Coffee Post – Sun., February 4, 2024

When I sit up in bed here in Florida and turn to the left and look out the window there, I can see a palm tree through the blinds.
I am quite sure there is no window in my New York house through which I can see a palm tree….

Be that as it may, it is time to drink coffee and read books and watch the world to see what is happening.

I have run out of coffee pods so I had some Folger’s instant coffee this morning.
That will keep me going.
But I think I will go to the store and look for coffee pods today.

***

Betelgeuse

I read from a book called “Stargazing.”
It recommends an app called Stellarium for locating stars and other heavenly objects.
I have used this app and it is a very handy one.
Lately, every time I go out after dark I look for the constellation Orion and the great star Betelgeuse.
Betelgeuse is a red supergiant that makes Orion’s right shoulder.
(That is the shoulder on the left as we look at Orion from earth.)
I like to look at Betelgeuse whenever I can because it is expected to explode any day now….
Well, within 100,000 years anyway.
But a few days or 100,000 years are both blinks of an eye in astronomical terms.

[If you want to support "Anything Smart" just click on book links like the ones in this post to make purchases at Amazon. "Anything Smart" will receive a commission on most items you buy. Thanks!]

https://amzn.to/430GwAu

***

King Charles I

I read from a biography of King Charles I.
In 1640 some of the King’s top counsellors wanted to accuse certain members of Parliament of treason for conspiring with the Scots to invade England.
To protect themselves, members of Parliament accused some of the King’s top counsellors of treason and had them arrested.

When you live in a monarchy, or a dictatorship, political ethics can become very confused.
Who are you supposed to be loyal to?
Who are you supposed to oppose?

In England around 1640 Parliament wanted to limit the rights of Catholics because they were afraid Catholic powers like France and Spain wanted to conquer England.
At the same time the King wanted to limit the rights of everyone so he could rule unopposed.
Whose side should we be on?
It gets confusing….

One thing I believe, illegitimate rulers who try to rule without being chosen by the people - they are always traitors!
Always!

I hate dictators.

***

Hunter S. Thompson

I read from a biography of the Gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson.
Hunter did some great writing, but he destroyed his talent with excessive indulgence in alcohol and drugs.

He thought the alcohol and drugs were helping him, but they weren’t. He thought he was living wild and free, but really he was just serving his addictions.

Hunter was in his prime for maybe 5-10 years and then there was a long, slow, fading away. Sometimes Hunter was headed in the right direction, but, as an extremist, he never knew when to stop, or at least turn back toward the middle of the road, so even when he started off in the right direction, he would end up in the wrong place in the end.

I want to learn from his best writing.

Unlike him, I will remember to stay on the road and not go careening off into the ditches.

***

United States Attacked

I see on the news that a US logistics base in Jordan was attacked last weekend and three American soldiers were killed and more than 30 injured.
The attack used a drone launched by an Iranian-backed group, probably in Syria.

I don’t know if US troops should be in Jordan, but that is a question for the US and Jordan to answer and Iranian-backed militants in Syria should have nothing to say about it.

The US and its allies have now launched dozens of attacks against Iranian-backed groups in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen.
These attacks are intended to degrade the military capabilities of groups that might want to attack the US, and to deter them.
I think that is the right response.
I hope it works.

If it doesn’t work, and if we have to, I suppose we can move from degrading capabilities to utterly destroying them.
But let’s hope this effort to deter is successful.

OK.
It is raining here now.
I think I will wander around a bit.
Find some coffee pods.
Find some brunch.
Find a different place to read….

NOTE: This post was published on my Facebook February 4, 2024

***

[If you want to support "Anything Smart" just click on book links like the ones in this post to make purchases at Amazon. "Anything Smart" will receive a commission on most items you buy. Thanks!]

https://amzn.to/430GwAu

***

Copyright © 2024 by Joseph Wayne Gadway

Why America can NEVER Have an Official Religion

With the dangerous rise of “Christian” Nationalism in the United States I suppose there are going to be more and more yahoos yammering about how the US is supposed to be a Christian country.

The first problem with that idea is that it can’t be true unless we throw out the Constitution.
Which is a pretty serious problem, you have to admit!
The very first clause in the very first amendment of the Bill of Rights says: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion...”

