freedom | Aging Capriciously

Four Things You Should Know About Facebook and the World

10 Aug 2018 Leave a comment

by Dr. John Persico Jr. in Uncategorized Tags: data, evidence, Facebook, facts, freedom, justice, morality, political, Politics, silence., trump, truth

I have lost track of how many years I have been using Facebook. However, I have not lost track of all the times that people say to me “I never use Facebook (FB) because it is etc., etc.” They then proceed to give me a litany of reasons why they: 1. Have never used Facebook or 2. Why they think Facebook is useless. I have found the following four beliefs to predominate among the reasons why Facebook has been deemed as either useless or even dangerous.

Facebook is a waste of time. It has too much stupid stuff and trivia.

I would be richer than Mark Zuckerberg if I had a dollar for every time I have heard “What do I care about what people had for breakfast today.” Great, you don’t want to know where I went, what I did, who I saw and what I eat? Use your little finger to scroll down or push delete or go to another site. I have lots of friends who do care and who want to know what I am doing. I have had many comments on my FB site such as “It was so much fun to follow you on your trip.” “I love your postings.” “Thanks for sharing.”

If you think my postings are trivial, meaningless, inane, or asinine, great. I respect your opinion. So “Defriend” me. Go elsewhere for your trivia. Find your daily dose of bullshit someplace else. But don’t criticize something you have never tried or condemn others because you find their lives not worth knowing about.

Facebook can’t be trusted. They will sell valuable information about me.

Facebook is a business first and foremost. How do you think Zuckerberg got so rich? FB is full of advertising and advertisers want to know everything about you, so they can sell you stuff you don’t think you really need. They will convince you that you really need it. This has been going on since Moses convinced Pharaoh to let his people go.

Do I trust FB not to sell my innermost secrets? Do I trust Zuckerberg not to share information about me with advertisers, political marketers, vendors, pollsters and other information seekers? No more than I would trust hanging from the Empire State Building with my wife’s sewing thread. You must either be deaf, dumb or blind if you think you can trust anyone selling you something or giving you something for free not to have some hidden catch or some gimmick to get more money from you. Did you ever notice that FB is free or has that escaped your attention? What is free? Do you really believe it is free?

As far as information privacy goes, observe the following that I tell all my students and you will probably not have much to worry about. It goes like this: “If you want to protect your privacy, then do not text, tweet, photo, Instagram, email, voicemail or say anything in public that you would not put up on a billboard in downtown New York.” Period. That is the only way that you will protect your privacy today and I doubt even this admonition is full proof.

Facebook is full of lies and “false” facts.

So, you want to make decisions based on evidence, data and facts? Facebook is no doubt full of bullshit, opinions, innuendo, conspiracies, lies and unsubstantiated claims beyond counting. The lies on FB are more numerous than the stars in the sky or the molecules in the universe. However, I will tell you a secret. There is no evidence, data or facts that are 100 percent true. Everything we know about the world is only based on theories buttressed by repetition or replication. The more our predictions happen, they more confident we are they are accurate. However, science in like the weather. You don’t count on the weather forecaster being 100 percent accurate unless you are a fool.

Throughout history, we have seen theories and facts overthrown by newer theories, newer facts and newer evidence that help better match reality with theory. The world was once flat, then it was round, now it is more elliptical. Our knowledge of everything keeps evolving and changing. Some people see it as a search for the TRUTH. However, the TRUTH does not exist or if it does, it is only like the wind. It will blow one way today and another way tomorrow. Facts, data and evidence have a probability of being accurate. They will never be 100 percent true. My father used to say, “believe nothing of what you hear and only half of what you see.” I have found this to be moderately good advice. It works very well on FB and on the Internet in general.

Facebook should be a social media and not political.

“John, you are too political.” “I don’t want to hear your rants and raves.” “Why can’t you keep your politics out of your Facebook site.” “Facebook is for family and friends and should not be political.”

The splash page on my FB site now shows a picture of Elie Wiesel and a quote by him that reads “To remain silent and indifferent is the greatest sin of all.” He also said, “We must take sides. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.” Before this, my splash page had a picture of Martin Luther King and a quote by him that read, “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.” “In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”

I believe that living in a society and hence to be social means to be political. If you live in a society, politics is the coin of the realm that defines the rules and procedures that govern the interactions between human beings. No one can be apolitical in a society. To believe so is to lie to yourself. I put my politics out there. I don’t care if you like them or if you don’t. I want others to know that there is someone in the universe who probably feels like they do.

Before Trump was elected, I put up a Hillary sign in my front yard. My neighbor who was also a Hillary supporter came over to warn me. She said “John, I would not put that sign up in this town if I were you. It could be dangerous.” I decided to talk this over with my wife Karen. I did not feel that I had the right to jeopardize her safety as well mine. She said that she supported keeping the sign up. My decision was sealed by her willingness to risk whatever might happen by putting a sign up in a mostly pro-Trump rural town in Arizona. A week or so later, one of my good friends who lived nearby saw my sign. She asked me to if I could get her one. I did get her a sign and I think we might have had the only two Hillary signs up in our town.

I use FB as a means to share with others who in these rather trying times might have fears of speaking out or who might feel that they are alone. I want my friends to know that I am political and that I share with some of them the same beliefs, values and ideas that they have. I firmly believe that we cannot change our present problems or deal with issues by silence. However, if you don’t like my politics or ideas then you can do as so many others have and simply defriend me. Frankly, they say we are defined by the company we keep. I would rather keep company with those who share similar convictions about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Time for Questions:

Do you use Facebook? Why or why not

Life is just beginning.

“You should protest about the views of people you disagree with over major moral issues, and argue them down, but you should not try to silence them, however repugnant you find them. That is the bitter pill free speech requires us to swallow.” — Julian Baggini

Freedom of Expression

15 Nov 2017 4 Comments

by Dr. John Persico Jr. in Uncategorized Tags: abuse, bigotry, first amendment, free speech, freedom, hate speech, racism, sex, truth, violence

I was walking down the street the other day and I saw three White guys beating the heck out of a Black guy. The Black guy was down on the ground and the three White guys were taking turns pummeling him. I rushed up and yelled “Stop, what the heck do you guys think you are doing.” One of the White guys answered “what does it look like, we are beating the shit out of a Black guy.” “What did he do”, I asked. “What do you mean what did he do? “He was being Black” came back the reply.

“Are you guy’s crazy? You can’t just beat someone up for being Black.” I retorted.

i-dont-give-a-fuck

The three guys huddled for a minute and finally one of the three (A guy with bright red hair and lots of tattoos) came out of the huddle and took me by the shoulder. “Look he said, you look like a fairly intelligent guy.” Two of my friends over there never went to college. I went for a few years so they nominated me to talk to you. “

“What is there to talk about? You have no right no beat up on this poor man”, I answered.

“Aahh, that is where you are wrong” said Tattoo Guy. “We have every right. In fact, we have a constitutional right to beat him up.”

“Are you serious or trying to kid me, I ask.”

“No I am not kidding” said Tattoo Guy, “I am very serious. It is our constitutional right.”

“OK,” I say, “I will bite, what is the right you think you have?”

“Well” says Tattoo Guy, “have you ever heard of ‘Freedom of Expression.’ The constitution s truth ays every American citizen has Freedom of Expression. Thus, we are just expressing our free rights as American citizens to beat up on people we don’t like.”

“I am not sure that is what the Founding Fathers meant by Freedom of Expression”, I answer.

“Well, frankly we don’t give a fuck what you think. Furthermore, if you keep interfering we might just sue you for violating our constitutional rights.”

“Hold on now. I thought we were having a friendly conversation here. Now you are threatening to sue me. On what grounds?” I ask.

I could see Tattoo Guy thinking about my question for a while and then he answered “Well, since you are being so polite about it, we won’t sue you, at least not for now.”

“Wow, thanks” said I.

trump-and-pc “Look, said Tattoo Guy, we voted for Donald Trump and he respects our Freedom of Expression rights. We are sick and tired of the PC shit you pussies and commies have been spreading in this country for years. We are tired of watching what we say and do because we might be called rednecks or bigots or even racists. It’s a new day for America. We are going to make our country great again.”

“With Donald Trump as president, I can call anyone I want a nigger, kike, frog, wop, dago, spook, wetback, cunt, fag, pussy, greaser, Jap, slope. It’s my Freedom of Expression” says Tattoo Guy.

“So basically you were sick and tired of having your Freedom of Expression curtailed by anti-hate laws and people who are sick of being insulted because of their color or sex” I asked?

freedom-of-expression “You are more or less on the right track” says Tattoo Guy. “Used to be you could tell some nigger jokes, put up pinups of nude girls, even grab a few pussies once in a while and no one bothered you. Then, all this PC stuff started and before you knew it, you had to watch what you said and did. A White person’s Freedom of Expression went down the drain. Well, no more PC now. So can we please get back to beating the shit out of this nigger?”

“What about this man’s Freedom of Expression” I ask. “Don’t you think he also has some rights?”

“Sure” says Tattoo Guy, “He can say whatever he thinks. We don’t care. Just as long as he doesn’t call us rednecks or bigots or racists.”

“That sounds like a double standard” I answer.

“I don’t think so. You intellectuals think too much. You need to do more and think less” says Tattoo Guy.

einstein “Well, what if I told you that I had a Glock Model 40 10mm in my pocket and that if you hit this man one more time, I will take it and blow your fucking brains out. What would you think of that” I replied indignantly.

“That changes the entire nature of our issue here” says Tattoo Guy. “We respect your Second Amendment rights to own and bear arms and use them in defense of your country and family. May I ask if this Black Guy is part of your family?”

“Haven’t you ever heard of John Donne” I asks? “Donne says”:

No man is an island entire of itself; every man

is a piece of the continent, a part of the main;

if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe

is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as

well as any manner of thy friends or of thine

own were; any man’s death diminishes me,

because I am involved in mankind.

And therefore never send to know for whom

the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

“So you are sort of saying that this Black guy here is part of your extended family?” asks Tattoo Guy.

“Exactly,” I reply.

freedom-of-thought

“Well, that’s a horse of a different color then. If you are related to us because you are White and we are White and he is related to you, even if he is Black, then he is also related to us, which means he is part of our family too. That’s great, now we have a new brother. How about if we all go get a beer together?” says Tattoo Guy.

“Sounds like a better idea than beating each other up or my blowing your brains out. Do you know any good brew pubs? First round on me” I reply.

Time for Questions:

Do you think all such stories as mine have a “happy” ending? What rights do people have not to be insulted or harassed because of their color or sex? Do you think some rights might supersede other rights? Why or why not?

Life is just beginning.

