un Civil un War

January brought news that a second civil war might be in store for America. On January 6, Michelle Goldberg wrote about two books predicting civil war in the near future. She notes, however, that not all scholars agree. Goldberg quotes Josh Kertser tweeting that few civil war scholars believe the United States is on the verge of civil war. Goldberg adds, "yet even some who push back on civil war talk tend to acknowledge what a perilous place America is in."

On January 11, Ron Elving wrote that a number of polls show civil war is on peoples' minds. While animosity remains between north and south states, the main division is between "metro and non-metro" citizens. How would the battle lines in such a civil war be drawn? Throw out history — we're in new territory here.

I divide Republicans into two camps, pragmatists and die-hard Trump followers. I believe it's the  die-hard Trump followers who are most likely to rebel. I estimate these constitute about a third of voting Americans. Clearly not a majority, albeit a meaningful minority. These voters are angry. If our society addressed their anger it could move foreword, and by doing so we would address shared societal needs. However American voters differ in their approach to meeting our societal needs. One approach allows Trump die-hards to continue embracing The Big Lie even as Trump and his allies face legal scrutiny. This third of voters lives in an alternate reality, in denial or unaware of what the majority accepts as fact.

Some label Trump die-hards Low Information Voters. Traditional news sources (fake news to some) reported overwhelming evidence of a fraud-free 2020 election. Big Lie supporters failed to provide evidence of election fraud. Instead of evidence they provided only unsubstantiated claims. For these voters trusting a personality matters more than trusting information.

Personality cults are the nemesis of democracies. The Trump Cult is destroying what's left of ours. Democracy demands cooperation while personality cults and partisanship drive selfish ambitions. Political parties are not mentioned in the Constitution. Americans should eliminate parties entirely and minimize the influence any one politician can have. Political discourse should be issue driven instead of limited to party chestnuts.

Discourse driven politics, however, is not possible under our current system. We address too few issues, not always factually, with slogans rather than dialogue. One reason we're this way is that we are influenced by blame-fueled partisan radio and cable programing and by hate-fueled social media. Such media couldn't behave this way before the Fairness Doctrine was toppled. The cost of unrestricted free speech is that it allows people to lie without consequences. Before we can meaningfully address issues we must first agree upon facts. We need renewed standards and laws that would ensure falsehoods would rise no further than exaggerations. Under such laws, severe exaggerations would face consequences. Such a society would require enough education to suss out facts and meaningful arguments, but it wouldn't require geniuses. It would only require that people respected the rules of polite discussion. Facebook or its imitators would not exist in a dialog driven society. Useful discussion would replace the current troll fest.

But changing the rules of dialog is not sufficient to rebuild our democracy. We must also eliminate political parties and the ability of the wealthy to spend unrestricted amounts to influence political opinion.

In other words, we must become a democracy again. The idea of corporations as persons allows a few wealthy individuals the ability to buy voters' opinions at the expense of corporate employees. In a true democracy everyone's opinion matters. But to make that work, informed polite discussion must occur. We need to eliminate parties and partisanship and to do so candidates must become more issue driven, and parties need to be replaced with issue-centered coalitions. Eliminating congressional districts would not only eliminate gerrymandering, but would force candidates to choose among a number of state wide issues.

While every state has two senators, states have varied populations. Both California's millions and Wyoming's' thousands are represented by two senators. This is inherently undemocratic because it favors the few over the many. However nothing in the Constitution says we must elect senators at the state level. Why not elect them nationally instead?

Maybe my ideas seem goofy. That's okay, we don't have to use them. But we do need to start thinking outside the box, because the democracy we've got isn't working well anymore. Lying partisans are destroying our country. Let's keep what works, build around commonalities and dump the damaging bullshit.

