Menexenus: Constitution of Athens

Who else would write this? It is like a blog on the occasion of the funeral oration. I would append it to my blog on Theseus. But here is a democratic republic most similar to ours- minus a Sicilian expedition!

Then as now, our government was an aristocracy or government of the best which has the approval of the many. For kings we have always had, first hereditary then elected, and authority is mostly in the hands of the people, who dispense offices and power to those who appear to be most deserving of them Neither is a man rejected from weakness or poverty or obscurity of origin, nor honored by reason of the opposite, as in other cities, but there is one principle- he who appears to be wise and good is a governor and ruler. The basis of this our government is equality of birth, for other cities are made up of all sorts and unequal conditions of men, and therefore their governments are unequal- there are tyrannies and there are oligarchies, in which the one party are slaves and the others masters. But we and our citizens are brethren, the children all of one mother, and we do not think it right to be one another’s masters or servants, but the natural equality of birth compels us to seek for natural equality, and to recognize no superiority except in the reputation of virtue and wisdom.

Plato, Menexenus (Jowett), 238c- 239a

Trump’s Method of Lying: Racism Behind the Trumpeting About MS 13

   “We’re going to get tough,” Trump said, and “its not nice now for MS 13,” a Mexican gang infesting arias such as L.A. We want the reader to see the Trump method of lying in this particular instance. He is using the just application of the law as an excuse, a thin veneer to justify the racist policies behind his anti-immigration nationalism. The deportation of non-criminal immigrants is up 157 %, and cell towers are being tricked into identifying undocumented immigrants. If I need to spell it out, your next, because the cell towers are identifying everyone. Trump is a tyrant and needs to be impeached. Our ignorant toleration of the new violations of the Fourth Amendment guarantee of security in our houses, persons, papers and effects is allowing tyranny to walk right in, and we need to reverse course and stop this nonsense.

   First, the last thing one wants to do with MS 13 members is deport them, since they want they will come right back. But second, is it only accidental that Trump targets gangs of the races that are the outgroups of the American fascists, the blacks and the Mexicans, while ignoring the White and the Italian gangs? How much distance is there between the Russian mob and the Russian government- with whom everyone in the Trump administration has questionable ties? Is he not then rather obviously using the un-opposable policy of targeting MS 13 as a cover to enlist police in his racist policies, just as they were about to do in striking the black gangs in Chicago? The fear of deportation in the Latino community, and justified distrust of police, allows the gangs to flourish. For the 34 deported, most of whom will return, have not many times more hydra heads been grown?

   If the argument here is too complicated for the American citizen, that is what Trump counts on. He keeps his method of lying just below the level of obviousness at which the Americans will catch on and do something. Trump Justice retreated from the plan to attack Chicago, and the plan to bring the “hammer down” has retreated in favor of a more long term and more subtle approach. But Trump is a gangster himself, and his allied gangs are- surprise- not being targeted by those big tough ICE heroes deporting Mexican mothers of American citizen children, and sending waves of fear and distrust through Mexican American citizens and their communities. We suspect that the Russian and U.S. mobs are behind the Oxy-heroin scandal in America, a genuine conspiracy the first half of which Trump wants to deregulate. The knee jerk Republicans hear “deregulation,” and for them there is no issue. Our corruption as a nation is allowing the rise of fascist tyranny, and it is past time we rise up and put a stop to it.

   The Trump-Russian methods of lying are repeated, and can be quickly generalized. The blog “Hands Tied : Use Mirror” concerns another aspect of their method, and Putin’s new tactic of labeling those who see the Trump-Russian conspiracy as “insane” and “dangerous” is just another variation on the method of the manipulation of public opinion, which has proven remarkably easy upon the rather thick American public. To paralyze the Americans, one need only spread fake news, then when accused, say it is “fake news.”

Revive the Re-vote: Declare 2016 Elections Void due to Russian Interference

   Jeroll M. Sanders has done an ingenious work in preparing the Supreme Court case # 16-907, which was denied by the Supreme Court without explanation. I am repeatedly in admiration of her direct and relaxed common sense in stating profound and trenchant points transcending legalese, and recommend reading her write-up of the case, which I have just read entire for the first time today. Especially ingenious is her basing the case on Article IV and on the Twelfth Amendment, points that are both true and difficult to see, though obvious once stated. She has run for Mayor, and receives my endorsement of the CLC for this and higher office. The Appeals court denied the case because no precedent was provided, for events that are in fact unprecedented, though without recourse these have become the way of our world quite quickly. Supreme Court precedent in election cases outside civil rights issues are very sparse: the question has simply never arisen before. Our constitution contains perennial principles that are quite sufficient to meet circumstances that are new, and there is no reason that new circumstances do not call for setting precedents. For surely an election determined by foreign invasion through the internet is not a constitutional election, or not what the founders had in mind by “election.”

The Appeals court also alleges that the political branches of the U. S. government have made no such determination, and for the court to determine that the United States was “invaded,” triggering the Article IV requirement that the national government defend the states from foreign invasion, would “disregard the constitutional duties that are the specific responsibilities of other branches of government, and would result the court making an ineffective non-judicial policy decision.” But what if, as Sanders indeed indicates, the 17 U.S. intelligence agencies had in fact concluded that such an invasion aiming to influence the elections did in fact occur? Ms. Sanders cites Mark Morell, the Deputy Director of the central intelligence agency, as stating on CNN that Russia’s meddling in this election is “the political equivalent of 9/11.” I would have added, had I been permitted, that General Hayden had called the Russian meddling, “the greatest covert operation in history.” In fact, had I been permitted to write an Amicus brief, a letter citizens may submit to inform the court regarding a pending case, I would have suggested bringing the CIA right into the Supreme Court, both to tell the court what could be told and to tell them there was more that could not be told to protect “sources and methods,” but that their conclusion was and is that there had been significant Russian meddling in the 2016 election.

   And had I been permitted, I would have suggested a third scenario to add to the two presented by Ms. Sanders: Wikileaks, soon after the case was denied by the Appeals Court, revealed that our own government knew of vulnerabilities in our new spy-marketing tech that leaves these open to hackers, but that the agencies decided not to protect us so that they might themselves exploit these vulnerabilities. My own brother had just accused me of insanity, quite seriously, for saying that, as he summarizes in caricature, “the T.V. is watching me.” After the Wikileak became public, I offered to accept his apology, when he delivers it. What was once madness is now common sense. Then he assured me that it is only the newest “smart” tech instruments, and assured me too, as did the agent he sent to make sure it was safe to seize me if possible, that it is only used for “marketing” purposes. And what is an election? How similar to marketing? We will never have another free election if we cannot restore the security in our persons, papers, houses and effects guaranteed by the Fourth Amendment in the Bill of Rights in our U.S. Constitution. And this shows the reason for such security: people like nations have enemies bent on using every bit of information they can skim only against their targeted person. And in fact what occurred in the 2016 election is that the Russians bought and hacked into every bit of “marketing” information, passively collecting data, and then used this to target interference again through our computers, as through Kaspersky, which handles four hundred million security accounts right from Moscow, or some similar method- I have no particular evidence against Kaspersky except the sort of attacks which walk right past their security onto my home computer, namely Russian and Trumpster attacks. Targeted interference might be either mechanical, operational, or intimidation. What if one’s words are simply allowed less publicity, and one were to do this to 25% of the words of one’s political opponent, while expanding the publicity of fake news by 25%? I would have added this and similar information in an Amicus brief submitted to the Supreme Court, except I was prevented by at least three ostensibly Russian attacks including a death threat, and forced to cease working on the computer after February 4th, 2017. A documented death threat came from Trumpsters January 28th, and this is right there on Twitter, excepting the tweet redacted by the sender after I identified it as technically a death threat. But the most serious came while commenting on a letter to be sent to President Obama a few days before the inauguration, when first prostitutes and then a scary face with the word “Assasin” came up under the page I was writing on to take over my computer screen. Facebook has commented that given modern marketing techniques, it would be quite easy to throw an election this way, and a report on NPR (Probably from the BBC) confirms that the Philippine election was in fact turned this way- spy marketing tech collecting information and then targeted interference. Indeed, we will in fact have to choose between this “internet of things” and free government with free elections, at least until we figure out a way to have both. The oblivious Americans do not even realize that this is the choice, and plunge headlong into a world that makes perhaps the worst imaginable and surely the most pervasive tyranny a mathematical necessity.