Freedom of speech does not include the right:

To incite actions that would harm others (e.g., “[Shouting] ‘fire’ in a crowded theater.”).
Schenck v. United States, 249 U.S. 47 (1919).
To make or distribute obscene materials.
Roth v. United States, 354 U.S. 476 (1957).
To burn draft cards as an anti-war protest.
United States v. O’Brien, 391 U.S. 367 (1968).
To permit students to print articles in a school newspaper over the objections of the school administration.
Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier, 484 U.S. 260 (1988).
Of students to make an obscene speech at a school-sponsored event.
Bethel School District #43 v. Fraser, 478 U.S. 675 (1986).
Of students to advocate illegal drug use at a school-sponsored event.
Morse v. Frederick, __ U.S. __ (2007).

Freedom of speech does includes the right:

Not to speak (specifically, the right not to salute the flag).
West Virginia Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624 (1943).
Of students to wear black armbands to school to protest a war (“Students do not shed their constitutional rights at the schoolhouse gate.”).
Tinker v. Des Moines, 393 U.S. 503 (1969).
To use certain offensive words and phrases to convey political messages.
Cohen v. California, 403 U.S. 15 (1971).
To contribute money (under certain circumstances) to political campaigns.
Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1 (1976).
To advertise commercial products and professional services (with some restrictions).
Virginia Board of Pharmacy v. Virginia Consumer Council, 425 U.S. 748 (1976); Bates v. State Bar of Arizona, 433 U.S. 350 (1977).
To engage in symbolic speech, (e.g., burning the flag in protest).
Texas v. Johnson, 491 U.S. 397 (1989); United States v. Eichman, 496 U.S. 310 (1990).

Republicanville USA — 2056 CE

29 Jan 2017 1 Comment

by Dr. John Persico Jr. in Uncategorized Tags: America, christian, democrats, equality, family, freedom, happiness, immigration, justice, liberty, marriage, minorities, Politics, republicans, trump, values

freedom-is-slavery

I live in Republicanville USA. It is a small town of about 1,500 people in the rural Midwest. Today in my town, all the women are barefoot and pregnant and all the men are stupid and misinformed. It wasn’t always this way. Things started to change about 75 years ago, when Ronald Reagan became President. My town had always been very progressive and liberal but we started hearing more and more about how we were being taken advantage of by the poor, those on government handouts and those too lazy to work. The Republicans who in our town had always been a minority began to grow in numbers. The more we heard about welfare cheats and welfare freeloaders and those on drugs taking advantage of us, the more my town embraced a new concept of democracy. It was more like “every man or woman for themselves” rather than “all for one and one for all.”

obey-jesus-or-perish

Our U.S. democracy which had always prided itself on a separation of church and state seemed to forget the reason for this partition. Increasingly, a group called Evangelical Fundamentalists became more popular along with their criticism of many progressive institutions. Republicanville USA moved more and more to the right. The concept of unbridled capitalism became enshrined as a religion and many people began opposing “big” government and taxes. The Republican Party preached that the marketplace could provide for all social, physical and economic needs of U.S. citizens. My town moved even further to the right.

trump-state-of-the-union This conservative trend was already well underway when in 2017, a billionaire real-estate developer named Donald Trump became the 45^th President of the United States of America. In addition to the hard core conservative beliefs of many mainstream Republicans, Trump added the once discredited idea of American Isolationism. We would now put America first, no matter what. No more negotiations with other nations unless it was clear that we got the better of the deal. We would build a big wall to keep Mexicans and other immigrants out and we would renege on our trade deals with China and Europe. About the only country that Trump liked was Russia. Eventually, he agreed to give Alaska and parts of Canada back to Russia.

Trump came through on his promises to the Evangelicals that he would make America White again and put women back in the bedroom where it would be okay to grab their pussies whenever you wanted to. Minorities were targeted for deportation and women libbers promoting abortion or equal rights for women were arrested in wholesale sweeps and sent to special detention centers for chronic complainers and protesters.

I would like to describe in somewhat more detail what my town is like now in 2056. Things are a lot different than when I was born in 2017. I will divide my discussion of these changes into three areas: Family, Education and Social Issues.

Family:

another-day-in-paradise I am 39 years old and have two children. I have never worked (at least outside of the home) as women have not been allowed to work since 2022 when they passed the “Women in the Home Law” as it was popularly called. The Federal government passed the law and it was ratified by every state and municipality in the nation. Some places tried to hold out but the government cut off all funding to them until they capitulated. This law effectively outlawed women working. It also barred women from the military. Ten years later (2032) they passed the “Mandatory Birth Act.” This bill proscribes that every woman (physically able to) must give birth to at least two children. Any woman who reaches the age of 32 and still has not given birth to two children is forcibly removed to a National Birthing Center where she will be artificially impregnated and kept confined until she has had at least two healthy children. Sickly or unhealthy children are sent to Disposal Camps where they are “recycled” per official government propaganda. No one is quite sure what happens during recycling but the children are never seen again.

Many gay women resisted the Mandatory Birth Act and the National Suicide Rate went up dramatically. The “Fathers” (as our political leaders are now called) made it very clear that the country would be better off without such deviates. Since women were no longer allowed in politics, the leaders of the nation decreed that they would all be called “Fathers” instead of being referred to as politicians or legislators as they once were called.

My husband works at a local mill where they make t-shirts for Japan, China, Brazil and some of the more developed t-shirt-workers nations. Since banning imports of such items, we have created millions of jobs making goods that were once made in low wage countries. The demand for such goods has skyrocketed but now we are providing them. Unfortunately, the wages and education needed for such work is still low. My husband did not finish high school but most men in our town do not. The Fathers have repeatedly stated that real men don’t need higher education. (I will talk more about education later.)

When my husband is not working, he spends most of his time watching football, baseball, basketball, golf or hockey. I am men-watching-game not allowed in the living room when his sports are on except to bring in some beer or chips. This does not really bother me much as I have plenty to do with the kids, housecleaning, cooking and all. I have my own TV in my sewing room where I can watch any of the approved programs for women. We have 30 different “Women Only” channels where I can learn more about cooking and cleaning and how to be a good wife. There are some good romances and family drama stories that are occasionally on. I look forward to watching these when the kids are in bed.

Our two children, Mary and John are 12 and 15 respectively. Mary is in a finishing school for girls where they are preparing her for being a mom and wife. She takes subjects such as homemaking, cooking, cleaning and parenting. She has one more year to go before finishing school.

When Mary turns 14, she will be eligible for marriage. Her name will be put in a marriage registry. If she is lucky enough and pretty enough, some up and coming town Father will select her for a wife. Men who qualify due to income levels are allowed to have up to five wives.

woman-vacuum-cleaning

My son John is not in school any longer and he works part-time. The Fathers decried that girls did not need schooling after the age of 13. John hopes to get a job in the t-shirt plant where his dad works when he turns 16. He quit school because we could not afford a private school for him. Only the rich kids in town go on to education beyond the 10^th grade. Private schools are very expensive and the Fathers do not believe in funding education any more. It has been emphasized that education is an elitist program that creates class divisions and makes some people feel more entitled than other people. Most young men in our town will work in one of the mills or plants.

Education:

anti_public_education_propaganda_by_8manderz8-d5xz1cj

I have already talked about some aspects of our education system today. Basically, most people do not believe in higher education anymore. It is only for the rich. All funds for public education were cut in 2035 when they passed the “Private Education Act”. Most folks now send their kids to private schools through the 8^th grade and then find work for their children after that. Girls will be shortly married so school is not thought to be that important for them anyway. They can learn whatever they need to be a good wife on the “At Home Wives Channels.”

students-1920-1950-9_jpeg

Boys from families with lower incomes can opt to go to privately funded vocational schools to learn such trades as t-shirt making, sneaker making, jewelry making, gun repair, taxidermy, and many other skills that might be in demand. There is still some funding for such programs that is available for lower income families. All public colleges have been closed now. As I noted earlier, such schools were decried to be elitist and the Fathers were unanimous in un-funding them.

Boys from wealthier families go to the more prestigious private schools where they will learn such skills as: Leadership, Accounting, Business Development, Entrepreneurship and Medicine. Law was abolished as a field of study in 2030 with the passage of the “No More Lawyers Act.” This act basically made lawsuits illegal thus dramatically decreasing the need for lawyers in the U.S.

Courtrooms abolished “adversarial” trial procedures with the “No More Lawyers Act” and replaced the old-fashioned method of two people arguing trials with modern Computerized Forensic Tomography. Using CFT, a cross section of the case and evidence pro and con is presented to the jurors. All the available facts and data are reviewed and jurors vote on the verdict. Trials are much more efficient and there is no need for lawyers.

Anti Education Libraries are now mostly museums. With the passage of the “Books Only Lie Bill” in 2038, all funds to public libraries were cut. The Fathers decried that books did nothing but cause trouble and stir up discontent. Anything citizens really needed to know could be found on the “Citizens Channels” offered by the government Department of Public Wisdom. There are over 100 of these channels which are available on public TV. They are on 24/7 and offer many programs for good citizenship. Some of the programs are:

Disciplining your children
How to take proper care of your guns
Disciplining your wife
Obeying your supervisor
Getting along with co-workers
Obeying authority
Keeping a clean house

Social Issues:

Social issues or problems (as some people thought of them) have been mostly eliminated in our town. Our Fathers banned minorities in 2040 with the “America for Whites Act.” Under this act, no immigrants or people of color can live in the same community as White people. In 2041, they passed the “Christian Only Act” making Christianity the official Religion of the USA. All other religions were banned along with atheism and agnosticism. The “Mandatory Religion Act” in 2042 made it a felony crime not to attend a Christian church every Sunday.

In our town, there is only one church now. It the Fundamental Evangelical Christian Church for Christ. We have two pastors who are both well versed in Old Testament theology. They are fond of saying that “Heaven is for the obedient, the disobedient will all go to hell.” We are taught that Jesus will come again before the end of the century to judge the living and the dead. The good folks will go to heaven and the bad will burn forever in the flames of hell.

We still have crime in our community but not very much. It is severely punished with public floggings, beatings and hangings. Criminals are banished to work rehabilitation camps for hard labor. Drugs are still a major problem but the new “One Strike Act” passed in 2050 decried that anyone caught with an illegal substance would face a mandatory life sentence at a penal colony somewhere in the South China Sea.

immigration-reform

Gay men still can be found but homosexuality can be punished under the “2045 Purity of Purpose Bill” with mandatory castration. Boys are encouraged to be manly and any evidence of femininity in our boys is severely dealt with. Our town brought back “town stocks” a few years ago, to punish any boys or men caught in homosexual activities. These punishments plus the threat of castration have decreased the rate of homosexuality considerably in our community.

Well, I could tell you a great deal more about life in our town in 2056, but I have cleaning and cooking to do. Furthermore, if anyone knew I was writing this I would be in big trouble. Under the “Against Propaganda Law” passed in 2041, no one may criticize the government, any Fathers or any laws without official authorization from the local town council. I could be publicly flogged or worse for saying these things. Thus, for now I will just hide this away. I don’t mean to be either a coward or a complainer. Our Fathers say this is the Golden Age of America and that we are living in the greatest Christian country in the world. Who am I to argue?