Poisons and profundities

When We Cease to Understand the World
Benjamin Labatut
Historical Fiction, 191 pages

The book begins with mustard gas and cyanide — mustard gas caused death in the trenches in the first world war, while cyanide exterminated captive Jews and suiciding Nazis in the second. Between those two wars a scientific revolution occurred. At the 1927 Solvay Conference quantum physics theory came into being. While that theory makes sense mathematically, it defies sensibility when described in words. That's as true today as it was in 1927.

Albert Einstein published his theory of general relativity in 1915, ten years after his theory of special relativity. At the time, Europe was at war. Einstein made no attempt to solve the equation backing his theory. Shortly before his death, a German soldier sent a letter containing the equation's solution from the trenches to Einstein. This soldier-mathematician was Karl Schwarzschild whose solution implied the possibility of singularities, the oddities at the centers of black holes. Mustard gas, in part, caused Schwarzschild's death.

Benjamin Labatut writes of two other mathematicians, Shinichi Mochizuki and Alexander Grothendieck. As yet, no other mathematicians understand Shinichi Mochizuki's proof of a basic mathematical concept and he withdrew its publication. Alexander Grothendieck realized that humanity wasn't ready to understand the "heart of the heart" of mathematics and became a recluse. The heart of Labatut's book, however is the emergence of quantum theory, one that like Einstein's, challenges human understanding. 

This historical fiction is a brief and elegant explanation of the persons and ideas that resulted in quantum physics. But the fictional bits, while entertaining, are unnecessary, and add little to the story. The same can be said about the section following the epilogue. That section, "The Night Gardner," only adds extra pages and could have been skipped entirely.

While quantum physics and relativity theories both played parts in our losing our understanding of the world, Labatut missed a third theory which played a part in that loss. However Darwin's theory of evolution didn't cause that lost understanding. Rather, it was some peoples' response to that theory which caused our loss. Prior to Darwin, the new science of geology caused many Christian theologians to accept that the earth couldn't have been created in the six thousand years of Biblical time. It had to be far older. The Bible, therefore had to be read figuratively rather than literally. Darwin's theory was generally well received by his religious contemporaries. It wasn't until shortly after World War I that evolution was rejected by North American religionists. Throwing out evolution also means throwing out geology and archaeology. some have argued that dinosaur fossils must have been planted by God or Satan to test believers' faith or deceive us. Other explanations that pit the Bible against science strike me as equally far-fetched. In my view, faith must be guided by science and reason lest religion become superstition. Once one builds ones beliefs on blind faith rather than on faith tempered by science and reason, it becomes possible to ignore politicians' lies and vote on faith alone. We cease to understand the world at our peril.

Ignorance of the truth is no excuse

By watching court dramas as a child I learned, “Ignorance of the law is no excuse,” (Ignorantia juris non excusat). Therefore the mislead will be punished for their actions on January 6, 2021.  As for those who mislead them? Nothing. They broke no laws.

Facebook has taken most of the blame so far. Deservedly so. However, lying partisans and Fox commentators have largely escaped rebuke.

President Biden said this morning:

"My fellow Americans, in life there's truth and tragically there are lies. Lies conceived and spread for profit and power. We must be absolutely clear about what is true and what is a lie. And here's the truth: The former president of the United States of America has created and spread a web of lies about the 2020 election.

He's done so because he values power over principle, because he sees his own interest as more important than his country's interest, than America's interest. And because his bruised ego matters more to him than our democracy or our Constitution."

Biden blames the problem on lies. Particularly that of one man but he also doesn’t spare the Republicans continuing to back Trump.

"While some courageous men and women in the Republican Party are standing against it, trying to uphold the principle of that party, too many others are transforming that party into something else."

Something else is possible when a party values power over truth. But to be completely fair, which party is lying and which is telling the truth? We wouldn’t be in such a partisan mess if the fairness doctrine of 1949 hadn’t been repealed. That doctrine required broadcasters to present controversial views in response to their programming. It was in broadcasters’ interests to avoid giving air time to disagreeing viewers. Air time was too valuable to give to dissenting voices. To avoid controversy, broadcasters presented news as factually and objectively as possible. Bland, harmless news avoids controversy.