Obviously, if Congress cannot make any law respecting an establishment of religion, then our national government cannot make one religion the “official” religion for the country.
And if our government cannot make one religion the official religion for the country then what does it even mean to say that we are supposed to have a Christian nation?

If it just means that lots of Americans are Christians then that is fine.
Americans can belong to any religion they choose.
But if it means the government is supposed to establish, or protect, or promote, one religion, or one religion’s doctrines, over others, that is WRONG, and that is a direct violation of our Constitution.

Now, it is true that some STATES had established religions at the time the Constitution was ratified.
This was a holdover from colonial times when, often, there was very little freedom of religion in the United States.
(Massachusetts Puritans used to hang Quakers on Boston Common after all!)

{This looks like a great history of religious freedom in America.
Let's read it! If you beat me to it please leave a comment to let me know what you thought of it.
https://amzn.to/3UQA9gY}

The Constitution of 1789 was a fresh start for America in many ways, not least of which was by providing a guarantee that the new Federal government would not meddle in religious matters, or elevate one religion to a preferred status over others.

The fact that states could still have established religions was a serious gap, though.
What good is talking about freedom of religion if states can take it away from you?
To be fair, most states had protections for freedom of religion in their own state constitutions and state laws, it is just that the Federal government had no authority to FORCE states to respect freedom of religion if they decided to go rogue and start hanging Quakers again….
Or forcing people to go to church on a certain day of the week.
Or killing witches.
Or whatever.

Fortunately for freedom, when the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified in 1868, the Federal government was given important new powers over the states.
The Supreme Court used those new powers in a 1947 case called Everson v. Board of Education to apply the establishment clause of the First Amendment to state and local governments.

From the very beginning of the United States the Constitution has guaranteed that there cannot be a NATIONAL religion.
Since 1947 the Federal government has also guaranteed that there cannot be any STATE, or COUNTY, or CITY, or TOWN religions either.

So, if you hear someone saying that anyone in the United States can be a Christian, or even that everyone in the United States can be a Christian - if that is what they choose - that is absolutely true.
But if you hear some yammering yahoo saying that the United States is supposed to be a Christian NATION that is absolutely false.

Please remind people with such dangerous ideas of the very first clause of the very first amendment of the Bill of Rights which says: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion...”

Thank you!

Wikipedia has some good information on the establishment clause here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Establishment_Clause

***

{This looks like a great history of religious freedom in America.
Let's read it! If you beat me to it please leave a comment to let me know what you thought of it.
https://amzn.to/3UQA9gY}

[If you want to support "Anything Smart" just click on book links like the one here to make purchases at Amazon.
"Anything Smart" will receive a commission on most items you buy.
Thanks!]

***

Copyright © 2024 by Joseph Wayne Gadway

"Trump asked me to put him over the Constitution." - Mike Pence

You don’t really know what someone is like unless you spend time with them, work with them maybe. If you can’t spend time with someone then the only way you can know them is by listening to other people who DID spend time with them.

If we really want to know Trump, for example, we could listen to his 2016 running mate who then served as his Vice President for four years, Mike Pence. There can’t be many people who know Trump better than Mike Pence does.

So, what does Mike Pence think about Trump?

In September 2023 Pence gave a speech where he discussed the political philosophy of Trump and his imitators in the Republican party. He said, “The growing faction would substitute our faith in limited government and traditional values with an agenda stitched together by little else than personal grievances and performative outrage.”

Pence knows that Trump and his followers are not true conservatives who believe in “limited government” and “traditional values.” Instead of campaigning on these principles, Pence reminds us, Trump and his cronies whip up their crowds with “personal grievances” and “performative outrage.”

We know that Pence is right about Trump not believing in limited government. Trump has claimed that a president should have breathtaking powers, extending all the way to assassinating political rivals with impunity. There is nothing limited about the powers Trump wants for himself and his government. He wants the power of life and death over American citizens just like any ancient despot or any medieval king claiming divine right demanded for himself.

Remember what Trump said in a speech to conservative students in July 2019? "Then I have an Article II, where I have the right to do whatever I want as president, but I don't even talk about that." It would be good if Trump did NOT talk about Article II of the Constitution because that does NOT say the president can do whatever he wants. But that is what Trump WISHES that it said, because Trump does not believe in limited government as long as HE is the one in power.