Time for Questions:

Are you living the good life? Do you live the life you dreamed of? Do you think you have a right to your dreams? Do you think other people also have a right to their dreams? How much authority do you think a government should have over your dreams? What kind of dreams do you have for your children? What do you call progress?

Life is just beginning.

“No one believes more firmly than Comrade Napoleon that all animals are equal. He would be only too happy to let you make your decisions for yourselves. But sometimes you might make the wrong decisions, comrades, and then where should we be?” ― George Orwell, Animal Farm

Republicans: Why They Were Once a Great Party but are Now the Party of Hate, Bigotry and Greed – AKA Donald Trump– Part 1

15 Aug 2016 2 Comments

by Dr. John Persico Jr. in Uncategorized Tags: bigot, democracy, democrats, donald, Election, freedom, Immigrants, minorities, Obama, Republican, Taxes, trump, USA

Today the Republicans have become the party of Dumb and Dumber. The likes of Palin, Bachmann, Inhofe and Sessions are not so mute testimony to the fools that now dominate the Republican Party. Add Donald Trump to the hand and you have a five ace hand of losers. Every day, we read of some new evidence that shows how bigoted, hypocritical and vile the core beliefs of the Republican Party have become. The leadership of the Republican Party seems to have no integrity. Half of them spend their time trying to explain the inane and dangerous comments spewed out daily by their party nominee. A candidate so devoid of any character or morality that many in his own party are trying to dissociate themselves from him. What is left of the party leadership are running around like chickens with their heads cut off. There is no longer any true leadership in the party. Trump and his supporters are destroying what once was a grand old Party. The party of Lincoln, which stood for freedom and equality has now become a party of fear, greed, intolerance and hatred.

Today, the Republicans even hate themselves. They are now trying to destroy their star candidate for the 2016 Presidential elections. A gross Neanderthal who equates money with character and morality named Donald Trump has upstaged the Party’s chosen one to rally the extremists who have now come to dominate the Republican Party. The grand old Party which once attracted many progressives who believed in the power of the individual over the power of the state now is controlled by a clique or power structure which has no connection to the traditional core Republican values. (I will say more about these values in this blog)

“Republican voters view Donald Trump as their strongest general election candidate, according to an Associated Press-GfK poll that highlights the sharp contrast between the party’s voters and its top professionals regarding the billionaire businessman’s ultimate political strength.” – Steve Peoples and Emily Swanson

In addition to those who I would call the traditionalists, the Republican Party has attracted a large contingency of supporters that we can divide into the following five blocs:

Bigoted Voters
Uneducated White Male Voters
Greedy Voters
Fearful Voters
Religious fundamentalist Voters

I will say more about each of these in Part 2 of this blog. Suffice, it to say for now, that the voters in these five blocs have now taken over the Republican Party (I will also explain in Part 2 how and why this happened.) Just like the Nazis took over Germany, the traditionalists in the Republican Party made a pact with the devil and the devil has now come to collect his dues. The Traditionalists know that the candidacy of Trump will destroy the party. There are indeed a large contingent of voters who will support Trump but by and large, the people in the USA are not so stupid or ignorant that Trump will be elected. Mark my words on that! Trump, who hates women, minorities, immigrants and anyone with a brain, will go down in defeat in the biggest landslide in history for our next Democratic president and he will take the entire Republican Party with him. The stalwart traditionalists in the Republican Party understand this and that is why every day we see headlines like:

“The Republican Party Tries to Take Out Its Front-Runner”

“Trump has proven highly successful in manhandling a parade of bland Republican politicians. To him, Carson and Fiorina present different challenges because they both possess the outsider status that elevates them over Republican officials who have to deal with reality of some sort, and they symbolize demographic groups that are some of the biggest stumbling blocks for Republicans. The party wants to show the world that it has a black friend and a lady friend.” — The National Memo

Returning to the concept of traditional core Republican values, you may well be wondering what they are. The first core Republican value is freedom from intrusive government interventions. The traditional Republican is not so much against big government as they are against a government that might try to dominate the will of the individual with the will of the state. Hence, traditional Republicans hate the idea of gun control, federal regulations, government red tape, and government watchdog agencies. However, they are not against “Big Military” since the military is seen as protecting those very values that Republicans cherish most.

“Where the people fear the government you have tyranny. Where the government fears the people you have liberty.” — Barnhill, John Basil (1914)

A second core Republican value is the right to earn and keep as much money as possible. “You earned it; it is yours to spend.” This is a value that still resonates with much of our society. The idea being that if I work hard, I should be entitled to spend my money anyway I chose. What Republicans and many people in the USA hate most is the thought of working hard to earn a pot of money and then having that money taken away by a government agency to distribute to some unnamed “others.”

“That government is best which governs least;” — Henry David Thoreau

A third core Republican value is the value of a capitalistic economic system. This value overlaps to some extent the two named values above but I believe it is a distinct value of its own. In the USA, we are and have been a country strongly against communism and to some extent socialism. The values of these two economic systems are seen to be in direct contradiction to the value of free enterprise and a capitalist economy.

“A market economy based on private property, buttressed by the rule of law, is truly the best environment for mankind. People will work harder and with ingenuity if they know they have earned rewards from that labor. When the rewards are given to them for nothing, there is frustration and despair. Capitalism benefits more people than any other economic system. To work for oneself and reap the rewards is a basic human aspiration.” –Sally Julian, Writer of ‘The Case for Capitalism’

The fourth core Republican Party is a conservative approach to adopting new laws or changes to the US Constitution. Traditional Republicans have long resisted change to the US Constitution as well as new laws that they see as infringing on the rights and dictates of the US Constitution. Hence, the Republicans have resisted many changes in the Constitution which were intended to create a more equitable society for women, minorities, disabled and those below the poverty line in this country.

Part of this resistance lies in the belief that a government cannot and should not dictate how people chose to live their own lives. If you want to be a racist, that is your right. If you do not want to hire women and minorities and the disabled that is also your right. This core value has resulted in a fundamental contention between those who say that the constitution must be changed to reflect new times and new circumstances and those who do not want to see changes that might infringe on rights or responsibilities prescribed in the US Constitution.

“Don’t interfere with anything in the Constitution. That must be maintained, for it is the only safeguard of our liberties.” — Abraham Lincoln, Speech at Kalamazoo, Michigan, August 27, 1856

The fifth core Republican value lies in the doctrine of fiscal conservatism (There are other important Republican values but I think these five are the most important). Fiscal conservatism finds its roots in the theory of scarcity. Money and time are both scare commodities and must be carefully managed. Trends like cheap credit, government bailouts, deficit spending are anathema to a fiscal conservative. A fiscal conservative wants a flat tax, balanced budget and strict guidelines for loans and government spending: “Thou shalt not run budget deficits.” “Thou shalt not spend more money than thou maketh.”

I must confess, that I am not critical of these five core values. I have long ago learned the value of juxtaposing opposite viewpoints so as to provide a clearer roadmap to truth and progress. Every “ism” needs a counter “ism” and a system where the two opposing viewpoints can debate each other and Aristotle’s “Golden Mean” needs a democracy. Capitalism must be balanced against socialism. Liberalism must be balanced against conservatism. Individualism must be balanced against collectivism. One of the strengths of the United States has been its ability to allow opposing viewpoints and to strive to find a consensus among dissenting political perspectives. Sadly, of late the constructive dissent of old has given way to a practice of destructive warfare between the two dominant political parties that has put the good of each party over the good of the country.

However, to return to the theme of this blog, the dumbing down of the Republican Party, the majority of the Republican Party now no longer seems to understand or care about these five core values. Instead, the narrow-mindedness and shear obstructionism of the five voting blocs that I noted above have taken precedence over political compromise and searching for the Golden Mean. The “Stupid Voters” are hijacked by the anti-intellectualism that has always characterized much of the political right. The “Ignorant Voters” already believe that they know the truth and there is no persuading them otherwise. The “Greedy Voters” want to keep as much of their wealth as they can and have no concern for the poor or needy. The “Fearful Voters” are worried about crime, immigrants, health care, growing old and losing what they have already worked hard to obtain. The last of the five Republican blocs, the “Religious Fundamentalist Voters” are worried that their biblical Christian God will be taken out of the USA and replaced by an obscure assortment of new Gods from various religions that are confusing and esoteric.

The Traditionalist Republicans (many of whom I know and hope still tolerate my views enough to call me a friend) are aghast at this assortment of new Republicans and their extreme uninformed viewpoints. The Traditionalists could reach across the aisle and talk to their Democratic counterparts. The Traditionalists realized the need for dialogue, discussion and compromise. Furthermore, the Traditionalists also appealed to many independent voters (Which I am and remain to this day). They appealed to us because we while we could ally ourselves with Democrats over many social issue, we could also see the value in the economic policies and positions often adhered to by the Traditionalist Republicans.

I can see the value in all five of the core Republican values I described above. God Forbid, I would ever live in a country that totally extirpated even one of these core values. Nevertheless, while I am for a balanced budget and against deficit spending, I can see making some concessions to Keynesian economics during times such as the most recent recession. I am also for less government intrusion in our lives. However, unlike Perry who could not name even three government agencies he would abolish, I can name ten I would abolish tomorrow if I were able to. I am also against government bailouts. I did not think GM should have been bailed out although I could concede with the value of hindsight that it may have been the right thing to do at the time. And while I am against big government, I can and am equally critical of big unions. Nevertheless, in my USA, unions and government would still have a place at the table. I would like to paraphrase a part of Martin Luther King’s famous “I Have a Dream Speech.”

Let the Golden Mean ring from the hallowed halls of Congress!

Let the Golden Mean ring from the esteemed corridors of the US Senate!

But not only that; let the Golden Mean ring from the benches of the Supreme Court of the USA!

Let the Golden Mean ring from State Capitals in the east to State Capitals in the west!

Let the Golden Mean ring from every school and university of America. From every village, city, town and hamlet in this great country, let the Golden Mean ring.

In my blog next week, I will explore how the Republican Party let stupidity, ignorance, fear, greed and intolerance come to dominate its political agenda. If you are a Republican, you might not like what you are going to hear. However, if you are a Republican, perhaps the truth that I have to tell could help you to understand what you must do to restore the Republican Party to its rightful place in the US political system.

Time for Questions:

Are you a Republican? What did you find that you disagreed with in my blog today? What did you agree with? Which of the Republican voting blocs are you in? Why? Do you think the Republicans will take the next presidency? Why or why not? If you are a Democrat, what did you like or dislike about this blog? Why? What do you think I should have added?

Life is just beginning.