   It is beyond my capacities to explain why the police have ignored my complaints, even as stand in amazement at what my Trumpster relatives have done of late, and these are people I have known for fifty years. The police would not even look at the computer to see if there really was a death threat, and did not provide the protection needed to secure the right of a citizen to continue political work guaranteed by his liberty, as required by the First, Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. Rather, everything I have said has been as if only used against me. As described in part in a previous blog, my Trumpster relatives, having tried to have me “treated” for the mental illness of  not being oblivious to these new things, and for trying to warn them of the dangers of tyranny and of this tyranny, drew up a perjurous complaint saying that I, who had done nothing wrong and even had said not a single thing thing that is false, be seized as a “danger to myself and others.” The writer of the complaint demonstrably and intentionally lied, and part of her charge was literally that I was working on a Supreme Court Case. I had said so when I was prevented from continuing my work, which I consider quite important. The instigating relative, though, an Uncle, was careful to try to avoid demonstrable perjury. I will ask him in court if he was influenced by anyone in the Trump organization, since his efforts happen to coincide with Russian and Trumpster efforts aiming at the result that I “stop doing what I am  “doing now.” That message came over my phone right when I was receiving the tweet string that knocked me off the internet and prevented me from continuing to work on this Supreme Court Case. I did not look long enough to see if this string contained a fourth death threat, but it included many things I had said that angered the Russians and white supremacists, as well as personal information used to hurt and let one know that they are not just on the internet, but in your phone and in your drugstore and anywhere else the new tech allows them entry bought or forced. I have seen the new world that is emerging, perhaps a little more closely than most. These things are quite demonstrable, and plenty of reason to ask the court to reconsider. I thought we might gain an unanimous decision, rather than have to rely on the partisan 5-4 majority, as this is far beyond a partisan issue.

Seized For Mere Speech

   “You must have done something wrong,” they will say, and “There are two sides to every story.” No one seems able to believe it. But I was seized in my driveway and taken away, on a perjurous “mental health” complaint. Three times, the “social services” were called on me, and after learning that they could not have me taken away for “treatment” unless I were a “danger to myself or others,” they simply drew up a perjurous complaint. I stare in amazement at the circumstance, thinking there must be something more than I am seeing. People I have known for fifty years are trying to hurt me in astonishing ways, and succeeding. I have done nothing wrong, nor even said a single thing that is false, yet have been accused like a scapegoat, forbid to speak in my own defense, each accusation answered yielding to a new accusation, everything I say being used only against me, quite as though in answering I spoke to a box of rocks or a brick wall. Is it that having no money, there is simply no justice in relation to me? Or perhaps that everyone to whom I speak is on Oxy, and unable to comprehend a two sentence answer? What have I done? What have I said that is even false?

   Ah, but “you are crazy!” I was just told that today for saying that the reason people do not understand me is that they are on opiods, to a person who is in fact on opiods. The first time social services was called, my mother, where I live- caring for her and her five cats and house and property- had borrowed money from a sister to pay a gas bill, and the sister resented it and decided it was my fault. She is known for viscious attacks, “going for the eyes,” I call it, metaphorically, when she is enraged (but I am “mad”). We are always very poor, especially after winter, in the spring. I got through this first social services call alright, I thought, pointing out that I was the only one involved not on psychiatric drugs or oxy, and that I did plenty of work to cover a reasonable rent. When I had work, I did pay 300$ plus the chores, but the chores continually increase. I used to work for some of those who are now my accusers. But lets see, I live mostly in the shed out back except for essential functions for which one legally needs a house, and have nothing like the rights of a renter. I am simply silenced in my own house, or, at my own address, since I own nothing, except a truck, and many many books- I used to be a teacher, but that is a different story. Let it suffice to say I did a fine job till the end, with no complaints, until that last semester when I failed a couple kids for cheating bad- the students cheat nowadays a lot, and we let most of it go. Liberal arts is no way for a white male to flourish in American community colleges nowadays, and anyone involved with the colleges knows exactly what I mean. In politics and philosophy- previously white male dominated professions- no white males were hired to full time positions for the last fifteen years, and everyone knows this. The well connected went to work for think tanks, etc., but I do not live that way, by networking and cultivating connections. I worked quite a bit at painting and labor for craftsmen, old friends, but eventually- before there was any health care- lost my teeth and fiance, developed a twitch in my eye, and, as these are the days of feminism- hit the road. I bounced around at two different addresses, working across the street as a cat shepherd, then staying with my father for a while, till he threw a glass at the wall behind me for saying something true, and it was time to leave. A place opened up here, where there is my beloved shed, when my nephew was, we think, caught stealing Oxy and expelled. When my mother was in critical for a month and a half, I was taking care of her many cats and visiting her for many hours till I and my ex-fiance were drained. But then I put a picture window in the shed, which had been a chicken coup, thinking too that one day I would like to live there. It is my older sister who first thought of converting the shed, when she was pregnant with my nephew. She is an old farmer and a horse girl, and it is that same nephew who moved out when I moved in. I have been three years trying to get time to clean out the garage to make it useful again, and three years trying to clean up the last of my father’s junk piles, left as when one dies, right as it was the day he finally left. I was showing this to the son of another nephew the other day, before I figured it was just too dangerous for me to spend time with him. I was already careful to never be in the position of a legal guardian, as is even a teenage babysitter, even while his grandmas go to the store and want to leave him with me, because I was being accused by everyone of anything, and I have no money. Things are not the way they used to be, and while we have made great improvements, many things are now destroyed that will be irretrievable. See, it is not that I do not take account of these things. I had to insist that I not be left with the child, despite them- my mother and sister- acting like there was something wrong with me for foreseeing that I might be accused. I was correct in fact that people were looking for anything to accuse me of, and that anything at all might be invented. The poor are now extremely vulnerable, and we have no lawyers, so are always wrong no matter what. The women own and have taken through the courts all the property in the United States, it seems, but we who do not yet know better than to speak a word against feminism are learning. My judge will likely be a woman, and as I have said, I was seized and as if charged for mere speech.

   So, my charming sister, the middle one, first accused me, over the gas bill. I told my mother one day we were out of cat food while the sister was here- it is her responsibility, while I do all the cat labor, 7 days a week, and many other things. People are always trying to put their cats off on me, because I like them, ans I must say I cannot justify it to my creditors. Lawn cutting and snow shoveling and much trash, and some driving and shopping, etc, which no one will recognize. I have told them, “get out your pencil,” but no one will. “Why is there only one side to your ledger?” and “put an add in the newspaper for it then,” because I also work security and am on call 24 hours and seven days. I am subjected too to moods no renter would abide, and can be two days at a time without facilities. I understand and do not mind so much, but it needs to be recognized, when I am accused as if of welshing off the mother. I would estimate the cost at ten dollars an hour might be 600-1000$ per week. Put an add in the newspaper. But I do have a side of the ledger. The older sister dumped two cats on me years ago, probably mad because I gave them tuna and wet food, and they liked me, and I cleaned her cat litter boxes almost daily when I lived there for a while, between my father’s and the shed. My mother would leave the door open in the winter, after her dog would let himself in, and I told her too that she could not afford to do that. I also told the social services worker that, and though he did not return my calls, he left me alone. I threatened to sue if the affair cost me even 5 $, as I cannot afford this excrement. I am the poorest person that you know.

   I work also in the house, on the computer, and was working hard at writing and politics when I received a death threat. I have a PhD in politics, and work on some high level matters, though, because I am dirt poor and this is America, no one believes me. It is probably better that way. But count, if you doubt me- the number of phrases and even whole issues that show up on my blog before they show up in the news, and you will get what I mean. There are a few of us like that, I am not the only one, but the Oxy-heroine scandal and the Russian election of 2016 are prime examples. Property seizures is another- I saw them taking the autos of the poor because they could not afford to oppose “them,” over and over, and in 2009 the Detroit News covered the issue, and they had to back off a bit. But it was quite a scam, the chop shops owned by a brother-in-law of a cop, in town after town. I know this is not the sort of thing people concerned primarily about the health of the body do. Getting Jackson off the 20 instead of Hamilton off the 10, and John 15:13 in relation to police, are other examples. I like when people use stuff off my website, and true things are hit on often by many people at once. Others were onto oxy before me, but not many, and we have always seen what is happening with the psycho-dope, as we call it. We still want Madison booted up from the 5000$ bill to one in regular daily use. It is a certain kind of thing I do that others do not do, cultivating thought and insight. I may still be the only one saying how- if I am right, the 2016 election was turned- through the spy-marketing system, Kaspersky or something like it, and targeted interference. The CIA, though, seems hip this, as does the Supreme Court case. I say these things, though, especially for my side of the ledger, since I am now continuously accused.