Just as Mike Pence has warned us.

{Check out this book about Trump's final destructive days in office.
https://amzn.to/3uyy52D}

Pence is also correct when he warns us that Trump does not believe in traditional values. Any one who has been found liable in courts of law for sexual abuse, repeated defamation of his sexual abuse victim, and years of business fraud, certainly does not believe in traditional values.

And anyone who doesn’t believe Mike Pence when he says Trump’s campaign is driven by personal grievances only has to listen to the ex-president for five minutes. There is currently no one in America - over three years of age - who whines and complains more about how unfair everyone is to him than Trump does. He is a billionaire and a former president who loves insulting people and calling them names, but isn’t it so terrible how people can be so mean to HIM?

Mike Pence knows Trump very well. He knows Trump is NOT a conservative, does NOT believe in traditional values, and seems to be able to whine just about non-stop for 20 hours per day.

This link here will take you to these observations of Mike Pence about his former boss.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/mike-pence-goes-trump-imitators-shift-gops-roots-rcna103743

But there are far worse things about Trump than his lack of conservatism, his lack of respect for traditional values, and his unbearable, endless, infantile whininess….

At a Gridiron Dinner Mike Pence said: “President Trump was wrong. I had no right to overturn the election. And his reckless words endangered my family and everyone at the Capitol that day, and I know history will hold Donald Trump accountable.”

There are a couple of really shocking points made in this quote.

First of all, Mike Pence is telling us straight out that Trump wanted to overturn the 2020 election. There may be Trump supporters who refuse to believe that Trump wanted to overturn an American election, there may even be Trump supporters who are so far lost to what America stands for that they don’t even care about elections anymore, but Mike Pence KNOWS Trump tried to overturn that election, and Mike Pence is still American enough to know that was WRONG.

Secondly, Mike Pence is telling us here that it was Trump who was responsible for the violence at the Capitol on January 6, 2021. Mike Pence knows it was Trump’s “reckless” words that inflamed a mob to attack the Capitol of the United States of America. Trump supporters can pretend that Trump did not whip that angry crowd into a fighting frenzy, or maybe some Trump supporters are so lost to what America stands for that they no longer even care if their political leader inspires violence, but Mike Pence knows it was Trump who put his own Vice President and his Vice President’s family in danger on that shameful day.

Here is a link to Mike Pence telling America that Trump wanted an American election overturned and then inspired an attack on the American Capitol.
https://apnews.com/article/pence-trump-january-6-capitol-riot-carlson-1e38cb44d55737031ca528b4f33aa1fb

And for people who think that maybe, in spite of all his despicable flaws, somehow, deep down inside, Trump really does respect our American Constitution, here Mike Pence drives the nail into that coffin by telling us what Trump really wanted on January 6, 2021.

According to Mike Pence, “The American people deserve to know that President Trump and his advisers didn't just ask me to pause. They asked me to reject votes, return votes, essentially to overturn the election," and "On that day, President Trump asked me to put him over the Constitution. But I chose the Constitution and I always will.”

That lays it out as clear as day, doesn’t it? Trump wanted the 2020 election overturned and he wanted the Vice President to put Trump’s desires above the Constitution. On January 6, 2021 Trump tried to carry out a coup d’etat and seize illegitimate power in the United States of America. It is probably ONLY because of Vice President Mike Pence that Trump’s evil schemes failed.

Here is the link where Mike Pence tells us that, if Trump cares about the Constitution at all, he certainly doesn’t care about it as much as he cares for himself.
https://www.axios.com/2023/08/02/pence-trump-jan-6-indictment-lawyers

Mike Pence has known and worked with Trump for years. He certainly knows Trump better than any of us who only see him on TV. He has warned us over and over again that Trump is a bad and dangerous man who should never be president again.

I hope enough Americans will heed the warning!

***

{Check out this book about Trump's final destructive days in office.
https://amzn.to/3uyy52D}

[If you want to support "Anything Smart" just click on book links like the one here to make purchases at Amazon. "Anything Smart" will receive a commission on most items you buy. Thanks!]

***

Copyright © 2024 by Joseph Wayne Gadway

An American Citizen Tries to Understand the Border Crisis

I feel like American citizens should be able to understand the problem at the Southern border and asylum law and stuff like that.
I hope that is true.
Let's give it a try and do the best we can!