Republicanism is the guiding political philosophy of the United States. It has been a major part of American civic thought since its founding.^[1] It stresses liberty and “unalienable” rights as central values, making people sovereign as a whole, rejects aristocracy and inherited political power, expects citizens to be independent in their performance of civic duties, and vilifies corruption. Wikipedia

Hillary versus Bernie: Why I Don’t Feel the Bern!

20 Mar 2016 7 Comments

by Dr. John Persico Jr. in Uncategorized Tags: bern, bernie, campaign, democrats, equality, freedom, hillary, justice, liberty, Politics, republicans, trump, USA

Vote Hillary Over the past few months, the vitriol between Hillary supporters and Bernie supporters has increased in both intensity and animosity. I have had numerous arguments with Bernie supporters. I suspect many of them were once my friends and are now no longer so. This is interesting since you would think that we would have more in common than not. It would not surprise me if you were a Republican or Trump supporter and banished me from your Facebook, Twitter or any other list of friends that you maintained. However, it seems sad that so much rancor has been generated by the Hillary/Bernie battle as to result in lost friendships when we have so much in common. I must take some of the responsibility though since I am not and never will be one to shy away from a fight. If a fight is what you want, I will give it to you and no holds barred. I support my candidate and I will explain my reasons but when you get personal or insulting that is the end of the line. It would seem to be a line that is easily crossed and that reasons and emotions are two very different things.

This past week, a good friend of mine sent me the following attached letter. It was written eight years ago. He was supporting Hillary (The establishment figure) and I was supporting Barack (the outsider). I hope some of my Bernie supporter ex-friends will read this blog but I sort of doubt it. I would like for them to see that I have supported outsiders as well as insiders and my support of Hillary has nothing to do with supporting the establishment or not supporting the establishment. Indeed, I would argue that my logic for supporting Hillary today is very similar to my logic for supporting Barack eight years ago. How can this be? How does one justify supporting an “establishment” figure when most of my work and writings have been anti-establishment? Well, a quote that comes to mind is as follows:

“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict everything you said to-day. — ‘Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.’ — Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.” —- Ralph Waldo Emerson,

I rather think I might be misunderstood by my allegiance to Hillary, but if I can stand for even a brief moment of time in the shadow of such as Socrates and Pythagoras, I will die a sublimely happy man. In the letter below, you will see that my friend has laid out his very practical and logical reasons for supporting Hillary. He acknowledges my candidate (Obama) but does not try to disparage or denigrate him. This is an apt lesson that many Bernie supporters might pay attention to. I don’t remember any of my friends calling Obama a liar or evil. Many felt that he was unrealistic but they did not disparage his character to the extent that Republicans and some Bernie supporters have been disparaging Hillarie’s character. If you think you are going to win me over with such attacks, you do not know me very well. Anyway, here is the letter my friend, the Hillary supporter, wrote me eight years ago while I was then in the Obama camp. BTY, I also voted for President Obama four years later and still have no regrets. History will remember him as a great man, a great leader and a great president.

Hi John,

How are you doing? You know I miss speaking with you as well. There’s night time talk show here in Philadelphia. They address diverse topics. The host, Dr. Maz, reminds me a lot of yourself regarding his tone, and speed of speech. Of course, I believe that you could do a much better job because of your wit and broad range of interests. This might be something that you could look into.

Well, this certainly has been an interesting political campaign these past 2 years. I must admit that I voted for Hillary at the NJ Democratic Primary. I’ve listened closely to both people, and I believe that Hillary is the person who is most likely to bring change needed to this nation. I don’t see trying to recapture the 90’s as moving backward, but rather as retreat to a solid foundation on which one can move forward. No change happens by itself, and one person can change little. Anyone who has tried to run an organization knows how consensus is essential to getting anything done.

One can look with pride at what our ex-presidents have accomplished after leaving office. Jimmy Carter, George Bush, and Bill Clinton have accomplished near miracles. Their experience, their contacts, and their savoir faire have changed ideas into reality. I don’t believe that those same men could have been as successful if they tried to accomplish the same tasks in their 40’s. Not because of the age but because skill takes time.

When I listen to Obama, I too am enthralled. I remember the speech Ted Kennedy gave at Robert Kennedy’s funeral. He said “Some men speak of the way things are and wonder why. My brother spoke of things that never were and asked “why not? “ I do believe in inspiration, and do believe that leadership can do wonders. But also know that this nation has done nothing of consequence to restrain the violence that is being done to Arab people around the world by the United States. Do you expect these same people who acquiesce not only to an insidious apathy but the mindless shelling of their own tax money to promulgate a hell on earth? You think Obama’s pipe dreams will be realized? We can’t even shut down Gitmo!

My friend, Dave P, who passed away 2 years ago used to explain his reluctance to embrace radical change like this. He would say that the USA is like a large ship of state. When you want to change its direction it must be done in very small increments over a long period of time with a great deal of planning. To do otherwise could harm the vessel and sabotage the voyage. Radical change can not be applied to a large ship.

If I were to vote with my heart, I would have voted for Dennis Kucinich. I am in complete agreement with him, even with regard to UFO’s. I did as much in 2000 when I voted for Ralph Nader. These past 7 years have made me take my vote much more seriously. If change is to come, it has to come from the ground up. My pipe dream is that as I get nearer to retirement that I will become more politically active and begin to advocate a progressive agenda at a local level.

A United States where the grass roots of the people embraced this agenda would bring far more success to an Obama presidency. Perhaps our best shot would be the ideas of Dennis Kucinich advocated by Obama to a populous prepared to accept such changes.

Well, John, sorry it took so long to get back to you but I knew that some time should be set aside to explain myself. There’s really so much to talk about. I don’t have a cell anymore. I do still have my home phone, 856.xxx.xxxx. I became a grand-father last year. My son, R, had his son, R. Wonderful, wonderful.

Take care of yourself, and I hope to hear from you soon.

Your friend,

Greg

————————————-

Well, it is now eight years later and today I am supporting Hillary. The reasons I did not support her eight years ago had nothing to do with her being evil or mean or a liar. In fact, if you believe this propaganda about her then go ahead and vote for Trump, because you deserve him. Here is what I recently wrote to one friend who seemed sincere in understanding why I am supporting Hillary:

My reasons are as follows: 1. I cannot support most of the prevalent Republican policies ergo I need to support someone on the other side. Either Bernie or Hillary would do here. 2. I think Bernie has been given a pass by the Republicans since they see Hillary as the biggest threat, thus I think that Bernie would soon be slaughtered when they labelled him a Commie and/or Socialist which the majority of Americans either do not support or could not tell the difference between. Thus, he would be defeated in the general election and we could get Trump. 3. I think Hillary is a highly intelligent well qualified candidate for the POTUS. I think she has been subjected to a double standard in which opportunistic aggressive competitive male behavior is called leadership but the same in a woman makes her a bitch or mean spirited. Finally, I think her being labeled as a liar is part of the Republican smear campaign that has been targeted towards her for the past 4 years. I think all politicians lie and prevaricate and she is no worse and perhaps a lot better than most. I am voting for her not just on her character but on her policies which I think will move this country in a progressive direction. I hope that explains my position.

My friend made several good points in his letter above about change. Heraclitus said that you can never step in the same river twice. Is it irony now or has the water changed? I think times have changed. I have obviously changed my mind. While, I regret losing friends over this difference, I am more troubled by the Bernie people who say they will not vote or will vote for Trump before they will ever vote for Hillary. Sometimes half a loaf is better than no loaf. William James said:

“I am done with great things and big things, great institutions and big success, and I am for those tiny, invisible molecular moral forces that work from individual to individual, creeping through the crannies of the world like so many rootlets, or like the capillary oozing of water, yet which if you give them time, will rend the hardest monuments of man’s pride.”

We need visions like both Bernie and Barack brought to their campaigns. However, we also need a large dose of pragmatism to make these visions a reality. Rome was not built in a day. If the people energized by this present campaign (even those who support Trump or those who support Bernie) truly want to make this country GREATER than it ever was, if they truly want to create a fair and just society, if they truly want to create a land where all its citizens are happy and prosperous, then the only way they will ever be able to do this is by staying engaged in the political process. Coming out every four years, regardless of how much passion and how much zeal you bring to the process, will not change the systems in our country that so badly need to be changed.

I have written about many of these needed changes in my blogs. I have put forward many progressive ideas which I hope someday will be propagated in the Congress, legislatures and courts of this land. Reading my blogs, some might say I am too idealistic. I would probably agree but I am not running for office. I am trying to be a herald whose ideas might someday resonate throughout this nation and speak loudly to the American people of the changes we need. Read some of my following blogs and see what you think.

https://agingcapriciously.com/2014/12/01/social-legacy-systems-how-they-block-change-and-prevent-progress-part-1-education/

https://agingcapriciously.com/2014/12/08/social-legacy-systems-how-they-block-change-and-prevent-progress-part-2-the-legal-correctional-system/

https://agingcapriciously.com/2015/09/27/we-need-a-fair-immigration-policy-not-an-anti-immigration-policytru/

https://agingcapriciously.com/2015/11/09/towards-a-policy-of-diplomacy/

https://agingcapriciously.com/2015/01/12/when-the-truth-will-not-set-you-free-part-1-of-2-parts/

Time for Questions:

How much time do you spend on politics? Do you speak your peace or do you avoid confrontations? How do you tell when you should speak up or shut up? Can we be too political? Can we be political and still be civil and respectful to others?

Life is just beginning.

“Revolution is about the need to re-evolve political, economic and social justice and power back into the hands of the people, preferably through legislation and policies that make human sense. That’s what revolution is about. Revolution is not about shootouts.” — Bobby Seale

What is the One Thing that is Hardest to Find in Life?

17 Feb 2016 4 Comments

by Dr. John Persico Jr. in Uncategorized Tags: challenge, freedom, friends, greatness, growth, happiness, heaven, intellect, love, mind, passion, sex

What is the one thing that we all want in life but that we can’t buy or pay for? We can live a life without it but we will end up feeling like we only lived a shell of a life. We can chase all over the world for it but we will sometimes end up finding it in our back yard. We can live a life with security and comfort and never find it. We can settle for the mundane but we will regret that we did not have the courage to grab it when it was in our reach. Sean John says “Life without passion is unforgiveable.” You can buy his cologne for fifty dollars an ounce but it will not give you passion. Most of us will never have passion in our lives. We might think a one night stand or our favorite team winning the Super Bowl or taking a trip to some exotic land is passion but deep down inside of us we know that these activities are only surrogates for passion.

“The saddest people I’ve ever met in life are the ones who don’t care deeply about anything at all. Passion and satisfaction go hand in hand, and without them, any happiness is only temporary, because there’s nothing to make it last.” ― Nicholas Sparks

You can climb Mount Everest. You can dive to the bottom of the Mariana Trench. You can get a Ph.D. degree but you can never get passion simply by accomplishing things. Passion is not a fad or a commodity. You can’t buy it in Walmart or find it on top of the Empire State building. Most of us do not grow up with a desire for passion. We do not even know that it is missing in our lives. Passion gets smothered in us when we are very young. It is extinguished before it can be ignited. Passion scares people. Authorities and parents both fear passion. The passionate person is a juvenile delinquent. Early on, parents, teachers and others wage a campaign to destroy the roots of passion in children.