   When one receives a death threat, it is the fault not of the one receiving it, but of the one sending it, correct? I showed the death threat to a librarian, and was launching my new political party- the CLC, that day. I had gone down to the county a couple days before, under, as I thought, the death threat, to pick up the forms to collect 3000 signatures needed to run for U. S. Representative. The circumstances of this first death threat are too unbelievable to even describe, though it is clear from previous blogs, and that is all I will say here. I told 9 different levels of government, and no one asked me a single question, and no one likely will, unless I am killed-making it much more difficult to do so. I did not think I had much of a chance running for representative, though my credentials are superior to the one who holds the job, and he is not doing his job. Well, as I would say, he is doing half his job- the partisan half, and I would plan to represent all the people. The first “C” stands for “centrist,” in contrast with “rightist” and “leftist.” I showed the death threat to a librarian, and seriously thought I had been followed on three occasions, so I had asked to speak to a trusted FBI agent at the library, where I quickly wrote two letters to important people I would want to write if I were shot in the street on my way to vote and set up the table at the polls to advertise my new political party. When I left the library, after waiting for 6 hours, a family was parked next to me and getting into the car, so I waited and had a smoke before I turned the key, so they could get clear, just in case. Pretty crazy, eh? When I told my father about what I thought was happening, he called the librarian, who told him with assurance I was “schizophrenic.” She spoke with assurance, as if someone with authority had told her this. It is, of course, illegal for a shrink to diagnose someone they have not personally examined- the “Goldwater rule-” even for diagnoses as minor as “narcissism.” My father- he has a high school diploma- explained that this, “schizophrenia,” is biological and chemical, and one of the signs is- surprise- that the person does not admit they have it, and will not submit to the experimental druggings they call “help.” Kind of like Freud, if you do not believe his theory, the Freudians would say that is due to “resistance,” a technical psychological term, for the Freudians. No one ever checked to see if the death threat might be true. But another sign of the disease may be thinking that it matters if things feared or imagined are in fact true. Our psychology ignores, regarding even “depression,” whether or not sad things have in fact occurred. To be sad is pathological regardless, which may be better theory for selling drugs, though not for caring for human beings. But I told my father, about the family getting into the car next to me, if that was you, and you thought you received a serious death threat, do you have a smoke and wait before you turn that key? I had the time. Or do you suppress the knowledge of the possibility, and start the engine as if nothing were going on? Choose. I gave my mother five days to think about that question and make a choice, when she argued I was obliged to take no precautions. In typical Trump fashion, though, the death threat would be turned to accuse me of what the Trumpsters are in fact doing.

   But when one believes they have received a very serious death threat, they do not act the same as they did, nor as all the people around them act who do nothing serious and are not under a possible death threat. I joked that I had pissed off so many interests with my blogs it could be coming from any one of six or seven places, and they would never figure it out if it occurred. And what I had seen surrounding the election of August 2, a primary, had me quite concerned. When I was at the county building picking up the forms for signatures, and reported that I thought I was under a death threat, I was told by the police at the county building to just drive right on over and report the threat to the County police. That seemed a little odd, as I had seen some very strange things on my way in. I reflected that these- the county police- were accused on my website of slandering my father, and had done quite a few illegal things to him in his folk-heroic efforts to get his township to obey the open meetings act and decided instead to report the threat to the State police. I have also read Serpico. So I decided to go for the State Police. Twice I went to State Police posts that were empty, and ended up at the city police asking for a State officer, but the state police would not believe me. Some very strange things I will not discuss were happening that were quite consistent with being followed. Mad people often think they are being followed, but sometimes people really are followed. Real agents study knowing how to tell when one is being followed, and the difference is, of course, whether or not it is true. One has nothing to lose if he cautiously takes the possibility seriously, and quite a bit to lose, perhaps, if he does not. But when I got home, a writer who I followed- I shit you not- had a story titled, “We’ll get you next time, you little bastard,” right there in my e-mail. It is part of the evidence that I have asked the Canadians to preserve. One of course does not know if one is right about such things, and if you are wrong you are “schizophrenic.” But if you are right, and you ignore it, you are dead. As I have said, they are not going to send a notarized copy with copies to the police and to ones father and uncle. They are going to communicate a death threat so that it is received only by the recipient, then disappears, if that is at all possible. There may be evidence of not a single mob death threat, yet no one doubts that these occur- no one. They just do not care or have the balls to care. Only one of my 3 death threats failed to do this, disappear- documented January 28th on twitter, but that is why this is the one I have taken least seriously, and even said I would forgive him, as it was more a technical threat of death by a boisterous speaker, hopefully. No one to this day has ever looked at this threat, though I have asked quite a few people to do so, and I reported the other two to police. As usual, I say I have presented plenty of reason to take note of and even look into the matter. But my uncle- the one who said I was “one step away from doing something really scary-” in a court document under penalty of perjury- this same one, said I had to have proof in order to do anything, and the police too said I had to be able to press charges, or they would do nothing. This is beyond brilliant, since the proof of a mob or any serious death threat is on the pavement before any charges can be brought. And so, what proof did he have to say such a thing, under penalty of perjury, with a great deal of harm at stake? One cannot prove a thing that is false- that is logic.

   We have a right, of course, to take reasonable precautions in such a circumstance, just in case it is not nothing, not a delusional hypothesis, but true. I sent word to my nephew, who has stolen from both the residents here, that this was not the time for him to be sneaking around the property at night. That is all I said, and never spoke to him directly. asked by my mother to explain, I did. This then became, as in the game of telephone, where one whispers a thing along a line of participants and sees to his amazement what comes out the other end- became that I had “threatened to kill my nephew,” and by the time my sister accused me in the court papers I say are perjury, this had become, “he threatened to beat his nephew_______’s head in with a baseball bat.” I was also accused of threatening to “Kick his ass.” What I said was rather that I had three things to say to him, the warning for his own good and two questions, about why, when he came here to clean up his stuff in the garage, the only place he cleared was one place right where one can climb up and see whether or not I am sitting at my desk. And did anyone pay him to do so? I would ask him these questions, I said, and if he assaulted me for mere speech, as my sister had already done, I would not treat him as I did a girl, and I may have even said I would “Kick his ass,” I do not remember. I said that about the owners of the Friskies cat food company, again in a conditional sentence, “If” the MSG drugged cats knock the old woman down the stairs because they get under her feet “then” I would…, my thought is find the bourgeoisie responsible and knock them off their porch, but it is not likely I’d be able to find them. (We are rather starting a class action suit, and pressuring the company before their monopoly does cause this to happen.) Courts are to civilize the violence between humans as we prevent our being treated unjustly, as may well result if one does nothing and this becomes well known. I have been told that there is nothing we can do about Friskies because a federal standard calls MSG “natural” and so it must be allowed.I do talk that way. But I have certainly said nothing that I do not have a right to say. And it turns out, from a half a ladder and a box of stuff I found up above the place that was cleared out, that he probably was sneaking around at night, though probably not to steal. So if one were sneaking around at night, startled and hiding in the garage or under the stair, it probably would not be and a hit man coming to carry out a possible threat of death or torture, so what I said could only have prevented a mistake. Tire tracks in the field and a huge snapping turtle discovered by the front porch are also quite suspicious. Hamlet accidentally kills Polonius, who should have been his father in law, because Polonius is spying on him and Hamlet thinks it is the King, who Hamlet wants to kill while the King, who murdered Hamlet’s father, is doing something perfidious. But in such circumstance, though the hit man would be very stupid, one cannot count on a hit man not being stupid. And one would not be very smart ask to check his ID. Death threats are indeed more likely to cause harm by accident. That is why they are a crime, considered assault, a form of not constitutionally protected speech.

   But that was last fall already. The second time the social services was called to the house, it did not result in my being taken away, because there was no reason to do so. I discovered that the spy tech in our houses is spying on us and the information collected is not secure. Everyone knows this, but none will systematically think out the implications. That is not my fault, and may well be a virtue- again, if it is true, and I am afraid it is true. This is a fact, and we are stupid if we think, as the agent who visited to try to take me away required me to think, that we can be assured that this is only used “for marketing purposes.” Anyone who pays has access to anything they pay for, not to mention hackers, political enemies and government, with its errors. That is why we have a Fourth Amendment, and anyone who thinks can easily know that this, the Fourth Amendment, is no longer observed. I am not even going to explain how I figured this out- that my tech was spying on me in significant ways. You will not believe me, and it would take too long, but I looked the question up through Google, and it turns out I am correct. Camera and microphone full bore, on three different technologies, T.V., computer and telephone, all day and night, whether these instruments are turned on or off. Once, in the middle of the night, just after we had switched to Microsoft Windows 10, the sound came on loud as if to scare me, and a camera came on the screen and snapped a picture of me. They were apparently pissed because I would not give them even the information required to distinguish the various users of this machine, as though that were an obligation of ours. Even the director of the FBI puts tape over the top of his computer, but if they are not a few moves ahead of us, they are simply not very smart, and in fact they are. What the people do not understand is, that one cannot think out the significance of these things. Everyone says “I have nothing to hide,” playing up to those watching, when anyone can know that government is not always pure and not the only ones with access. But that becomes real easy, at least in certain ways, when you are under a death threat. One can no longer say “I am going to the store, do you need anything?” without a whole different set of practical reasoning. I wondered how they could as if know where I was going, did my heroin-oxy addicted niece stick a bug in my house in exchange for…but no. The tech is spying, sold and hacked, and anyone who buys the line that this is only for marketing purposes cannot work on anything serious anyway, and might consider an offer to buy the Brooklyn Bridge. I heard, on the news, a man assassinated in Bangladesh, a blogger, at an intersection, stabbed by four who met him there and then shot by a fifth- you figure it out- if you can. We will never have another free election as long as this continues, and the people are just too stupid to figure it out and too slavish to do anything about it. When I threatened to sue Microsoft- I never consented to the spying even by buying their products- they blamed the FBI, and this too was on the radio news. I have an archive blog complaining about it. But it is, again, not my fault and perhaps a virtue that I listen to the news and no one else does. Perhaps it is not those who study and think but those who do not who are the ones here that are not listening.