The material in this blog post was written when it looked like there might be, just possibly, a deal for a new border law in Congress.
Later, of course, that deal fell through.
Anyway, that's when this was written, when it looked like there might be a deal.

***

1

President Joe Biden has been negotiating for weeks with Senate Republicans about getting more tools to deal with the surge of migrants across the southern border.
One thing Biden wants is authority to shut down the border if more than 5000 migrants cross in one day.

Why is Biden asking for authority to shut down the border?
Because currently the law does NOT give the president that authority!
(By the way, states do not have any legal or Constitutional authority to shut down the border either.)
Most people don’t know this, but if anyone says the president should shut down the border now, they are actually saying the president should break the law.
Which is unacceptable.

I have many ideas about what I would try to do at the border if I were president, but in the current situation I hope the Congress will give Biden the tools he needs to manage the border more effectively WITHOUT breaking US asylum law.

Below I will give a reference to current US asylum law as I understand it.
If anyone thinks I am wrong, please give me a reference showing how I am wrong so I can learn.

Here is a link to an article about the border deal many people hoped would happen, until it didn't.

https://www.npr.org/2024/01/31/1228229591/senate-gop-split-risks-bipartisan-border-deal-as-trump-looms-large

2

Now, here is the law.
We should expect presidents to obey this law, or we should expect Congress to change it.
One or the other.
We should certainly NOT be asking a president, or a state, to break this law.

US Asylum Law: “Any alien who is physically present in the United States or who arrives in the United States (whether or not at a designated port of arrival and including an alien who is brought to the United States after having been interdicted in international or United States waters), irrespective of such alien’s status, may apply for asylum in accordance with this section or, where applicable, section 1225(b) of this title.”

Here is the law for people who want to check it for themselves.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/8/1158

3

And finally, here is some information about keeping asylum seekers in another country while they wait for their asylum hearing in the US.
US asylum law does allow us to have asylum seekers wait in another country, but there are three conditions:

1. The country they are going to stay in has to agree.
2. The country they are going to stay in has to be safe for asylum seekers.
3. The asylum seekers have to be able to get into the US when it is time for their asylum hearings.

Groups like the ACLU say that conditions 2 and 3 were never met, which would mean the remain in Mexico policy was never legal.
There were court cases about these issues since the policy began, but I don't believe these court cases were ever resolved.
Now, since February 2023, Mexico does not agree to keep asylum seekers in Mexico so that is another reason why the remain in Mexico policy would now be illegal, even if it was legal before.

Here is a link to information on Mexico not agreeing to keep asylum seekers in their country.

Mexico Will No Longer Hold Asylum Seekers

4

Personally, I think we should build shelters along the border where we can hold people seeking asylum in a safe and secure place.
Then we should increase the number of immigration judges and staff so the asylum claims can be quickly reviewed.
People who meet the conditions would come into the US and people who do not meet the conditions would go home.

To do this we need Congress to approve funding for the shelters and the additional judges and staff.

More long term, we should see if we can help improve conditions in the countries the migrants are coming from so they would rather stay home. I assume we could do this with mutually beneficial economic deals with those countries. That way, we make money, they make money, and people can have better lives without leaving home.

That’s what I would like to see.

***

[If you want to support "Anything Smart" just click on book links like the one below to make purchases at Amazon. "Anything Smart" will receive a commission on most items you buy. Thanks!]

I have not read this book, but maybe it is a good place to learn more about the border crisis.

https://amzn.to/3HXPR2e

***

Copyright © 2024 by Joseph Wayne Gadway

Our Biggest Problem is not Left vs. Right, it is Lawful vs. Lawless

1

It looks like the Hawaii Supreme Court is coming close to defying the United States Supreme Court.
A guy was arrested for carrying a gun on someone else’s property.
This guy claimed he had a right to carry that gun based on recent Supreme Court decisions such as “New York State Rifle and Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen” (2022), and “District of Columbia v. Heller” (2008).

Now, I want to emphasize here that I don’t believe either Heller or Bruen say anybody has the right to carry a gun on someone else’s property. You don’t actually have the right to be on someone else’s property at all.

