something they do not agree with. They are free to pursue other work opportunities that do not conflict with their beliefs. 

A good example is a friend of mine who worked for a firm that considered doing business with a company that manufactured assault weapons. As he has a moral objection to these weapons, my friend was prepared to quit his job rather than contribute to something he felt was immoral. Sometimes there are difficult decisions to be made in life, especially if you have strong beliefs. Nowhere in the Constitution does it guarantee the right to a job that will never require you to do something you may not believe in. Personally, I see no First Amendment issue in these two cases at all. 

Some Thoughts on the Fourth of July

I've written before about summer's bookend holidays, Memorial Day and Labor Day. Both are days that call for reflection on what they commemorate. Whether we actually think about those who gave their lives in service to this country, be they veterans or activists in the cause of making this a better place for the working man and woman, is another story.

We have a new national summer holiday, Juneteenth, which commemorates the emancipation of slaves in the United States, certainly a day worthy of reflection and indeed, celebration. It has been referred to as Black Independence Day and rightfully so. Juneteenth deserves a post all its own which I promise is forthcoming.

But this post is about the other Independence Day, popularly known as the Fourth of July, or simply, The Fourth.

I would like to say that every year on fourth day of July, I dutifully read the Declaration of Independence before risking life and limb, not to mention the mental health of animals, by blowing things up. What could be more American than that?

The truth is I seldom do either of those things, but there are exceptions, see below. I did read in its entirety the Declaration of Independence the other day, whose signing in the year 1776 is what Independence Day commemorates, in case you forgot.

The Declaration is for the most part, a list of grievances against the colonial powers of the British Crown, but when we think of the document written by Thomas Jefferson, one sentence immediately comes to mind:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

With those words, I think it's safe to say that as our Constitution is the heart of this nation, the Declaration of Independence is its soul. 

That rings true despite the bitter irony that not only did its author own slaves, but also ignored half of the nation in his grand statement. 

Despite the irony, it has been the words themselves serving as an ideal, that have led us more or less, in the right direction for nearly 250 years. We may not be there yet, there have been many roadblocks, there will continue to be obstacles, but I believe we will get to that promised land one day, when inspired by those words, all of us, men, women, black, white and brown, rich, poor, gay, straight, trans and cis, will have equal rights. This won't happen in my lifetime, and probably not in my children's either, but it will one day. 

You see, despite everything, I am an eternal optimist. 

And that's why I'm happy to celebrate the Fourth of July in whatever way I can, usually being content to let others blow stuff up while I watch.

Growing up, my family did not have any particular Fourth of July tradition, we just winged it, culminating with the obligatory witnessing of a sanctioned fireworks display. In a big city, that inevitably means a tremendous hassle, fighting the multitudes in getting to a place reasonably close to see the display. Been there, done that on several occasions, with mixed results.  I distinctly remember in the mid-sixties, being stuck in gridlock on southbound Lake Shore Drive, trying to get to Soldier Field to see their fireworks show. If my memory serves, we never got there. 

Because of that, more often than not, my most satisfying Fourths were spent out of town, usually in small towns in Wisconsin and Michigan.

The following is a list in no particular order, of some of my most memorable Fourth of Julys:

The most memorable, 1968: Not much to do with the holiday itself but something every Chicagoan of a certain age will understand, I went to a taping of "Bozo's Circus". The hardest ticket in town in those days, on-the-ball parents sent in their requests to WGN TV at the time of the birth of their first child, knowing the tickets would show up in the mail about eight years later, just in time before the kid would be too old for such nonsense. Hopefully there would be younger siblings to follow. No, my parents were not on the ball when I was born, it was my friend Edgars's parents who didn't have enough young kids of their own to use up all their tickets, so they invited me. I think that evening we did make it to Soldier Field for the fireworks, which paled in comparison to meeting Bozo.  

The least memorable, that I actually remember, 1976: The Bicentennial of the United States was anticipated for years before the event. Consequently, when the actual day rolled around, it could not possibly live up to the hype. I vaguely recall being with my parents, standing in line for about a couple hours to see something, I can't remember what or where. I want to say it was Navy Pier to see a moon rock on display. But I don't think that makes sense because seven years after the original moon landing, the thrill would have long been gone. When the day came to an end, I do recall the song that went through my head, the refrain of a Peggy Lee tune that was popular at the time: "Is that all there is?"