   But the second call to social services was because I was trying to persuade my mother to get rid of the spy tech. I live here and walk between my inside room and the bathroom, and am sick to death of the publicity regarding my gastric troubles, as well as the general loss of privacy. Before I learned about the spying, a friend discussed a very private molestation he had suffered, right on Roku, Magnovox, Microsoft and Toshiba. We even tried to sue over it, but the TV lawyer thought the case too expensive. He is busy suing the taxpayers through the city for accidents that can be easily exaggerated. But I am surprised we did not get coupons for psychotherapy. The Americans are so stupid!

   We also tried to sue over Oxy, and this does seem to be the reason not only for mood disorders and practical inabilities, and sleep disorders, but also for the fact that Americans now have trouble following a two sentence explanation of much of anything. But it is an ethical or moral problem that the one explaining is then blamed, and that before they get to the end of the sentences to even hear what is being said!

   My mother threw a temper tantrum because she could not stand my saying, as they put it, to make me sound as crazy as possible, that “the T.V. is watching us.” What used to be madness, in 1984, is now common sense. I had already given up trying to persuade her, and called the police to press charges: It is illegal in Michigan to record any conversation between two people unless one of them consent. The police will do nothing. I did not really realize that one cannot even buy tech anymore that does not spy on you and sell the information. I seriously hoped to persuade her to get rid of it, and said I would be justified if I threw the damned thing out in the front yard and smashed it. This too became “Mark threatened to smash the T.V.,” come to think of it. But the mother called my brother, who accused me of madness and of not paying money to stay here. Again I had to defend myself, and did so before the accusation shifted. I have no money and no work, cause I’v not been well and have few teeth, but as I have said, I do plenty of chores- at least three or four hours a day of matters I am not responsible for, which, 7 days a week over 30 days at even 10$ and hour comes to easily enough to stay mostly in the shed and have equal renter rights. But it is the mom’s house and part of my purpose here is that she be able to stay as long as possible, and she cannot stay here alone: that is how she wound up in critical last time. She would get in squabbles with all 4 siblings, and I am the only one, frankly, who will pick her up out of the ditch while she is bitching at me, in part because I understand these things in a different way. I hold a PhD in Politics, and a double B. S. in Psych and Philosophy, with a graduate minor in literature, and have written 2-4 books, depending on how one wants to figure it. Plus I am a Christian, and Jesus teaches that sort of thing. But the brother would have none of it: I need “help,” and they “Love me” so much they are going to get this for me- by getting me evicted and if possible seized and taken away for drugging. But even if the cops, when they come, make a mistake and shoot me, it will be “my own fault,” said both my brother and my uncle, and there are plenty of examples on the internet. In the Philippines, it is even a favored and fancy way of carrying out a death threat, but it is still too risky in the U. S., if not by much. Good thing I did not get angry at the injustice- my martial arts teacher said he would be dressing up in Ninja- but it is, no, just a figure of speech, for God sake! I have literally never struck a person in my life, even in training (and that is almost unheard of), not that I would not. As I have said: “If you hit me, I will hit you back,” or press charges, or both. And if you drop off the first half of this conditional sentence and charge me, I will charge you with perjury. Although the right of self defense is not exactly in the Bill of Rights, the courts of course will recognize this, as does common sense, and also the right to use force in defense of others. One would be hard pressed to find someone who has thought out the use of force theoretically as I have, nor one who has exhibited more self control. I could go on, but won’t. One ought not lie about such things or abuse the police and the “mental health” system, so that these are there when they are needed under truth. When, 2 days later, Wikileaks reported that the CIA knew of certain vulnerabilities in our tech but left us exposed, that all smart tech and everything hooked up to the internet was in fact spying on us whenever anyone with access wants, I invited my brother to apologize. He is objectively demonstrated to be wrong. But they just go on to the next accusation.

   Although the police could find no reason that day to take me away, and I would not go., they eventually resorted to the perjurous accusation. I know what kind of “help” they mean, and I am very busy. And if anyone seriously wanted to help me, they might ask me what I needed, rather than decide for me what I need. A strange officer they brought out with the county cop I know asked quite a few questions as if he were in utter ignorance of our Bill of Rights, questions about my writings, my writing on scripture, and especially “Have you ever read the Quran? And why do I not just accept Donald Trump as President? Why try impeachment or, as I explained I was truly, why work on a Supreme Court case to void the 2016 election due to Russian interference through the internet spy-marketing system (the method that Trump was promised could not be detected, as well as 6 other ways that have in fact been detected)? I actually had to say to this Trumpster agent that I was a U.S. citizen and had a right to work on a Supreme Court case. And “Who do you think does such things, if not a politics PhD?” But Americans are so stupid: surely no poor man! I must have debilitating Narcissism! Religious vows of poverty are now to be declared illegal, or given a new category in the DSM all their own, together with visions, dreams, and comprehensive intellect! That I was working on a Supreme Court case was one of the charges listed in the perjury of my sister that finally, the third time, got me taken away. I said so at all only to emphasize that it was important that I be allowed to continue to do my work, explain to people who do not understand priorities, that some things are truly important. Everything I say has in fact been used only against me, so that like a limed bird, the more I say, the more I am stuck. But, as my friend says, to one who only has a hammer, everything looks like a nail, and that is the intelligence of these agents. I suggested, since he was some slick guy, above our county cops “pay grade,” he develop the capacity to see if what a person says might not be true, and to investigate crimes on the internet, as I could walk them through the death threats, show where and how these happened, and if this were their nail, they would no doubt have all the info preserved. I can demonstrate the perjury from text messages that I recorded. These are in any case available as well to defend us as to be used against us. But they will not look.

   The third time, I was vacuuming the shed, and the cops had been parked across the street while got the mail, and for quite some time. One does not, of course, want to be “paranoid!” A county cop then pulled into my driveway- my sister, lying, had had the mother conveniently and smilingly over to visit when this was to occur, just as my armed brother, who “loves” me and will “help”- I have seen him maybe twice in five years- had come by coincidence to be there the second time they tried, and now they took me, not even allowing me to prepare, turn off the electricity (which the nice officer did for me), get cigarettes, clothing, paper, pen books or cell phone. I am amazed at how everyone around me has lied and schemed quite freely as though I were a child, while again I have said not a single thing that is even false, let alone done anything wrong or that I do not have a right to do. I was taken to the Psych hospital without seeing the seriousness of the charges against me, and so expected to be out shortly. I was interviewed, asked by a shrink who knew me for 8 minutes, “Have you ever been molested?” I asked him, “Have you ever been molested?” and was declared uncooperative, a mental illness, and some other of their nice words, on the perjerous accusation and diagnosis of my alcoholic sister, who is not even a shrink, but does have a high school degree, though she was a D student if I am not mistaken. “Threatening relatives,” I was, and my poverty was interpreted as not taking care of myself, and stated in the most extreme terms possible. Has one not a right to decline toward death? But it was in the cop car that I learned, after he lied about showing me the papers (officer Campbell, I believe), that the Supreme Court case had been denied. I had been knocked off the internet February 4th when I received a long string of many things I had said that angered the Russians, together with some medical information that is not even on the internet, likely sold by my drugstore, and a simultaneous phone call pretending to be a telemarketing scam, beginning “Stop doing what you are now doing,” and offering me 10,000$. I called the police then, but they did not come. I had also called them when a Dr. ___ was writing a letter to President Obama, and I was adding a comment, and Russian whores- likely  from St. Petersburg- came on the screen under a page like that of a man I trust, a WordPress background- followed quickly by a very scary face and 4 words, 2 of which were “Assassin” and “Assassinate.” I offered to show the cop when I reported this to police, but as I said, once one gets the message, these things are likely to disappear as quickly as they came. If they can make them appear up under your page, they can most likely make them disappear. I had just a few days before had a Russian hacker take over a comment on a follower’s website, and take me out West to a pot website- I pretended not to know. I had a hacker on a DNC website (Daily Kos) show me a lion sneaking up on a leopard, then seize my computer, saying my hard drive would be destroyed in five minutes if I did not call this number. I reported that one to NPR, but the FBI is such a joke it is likely to do more harm than good, and I told them a long time ago to watch my computer anyway. I have not called them since they hung up on me, as described in a previous blog. If the local cops can’t handle it, they do need to call, but the State referred me to the county. I had also been visited by “Jack the Judge,” for saying things to Putin like “Get out of the Ukraine,” etc, which the Trumpster Trolls who attacked me January 28th seem to have helped gather to scare me off the internet. I would have continued, though, but was forbidden by the owner, after the police did not come and no one would help defend my rights, or even believe me. Again, I told them I was working on a Supreme Court case. The cop said “Your name is not on it.” I said “I did not say it was.” To this day, everything I have said has only been used against me, like I was the criminal.