News organizations are free now to express controversial, even untruthful opinions while giving equal time to no one. Partnering with Trump, they created a counter-narrative while the Fake News claimed Trump lied over 30,000 times. Sounds unbelievable. Could they be lying themselves? It’s hard to tell. Furthermore, there are few instances of lying that are punishable, and many that are never challenged. Lies pass themselves off as free speech and any attempt to regulate lying would need to be carefully worded so as not to unjustly entrap those exercising their right to speak freely.

“The Justice Department remains committed to holding all Jan. 6 perpetrators, at any level, accountable under law,” said Attorney General, Merrick Garland. I expect that ignorance of the truth will be no excuse, while those who deceived won’t be punished.

It’s unlikely laws curtailing lies will arise. But perhaps the people will. What if they demanded a change in the political process? The abolishment of parties for example. Expressing political will would become more local and more personal. Perhaps even grow better conceived ideas. Could it be done? Would it hurt to try?

A lump of coal in your Christmas stocking

Letter to Joe Manchin

Wouldn't you like that though. You've made plenty from coal and another lump couldn't hurt. But consider the majority of Americans who want to stop climate change. We can't stop it until we move away from fossil fuels, and you've opposed taking meaningful action. Do you consider your opposition patriotic? I don't, though I suppose oil and coal industry executives probably do. But they are blinded by their insatiable greed. Greed that makes it okay to spend five decades misleading the public while fully aware of the damage they did to the environment. Five decades ago I walked away from my high school peers in order to avoid the drugs they used. Walk away from your unwholesome peers, Joe. Greed is a drug. It fools those who have too much into thinking they can ignore social responsibilities and not pay their fair share of taxes. Greed lets them think they can destroy their neighbors' yards without harming their own. I suspect that you, too, are addicted to greed. Just say "no" to drugs, Joe, and fix our society and environment now. Our problems can't be kicked down the road any longer. Don't listen to the siren call of lobbyists lest the ship of state shatter upon the rocks of Anthemoessa. Listen to the majority instead.

Don't believe plastic people

When Frank Zappa sang that plastic people were a drag, he meant something other than what I mean. He meant that superficial people, unlike more independent thinkers, are dull, time-wasting companions.

Plastics come from petrochemicals, made from oil. On September 30, a New York Times headline said, “In Your Facebook Feed: Oil Industry Pushback Against Biden Climate Plans”. No surprise. For decades, this industry denied climate change while lobbying for subsidies and tax breaks. As Jane Mayer writes, people in this industry began the long drive to move American politics to the right. Those first antisocialists were soon joined by corporate executives and other wealthy folk. Now they are all plastic people.

Before the 1980s, corporate messaging showed concern with the welfare of all corporate stakeholders — customers, workers, stockholders — and for the general public for whom corporations tirelessly worked. But then  business philosophy changed and corporations became concerned only with maximising stockholder value. Traces of the messaging remain. For example: corporate tax hikes will harm American workers. Untrue. It’s only stockholders who lose from taxes on profits. Workers who are also stockholders could suffer from higher corporate taxes, but most of these already receive high wages. Average workers would feel no different. The majority of Americans favor raising taxes on corporations. However many of these work for the same corporations that lobby against tax increases.  Corporations are “persons” according to the Supreme Court. It is assumed that these “persons” speak for their employees. And so they are allowed to spend grandly to promote their ideas, even when those ideas don’t sync with what employees want and need.

Corporations speak louder than individual voters. They buy voters’ political views with suave talk and false promises. Climate change is real but plastic people won’t pay extra taxes to address its effects. Plastic people choose wealth over wellbeing. That hurts everyone, even plastic people. Plastic people, though few, speak loudly. The majority must make itself heard. Speak up.