The sweetest, 2002: That year, our first child was a little over one year old and we threw all caution to the wind by taking him to his first fireworks display on the Kenosha lakefront. We had a wonderful time picnicking with his grandparents and his aunt and his uncle, happily anticipating the big event with the first child in the family for at least three hours. Then it got dark, the booms began, and we discovered our little boy was totally freaked out by the noise. After two or three minutes of hysterical crying, he fell fast asleep, allowing us to enjoy the fireworks in relative peace, paradoxical as that may sound. 

The most satisfying, 1997 and 1998: Before marriage and children, my wife and I liked to head up to Wisconsin where she grew up. One Fourth of July we stayed in a B&B in the city of East Troy, situated in the beautiful Kettle Moraine region of the state. Another year we headed up the coast of Lake Michigan. On the way we found a deserted beach where for the one and only time, went skinny dipping in the lake. We ended up at Port Washington, a small lakefront city where we sat on the rocks by the shore with a few thousand others, as opposed to several hundred thousand if we had stayed at home, to watch the fireworks. Perhaps my favorite Fourth of July or at the very least, tied for that title with the following. 

The red, white and bluest, 1987: We did have a tradition of sorts during the eighties, when my ex-wife and I would often spend the Fourth, as well as other festive holidays, with our friend Scott, who moved to Michigan where he bought a one room schoolhouse near South Haven. One year, Scott took us to the small town of Allegan, MI, situated on the Kalamazoo River. In the shadow of the historic and truly lovely Second Street Bridge, sits a park with a gazebo, where the town band put on a concert of patriotic tunes (what else?). I have to say that corny as it sounds, there is no better place to spend the Fourth than in a small town, especially a picturesque one like Allegan. Imagine a Norman Rockwell painting of the Fourth of July and you have an idea of what it was like. It hardly mattered that the band evoked memories of the Mayberry Marching Band. If anything, their sincere if slightly less-than-virtuosic performance, made the experience all the more wonderful. 

The scariest, 1988: Also with Scott, this time on the beach in South Haven. Waiting for the town's official fireworks show to begin, as is common at these events, there were several unofficial, amateur fireworks shows going on. A couple hundred yards in front of us, a tremendous blast went off, the flash occurring smack dab in the middle of a group of spectators. Then came the emergency vehicles. After about 15 minutes they cleared the scene, and I recall the show went off without a hitch, but the mood of the crowd darkened considerably. The following day in the newspaper we learned what had happened. Someone tossed a lit M-80 (a firecracker on steroids) into the crowd. It landed underneath the back of a man who was lying on the sand while propped up on his elbows. The man was seriously injured both with second and third degrees burns to his back from the blast as well as severe lacerations from the sand kicked up by the explosion. 

The most historic, 1986: We happened to be in New York City visiting my friend Frank during the festivities surrounding the 100th anniversary of the Statue of Liberty. As one can see from the Wikipedia article on the event, there were four days' worth of activities celebrating the milestone including speeches by the presidents of the United States, (Ronald Reagan), and France, (François Mitterand), a flotilla including U.S. Navy warships and beautiful tall ships sailing by Lady Liberty, a concert featuring Frank Sinatra, Neil Diamond and other big stars, and the proverbial much, much more. Being big city dwellers weary of the hassle of attending such events, amplified a hundredfold by being in NYC, we avoided all of that. Instead, we chose to limit our participation to viewing the July 4th fireworks in New York Harbor from the roof of Frank's sister's apartment building in Brooklyn, about five miles away. Nevertheless, we can say were there.

The most hands on: c.1975: As I said, I typically prefer to let other people blow stuff up for me on the Fourth, but not that year. My Uncle Bob lived with his family in suburban Oak Lawn and we would spend Christmas and other holidays with them at their home. For some reason, only once did we spend the Fourth of July there, and their tradition was to shoot off fireworks in front of their home, along with everybody else on their block. Despite being somewhat timid at the outset, I even shied away from cap guns as a child, I quickly got into the swing of things and had a blast, pun intended. Nevertheless, I was still respectful of the explosives and would toss the things the instant the fuse was lit. Not so my macho father who insisted on holding on to the explosive device until the very last second before it would explode. One time he waited a little too long and the cherry bomb he was lighting, went off not exactly in his hand, but just inches from it. While everyone gasped in horror, he stoically laughed off the incident with not so much as an ouch, although I'm certain he was hurt. Clearly, I didn't inherit my old man's penchant for risk taking machismo.