   But again, I have done nothing wrong, nothing I do not have a perfect right to do, even said nothing false, but have been taken away and subjected to druggings and attempted druggings contrary to my religion, politics, psychology and medical understanding- some of the drugs may well have killed me, as these are toxic and addictive and do kill people on occasion. I told them they would not care, just take me out the back, and would not even attend my funeral, and that is true. I seemed to be the only one who knew he had a right to refuse their drugs until ordered by a judge. I was offered, prescribed by doctors, various concoctions, though I was able to refuse. I tried to get my doctor to tell them about my strange system, and how things make me sick, but he was no help, and I won’t be going back to that organization again. Their computers are likely hacked anyway, as I have told them, though they cannot imagine why one might care. The Atavan they forced me to take when I annoyed them by persistently insisting they had no right or reason to hold me- I had still not seen the accusation- made me extremely sick with a terrible headache- I have something wrong, as if with my liver, and cannot drink alcohol, so I am very careful. They piss tested me and blood tested me, again contrary to all my beliefs and to the rights of a free citizen. They kept me at a nice place with other troubled people- after all this I still have not gone mad- and got me a lawyer at the latest possible date, or even past the legal limits of Habeus Corpus- the requirement that the executive present one bodily before a judge in order to hold him (Constitution, Article I). By the time the matter came before a judge, the danger that if I saw a Judge before gaining the evaluation of one not interested in selling drugs and beds or interested in confirming all the sue-able things these people had already done, I might be drugged by compulsion, that danger kept me in for 20 full days before I could get the case before a judge after the independent evaluation, and still I have not said a single word in court. My sister pressed to have me committed, like permanently, and drugged, or “treated” as they call it. I watched her on T.V., while friends were there to see key actions occurring behind the scenes. T. V. does not quite fulfill habeus corpus, but given the charges I would have been there in shackles or chains, like a dangerous animal! But hearing the story that I had tried to explain to both my sister and my mother 5 times about what I really said regarding my nephew- that this was not the time for him to be sneaking about the property at night- (I would not “listen”)- the judge determined that the State had no reason to pursue the matter, or that, in effect, twenty days prior they indeed had no right to seize me, and I was released. Indeed, I did exactly the right thing to warn the nephew that this was not the time for him to be sneaking around the property at night.

   After I got a lawyer, the hospital says that I was not so “agitated,” and so “got better.” (Like a Monty Python skit, indeed, “‘E got better.” And now I am told I should consider it “experience,” and ya, we’ll just call it even.

   The strange thing is that my sister and brother were impelled much by my Trumpster uncle, whose delusion indeed did a great deal of harm- I have suggested that perhaps he have a “vacation.” He in turn is in touch with a “psychologist.” I may have received a strangely worded warning by my Trumpster on the internet regarding my relatives, but you can ask those questions yourself if you are an investigator. My brother and sister are both Trumpsters, and why else they are attacking me, I cannot guess. I keep saying, “What have I done wrong, write it down,” and my accusers switched then to my manner of speech when I defend myself from their Protean accusations, shifting shape with every answer and defense. Caricatures without a single example are common, hyperbolic generalized flaws spun out of particulars that have long disappeared. I “shove” my opinions “down” others “throats” as when I warn them about Germany in 1934, and I will not “listen” when they order me to get “help” with their wisdom- I do not even bother telling them or you about Germany in 1946. I have told my uncle and written in blogs repeatedly that if we do what Putin has in mind for us, we will “send our sons and grandsons out in Brownshirts and receive them home in boxes,” and explained this teaching quite well, I thought. I also offered to let my uncle’s investment company invest in a coffin making company, as there might be here a bull market, since he did not want to invest to help me publish my book. Sarcasm does not come across well in the written word. But are we really so stupid, and then so obtuse as not to ask one to explain rather than do genuine harm? They are so “help” full as to rather have me put away to cure my “insanity.”

   I have tried to speak to one example of each kind of Trumpster: a preacher, to tell him the Christians are quite deceived; a rich man, or those who think they are voting for money; a craftsman, or non-rich white guy, and a female Trumpster. The worst kind, those who are not fools, I do not wish to speak to. I was threatened by my sister, before she did this, for calling my uncle a fool. I would learn not to do that, she said. I told the uncle I called him a fool because I would not call him a whore, a slave or a murderer. Trump does not know that murder is wrong: “We have lots of murderers here too,” he told ABC. The whores prostitute things like their honesty and honest industry for money: they make money dishonestly. The slaves serve Trump, from fear or their own attempt to be big narcissists, big actors, etc. And the murderers are genuine gangsters, not realizing that most likely the bigger fish is coming up right behind them.

   But “help,” I would be forever grateful for such help, or genuine inquiry.  You know, a leading characteristic of insanity is that they do not admit they need “help.” But these people assume that we know there is no such thing as death threats on the internet, anymore than there are martians, so that anyone saying such things can be known mad without inquiry. No need to Prove or even investigate. I told my sister:

“If you told me you had three horses down in your barn, and I thought seriously that you might be delusional, why, before I tried to get you evicted, endangered your life and tried to get you committed, I’d just take a walk with you down to your barn and look. And if I did not have time or was not able, I might just believe you, or at least leave you alone.”

She almost looked, but knows not to have the Resistance on her home computer, since what, we know that they are followed by the government and by trolls, if these are still distinguishable. She had her computer shut down, by coincidence, at the same time mine shut down, just after publishing a citizen’s arrest of Donald Trump for election fraud. I saw how Trump said the methods could not be detected, when he does not know this about computers. Someone told him the election would be thrown for him, and that the method could not be detected, so that he was sure if he did not win, Hillary would be guilty of election fraud. I could be wrong, but I doubt it, and that is what trials are for. I think I saw it. These, and not the accusations in their perjury, were what they said was wrong with me according to them just days before they had me taken away, and it is indeed legal perjury. The sister went on about medical matters as if I had pathologically neglected health, when she had just seen me try and fail to prepare for one procedure- she was scheduled to drive for this! The forms they signed have them swear that what they say is true “under penalty of perjury,” and I want to know if the courts mean it. Courts can be abused, and police corrupt, but I expect that since the charge of perjury is true, demonstrable, and necessary to make this stuff stop, they may just follow through. My only conversation with that uncle, who orchestrated much and worded his accusation carefully on the court papers (“I believe…”)-my only conversations with him since Thanksgiving are on text messages and recorded. He forwarded some, misunderstood, to my brother, knowingly out of context, without asking me their meaning- if he is that stupid- intentionally and slanderously to demonstrate how crazy I am. He just knows Trumpsters do not make threats, nor Russians, never use intimidation, and that there never was a plan to bring the “hammer down” on Chicago. He knows this without asking or inquiry, in the same manner as that in which he has perfected his liberal study. His shrink is probably a Skinnerian behaviorist or an MD with a DSM. “Scary,” about to “do something really scary,” just “one step away”- yeah, something scary to the Trumpsters like restoring our constitution by impeachment or a Supreme Court case and by charging these criminals with perjury. When one has done nothing wrong or violated the rights of no one, government and indeed his relatives are obligated to leave him alone. This is our fundamental law, as fundamental as free speech. My ability to argue this demonstrates my sanity, and their inability to understand this argument demonstrates their ignorance, far in excess of that required to make charges of “mental illness” for mere speech. Someone has a lot of explaining to do, begining with the Trumpster Uncle, about his contacts in the Trump organization, and whether what occurred was done for political advantage. But these things happen when a nation elects a tyrant and will not listen to those who study politics and philosophy not for moneymaking but for its own sake. Does anyone know a lawyer wants to make some money on commission? But it is likely we will just call it even.

   So there are two sides to every story, yea, money and power. We have a constitution, and we have the word, but power can forbid us to speak.

Tax Exempt Status for Political Churches?

   Today an executive order was signed which will allow churches to more freely endorse political candidates. Opponents say this chips away at the separation of Church and State, and something does seem fishy about what has occurred. In discussing this, I will tell a story, as well as argue, as I have to the Christians up the street, that the Christians are deceived by Donald Trump. Jesus does not support Tyrants, nor does Pope Francis- as the fake news story tried to have it- support Donald Trump, nor should American Christianity allow itself to be enlisted in the emerging anti-Muslim “nationalism,” elsewhere and more truly termed fascism. Who is your neighbor?

   I was pleased to find a church and preacher I quite liked, just up the street, as I could walk there, and had stopped going to both a Catholic and Baptist Church, each for different reasons. On my first visit there, the pastor commented that he was forbid to speak politics from the altar, and the whole congregation seemed quite paranoid about me, as if I were some liberal come to spy out their tax exempt status. They stopped raising their hands in prayer, for example, though the second time I was there, when they prayed for me as I had asked, they raised their hands, and some even spoke in tongues, which was quite a powerful experience. I told them I needed help, that I needed work and a lawyer, and was in some difficulty at home there up the street, but they would only give me their first names, and, as said, seemed quite suspicious. Apparently there had been a robbery on the property recently, and of course one never knows.