“Sex is the consolation you have when you can’t have love” ― Gabriel García Márquez

Someplace deep inside all of us, the embers of passion still burn. We go through life thinking that there must be more to it then what we are experiencing. We look for God. We look for Ghosts. We look for love. We look for things but still they do not bring us the passion that we crave. Some spark must be ignited in us to rekindle our passion. When they speak of quality, they say that you will know it when you see it. However, you can’t see passion. You have to feel passion. We know it exists because from time to time, we can get a glimpse of it in others. The passion that we sometimes see in others thrills us to the bone and leaves a certain degree of incredulity in its wake. We know we are missing something that seems unfathomable to us. Greatness and passion seem to comingle. Does greatness produce passion or does passion produce greatness?

“I want to know what passion is. I want to feel something strongly.” ― Aldous Huxley, Brave New World

Hollywood is perhaps the most frequent purveyor of passion. We get our impressions of passion from our Hollywood idols and movie stars. Passion is pervasive in Hollywood. From superheroes saving the world to unrequited love romances to tales of great daring, we glimpse a world where passion is the norm. A world where passion is as common as grass.

“There is no passion to be found playing small – in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living.” — Nelson Mandela

Looking at passion from a theoretical perspective, (something rarely done) we can see that there are three areas in which we can inspire passion. These conform to our three life components. We can be passionate about ideas or thinking. We can be passionate about doing or activities and we can be passionate about feelings. What about things you may be asking? I will argue that we cannot really be passionate about things. Hard core motorcycle riders usually care more about riding their bikes than they do looking at them. Trophies, money and even fame are ephemeral and rarely suffice to infuse passion in anyone’s life.

“Maybe the bike is more dangerous, but the passion for the car for me is second to the bike.” — Valentino Rossi

People who are passionate about ideas are intriguing. We find that they have a love for the mind and all things cerebral. We may not understand their theories and concepts, but we are fascinated by the premises and hypotheses that they can spin out. History has shown that a key element of progress lies in the intellect that a civilization can bring to its culture. The Jews, the Greeks and the Chinese each stand out in our minds with their history of great thinkers from Abraham and Maimonides to Socrates and Plato to Confucius and Lao Tzu. These cultures had a deep respect for the ideas and philosophies of its great thinkers.

Some of us are passionate about books, education, museums, history, biographies, TED talks, documentaries and other intellectual activities. We would rather read a good book then go to the Eiffel Tower or the beach. Our ideal life is of the mind and not of the body. We no sooner finish one book then we are off to another. Our dream of heaven is one vast library with no late charges.

“You have to be burning with an idea, or a problem, or a wrong that you want to right. If you’re not passionate enough from the start, you’ll never stick it out.” — Steve Jobs

Some people are passionate about their activities. Great explorers like Marco Polo, James Cook and Zheng He lived for the adventure and excitement of finding new places and new civilizations. For such adventurers the risk was hardly a consideration given their dreams and desires for discovery. One cannot imagine anyone undertaking the hazards and deprivations that met these men without a true love for action and doing. People like this cannot be content in an arm chair reading a good book or sitting in front of a fire place with a family watching TV.

Some of us are passionate about our work or our sports. We love what we do so much that we would pay our employers to let us do the work that they are paying us to do. This is what passion means. To love something so much that you would pay someone to let you do it. We live for the activity whether work, traveling, sports or a hobby. Our dream of heaven is an activity that allows us to become intimately involved with the act of creation or the challenge of overcoming some obstacle or the chance to exceed some goal.

“If you don’t love what you do, you won’t do it with much conviction or passion.” — Mia Hamm

Our final passion involves the realm of feelings. We usually think of passion as connected to sex. We have watched the all night love affair of two Hollywood stars as they undress and ravage each other in a fit of what one might call sexual frenzy. We marvel at their physical dexterity. Two bodies engaged in positions that would challenge the authors of the Kama Sutra or even tax a painters abilities to portray. And to think, that after they are done, they start over again until the sun begins to dawn on another day.

“When I touched her body,
I believed she was God.
In the curves of her form
I found the birth of Man,
the creation of the world,
and the origin of all life.”
― Roman Payne

But sex is only a small part of what emotional passion can be. Passion can involve feelings of all sorts. People who are deeply passionate about their emotions feel things that the rest of us do not. They feel the joy and pain and sorrows of other human beings. They experience the highs and lows of existence. They live a roller coaster of feelings that range from happiness to sadness. They do not let the pain of empathy discourage them from identifying with the feelings around them. Perhaps the greatest fear that people of feelings have is the fear of apathy or indifference. People who are passionate about their feelings live for harmony and rapport with others.

People who live a life of passionate feelings dream of a heaven that will be populated by all the people that they have known in their lives. They want to see all their old friends, relatives and loved ones. They dream of making amends for the wrongs that they have done to some and sharing their love and compassionate hearts with all others for infinity.

Time for Questions:

What are you passionate about? Do you have enough passion in your life? How could you have more passion? What would happen if you tried to live a more passionate existence?

Life is just beginning.

“My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some style.” — Maya Angelou

Autobiographies from the Dead – Jefferson the Founding Father

31 Aug 2015 4 Comments

by Dr. John Persico Jr. in Uncategorized Tags: adultury, Declaration of Independence, Founding Father, freedom, hypocrite, Jefferson, justice, Sally Hemings, sally hemings. mistress, slavery., slaves, Thomas, Thomas Jefferson

For the next several weeks, my blogs are going to consist of “autobiographies” written by some very special people. They have one thing in common. They are all dead. Some have a burial place and some were simply discarded like pieces of trash. Their stories will be told by the deceased themselves. They cry out from the fields, rivers and graveyards to speak. I have heard their cries. They want me to tell their stories to you. They want you to know what their living and dying was for. This week, Jefferson will tell you the story of his life and death.

Jefferson the Founding Founder

My name is Thomas Jefferson. I am one of the Founding Fathers of the United States of America. I almost single handedly wrote the Declaration of Independence. I was the third President of the newly united colonies and one of the most influential and famous Americans who ever lived. Many people equated my skills and abilities with those of Leonardo Da Vinci. I was considered a Renaissance Man. My quotes and writings are ubiquitous throughout the world. My name is synonymous with the concepts of Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.

Yet, here I am today looking down at my grave in sadness. I would never have thought that the day would come when I would be scorned and spit on and called a hypocrite. Of course, even in my lifetime, I had many critics and people who attacked my position. But it is different today. Now, they are not doing it for political gain or to thwart my plans for building a great nation. Today, I am being criticized because they honestly believe that I was a hypocrite and that I deserve to be denounced for it.

The sad part is that they are right. I was a hypocrite. I was also a coward.

I want to explain why I did not free my slaves. I suppose I could make a few good excuses that would have to do with the economic realities in which I was faced. I can’t deny that I knew slavery was wrong. I often talked about how evil the entire enterprise was. Our “peculiar” thing was, as we called it down South, not simply peculiar, it was fundamentally cruel and malicious. Nevertheless, I was never a very good business man and I teetered between bankruptcy and solvency on a daily basis. There was no way I could have freed my slaves and still run an economically viable business. I was caught between making a living and living my ethics. I choose to eat and continue my privileged life style. In the South, I was not condemned for this choice. I received no accolades either. This was the way we lived. We owned slaves and slaves were inferior beings born and bred to work for the White man. I lived in a strange world. I could not accept these beliefs but neither could I break free of them. I do not justify my acquiescence and I do not seek to be exculpated for my failures. If I were in a dock today, I would plead guilty. My soul could not rest without such an honest admission.

Now we come to Sally. I loved her like I never loved any other woman in my life. I started a clandestine affair with her when she was only 14. Was I taking advantage of her? Maybe so, I do not know. I never forced her or threatened her or coerced her. Perhaps it started out as an affair of passion when my wife was sick and I was not able to have sex with her. Soon though, it grew into much more than that. Sally was witty and smart and fun. She had none of the pretenses of the typical Virginian lady. In bed, there were no rules and anything went. If I could have imagined heaven, it would have been being in bed with Sally.

People started to suspect that something more than slave master and mistress was transpiring between us. I could not afford to let anyone think it was anything more than that. In 1790, in Virginia, it was permissible to sleep with a slave. It was not permissible to love a slave. My reputation, my entire life would have been destroyed if it had been shown that I was openly consorting with a Black woman. I had six children with Sally. Each of these children was kept secret from everyone around us. I took the secret of these children to my grave. One hundred and fifty years later, my family are still attempting to deny my lineage to these children. I am sorry that I had to deny them. I was worse than Peter with Jesus. They were my children but they were raised in my house as domestic servants.

I freed Sally and her surviving children when I died. I could not afford to free all my slaves as this would have left my heirs with a large debt. My lands, house and slaves merely paid off the mountain of bills that my creditors were clamoring to be paid for.

Did Sally love me? I don’t know. I would like to think that it was more than simply serving her master. But who can tell? In the warped and perverted system that we called our “peculiar” thing, how could a Black woman have a normal relationship with a White man or vice versa? Suspicion, fear, prejudice, uncertainty and opportunism were all pervasive in Black-White relationships. Sally may have seen me simply as a way to have her children freed. I might have indulged a younger beautiful woman simply to satisfy the narcissism of “old” age. Who knows? There is no sense wondering what I would do if I could do things over again. I am sure I would do the same thing that I did before. I would indulge in cowardice and hypocrisy because I could do no other.

I am looking at my grave stone now. It reads:

HERE WAS BURIED
THOMAS JEFFERSON
AUTHOR OF THE DECLARATION OF AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE
OF THE STATUTE OF VIRGINIA FOR RELIGIOUS FREEDOM
AND FATHER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA.

These were my most important accomplishments. Please remember me for them. Forgive me for my failings as a human being. I never claimed to be a god or to be better than my fellow man. I ask forgiveness from my children and my descendants. I hope someday my ancestors will acknowledge the patrimony and lineage between the Hemings and the Jeffersons. Ironic, that in some ways, this lineage is a more fitting tribute to the principle that “All men are created equal” than anything I have ever done with my life.

I never believed in a God of judgement or a God of human like characteristics. My belief was in some kind of a higher power that created the galaxies but was not necessarily sentient. I wander now through these galaxies looking for the god of Abraham, Moses, Jesus and Mohammed. If I should find him, I will ask him why? What was it all for? What did I accomplish? Would I have left a greater legacy if I had not been a hypocrite? How could I have done this? Would he forgive me for my hypocrisy and cowardice? How do I get rid of the sadness and pain I feel?