The biggest wash out. 1999: Another thing I didn't inherit, was my late friend Janet's patience. She was the kind of person who would obtain a ridiculously hard-to-find parking space on her block by putting the blinkers on and wait for someone to show up to move their car. I on the other hand had no patience for that, preferring to drive around for blocks looking for an available spot, sometimes parking a mile or two away. In the end of course, her way would be far more efficient, both in terms of distance, and time. So, it makes perfect sense that Janet and her partner Dave, also a dear friend who was equally patient, would have no problem staking out a spot to watch the official Chicago fireworks show, ten, perhaps twelve hours before the event. That year we joined them around 3pm on the holiday, picnicking on a berm above the Grant Park parking garage on Monroe Street. I believe Dave set up camp around 10am and was there the entire time. We had a wonderful time until we noticed the sky was becoming darker and darker. If we had smartphones back then with up-to-the-minute weather forecasts, we might have taken cover. Instead, we hoped for the best and boy did we pay the price. Nevertheless, it was one of the last and best times we had with this wonderful couple, so it was all worth it, not a washout at all. 

Janet on the right, with my wife and me waiting for the fireworks that would never come.
Photo by Dave. 

The farthest away, 1996 and 1997: Those two consecutive years I happened to be out of the country for the Fourth of July, 1996 in Barcelona and 1997, in Yamagata, Japan. Both times my hosts wished me a very happy Independence Day, reminding me of something I had completely overlooked. How people in other countries view Americans is what originally inspired this post, but I've gotten side-tracked, and that post will have wait for another day.

The most Zenlike, c. 2018: For the last several years, my son and I have been invited to a party at the home of our friends who are fellow baseball parents. Today we unfortunately won't be able to make it because of other commitments. At these parties, adult beverages are served and as the festivities usually begin in the early afternoon, by the time it gets dark well, you get the picture. Anyway, one year our host Ricky, brought out a Chinese lantern, effectively a miniature hot air balloon, consisting of a paper structure, open at the bottom, suspended over a candle. The lit candle heats up the air inside the paper "balloon" and once the air is hot enough, the whole assemblage, candle and all lifts off, much like a balloon filled with helium. Unlike a helium balloon, the candle illuminates the paper lantern so its voyage to wherever the air current takes it can be viewed for several minutes, much like a rocket blasting off at night. I had never seen one of these before and between the chaos of the fireworks going off in the surrounding neighborhood and the room zooms caused by the alcohol running through my bloodstream, I stood there transfixed, watching this little toy, the most satisfying (and quiet) firework of them all, make its one and only journey to God knows where. It's an image that will remain with me the rest of my life. 

Then there was last year, 2022: Fourth of Julys have been less momentous for my wife and me since our parade and firecracker hating kids came along, Last year was set to be no different. But around 10:30 am, I walked into the kitchen and heard a report on the radio of yet another mass shooting in the United States. This report was different as the voices of the reporters on the scene were familiar, they were local reporters. 

It was at an annual Fourth of July Parade in the Chicago suburb of Highland Park where a young man with a high-powered assault style rifle, perched himself on the roof of a commercial building along the parade route, and began shooting indiscriminately at spectators and participants. In the end, he killed seven people and wounded 48. Not long after hearing the initial report, my thoughts immediately turned to a friend, my friend Frank's godson, who lives in the suburb with his wife their two small children. Certainly, I thought, they had to have been at the parade. Turns out they were, but as I found out hours later, to my relief, they were not on the same block as the shooter. 

Later that day, reports came out about a doctor on the scene as a spectator, who attended to several victims, most likely saving at least a few of their lives. His name is Dr. David Baum, the obstetrician who delivered our first child in 2001. In this article from CNN, you can read Dr. Baum's graphic descriptions of the injuries he saw that day.

The next day I saw a Facebook post from a friend and fellow parent at my kids' former elementary school. He reported the devastating news of the death of his father, one of the victims of the shooting. Here is an article with the stories of the seven people who died that tragic day one year ago.  My friend's father was Steven Strauss.

For the victims and their loved ones, those present at the scene, the people of Highland Park, and to a slightly lesser extent everyone in the Chicago Metropolitan area, the Fourth of July will never be the same. To many of us, myself included, it will forever be a day of grief, mourning and loss as much as a day of celebration. 

It's a little hard to put into perspective what that all means. All I can say is this: it's hardly surprising that on the most American of holidays, the most American of tragedies would take place. 