   After my second visit, I decided to write to the pastor about some things I had learned from his preaching on John, about the tax exempt status question, and about how the Christians are quite deceived about Donald Trump. When I was a teacher at the community college, of American Government, I would tell the kids that they of course were allowed almost limitless free expression of religion, but for me to preach Jesus from the lectern would violate the establishment clause, though I would comment on the Bible as a part of the unwritten constitution of the Americans, as George Anastaplo discusses this in his book on the constitution.* I thought maybe similarly the parishioners have a right to express politics, but not the preacher from the pulpit, and this is close, but not quite it. I said this as much to demonstrate how the Establishment and free expression clauses fit together as to communicate silently that I would like to teach about Jesus but cannot- and this was not my job. I told Tom, the Pastor, that similarly he was limited from certain things about politics, though that it not quite it. I too would refrain from any partisan politics in class, and, I told him, I was concerned that Christians be free to teach the ethics of the Bible, including the teachings that homosexuality is not good for the soul, from Moses and Paul, and even that abortion is wrong, though this is a Greek Hippocratic, and not a Mosaic teaching. Leviticus distinguishes between killing a born child and causing a miscarriage as by striking a pregnant woman, and the latter is not murder, though it is a crime. Jesus never got around to teaching against homosexuality, as though it were not so much a priority, though Paul does, in Romans 1. I wrote too that Paul in Romans 2 implies that violence against gays is the result of repressed homosexuality (“you yourselves are doing the same things”), as this is a more serious or higher level of sin. And what, I asked Tom, if it is true that homosexuality is bad for the soul and also true that our use of pesticides and suburban lawn chemicals is interfering with the hormones of our youth? Plus, people are not required to be Christian in order to be American, and this is extremely important. As I have a braided ponytail, since I have not been able to afford haircuts for two years, kind of like it, and used to grow my hair long when I was in High School and College, I think they thought I might be gay. Rather, I think of Lancelot when he comes out of the woods for the final battle in the movie Ex-Calibre.

   So I wrote him a two page letter discussing these things, since he did not have much time on Sundays for discussion. I also gave him my website and Twitter numbers, as I like to promote myself and was surely not worried about revealing my true self to him. I wrote that it seemed unconstitutional to forbid him to say just about anything as a preacher, except to incite crimes, as when a speech becomes an action, in slander, libel, false advertising, perjury, fake news and such, fraud and other ways of harming people, and this of course, like all our constitutional questions, can become extremely difficult. We forbid religious expression even of students when, as when the Texas High school prayed as a group in the end zone after each touchdown, though, unlike Germany, we try to allow hate speech, though this too can cross the line to become an action, violating rights that it is the purpose of government to secure.

   I wrote to Tom that Trump was not a Christian (though I might be wrong), that he hardly believes that murder is wrong, let alone that abortion is murder, that he does not care about any sexual morality, let alone transgender issues, that the Miss Universe Pageant (held in Russia at the building owned by Tillerson) demonstrates a disregard for adultery as an ethical crime, or promotes adultery as well as the regard for sex over love, that his defrauding of the elderly through Trump University demonstrates a willingness to lie and steal, and his willingness to use the law to hurt people, such as the blacks and the liberals and the Mexican immigrants is characteristic of a tyrant, and that the Christian’s opposition to Hillary was far from sufficient reason to invite Russian and KKK influence into U. S. politics. Fascism is quite opposed to the message of the Gospel, I argued, and the Christians quite snowed by Donald Trump, who is a salesman and will say and use anything for his own advantage or self interest. I think I am stating the matter a bit more clearly today than I did in the letter to him, but you get the gist of what was said in the letter.

   After missing Church the day that I delivered the letter, I appears for my third sermon, the fourth week since I began to walk up the street on Sundays to his church. He met me on the steps on the way in, said things that indicated he had misunderstood me to be pro-abortion and pro-gay- a misunderstanding, as I am quite the centrist, with rather unique positions on all the issues, due to thinking a lot about both sides, and trying to teach. Tom had said two things that had indicated the sort of news stations he was listening to- that the report of Trump calling up 100,000 national guardsmen was fake news (Trump changed his mind), and that Obama had christened many new intelligence officers just before he left office. It was also clear that he did not have time, as do I, for a detailed and vigorous study of the news. Teachers of American Government sometimes have a natural tendency to become centrists, though not always. My philosophic studies of the roots of both left and right wing extremes, in communism and fascism, and seeing how the extremes of both the right and left political characters leads people into twentieth century totalitarianism either way- this also impels me to my unique centrism.  I had argued that when we vote for a president, we vote for a man capable of the executive office more than for a party platform, one able to be president, for the good of our nation, and that both the Republicans and the Christians were simply snowed by Donald Trump. I do not much appreciate Jesus being used for political self interest, and so do not mind stepping up, even to talk to a preacher. I was told that I would not be happy at their church, and it was clear that I was being asked to leave. But I knew he misunderstood me and sincerely wanted to hear the sermon. A woman coming up the stairs backed my saying that Trump was cozy with the White Supremacists, as Steve Bannon had been chosen Chief of Staff. In his previous sermons he had added great points to my understanding of the famous scene where Jesus, resurrected, asks Peter, Do You love me? He said that God wants our fellowship, and Jesus indeed our friendship, profound teachings, and he had showed me that Peter just goes back to fishing, back to money-making, when he returns to Galilee after the crucifixion. A Catholic had showed me that cool thing about the two scenes with the charcoal fire, and I was seeing confirmation about my learning that it is John and not Peter who is the guy, even as the Eastern Orthodox Church might show us Catholics. And Tom showed me something about the calling to be a preacher, I thought, about agape and two kinds of philo, feed my lambs, shepherd my sheep,” and “feed my sheep,” thee different things in answer to the two or three different questions, do you love me, then he prophesied Pete’s death and he said “follow me.” And what is it to Peter if indeed John did remain until He came to visit him on Potmos, or even if John remained, as he did throughout the crucifixion, more faithful to the last day?

   These are the sort of things I was seeing, and though I was quiet throughout the sermons, and tried to be helpful and friendly to everyone- discussing the six kinds of machines with the son of one man who is a member, etc, Tom made it clear that it was not their choice that I return. I had said on the steps going in, “Do you mean to say that I am not welcome in you church unless I am a Trump supporter,”? and he could not say yes for fear of the law about the tax exempt status. I was attacked in speech on the way out as I tried to explain, accused of disrespecting our President and government contrary to Romans !3 1-7, and I asked what they thought Paul did when, some ten years after writing this, he was ordered by Nero to give up the names of his fellow Christians? Did he obey his government? No, that is surely not what he means by obedience, and if the Christians were ordered by the Nazis to answer, “Do you have any Jews,” we would be obligated to lie- that is my teaching, anyway, or that that is not what John means by liars. Rather, the “liars” might be those who tell the truth to save themselves, as perhaps Peter did around the first of the charcoal fires.

   I was also accused for raising my voice to the preacher, in the back of the church on the way out, though I said I thought Tom had the Holy spirit in his preaching, and “wise” I called him to one I tried to proselytize to come that Sunday but not his political theory. “I am a PhD in politics,” I pleaded. Accused of disrespecting the House, said to a woman, Who’s house is this? And to their surprise- for they did not seem to know the saying, I quoted: “Fist remove the log from your own eye, then you will see clearly to remove the splinter from your brother’s eye.” I backed out the door saying loudly, “This is the word of the Lord,” to my own surprise, and wandered home wondering about the ironic joke on me that I had clearly failed to remove the splinter from my brothers eye and keep myself in the class I was enjoying.

   I had put one dollar in the collection in an envelope which asked for my address. A few days later I received a letter with no return address, with a checklist of similarities between Hillary o the Democratic platform and the Nazi’s, things I too complain about when government becomes like Big Mother,” making me spend 1/2 hour plus a day for the last seven years rolling my own cigarettes ’cause they tried to tax us out of smoking, o indeed ending my teaching career because Politics and Philosophy had been White male dominated departments prior to affirmative action, and the liberal arts could be used in a way that medicine, for example could not to promote the feminist superiority teaching or the understanding that equality means numerical equality rather than equal opportunity regardless of prejudice, as if we would require a proportional number of short Asian women in pro baseball or the NBA.

   So, is Tom a religious or a political organization? And what would happen if the law compelled him to let me stay, so long as I was not disruptive? And just as I did not claim the benefits of common law marriage, because my fiance never would officially marry me, so I toil for free in the work of my nation and my faith indistinguishable. Perhaps if the Trumpsters are going to use Jesus to snow the Christians, they ought at lest pay their taxes.