Time for Questions:

Do you admire Thomas Jefferson? What did you find most admirable about his life? What would you have done if you were in Jefferson’s shoes? Why? What do you think he should have done with his slaves? Why? Do you think it was wrong for him to have a relationship with Sally Hemings? Why?

Life is just beginning.

1789 “As far as I can judge from the experiments which have been made to give liberty to, or rather, to abandon persons whose habits have been formed in slavery is like abandoning children. Many quakers in Virginia seated their slaves on their lands as tenants. They were distant from me, and therefore I cannot be particular in the details, because I never had very particular information. I cannot say whether they were to pay a rent in money, or a share of the produce: but I remember that the landlord was obliged to plan their crops for them, to direct all their operations during every season & according to the weather. But what is more afflicting, he was obliged to watch them daily & almost constantly to make them work, & even to whip them. A man’s moral sense must be unusually strong, if slavery does not make him a thief. He who is permitted by law to have no property of his own, can with difficulty conceive that property is founded in anything but force. These slaves chose to steal from their neighbors rather than work; they became public nuisances and in most instances were reduced to slavery again. But I will beg of you to make no use of this imperfect information (unless in common conversation). I shall go to America in the Spring & return in the fall. During my stay in Virginia I shall be in the neighborhood where many of these trials were made. I will inform myself very particularly of them, & communicate the information to you. Besides these there is an instance since I came away of a young man (Mr. Mayo) who died and gave freedom to all his slaves, about 200. This is about 4 years ago. I shall know how they have turned out. Notwithstanding the discouraging result of these experiments, I am decided on my final return to America to try this one. I shall endeavor to import as many Germans as I have grown slaves. I will settle them and my slaves, on farms of 50 acres each, intermingled, and place all on the footing of the Metayers (Medietani) of Europe. Their children shall be brought up, as others are, in habits of property and foresight, & I have no doubt but that they will be good citizens. Some of their fathers will be so: others I suppose will need government.” – Letter to Dr. Edward Bancroft, Paris, January 26, 1789; “The Works of Thomas Jefferson,” Federal Edition, Editor: Paul Leicester Ford, (New York and London, G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1904-5) Volume 5

Autobiographies from the Dead – Chima the Slave

24 Aug 2015 Leave a comment

by Dr. John Persico Jr. in Uncategorized Tags: africans, bigotry, civil war, discrimination, freedom, hanging, hatred, justice, lynching, negros, old south, Plantations, prejudice, racism, slave owners, slavery., slaves, south, torture, whipping

For the next several weeks, my blogs are going to consist of “autobiographies” written by some very special people. They have one thing in common. They are all dead. Some have a burial place and some were simply discarded like pieces of trash. Their stories will be told by the deceased themselves. They cry out from the fields, rivers and graveyards to speak. I have heard their cries. They want me to tell their stories to you. They want you to know what their living and dying was for. This week, Chima will tell you the story of his life and death.

Chima the Slave

My name is Chima. My slave name is Julian. My family and I were Igbo people. I was 9 when I was brought to the United States. My father and mother also came with me. We were captured one night by Arab slave traders who sold us to the British slavers. The year was 1790. We were chained together with other Igbo tribe members and forced to walk many miles to the coast of Africa.

Once on the coast we were loaded like cargo into the hulls of the British slave ships. Nearly 600 of us were loaded onto one slave ship. As we were loaded into the vessel, we were branded with red hot irons on our arms or chests or legs with the marks of various slave owners. We were crammed so close together below decks that there was no room to move or change position. We sat between each other’s legs and could not lie down.

There were numerous pails placed among us to use for feces and urine. Several people were selected to dump the pails overboard each day. Usually they were overflowing before they could be dumped. The smell was horrible. Many of the people selected to dump the pails overboard never returned. We often heard how they had jumped overboard to drown rather than return to the hull. Other slaves were then selected to replace them.

We were fed on deck twice per day. We ate rotten meat and a mixture of oats and gruel. We were given water to wash our food down with. The amount of food was never quite enough to make one feel satiated and there was always a gnawing sense of hunger that was pervasive among us. Many of use died from starvation or dehydration. The slavers deliberately underfed us in the belief that the stronger of us would survive and bring better money at the auctions.

Some of my tribal members tried to attack our captors. This would end in either being thrown overboard or hung upside down from the Yard Arms until they died from starvation or dehydration. Screams and cries were a constant sound at all times of the day from sick or hungry slaves. My father died from some disease before we reached shore. Diseases were rampant aboard ship and no one received any treatment. Smallpox and scurvy were the most common disease killers. Probably one third of all the slaves who boarded our ship died before we reached port either through starvation, beatings, suicide or disease.

My mother and I were still together when we reached the harbor in Charleston, South Carolina. We were brought to an auction house with many other slaves and placed into large rooms with no furniture or windows. We were kept locked in these rooms like animals in a pen. They discussed whether to sell my mom and I separately or together and it was decided that because of my age, they would keep us together for a while.

After some White people purchased us, we were loaded onto a cart with the other purchased slaves and taken on a two day journey to our new home. We arrived at a large white building with big columns set in the middle of a large field. In the field and around the house were many other slaves and White people riding large black horses. The horse riders all carried whips and riding sticks. We heard constant yelling and orders which we later learned were instructions to speed up and work harder.

My mom and I were brought to a single room shack where an old Black woman lived. She was given instructions to wash us and show us what the rules were around the plantation. She was told to get us out in the fields as soon as possible and to show us how to pick and tend the crops. Anna, as she was called, told us that she had lived on this plantation for over fifty years now. She told us we would both be field hands and that if we worked hard enough we might someday become workers in the big white house.

I first ran away ten years later. I was nineteen years old. I did not get very far as some other field workers yelled to the Master that I was running off. When they caught me, I was tied to a large oak tree and given twenty five lashes. I was warned never to try it again. As soon as my wounds healed, I ran away again. I ran away at least five more times in the next three years. Each time I got further and further from the plantation. Each time I was caught the beatings got more severe. They hung me by the neck once for about three minutes before cutting me down. I was told that the next time I ran, the hanging would be for real.

My mom and some of my slave friends told me to never quit or give up. “No matter what they do to you” said my mom, “never give up your freedom.”

I have heard tell of how happy slaves are and how much better off we are on the farms then if we were left on our own. I never met a happy slave. I never met a slave who did not want their freedom. I never met a slave who did not want to go back to their home in Africa. If we were so happy on the plantations, why do they beat us, chain us, brand us and torture us?

I see my body now hanging from the trees. It looks like a big celebration going on beneath me. My eyes are bulging out, my skin is flayed off my loins and I am bleeding from many wounds made by the whips and dogs. Some people are throwing rocks and sticks at me while other people look like they are having a picnic with their families on blankets below where I am hung. I see a large pile of sticks being placed under me. I assume they are going to burn my body now. It won’t matter much to me because I am already dead. My soul left my body several minutes ago and I am simply dead meat hanging there. I am finally free.

I am wondering what I ever did to these people to make them hate me so much. Why do they treat us as like animals when we have souls and dreams just like they do? I have heard that White people fought for their freedom and declared the following:

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

How could any people who believed in the above saying treat other human beings as we were treated? The phase says “all men.” Was I not a man? Were my people not men and women? Did we not want to have happiness and liberty? How could we have a life and happiness if we were treated as animals and beaten and chained and whipped daily? I do not understand.

Furthermore, the White people on our plantation all said that they were Christians. They said they believed in a God who wanted peace and love among all people. I heard it said that their savior (whom they wanted us to believe in) was a savior of compassion and mercy and forgiveness. But these people never showed my people any love or mercy or compassion or forgiveness. They treated us with contempt and scorn and intolerance and hatred. Everything they showed us was the opposite of what they said their savior stood for.

They have lit the pile of sticks below me now and they are burning my body. The smell is awful and many people in the crowd are holding their noses while many others are laughing and patting each other on the back. It is time for me to leave. I want to go find their God. I need to see why he would let my people be treated like this. What have I done to deserve such a fate? Maybe he will be able to explain it to me.

Time for Questions:

Do you think the slave were happy down on the plantation? Do you think the Confederate flag is about “heritage and not hate?” Do you practice tolerance and love to only people of your own color or do you love all people regardless of color? Why or why not? What do you do to help fight racism and discrimination? Do you think it is only a Black fight?”

Life is just beginning. For some people anyway!

The facts cited below are from: Center for American Progress

While people of color make up about 30 percentof the United States’ population, they account for 60 percentof those imprisoned. The prison population grew by 700 percent from 1970 to 2005, a rate that is outpacing crime and population rates. The incarceration rates disproportionately impact men of color: 1 in every 15 African American men and 1 in every 36 Hispanic men are incarcerated in comparison to 1 in every 106 white men.
According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, one in three black mencan expect to go to prison in their lifetime.Individuals of color have a disproportionate number of encounters with law enforcement, indicating that racial profiling continues to be a problem. A report by the Department of Justice found that blacks and Hispanics were approximately three times more likely to be searched during a traffic stop than white motorists. African Americans were twice as likely to be arrested and almost four times as likely to experience the use of force during encounters with the police.
Students of color face harsher punishments in school than their white peers, leading to a higher number of youth of color incarcerated.Black and Hispanic students represent more than 70 percentof those involved in school-related arrests or referrals to law enforcement. Currently, African Americans make up two-fifths and Hispanics one-fifth of confined youth today.
According to recent data by the Department of Education, African American students are arrested far more often than their white classmates.The data showed that96,000students were arrested and 242,000 referred to law enforcement by schools during the 2009-10 school year. Of those students, black and Hispanic students made up more than 70 percent of arrested or referred students. Harsh school punishments, from suspensions to arrests, have led to high numbers of youth of color coming into contact with the juvenile-justice system and at an earlier age.
African American youth have higher rates of juvenile incarceration and are more likely to be sentenced to adult prison.According to the Sentencing Project, even though African American juvenile youth are about 16 percent of the youth population, 37 percent of their cases are moved to criminal court and 58 percent of African American youth are sent to adult prisons.
As the number of women incarcerated has increased by 800 percentover the last three decades, women of color have been disproportionately represented.While the number of women incarcerated is relatively low, the racial and ethnic disparities are startling. African American women are three times more likely than white women to be incarcerated, while Hispanic women are 69 percent more likely than white women to be incarcerated.
The war on drugs has been waged primarily in communities of color where people of color are more likely to receive higher offenses.According to the Human Rights Watch, people of color are no more likely to use or sell illegal drugs than whites, but they have higher rate of arrests. African Americans comprise 14 percentof regular drug users but are 37 percent of those arrested for drug offenses. From 1980 to 2007 about one in three of the 25.4 million adults arrested for drugs was African American.
Once convicted, black offenders receive longer sentences compared to white offenders.The U.S. Sentencing Commission stated that in the federal system black offenders receive sentences that are 10 percentlonger than white offenders for the same crimes. The Sentencing Project reports that African Americans are 21 percent more likely to receive mandatory-minimum sentences than white defendants and are 20 percent more like to be sentenced to prison.
Voter laws that prohibit people with felony convictions to vote disproportionately impact men of color.An estimated 5.3 million Americans are denied the right to vote based on a past felony conviction. Felony disenfranchisement is exaggerated by racial disparities in the criminal-justice system, ultimately denying 13 percentof African American men the right to vote. Felony-disenfranchisement policies have led to 11 states denying the right to vote to more than 10 percent of their African American population.
Studies have shown that people of color face disparities in wage trajectoryfollowing release from prison.Evidence shows that spending time in prison affects wage trajectories with a disproportionate impact on black men and women. The results show no evidence of racial divergence in wages prior to incarceration; however, following release from prison, wages grow at a 21 percent slower ratefor black former inmates compared to white ex-convicts. A number of states have bans on people with certain convictions working in domestic health-service industries such as nursing, child care, and home health care—areas in which many poor women and women of color are disproportionately concentrated.

The Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave?

30 Jun 2014 2 Comments

by Dr. John Persico Jr. in Uncategorized Tags: America, bravery, courage, freedom, justice, morality, patriotism, peace

Repeat the words in the title anywhere in the world and they are immediately recognizable as referring to the United States of America. As Michael Medved loudly proclaims on each of his shows: “And another great day in this, the greatest country on God’s green earth.” It is my guess that you have never thought about where the phrase “land of the free and home of the brave” comes from. Of course, it comes from our national anthem but where did the words originally come from? Were they from some patriot during the Revolutionary War or from the War of 1812? Actually they came from a lawyer and amateur poet, Francis Scott Key. He penned them as part of a poem he wrote in 1814 which was originally titled: “Defense of Fort McHenry.”

“The poem was set to the tune of a popular British song written by John Stafford Smith for the Anacreontic Society, a men’s social club in London. “The Anacreontic Song” (or “To Anacreon in Heaven“), with various lyrics, was already popular in the United States. Set to Key’s poem and renamed “The Star-Spangled Banner”, it would soon become a well-known American patriotic song.” — http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Star-Spangled_Banner

Today, we naturally assume that the words refer to our penchant for American independence and heroism. Our unique ability to save the world from itself and to right injustices wherever they are found. Our vaunted American exceptionalism that gives us the moral right and categorical imperative to influence and insert ourselves in events and places the world over. No one dares to question (or at least few in this country) the right of America to influence politics throughout the world. No one questions the assumption that we are only in it for the greater good of humanity. How could anyone from the “land of the free and the home of the brave” do otherwise? Where our boots tread, soon follows democracy and prosperity, right?

But what if the “land of the free and the home of the brave” was not the reality anymore? What if it was more accurate to say that today America has become the “land of the guarded and the home of the fearful.” Since 911, Americans have seemed to retreat behind a cloak of ongoing surveillance and security measures that could become the greatest detriment to freedom, this country has ever faced. As Benjamin Franklin so wisely noted; “Those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety”.

So I have decided to do some first-hand research and go visit a few “average” Americans. I took a little road trip across Wisconsin to find some true patriots and to see what they think about our country. Are we really scared and fearful? Are we willing to give up our freedom for security? Have we become more xenophobic? To answer these questions, I stopped at diners, coffee shops, rest areas, truck stops, libraries and Denny’s Restaurants to visit with real Americans. Not the 1 percent who make their money from stocks and bonds, but the hardworking “Joes and Janes” who make their money the old fashioned way, by the sweat of their brows. I will briefly post a few excerpts here from some of my interviews.

Roxanne: The Full-Time-Part-Time Worker:

I met 36 year old Roxanne in a booth in Mc Donald’s where we talked over a Big Mac, fries and a shake. Roxanne is a divorced mother of two school aged children whom she is raising with the help of some grandparents. She works both a part-time day job at Benny’s Cleaners and a part-time night job at Wal-Marts.

John: Let’s cut to the chase Roxanne. What do you think about America today?

Roxanne: Well, John, its dam hard to make a living, I can tell you that. Without my grandparents helping me, I don’t know how I would get by.

John: Do you think we have too much security and not enough freedom?

Roxanne: I don’t know, seems like there is never a cop around when you need one. I had a fight with my boyfriend the other day and called the cops, but it took them over 30 minutes to get to my place.

John: What do you think about the Russians, Iraqis, Mexican Cartels and Obama?

Roxanne: I think they should all go back to the countries they came from and leave us alone.

John: Did you vote in the last elections?

Roxanne: Who was running?

John: Thanks Roxanne – got to go now.

“Patriot: the person who can holler the loudest without knowing what he is hollering about.” — Mark Twain

Pete: The Carpenter

I met Pete while stopping to fill up my gas at a Pilot Station. I noticed the painted sign on his pick-up truck which read “Carpenters keep it up longer: Call Pete for a good job.” I offered to buy him a coffee if he would answer a few questions. Pete was 54 years old, married with four kids. One daughter was still living home with him. She had been married and was now divorced. Pete’s wife worked part-time as a church secretary.

John: So Pete, what do your kids do?

Pete: Well, one boy works with me when I need extra help. One daughter is married and lives out of state. One daughter lives with us and the other son works nearby at a local manufacturing plant as a night supervisor.

John: Do you think this country has provided enough opportunity for them?

Pete: Yeah, I guess so

John: What do you think about the economy Pete?

Pete: Sucks.

John: I guess a lot of people would agree with you there. What are your biggest worries for the future?

Pete: Paying my mortgage and taxes.

John: Are you worried about freedom and security.

Pete: Nope, got a concealed carry permit and a good stockpile of ammunition.

John: What do you think we should do about immigration?

Pete: Send them all home.

John: Well, thanks for your time Pete.

“True patriotism hates injustice in its own land more than anywhere else.” — Clarence Darrow

Bob: The Tea Party Member

Bob is a 47 year old accountant. He is married with wife and no kids. I met Bob at a local café that I had stopped at on my journeys. He was wearing a t-shirt that read: TEA: Taxed Enough Already. I sat down at the counter next to Bob and struck up a conversation.

John: So you belong to the Tea Party?

Bob: Yeah, joined about five years ago. I am fed up with big government, taxes and the present no ethics politicians running this country.

John: So how is the Tea Party going to change things?

Bob: Well, for a start we are going to only elect politicians that support our views and are not going to compromise away what we stand for.

John: So what do you stand for? I know you hate taxes but is that all?

Bob: Well, here look at this card. It says it all.

John: The card Bob gave me read as follows:

Our Core Principles

Tea Party Patriots stands for every American, and is home to millions who have come together to pursue the American Dream and to keep that Dream alive for their children and grandchildren.

What unites the Tea Party movement is the same set of core principles that brought America together at its founding, that kindled the American Dream in the hearts of those who struggled to build our nation, and made the United States of America the greatest, most successful country in world history.

At its root the American Dream is about freedom. Freedom to work hard and the freedom to keep the fruits of your labor to use as you see fit without harming others and without hindering their freedom. Very simply, three guiding principles give rise to the freedom necessary to pursue and live the American Dream:

John: That sounds very good Bob, but I don’t see a lot of progressive thinking coming from the Tea Party. Seems like you guys are more against things then for things?

Bob: That’s because we want to go back to the way this country used to be run before the bureaucrats, illegal aliens, liberals and socialists took over this country.

John: What about health care and education and social services for the needy?

Bob: This country is full of free loaders who sponge off the hard working Americans who work for a living.

John: So you don’t believe that there are truly needy people out there in this country? What about new immigrants?

Bob: No one gave me anything or my grandparents. They came over to this country with just the shirts on their backs. People used to believe in hard work and honesty.

John: What about education? It is barely affordable anymore.

Bob: That’s because we give all of these free scholarships to students from other countries and the high salaries that those lazy professors make. Do you realize most of them work less than ten hours a week?

John: Well, thanks for the opinions Bob. Time to go! You have a great day.

“Let us take a patriot, where we can meet him; and, that we may not flatter ourselves by false appearances, distinguish those marks which are certain, from those which may deceive; for a man may have the external appearance of a patriot, without the constituent qualities; as false coins have often lustre, though they want weight.” — Samuel Johnson

Cassie Jean: The NRA Member

Cassie Jean is a 33 year old single woman who works as an Assistant Manager in a small bakery. I talked to Cassie Jean while she was on a break over coffee and a cigarette. I had stopped for donuts and a rest break. Cassie Jean rides a 2002 Honda Shadow 600 motorcycle. She is an avid hunter and a card carrying member of the National Rifle Association.

John: So Cassie, what was the last thing you killed?

Cassie Jean: Well, got me a good sized buck this past fall and a nice turkey this spring.

John: How long have you been shooting?

Cassie Jean: Ever since I was a little girl.

John: Why do you belong to the NRA?

Cassie Jean: They protect our rights. You know the Second Amendment.

John: Isn’t that about militias?

Cassie Jean: People have the right to arm themselves. If we let them take our guns away, we will have no protection.

John: Protection from what.

Cassie Jean: The wackos and socialists.

John: What about our army, National Guard and the police department. Isn’t their job to protect us?

Cassie Jean: They work for the liberal socialists that are destroying this country. The only thing that stands between them and us is our guns.

John: But what about all the gun violence in this country?

Cassie Jean: If more people were armed, there would be less violence.

John: How do you figure?

Cassie Jean: Well, would you screw with someone who had a gun?

John: But what if no one had a gun?

Cassie Jean: Over my dead body.

John: Well, you sure make good donuts. Take care and happy hunting.

“Our government has kept us in a perpetual state of fear – kept us in a continuous stampede of patriotic fervor – with the cry of grave national emergency.” — General Douglas MacArthur

Dick: The Mechanic

Dick is a retired Ford mechanic who worked for a small Ford garage in upstate Wisconsin for over 30 years. A bad back and a desire to enjoy more of life convinced Dick to retire early. Dick is a strange sort of man as he does not like hunting or sports but enjoys literature and particularly good poetry. He is a connoisseur of fine wines and good music and never misses an opportunity to travel with his wife Paula to see new places. Dick belongs to a group of retired men who hang out at a local library where they can get free coffee and an occasional donut. Despite his lack of a formal education, Dick is knowledgeable and well versed on many subjects. His views would surprise many.

John: What’s new Dick?

Dick: I am going to Russia!

John: For real?

Dick: Yep, I like the way Putin is running things. No BS in that country.

John: What about freedom of speech and freedom of religion?

Dick: Religion is a farce, just a bunch of know nothing do-gooders trying to live off the backs of hardworking people.

John: What about freedom of speech?

Dick: No one listens to you here anyway unless you are a billionaire.