I love my country, but I'm troubled. 

I'm reminded of this recent video published by my favorite YouTube language teacher, Juan Fernandez. A Spanish ex-pat living in London, in the video Fernandez returns to Spain and lists many of the things he loves and misses about his country. Then after each item on the list he adds, "pero eso no es lo que me gusta mas de España" (but that isn't what I like most about Spain.). After about a dozen times repeating that phrase, he wraps up the video (spoiler alert) with this thought: "Lo mejor de España es la gente." The best thing about Spain is the people. Then the screen goes dark.

Not long ago, I would have said the same thing about my country.

I used to think that despite our differences of opinion, at heart, we Americans all shared a devotion to the core values of this nation as spelled out by Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence, especially the part about self-evident truths and all of us being created equal. 

But now I'm not so sure. It seems too many of us think men and women are created equal, have the unalienable rights Jefferson mentions, and I might add the right to vote, so long as they look, act and think like us.

I used to think we all shared a passion and respect for democracy, and a profound disgust for totalitarianism in all its forms. 

But it seems that a lot of us show a true admiration for dictators, both real ones abroad, and wannabie ones over here.

I used to think that we all understood the difference between facts and opinions.

But scores of us don't recognize that while everyone is entitled to their own opinions, no one is entailed to their own facts. 

And I used to think we all paid heed to the words of Abraham Lincoln who quoting the Bible, said this: 

A house divided against itself cannot stand. 

But there are bad actors, mostly politicians and their enablers who, rather than seeking compromise and consensus, as is required of a working democracy, use the oldest rick in the book of tyrants. They gain power by purposefully dividing the public against itself by exploiting fear, anger and hatred, then saying things like: "only I can solve our nation's problems" and "they're not coming after me, they're coming after YOU." Worst of all, there are far too many of us who gladly follow these people. 

Just as my feelings about this country are complicated, so too are my feelings about today, the Fourth of July. 

Perhaps last year's tragedy puts it all into perspective. Today we celebrate the lofty ideals of our nation as we mourn the tragedies and lost opportunities. We celebrate our potential, our liberty, and our diversity spelled out in the nation's motto: e pluribus unum (out of many, one). But we long for what could have been, had we only paid heed to those ideals, had our selfishness, fear and hatred of our fellow human beings not gotten in the way.

Ours is a great country to be sure but it could be so much better.

With that in mind, have a happy, thoughtful and meaningful Fourth of July.

I'll close with my friend Leon's parting words to me every time I see him:

Be careful out there.

Pride

 

For my part, I'm proud to live in a city and a state that recognizes that in a free society, people have the right to be who they are.

It doesn't get any more basic than that.

Happy Pride month.

Not Enough Clichés for This

Strap yourselves in folks, it's going to be a bumpy ride. 

That's just another cliché making the rounds these days as we head into uncharted waters, so to speak.

For the purpose of this post, last Tuesday evening I held my nose and sat through a speech the exPOTUS gave at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, a few hours after he was indicted for a second time.

Predictable in so many ways, that speech featured wall to wall hyperbole, logical fallacies, misleading statements, outright lies, a few pronouncements taken directly from the How to be a Dictator for Dummies Handbook, and other stuff that could best be described as nothing more than unadulterated bullshit. I'll detail just a few of those in a minute.

The one thing that separated this speech from his typical whiney rants of the past was that it featured an unusual amount of self-pity, even for him, not a good look for someone who likes to pretend he's a tough guy. In reality a diva if there ever was one, 45 made it clear to his adoring public that the great tragic operatic heroines, Aida, Madama Butterfly and Lucia di Lammermoor combined, have nothing on him as far as suffering and being victims of indignity, maltreatment, and injustice. Paraphrasing the old Negro spiritual, to the MAGA cult who sees their guy as a latter-day Jesus Christ, nobody knows the trouble he's seen. 

To the rest of the world, he's exactly where he belongs, as a criminal defendant.

As they say, what goes around, comes around.

So on to the speech, shall we?

One year ago, I wrote this piece on logical fallacies, that is to say, arguments that do not reasonably follow from their premises. In my post I listed about a dozen categories of logical fallacies (there are many more) and can honestly say the exPRES used virtually all of them Tuesday evening.