 

Note *The Constitution of 1787 by George Anastaplo opens with a discussion of some of the comprehensive influences on the American Constitution. Examples of Biblical influences that can be discussed in a political science course are Genesis 9:6, which presents the reason that murder is wrong, and Deuteronomy 25:3, forbidding the return of escaped slaves. The difference between the scientific, Judicial and religious use of scripture is quite interesting in elation to the First Amendment and Establishment from the lectern. Deuteronomy 25:3, though it is not law for us, is yet why I could not, as a Michiganian, swear allegiance to the pre-Civil War Constitution. Up here, we knew that it was, as Montesquieu explains, a violation of political liberty to compel one to do what is wrong (or prevent one from doing what is right (Spirit of the Laws, XI). The contradiction could have been corrected by appealing to the Article IV requirement that each state be guaranteed a republican form of government, avoiding the civil war. But Jackson’s man Taney could have prevented the 265,000 American deaths in the civil War had he but decided that Dred Scott was a man. Sometimes there is silence in an awful moment which could and should have gone another way, and many lives and much suffering are at stake. This topic came up when we were discussing the engenius basis of Supreme Court case # 16-907, which argued that the election was unconstitutional because the national government is required to protect the states from foreign invasion, as occurred by the Russians through the internet.

Orwell’s 1984 in 2017: Truth and Delusion

   If you seriously cannot tell which is reality and which is illusion, I suggest you look at who is persecuting people for mere speech. And here we see the surprisingly deep importance of the principle of the free speech clause of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. I keep forgetting that there are Trump supporters, and perhaps people who seriously cannot tell, as well as people who due to an ethical failure do not care or are simply willing to pervert the truth for baser interests.

   In Orwell’s 1984, there are of course people who believed that government, or, there are fools.  I recall Orwell’s description of his neighbor’s family, where all were as if wholly deluded, the father, mother and two children, all avid supporters willing to live wholly in the world Big Brother had created for them. There are also people who from fear do not consider truth, and of course a third sort, people who know well the difference, and for some ungodly reason are willing to impose the tyranny and its delusion onto everyone. That is how the domestic life of North Korea appears to us out here in the West. But seriously, who knows? Are there not “two sides to every story,” and did you not know that “truth is relative?” “We have our culture and they theirs,” and did you not know that ethical truth is culturally relative? “Who knows?” or rather, swallow this: if we lived in North Korea, Kim Jong Un would truly be the “Great Father!” Sarcasm is important, and does not, sometimes, come across through the written word. I keep forgetting that there really are Trump supporters. Trump has people willing to believe his fake news, and also to believe his accusation that any criticism of him is fake news. Our press struggles nobly to achieve for us objective clarity in the face of the stupidest lies. Many Americans seriously admire a good sales pitch regardless of the truth. Trump also has people who seriously cannot tell the difference, and, again, third, people who know the truth of the story quite well and are willing to produce for him fake news. And look now across America: Our democracy is seriously having difficulty telling the difference.

   2=2=4, and it does not equal 5. I had a great professor who once mentioned Orwell, and we, the students, were surprised that he would descend to discuss a novelist. He said he liked the work quite well, 1984, but took issue with Orwell’s presentation of human nature as being that malleable. But this was before the age of the Internet. If we do not act now, the orchestrated opinions may soon be those of We the people. It is perhaps an ethical problem, or, at root it is an ethical question: Are you willing to pervert your theoretical mind and common sense for the sake of bodily self interest? Will you do this if they threaten you? Or do they only need to pay you? And how much? For, like the joke about the prostitution of the wife of the man offered a “million dollars” to let the seducer sleep with his wife, we have already established that she is a prostitute, the only remaining question is the price. Read Machiavelli’s play Mandragola. And do you have enough money yet, America?

   But sometimes there is a serious difficulty about truth and a mirror image, which after all does have the same features as the true picture. Birds often are seen trapped in an illusion that the bird in the mirror is indeed another bird, because they have never yet seen such an example, and it takes a while to learn that such an illusion is even possible. Who would intentionally set up a mirror to confuse me in this way? Can we not just trust that the Lord would not make things so difficult for common sense? Do you mean, Mr. McDonald, to say that we really do have to consider such things about the president of the United States? Are we not obligated by the grandeur of the office not to question? Are we not obligated by the chain of command? Yes, indeed, this is not North Korea, yet, and every American citizen has a right to work on a Supreme Court case, to support impeachment when it in the nation’s interest, to speak freely and to ask questions freely. Trump had never read the constitution, and that is why he so often trips over it, and the Trumpsters do not care, and that is un-American!

   But this does not change the truth: Those who say 2=2=5 are lying. The philosopher can always be presented as mad, because the people cannot, without a great natural intelligence and a life of toil devoted to the truth, understand him, and, amid their life absorbed in practical concerns, they do not care. Again that is why our constitution is so important, and free speech so fundamental. I will add that that is why the abuse of our courts and the issue of perjury is so fundamental. I was taken from my driveway and held for 20 days without even getting a single word in to a judge, until a court appointed lawyer gained an independent evaluation by a psychologist who did not have an interest in filling a bed or getting me addicted to their drugs, and this convinced a judge of the rather obvious truth that they did not have a right nor any legitimate power to seize me 20 days prior. The abuse of our mental health system is, along with perjury, very serious, a very important development, because this system needs to be in place and honest for those who truly need it, that is, for genuine emergencies. I have seen it, the courts and our mental health system, corrupted by Trumpsters for political reasons, and this is simply not ok, that is, assuming that we do see something truly wrong with the way of life under Kim Jong Un, and we are not to assume it is simply our cultural preference. I am pressing charges of perjury, but it is quite likely that the police will be told to do nothing, and that the officer will again say that the question is “above his pay grade.” And it is perjury: When certain Tumpster relatives learned by experience that they could not have me “treated” by compulsion unless I were a “danger to myself or others,” they simply lied to say I was. We have an uncle who has a PhD in “Education,” and he was influenced too by some “psychologist,” likely a Trumpster, and perhaps someone in our government who has an interest in my being certified insane: I do not know, and fear to raise these questions so as not to appear “paranoid.” But someone sure does have an interest in presenting as insane, or a mere “conspiracy theorist,” anyone to whom it has become apparent the extent to which Russia threw the 2016 election. Again, if you seriously cannot tell which is truth and which illusion, I suggest you look to those suppressing the questions, to those suppressing free speech, for I was seized in my driveway while the Supreme Court Case #16-907 to void the 2016 election due to Russian interference through the internet was moving through the courts, I having done nothing wrong, not a thing I do not have a right to do, having threatened no one illegally, nor even said a single thing that is false, but for mere speech. One can always tweak and twist a word, and then forbid the accused to explain. The limed bird, remember, the more you struggle to free yourself, the more you will be stuck, if only we use everything you say only against you, will not listen, and insist it is you who will not listen, while it is we who are entering your world to determine how things shall be for you. Liberty is fundamental, and when one has violated the rights of no other, it is the obligation of government to leave him alone. This is fundamental law in America still, the principles of the Fourth and Fifth Amendments and the Third assertion of the Second sentence of our Declaration: “…to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men.” The purpose of government is to secure rights, and so again, since it is apparently difficult, when one has not violated the rights of another, government has no purpose and must leave him alone.

   But in the end, and in “this world,” these questions are determined not by equations on a blackboard, but by power. We must take a stand, or see free government perish from this earth. I can blog, and have a wonderful time, and you can read, dwelling here with the ideas, if you have leisure, but in the end, they control the visibility and access to my writings through the internet, because we have allowed this to occur. The Resistance can tweet all day, but in the end it is on Twitter, and Twitter is being monitored and controlled, and by someone other than “We the people.” They can win because they have money and power, and we are not taking a stand.

Impeach Trump When Duterte Visits the White House

   Let’s impeach Trump in time for the Duterte visit to the White House. Any member of the U. S. House of Representatives can draft and propose articles if the Judiciary Committee is too partisan. Trump is not the Guy to deal with North Korea, and the wold is now in peril of nuclear war. But we’re set up for a win-win for Putin- surprise! Then, after we impeach Trump, we should evacuate the South as quickly as possible from the border down and watch Kim- and those under him- get ill. We might solve the problem and liberate the North without a single shot, as Reagan dissolved Communism for the Russians. But even if not, it is time to get the South Koreans who are within striking distance out of harm’s way. Houston was evacuated for a hurricane, and we need to practice evacuating large cities anyway.

   Trump is a tyrant, and may revert to the fascist or white supremacist understanding of “America first” at any time. If they like Russian methods so much, let them go with the Hillsdale Republicans on their upcoming luxury cruise to St. Petersburg and stay there to enjoy such fine anti-“globalist” nationalism. It is not clear that our own attack on Mexican immigrants, the city of Chicago (black gangs) or Muslims has yet been permanently shelved. Trump will flirt again with the White Supremacists when it suits his “winning” or his next sales pitch. Ditto for nuclear war. We need to impeach this man before it is too late. The committee system is not in the constitution, and any Democrat can Impeach for emoluments, election fraud, intimidation of the Press and others, Trump-Russian connections (Page, Tillerson, Flynn, Kirchner), and many more things- rewarding Bannon for fake news, defrauding the elderly through Trump U, etc. Someone told him the election would be thrown for him and the method- spy-marketing and targeted interference- could not be discovered. Now to jilt Putin, after rewarding him by questioning NATO and sanctions- he grows a heart about Syrian children getting gas attacked- like he did not know that is what men like Putin and Assad do. He admires every tyrant, the only plank in his platform that is not changeable according to perceived advantage-.Now he invited Duterte- who dishonored the U. S. Presidency, and is a murderer- to the White House. Charming. Enough of this Teflon Don- the articles will stick.