I don’t think either Heller or Bruen say that there is a right to carry a gun in public without a permit, either.
Bruen seems to say explicitly that a state can require that people have a permit to carry a gun in public, it just requires that the criteria for getting the permit has to be “objective” and not “arbitrary.”
Whatever that means….

Given the above, I think the Hawaii Supreme Court could have just said there is no right in Hawaii to carry a gun in public without a permit, and there is nothing in Heller or Bruen to say otherwise, so this man’s conviction stands, and there would not be any problem.

The problem is that the Hawaii Supreme Court, with 3 Democratic appointees and 2 Republican appointees, agreed unanimously to say that the United States Supreme Court was wrong in Heller and Bruen and they seem to be implying that Hawaii does not have to obey the Supreme court’s decisions in these opinions.

If that is what the Hawaii Supreme Court is saying, they are wrong, wrong, wrong!

In the United States of America, you don’t get to decide which laws or court decisions you will obey and which you will not obey, unless you are ready to go to jail - not even if you are a state supreme court. In this country, if you don’t like laws or court decisions, then you go and you VOTE! And while you are voting, you obey the law or you go to jail.

2

It looks like Texas Governor Greg Abott is coming close to defying the United States Supreme Court. Recently a lower court said that Federal officials could not remove razor wire placed along the border by Texas. The United States Supreme Court reversed that decision implying, without explanation, that Federal officials CAN remove razor wire to get to the border.

The Supreme Court did not explain, but it is not hard to understand this decision. After the American Revolution the states controlled their own borders with taxes and fees and rules about what could cross their borders and what could not. This caused so much trouble that it was disagreements about border rules that was the BIGGEST reason the Constitutional Convention was eventually called. I do not believe it is an exaggeration to say that the BIGGEST reason the United States of America was formed was to STOP states from controlling their own borders.

It is the Federal government that controls “interstate commerce” and it is the Federal government that controls all matters involving foreign countries. Any state that interferes in these issues is violating the United States Constitution. That is why people now who say that states have a right to control their own borders are completely, 180 degrees, upside-down, wrong.

So far it looks like Greg Abbott is not in DIRECT violation of a Supreme Court decision. But if he does violate a Supreme Court decision, he will be wrong, wrong, wrong.

In the United States of America, you don’t get to decide which laws or court decisions you will obey and which you will not obey unless you are ready to go to jail – not even if you are a state governor. In this country, if you don’t like laws or court decisions, then you go and you VOTE! And while you are voting, you obey the law or you go to jail.

3

We need to come down hard on people who break the law or who advocate breaking the law. We have rights to speak and write and peacefully protest and VOTE about things we don’t like. (And if somebody says they want a revolution like we had in 1775 you remind them that what justified that revolution was that those Americans did NOT have the right to vote in their national government. We do!)

Hundreds of thousands of Americans died so we could have these rights. People who now want to throw these rights away by advocating lawlessness (like, maybe the Hawaii Supreme Court, or like, maybe Texas Governor Abbott) are betraying some of the most basic principles America stands for: like the rule of law, and the right of the people to make laws that everyone has to obey. People who oppose these principles need to be educated and corrected, or ridiculed and reviled, or arrested and prosecuted to the full extent of the law, before they ruin this great country for those of us who are still responsible and sane.

If you don’t like what is happening in this country then you speak and you write and you VOTE! And if you don’t get the laws you want, then welcome to what it means to live in a free country where you don’t get to be the dictator.

***

[If you want to support "Anything Smart" just click on book links like the one below to make purchases at Amazon. "Anything Smart" will receive a commission on most items you buy. Thanks!]

https://amzn.to/42AcByM

***

Copyright © 2024 by Joseph Wayne Gadway

Coffee Post - February 11, 2024

Many things I want to do today, but let’s start by drinking coffee, reading books, and watching the world to see what is happening.

I drank hazelnut coffee made by my Keurig machine.

***

The American Revolution

I read from a wonderful big book called “The Glorious Cause.”
This is the volume about the American Revolution in the multi-volume set called The Oxford History of America.

The book describes English politics in the middle 1700s as extremely conservative, in the sense that it seemed to be the primary purpose of government to make sure that NOTHING CHANGES AT ALL!

This was probably a reaction to the tumultuous 1600s when there were civil wars and kings dethroned and one king beheaded… and so on.