Here I'll mention only three, the ones with fancy Latin names, just because they make me sound smart:

Logical fallacy number one: The post hoc, ergo propter hoc fallacy with not a little hyperbole thrown in. On Tuesday evening, the exPOTUS opened his speech with this:

The ridiculous and baseless indictment of me by the Biden administration’s weaponized Department of Injustice (sic) will go down as among the most horrific abuses of power in the history of our country.

Post hoc, ergo propter hoc, in English "after this therefore because of this", concerns the misconception that subsequent events are necessarily connected to preceding ones. In this case, the exPOTUS's legal prosecution follows the presidency of Joe Biden, therefore according to him, the Biden administration, and specifically Biden himself, are directly responsible for the prosecution of the exPOTUS. 

The following is the core argument of the exPOTUS: 

A corrupt administration, Biden's, is actively prosecuting a political rival who is likely to face him in the 2024 presidential election. 

This is a very serious charge, one that should never be taken lightly, especially in a democracy.

We'll never know if Joe Biden is directly or indirectly responsible for the prosecution of 45, but logic and everything I've seen up to this point leads me to believe that both are extremely unlikely. For starters, the current president has bent over backwards to distance himself from his predecessor. He has made it abundantly clear that in his administration, the Justice Department works independently of the Office of the President, as it is designed to do. To further that point, an independent counsel, Jack Smith was appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland, to investigate and if necessary, prosecute this case, further distancing Biden and the Justice Department from the travails of the exPOTUS. 

OK but what if Biden is lying and really is working behind the scenes to ensure that the case against the exPRES moves forward? That's where logic comes in.

Joe Biden is not a dumb man. He understands that 45 needs attention, even negative attention, like a fire needs oxygen in order to survive. I believe that if the current president truly is working behind the scenes to remove the exPOTUS from the race, he would do everything in his power to avoid giving 45 more oxygen in the form of public attention. The media circus that has developed around 45's two indictments, and surely more to come, is the last thing Biden needs if he is truly afraid of the exPOTUS and wants to keep him out of the headlines.

Biden also knows that 45 (who is hoping to become 47) is a proven loser. While he may be the odds-on favorite to win his party's nomination, he is the least likely of four or five of his Republican opponents to defeat Biden in the general election in 2024. A conviction of the exPOTUS would almost certainly energize more than just the MAGA base to come out to vote for the Republican candidate, whomever that may be. There's no telling where that road might lead but a conviction probably would not be helpful for the Democrats' cause in 2024.

Furthermore, should 45 be convicted, you can bank on any future Republican administration, with or without the exPOTUS in charge, much like the Mob, seeking retribution and coming after Biden and his family in Congress and the courts with all their might. 

Which leads us to the following cliche, currently the mantra of the Republican Party:

The exPOTUS said as much Tuesday promising that if elected president in 2024, he:

...will appoint a real special prosecutor to go after the most corrupt president in the history of the United States of America, Joe Biden, and the entire Biden crime family.

In other words, he would do exactly what he is accusing Biden of wrongly doing right now, weaponize his Justice Department against his political enemies. 

Unlikely as it may be, it is not inconceivable that 45 could become 47 in '24 and I certainly wouldn't put it past him to do just that, or at least try. After all, he has a proven track record as president of using his attorney general as his personal attorney. 

Simply put, no matter how much Joe Biden would like to see justice done, prosecuting 45 does not work in the current president's self-interest. It seems ridiculous to me that he would actively work toward that end, rather than letting the chips fall where they may, which I have no doubt is exactly what he's doing.

Logical fallacy number two: The tu quoque fallacy.

Translated into English, "you too", the tu quoque fallacy occurs when rather than explaining one's own position, someone turns an argument back on the opponent, citing inconsistencies or hypocrisy in their position. A more current and familiar term is "whatboutism". In the speech after his latest indictment, 45 spent a considerable amount of time listing other prominent figures who did what he is charged for, wrongfully maintaining records of government information, some of it highly classified, in their possession after leaving office. The exPOTUS was indicted for his actions while the others were not. This is correct. What he conveniently left out is that all the others he mentioned, the Clintons, Joe Biden and Mike Pence, all cooperated with authorities to return the material in their possession back to the government. 

In stark contrast, 45 did not cooperate, in fact according to the indictment, he went to extreme, illegal measures to prevent the government from getting their hands on the documents, many of them containing very sensitive information regarding national security.

As a friend commented on Facebook: comparing 45's acts to those of the other politicians "is not like comparing apples to oranges, it's comparing apples to hand grenades."