John: I don’t think Putin would tolerate unions and I thought you were a union man?

Dick: Unions used to help people now most of them are just parasites as well.

John: You sound like a libertarian.

Dick: I don’t belong to any party. They are all useless.

John: When are you leaving for Russia?

Dick: Soon

John: How soon?

Dick: Not soon enough.

John: Well, I imagine many of your friends would hate to see you leave.

Dick: Yeah, well I can send them a postcard.

John: Do you think the libraries in Russia would have a men’s group and free coffee?

Dick: I don’t know. I will talk to Putin about it when I get there.

John: Well, if I don’t see you before you leave Dick, have a good flight.

Conclusions:

I arrived back to my starting point in Frederic Wisconsin after several days on the road. Truly, I cannot say I had any great insights into the subject of freedom and liberty. My “random” sample of “average” Americans would not satisfy even a lazy graduate student much less a hard core researcher. Nevertheless, my total observations have literally been based on hundreds of such conversations over the past ten years. My interviewees are a composite of dozens of people whom I have met and talked to from the shores of Coon Lake in Wisconsin to the rocky Casa Grande Mountains in Arizona.

Numerous books attest to major changes taking place in our country. Are we going backwards, forwards or perhaps sideways? Are things getting better or worse? Are we still the place that everyone wants to immigrate to? If not, what has changed? We are surrounded by apocalyptic visions. The USA will be overrun by illegal immigrants. Socialists will take over the country. Fascism will become the norm. The end days are near and the Messiah will return to judge the good and the evil. The poor will rise up and destroy America. The country will become one vast prison with drug addicts and drug dealers on every corner. No one will be able to afford health care or education. Terrorists will infiltrate and bomb our most prized establishments. The country will give in to Sharia Law.

With such gloomy visions of the future, is it any wonder that many people are fearful and ready to sacrifice their freedom for security. More and more Americans live behind walls either in a prison or in a gated community. Neither prison walls nor community walls seem to protect us from our worst enemies which may be ourselves.

Beck – It’s All In Your Mind, music video (Love this Song, click on here to listen)

Time for Questions:

Have you felt things are getting better or worse in this country? Do you think we need more or less patriots? Do you think most people professing patriotism are really patriots? What do you think makes a good patriot? What do you think makes a “bad” patriot? Where do you stand on patriotism?

Life is just beginning.

Gandhi’s Sixth Social Sin: Worship Without Sacrifice

30 May 2013 38 Comments

by Dr. John Persico Jr. in Uncategorized Tags: agnostics, apple pie, atheists, buddha, buddhists, church, ethics, freedom, inquistion, Jesus, john persico, mom, muslims, religion, sacrifice, tyranny, wisdom

I find it surprising that I am writing about Gandhi and his ideas. Surprising in that while growing up I was as far from a non-violent philosophy as anyone could be. Sometimes it seemed like my whole life was violence, anger and fighting. I joined the military out of high school and hoped to kill as many “commies” as I could. I continued my violent ways for many years and to be honest I am still no pacifist. I would not turn the other cheek once if you hit me, never mind 40 times. I am still on the border line about capital punishment. One day I think Capital Punishment is terribly useless institution made even worse by its ineffectiveness at deterring crime. The next day I read of some horrendous crime that I feel can only be rectified by punishments that go well beyond the heinousness of legal murder. If Gandhi were my father, he would surely disown me.

Gandhi is one of those heroic icons who cannot be ignored. Whether you believe in his ideas or not, you cannot deny that he tried to live according to his beliefs. More important was that he lived to help others have a better life. Everything Gandhi did paid evidence to his ideology that humans could be better than they were. I know many people who think that educators, psychologists, social workers and other “human service” workers are just a waste of taxpayer money. These same people are continually on the front line for more prisons and more military hardware. It is evident to such people that humans can not improve and thus the only betterment of humanity lies in more weapons, more police, more military and more guns. Gandhi would have professed the exact opposite and worked to create a world that was non-violent and where disputes could be resolved by civil discourse.

Years ago, I dropped my belief in God and in religions. I came to the conclusion that the first did not exist and the second was evil. It seemed to me that much of the misery on the earth came from one or the other of the major religions. The crusades, the inquisition, the Protestant Catholic wars, the wars against “Pagans” all showed me conclusively that religions did more harm than good. When I joined the military, I would not speak to any clergy and when they came around; I always avoided them. I was even rude to them at times as I regarded them as hypocrites. My first wife and I did not practice any religion together but I did bring my daughter around to several different religious venues as I wanted to at least expose her to them. My second marriage was to a more deeply religious woman who practices her faith regularly by participating in church affairs and helping out at many church functions. I often kid her about some of these events but I have come to a different point in my life regarding their benefit to the world. I am somewhat less judgmental about religions and people then I was in my younger days.

What does this mean for me about religions and how I regard them today? I can say with sincerity that I still see much evil that comes out of religion, not to mention its ongoing hypocrisy (for instance where were all the churches and ministers when we invaded Iraq both the first and second times?). However, I also see many good things that they now do, from supporting health care for poor people to championing efforts to feed people both domestically and abroad. There are many other examples of good things that are done by churches and religious leaders. So what does Gandhi mean by “Worship without Sacrifice?” Is Gandhi against organized religion? Here is the description from the Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence that summarizes Gandhi’s ideas in respect to his Sixth Social Sin:

“Worship without Sacrifice: One person’s faith is another person’s fantasy because religion has been reduced to meaningless rituals practiced mindlessly. Temples, churches, synagogues, mosques and those entrusted with the duty of interpreting religion to lay people seek to control through fear of hell, damnation, and purgatory. In the name of God they have spawned more hate and violence than any government. True religion is based on spirituality, love, compassion, understanding, and appreciation of each other whatever our beliefs may be — Christians, Jews, Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists, Atheists, Agnostics or whatever. Gandhi believed whatever labels we put on our faith; ultimately all of us worship Truth because Truth is God. Superficially we may be very devout believers and make a tremendous public show of our worship, but if that belief, understanding, compassion, love and appreciation is not translated into our lives, prayers will have no meaning. True worship demands sacrifice not just in terms of the number of times a day we say our prayers but in how sincere we are in translating those prayers into life styles. In the 1930’s many Christian and Muslim clergy flocked into India to convert the millions who were oppressed as untouchables. The Christian clergy stood on street corners loudly denouncing Hinduism and proclaiming the virtues of Christianity. Months went by without a single convert accepting the offer. Frustrated, one priest asked Grandfather: After all the oppression and discrimination that the ‘untouchables’ suffer under Hinduism, why is it they do not accept our offer of a better life under Christianity? Grandfather replied: When you stop telling them how good Christianity is and start living it, you will find more converts than you can cope with. These words of wisdom apply to all religions of the world. We want to shout from roof-tops the virtues of our beliefs and not translate them into our lives.”

Gandhi’s words remind me of a comment by Sitting Bull. When asked what he thought of Christianity he replied: “From what I have read it is an admirable religion, however I do not see any white people practicing it.” From a Native American perspective, the only thing the conquerors religions offered was a destruction of their habitats and lifestyles. Witness the coming of the Spanish to the “New World” and the systematic destruction of the culture and religions that already existed by the Spanish military and their allied missionaries. The genocidal destruction of indigenous peoples throughout the world is full of pompous and pretentious efforts to “convert” and save them from their evil ways. In reality, religion only provided an expedient excuse to separate them from their lands and gold. We have in much of the history of organized religion a clear example of what Gandhi meant by Worship without Sacrifice.

Perhaps surprising to some though, true Christianity is firm that Worship without Sacrifice is worthless:

“What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and be well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.

But someone will say, “You have faith; I have deeds.”

Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds.

You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder.

You foolish person, do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless? Was not our father Abraham considered righteous for what he did when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did. And the scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness, and he was called God’s friend. You see that a person is considered righteous by what they do and not by faith alone.”

James 2:14-26- New International Version

Abraham was willing to sacrifice his son for his religious beliefs. This is Worship with Sacrifice. Going to church on Sunday or simply reading the Bible is Worship without Sacrifice. When Jesus said that the two most important Commandments were Love God and Love Everyone, he meant you had to practice your faith by helping others who were less fortunate. This has made it very difficult for most of humankind to be his followers in deed as well as in professed belief. It is far easier to say “I am a Christian, then to “Sell your belongings and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” It is much easier to pray, worship, and read the Bible than to actually practice what Jesus was saying. Think for a minute what it would mean if all would be Christians really practiced the “Love Everyone Commandment? A short list of the consequences of this would mean:

No religious wars
No Jihads
No terrorism
No murders
No rapes
No assaults
NO WARS PERIOD

Can you imagine a world without these problems? This is the world we would have if everyone practiced their religions by deeds and not just words. However, this would require sacrifice and too many people are not really willing to sacrifice for their religion, for Jesus or for God. Sacrifice means giving up something to help others, not giving up something to gain something for you. Those who blow up their bodies to attain paradise with 40 vestal virgins are not sacrificing for others; they are simply trying to take a shortcut to attain what other greedy people already have. Any religion that terrorizes others in the name of “whoever” or “whatever” is evil regardless of what it calls itself. This raises the question that might be phased as “What is the purpose of religion.” Searching the web it is easy to find that many have condemned organized religion because of the atrocities associated with it. Great thinkers from Plato to Thomas Jefferson to Bertrand Russell have had little good to say about religions. However, I like the following comment from WaheguruNet regarding what positive role religion could and indeed should play in society:

“Religion has and continues to impact almost every aspect of human civilization in both positive and negative ways. The great spiritual masters from all traditions have taught that we need to adopt and develop higher qualities of love, mercy, generosity, kindness and so on. These higher qualities are a natural byproduct of developing a deeper connection with our spiritual nature and so in this respect religion can be thought of as a vehicle to support our spiritual development and our re-connection with divinity. In this way, human beings will be better at working together to create a better and more harmonious world.”

You will notice that in this purpose there is nothing mentioned about doom and destruction or about going to hell and suffering for the rest of your life or about your neighbor who is a hypocrite and unlike you is destined for fire and brimstone. The purpose of religion is to help us become better people. To help us find our connection to our inner spirit and to help guide us in living a more just and moral life. This purpose must be followed by actions and deeds as well as pious readings and professed beliefs. There is no room Gandhi’s religion or Jesus’s religion for bigotry, discrimination, prejudice, hatred, intolerance and destruction of others or their belief systems.

Time for Questions:

What can we do to practice good deeds as well as good thoughts? What sacrifices are you willing to make to help others? Are we making a true sacrifice by telling others how hard we worked and that they can be what we are if they only try? Should we simply tell others to pull themselves up by their boot straps? Are all people really created equal in the sense that everyone has an equal chance at health and happiness? Can we help make it so by sharing what we have with others?

Life is just beginning.

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Gandhi’s Sixth Social Sin: Worship Without Sacrifice

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