***

Art History for Dummies

I read from Art History for Dummies about the ancient period called “Hellenistic” which came after Alexander the Great died in 323 BC.

Before “Hellenism” was the “Classical” period, which was characterized by calm, elegant, confident works of art.
The Hellenistic period, especially known for architecture, portrayed more of the grittiness of life - pain, and suffering, and death.

One of the famous Hellenistic works is called “Laocoon and His Sons.”
This was based on the story of Laocoon, who warned the Trojans not to accept the giant horse brough by the Greeks.
The horse was, of course, a trick to conquer Troy, and Athena, who wanted the Greeks to win, was angry at Laocoon for warning the Trojans, so she sent two giant sea serpents to kill him and his sons.
The statue shows the snakes attacking the men and writhing around them and the men struggling and suffering in the coils of the serpents.
There is no classical calm in this statue!

The book calls classical art “self-deluded,” which seems a little harsh!
I think, just as Plato distinguished between a perfect and eternal world of Being and a flawed and changing world of Becoming, it might make sense to view classical art as trying to capture the world of Being while Hellenistic art turned its attention to the world of Becoming.

Classical art was not self-deluded, it was just looking at a different aspect of reality than Hellenistic art was.

There really is a world of Being after all.
Whether it is outside of us as Plato thought, or inside of us as Aristotle thought, there really is a world of Being.

***

When the Going Gets Weird....

I read from a biography of Hunter S. Thompson who invented “gonzo” journalism in the 1960s.
During one period Hunter traveled through South America writing about everything he saw and heard and selling many of those pieces for $150 a pop back in the United States.

I would like to travel all along the U.S.-Mexican border writing about everything I see and hear there. I suspect there might be lots of good food along that border and lots of opportunities to brush up on my Spanish.
Lots of suffering too.
Lots to think about.
Lots to write about.
I wonder if I could do that next winter….

***

Satanism in Iowa

I see in the news that a Christian destroyed a legally displayed Satanic statue in the Iowa state capital. I guess this Christian doesn’t believe in freedom of religion. I guess he doesn’t believe in keeping his hands off other people’s property either.

This Christian thinks he’s the good guy, but he’s not. He believes he should be able to take away other people’s religious freedom and destroy their property. There’s nothing more evil than that….

NOTE: This post was published on my Facebook February 1, 2024

***

[If you want to support "Anything Smart" just click on book links like the one below to make purchases at Amazon. "Anything Smart" will receive a commission on most items you buy. Thanks!]

https://amzn.to/42AcByM

***

Copyright © 2024 by Joseph Wayne Gadway

Creeping Dictatorship in the USA

In every free country there are people who would throw freedom away if it means they could be in power.
There are people in the United States right now who would like to live in a dictatorship if it means they could be in power.

I just heard my congressperson Elise Stefanik say she would not have done what Mike Pence did on January 6, 2021.
What did Mike Pence do on January 6?
He counted the electoral votes sent in by the states, as he was required to do BY LAW.

Elise Stefanik is saying she would have broken the law.

But how could Elise justify breaking the law?
She says she thinks there were illegal or unconstitutional violations committed during the 2020 election.
That sounds serious!
Could that be true?
And, if so, what should we do about it?

Obviously, if people think there were illegal or unconstitutional violations during an election they should go to court.
And that is exactly what happened.
The Trump campaign filed about 60 court cases after the 2020 election and NOT ONE of them found evidence of election violations that could have changed the outcome of the election.

Elise Stefanik is saying that she would have ignored 60 court cases that found no evidence of election wrongdoing that could have affected the outcome of the election, and THEN, based only on her wishes, she would have broken the law that requires electoral votes to be counted on Jan. 6.

But WHY would she have done something so extreme?

Because she knew Biden won the election - and she didn’t WANT Biden to win the election.
Trump and his supporters KNEW the electoral votes sent in by the states would give the presidency to Biden.
That’s why they didn’t want those electoral votes counted on January 6 in accordance with the law.
Trump and his supporters KNEW that 60 court cases had failed to find evidence of any outcome-changing fraud during the election.
That’s why they wanted people to ignore those court cases and act on their emotions and desires rather than on the law.