Logical fallacy number three: The ad hominem attack.

Attacking the opponent, rather than addressing the argument, is what defines the ad hominem (to the person) fallacy. It also happens to be the favorite rhetorical device of the exPOTUS. It's almost inconceivable to think of a 45 speech without hearing stock put downs like "these are very bad people" or "this is a low IQ individual" or "so and so is a nasty person" if the target happens to be a woman. Like a schoolyard bully, the bigger the threat to 45, the harsher the put down. The really privileged get a personal nickname. Who could ever forget "Crooked Hillary" Clinton or "Rocket Man" Kim Jung Un?

Perhaps the biggest threat the exPRES has ever experienced up to this point in his career is the Special Counsel in this case. True to form, he is the beneficiary of the harshest nickname of them all, "Deranged" Jack Smith. I imagine the nickname doesn't come from Smith's highly regarded professional reputation, but from his headshot that made the rounds, where he's sporting a full beard and an intense gaze, making him look shall we say, a little sinister. But as we all know, you can't judge a book by its cover, Smith's work on this case has shown nothing but intelligence, thoroughness and competence, very unfortunate indeed for the exPRES. No wonder he hates him so.

Then there's his name. 45 displayed some of his tribal instincts when he said:" I wonder what his real name is. Jack Smith, sounds so innocent, doesn't it?" I guess to him, a white guy with a very common Anglo-Saxon name is someone he would automatically trust, as opposed to someone with a name like Barack Hussein Obama for an example.

What these logical fallacies have in common is they deflect from the issue at hand, in this case the crimes the exPOTUS is accused of committing. In fact, all the defenses I've heard from apologists for the exPOTUS, both the true believers and those who are simply afraid of crossing him and maybe getting a nickname of their own, have not once addressed what is actually in the indictment. "I guess..." suggested one commentator, "you can't defend the indefensible." Instead, they just throw a bunch of nonsense against the wall to see what sticks. (I do love that cliché).

On Tuesday evening however, the exPOTUS did bring up the charges.

Logical fallacies alone do not invalidate a premise. Claiming that an issue cannot be true because its defender uses faulty logic is known as the fallacy fallacy, I kid you not.

Making stuff up is another story.

The secondary argument of the exPOTUS is this:

I did have the documents in my possession, but I had every right to do so. 

During his Tuesday speech, the exPOTUS kept bringing up the "Presidential Records Act" which he claimed gives presidents leeway to take their time in order to make the decision as to which records could be kept and which should be relinquished.

I must say 45 made a good case for himself citing an act of Congress from 1978 that I'm assuming few average Americans, myself included, knew much if anything about. Given my ignorance on the subject, I did what most reasonable people would do, I looked it up, not hard to do these days. 

Lo and behold, The Presidential Records Act states exactly the opposite of what the exPOTUS claimed.

According to the Presidential Records Act of 1978, the president is required to relinquish ALL documents relating to affairs of the government, classified or not, as soon as he or she leaves office. 

This is neither my opinion nor conjecture, it is an unequivocal fact. Here is section 2022 of the Act which deals with the ownership of presidential records:

The United States shall reserve and retain complete ownership, possession, and control of Presidential records; and such records shall be administered in accordance with the provisions of this chapter.

And from Section 2203, dealing with the management and custody of presidential records:  

Upon the conclusion of a President's term of office, or if a President serves consecutive terms upon the conclusion of the last term, the Archivist of the United States shall assume responsibility for the custody, control, and preservation of, and access to, the Presidential records of that President. The Archivist shall have an affirmative duty to make such records available to the public as rapidly and completely as possible consistent with the provisions of this chapter.

If you don't believe me or think I'm taking this out of context, you can read for yourself the Presidential Records Act here.  

Of course, 45 is only preaching to the choir. He has so little faith in the curiosity and the intelligence of his followers, that he doesn't think twice about telling them easily debunked falsehoods, assuming they wouldn't dare question him. For many I'm afraid, that's true. 45 could tell them up is down and down is up and before you know it, they'd be walking on their hands. 

Unquestioning people like these can be easily manipulated, so when a former president whom they adore tells them as he did last Tuesday:

They're not coming after me, they're coming after you.

They believe him. A lot of them do.

And as Republican former gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake so eloquently pointed out, many of them have guns. 

So, this week when friends and family members asked me what I thought about the indictment, I responded with the most pertinent cliché of all:

We have to be careful what we wish for.