Nietzsche’s Zarathustra and the “Last Man.”

   Nietzsche is of course a very bad man, a diabolical thinker, in fact. People do not realize how bad Nietzsche and Machiavelli are, until they are subjected to a tyranny and it is much too late, for the political expression of the diabolical is tyranny. Jung, though, knew quite well about Nietzsche. But then, once these things occur, everything we care about, everything worth living for will be gone, as it was for Germany in 1938, though they did not realize it until 1946, and it will be the same for us, apparently, as we are letting what is now occurring occur, and no one seems to be able even to see it, let alone to do a thing about it. We watch those who see be attacked one by one, and no one will stand. We are the “last men.”

   One respect in which Nietzsche’s Zarathusta is prophetic is in his foreseeing the coming of the “last man.” These remind me of our U.S. citizens on Oxy, where one can say to them the most earth shattering things, as Pope Francis just said, and they stare back in stupefied dull amazement, indeed like cows to whom Lincoln practiced his speeches. It is Sunday, indeed, what time is the game on? The world is in danger of nuclear war today, and Putin is trying to destroy America and with it all hope for political liberty, and they blink. They do not know what political liberty is, or why it matters if Putin destroys it and America, nor do they know what tyranny is, or consider the difference between tyranny and liberty, but how is that stock market doing, and jobs jobs jobs, it is the economy, stupid.” No, it is in fact LIBERTY, stupid!! And for nuclear war, well, it will likely only fall on those other people, right? What time is the game on?

   In the fifth section of the Prologue to Zarathustra, Nietzsche prophesies the “last man:”

What is love? What is creation? What is longing? What is a star? Thus asks the last man, and he blinks. The earth has become small, and on it hops the last man, who makes everything small. His race is as ineradicable as the flea beetle; the last man lives the longest.’We have invented happiness,’ say the last men, and they blink. They have left the regions where it was hard to live, for one needs warmth. One still loves one’s neighbor and rubs against him, for one needs warmth. ..Who still wants to rule, who obey? Both require too much exertion.

No shepherd and one herd! Everyone wants the same, everybody is the same: Whoever feels different goes voluntarily to the madhouse.

Formerly, all the world was mad,’ say the most refined, and they blink…One still quarrels, but one is soon reconciled- else it might spoil the digestion. One has one’s little pleasure for the day and one’s little pleasure for the night; but one has regard for health.

   Bodily health has of course replaced all ethics for us, as the one objective good we can all agree upon. “Just don’t smoke,” they say, as they blink.

We have invented happiness, say the last men, and they blink.

‘Give us this last man, O Zarathust,’ they shouted. ‘Turn us into these last men! Then we shall make you a gift of the overman!’ And all the people jubulated and clucked with their tongues.

   Here are two lines to compare, from early and then late in Prologue 5:

They have something of which they are proud. What do they call that which makes them proud? Education, they call it; it distinguishes them from goatherds…

and then

I listened too much to brooks and trees: Now I talk to them as to goatherds…

   We, the Jesus philosophers, can appreciate the beauty of the diabolical, though it be at peril of our souls.

   The “overman” or “ubermench” is of course the superhuman tyrant who will seek to impress his form onto the matter that is mankind, since, you know, there is, according to Nietzsche, no natural form of man that we seek to fulfill in order to find true happiness (As for Plato and Aristotle), but rather a form that we create and impose tyrannically, expressing our “will to power,” since this- self-contradictorally- is the truth about how man is. All modern philosophy is self contradictory. And why should this form be cruel and tyrannical? It just is so? No, but there is a nature of these things, and there is good and evil, and evil is the perversion of the good.

   One saying of Jesus from the Gospel of Thomas is most helpful in the Christian reading of Nietzsche, because the diabolical has the forms of the spiritual though these are inverted, so that the spiritual reader sees the forms, and, not understanding the diabolical turning, strephein or tropos, as we call it- the fallen angel is also an angel- they think Nietzsche is some fine fellow. Many clergymen cannot see this. But the saying from Thomas is:

#7 Blessed is the lion which becomes man when consumed by man; and cursed is the man whom the lion consumes, and the lion becomes man.

   In both, the lion becomes man. Both refer to a spiritual transformation, the first the natural form and the second the diabolic opposite. It is because of the possibility of our becoming saints, like John, the equal of angels, that the diabolical can occur, the equal of fallen angels, and since 1917, according to the vision of Fatima, Hell gapes and souls fall in, as in Twentieth Century Totalitarianism. It is possible for humans to not allow these terrible things to occur, but the last men are too busy clucking, and making for Zarathustra a gift of the overman, as though there were nothing better to do.

“Society Must Protect the Robbed and Punish The Robber”: MLK Jr’s Letter From a Birmingham Jail

   In a previous blog, St. Martin is referenced regarding our recent corruption. This paper, the Birmingham Jail letter, is pulled out of materials once used in my Introduction to American Government class, taught for ten years at Oakland Community College. Martin is answering critics, since he has some time on his hands while sitting in jail, and he has just answered the argument that civil disobedience breaks the law. King answered with the distinction we call natural right, the basis of the distinction between just and unjust laws. We like this section because his teachers are the theologians rather than the political philosophers, and he appeals to the health of the soul as did the Brown decision, though in neglect of John Marshall Harlan’s dissent (in Plessy), that our constitution is “color-blind” and neither knows nor tolerates distinctions of race. Martin then turns to the criticism that their non-violent protests are unjust because they incite violence from the unjust:

   In your statement you assert that our actions, even though peaceful, must be condemned because they precipitate violence But can this assertion be logically made? Isn’t this like condemning the robbed man because his possession of money precipitated the evil act of robbery? Isn’t this like condemning Socrates because his unswerving commitment to truth and his philosophical delvings precipitated the misguided popular mind to make him drink the hemlock? Isn’t this like condemning Jesus because his unique God-consciousness and never-ceasing devotion to his will precipitated the evil act of crucifixion? We must come to see, as federal courts have consistently affirmed, that it is immoral to urge an individual to withdraw his efforts to gain his basic constitutional rights because the quest precipitates violence. Society must protect the robbed and punish the robber.

   Indeed, women perhaps should not wear short skirts, but the raper is the criminal. Indeed, a good way to avoid thieves is to have nothing to steal. Indeed, my sister likes to say, “how’s that workin’ for ya,” and we have not yet been able to ask how perjury is working for her. And how is that “working for” Martin, and for us who let him stand up alone while our representative government with its beyond question honorable FBI committed crimes unanswerable against him, and may indeed have helped to allow him to be murdered? If you want to protect the integrity of the FBI, our suggestion is not that you suppress criticism, but rather, act with integrity, submit to oversight, and indeed learn to oversee yourselves, before the Americans do it for you.

   Beneath all this is a very profound and ironic question of political philosophy which leads us to the teaching that not everyone should literally follow the actions of these heroes. Socrates harmed Athens by giving Athens the occasion to commit the heinous sin of killing the philosopher. We really must take care of our fellow man even in their very immorality, if we would practice the complete and perfect love incarnate in Jesus. At the same time, as Martin notes, “To a degree academic freedom is a reality today because Socrates practiced civil disobedience.”

   But as for the measure of right and wrong by material success, we note that the sun shines and rain falls on the good and evil alike. By following justice, it is only apparent that we set aside material advantages. One difference is in the pleasures and health of the soul, allowing us to enjoy the wealth we have more than the rich who are unjust. Beside that, we need less than the unjust, or indeed, need less than people commonly can imagine.

The Fear of Death

   The fear of death is a great and ancient topic. Its conquest is said to be the beginning of philosophy. Reversed, the fear of death becomes the desire for self-preservation, the great first principle of modern political philosophy. When I was first removed from the internet a couple months ago, I began to read the book of the brothers Grimm, and came across this point in the story of The Wolf and the Seven Little Kids, where the kids are told by the mother goat that they will know the wolf by his black feet seen under the door, but the wolf goes to the miller and has him whiten his feet with meal, having already had the baker rub them with dough…

The miller thought to himself, ‘the wolf wants to deceive some one,’ and refused; but the the wolf said, ‘If thou wilt not do it, I will devour thee.’ Then the miller was afraid, and made his paws white for him. Truly, men are like that.

   Tyranny advances by the fear of death that rules most parts of most people most of the time. When it reaches a critical mass, it can seize power in a regime, and so too in the world. But it can also be defeated, because the wolf or wolves cannot eat all day, and can only visit one goat’s house at a time. So too, if we all stand up at once together, tyranny will dissolve and simply go away to await another day, when men have become corrupt again and susceptible to its power.

   Why the human things are this way is of course a great mystery. But here too one sees the saying that if men would only pray and receive Him now, the age of the Messiah would come to be.