Elise Stefanik said she would not have done what Pence did.
She would have ignored the 60 court cases, she would have broken the law requiring the electoral votes be counted, and she would have done that just because she wanted to keep Trump in power even after she knew he lost the election…

***

Recently Trump has “joked” about wanting to be a dictator and he has seriously argued in court that presidents should have immunity for crimes they commit in office, up to and including political assassinations!
This is not how the leaders of free countries talk.
This is how dictators talk.

Recently a Trump supporter, Senator J.D. Vance, said on TV that if Trump becomes president again, he does not have to obey the Supreme Court.
This would destroy one of the critical checks and balances at the heart of our American system of government.
This is not how honorable Senators of a free country talk.
This is how defenders of dictatorship talk.

Now Elise Stefanik is saying on TV that if she had been in Mike Pence’s place on Jan. 6, 2021, she would have ignored court decisions, ignored the will of the American people, and broken the law to keep Trump in power after he lost the election.
This is not how honorable representatives of a free country talk.
This is how defenders of dictatorship talk.

If the people of America want to preserve our free government, we have to go to the polls every chance we get and defeat dangerous people like Trump, J.D. Vance, and Elise Stefanik.

You can click here to read the article that inspired this blog post. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2024/02/09/elise-stefanik-vp-hopeful/72532143007/

***

[If you want to support "Anything Smart" just click on book links like the one below to make purchases at Amazon. "Anything Smart" will receive a commission on most items you buy. Thanks!]

https://amzn.to/3Su2ebc

***

Copyright © 2024 by Joseph Wayne Gadway

Even General US Grant Could Act Like a Nazi Sometimes

This morning I read a very interesting article in the best religious liberty magazine in the world. To my astonishment and pain this article is about one of my heroes….

I believe that General Ulysses S. Grant was a great American and a good man who did many good things in his life. Like all good men, he also did some bad things in his life.

One time when Grant’s brain train careened crazily off the tracks was in 1862. At that time Grant was a general in the Union Army fighting against the Confederate traitors. Some cotton traders at that time were violating U.S. regulations in a way that was harming the Union Army.

In an idiotically incompetent effort to deal with this problem Grant issued the following order: “The Jews, as a class, violating every regulation of trade . . . are hereby expelled from the department.”

WHAT?

There are a whole bunch of problems with this order. First, it is brutally antisemitic, and antisemitism, like all prejudices, is always immoral. Prejudices are also always bizarrely stupid.

Let’s think about this order to see just how bizarrely stupid it is.
First, what is the problem?
The problem is that some cotton traders are violating regulations.
Second, what is the order?
The order is to expel all Jews from the area controlled by Grant’s army.

Why is this bizarrely stupid?
Consider:
Many Jews in this area are not cotton traders at all, so why are they being punished?
Some Jews in this area, who are cotton traders, may be obeying the regulations, so why are they being punished?
Some traders who are violating the regulations are not Jews, so how come they are NOT being punished and are allowed to get away with their crimes?

I don’t know if Grant was just unusually drunk the day he issued this order, but obviously a more intelligent and useful order would have been something like: “Any cotton traders in this department who are disobeying the trading regulations shall be punished in accordance with the law.” See how this order avoids asinine prejudices AND, as a bonus, addresses the actual problem we are trying to solve?

Some Jews were expelled after Grant’s order was issued, but, fortunately, Abraham Lincoln quickly ordered the general to revoke the antisemitic proclamation and it was, therefore, revoked.

This story reminds us that even great and good people can do terrible things when they have too much power and their brains misfire. We have to make sure NO ONE has absolute power and that there are always checks and balances in place to protect the rights of the people.

By 1868 Grant admitted that his order had been wrong. During his presidency Grant went on to appoint more Jewish people to his administration than any president had before. Maybe trying to apologize for his wartime blunder….

Grant made a bad mistake and learned from it. We should learn from Grant’s mistake, so we don’t make mistakes like this now.

You can click here to read the article that inspired this blog post. https://www.libertymagazine.org/article/general-orders-no-11

***

[If you want to support "Anything Smart" just click on book links like the one below and the other ones throughout this post to buy your books. "Anything Smart" will receive a commission. Thanks!]

[Here is a book about religious liberty. I am looking forward to reading it. https://amzn.to/3Ur4FOc]

***

Copyright © 2024 by Joseph Wayne Gadway