Proctology and history are probably two of the least favorite majors in graduate school. They both study the ebb and flow of things and are the first to recognize when an eruption is about to occur. Since I know nothing about proctology and want to avoid its subject matter, I will focus on the history everyone thinks they know without studying it.
Fanciful versions of American history portray a past that never was. It is sadly amusing to hear today’s extremists distort the past to fit their 21st-century false narrative. One of the biggest lies about America’s first days was that the country was founded as a Christian nation. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Being heavily influenced by the European Enlightenment, America’s Founding Fathers found themselves with the possibility of creating a new form of government based on reason and laws rather than the fantasies and idiosyncrasies of kings, religious leaders, and potentates. In the old world, many Europeans were required to follow religions and spiritual practices that they disagreed with. Not only were people in the old world forced to do things they didn’t want to do, but many were killed for not following the “approved” religion of the moment. The excitement of cutting the chains of the past and creating a new way to live in a new land in North America was palpable.
The freedom offered by the American experiment was almost irresistible to freedom-loving people worldwide. People from all over began to immigrate to our new land so they could practice or not practice the religion and lifestyle of their choosing. They could live in a city, they could live in a closed Mennonite farming community, they could be miners and follow the discoveries of mineral deposits, they could become traveling merchants, and so on. Autocratic rulers were less happy about America. However, there was a consolation; they could get rid of their troublesome, freedom-loving subjects.
Within the population of original colonists and new immigrants were a varied lot of people from different cultures. These diverse cultures often clashed, just as in the “old worlds” from whence they came. One recent author claims that America has eleven distinct cultures that help explain, even in 2023, the ever-present cultural struggles within America. These eleven cultures primarily evolved from the original settlers in each cultural region. After over two centuries, an ideal America should consist of a unified body of diverse Americans singing Kumbaya.
The reality of America, despite significant attempts to have all American magnets point in the same direction, is that America is NOT one giant magnet whose electrons are uniformly charged in the same direction. Despite what some of our popular demagogues and sixth-grade civics books imply, America’s Founders were not naïve about America’s future. They understood that no person or culture had all the answers. They knew that achieving universal solidarity on every issue was a fantasy. They knew that only kings and dictators strived for 100% conformity and forced unanimity. They knew they had to design a new government built on the assumption that cultural differences did, do, and will always exist.
To introduce a new metaphor, America’s eleven cultures sit on constantly moving subterranean cultural plates that occasionally slip or slide. These cultural collisions might occur slowly or rapidly, but they will occur. When disruptions occur, one or more of the cultures will suffer disproportionately. The cultures feeling the most pain are predictably upset and resent that the other cultures do not fully feel or understand their pain. This cross-cultural resentment leads to political conflict and bitterness between different cultural/political groups. Over time the bitterness leads to desperate thinking. Desperate thinking can transmute into extremism. Extremism leads to thoughts like: “The others do not understand our situation,” “We don’t like those people,” “We should secede from this union and form our own country just as our ancestors did,” “Those people think they are better than us,” and “we should use ANY means necessary, including breaking the spirit of the law, to take control of the government.”
Over Time from Reason to Gibberish
Sadly, after George Washington warned posterity about the dangers of extremist politics, America forgot about him and created the nightmare our first President feared. Unprincipled, partisan-minded operatives created a two-party system that encourages polarization and discourages cooperation. Over the last 25 years, this extreme polarization has become virtually paralyzing. Opinion polls routinely show American voters to be much more moderate than our polarized political leaders. It is no accident that in June 2022, a Gallup poll said that 82% of Americans disapproved of how Congress handles its job. Such a high percentage results from dissatisfaction from the extremists on the left and right and even the moderates.
This disconnect between Americans and their politicians is primarily due to the self-serving machinations of the political class. Many politicians lack any bedrock beliefs or morals. They follow the money trail of their benefactors and/or the public sentiment of the moment. The political-industrial complex now controls the government and the fourth estate in all its facets. The fourth estate now includes Twitter, Facebook, Fox, CBS, NBC, ABC, PBS, Newsmax, Tik Tok, Huffington Post, Rolling Stone, Epoch Times, blogs, streaming videos, podcasts, and various websites. America’s expansive news media, designed to keep Americans informed, have become mainly efficient propaganda-to-brain infusion machines. Most Americans, even those who try or think they are independent or moderates, have very few sources of unbiased information. Most Americans select a feel-good echo chamber for all their entertainment and propaganda. This results in increasing polarization and extremism.
American political parties have become hierarchical, mob-like organizations with virtually no restrictions. While acting in their official capacity as our elected representatives, they literally create laws and routinely include provisions that their rules do not apply to themselves. For example, it is now perfectly legal for someone in Congress to listen to a classified briefing, recognize a financial opportunity from the briefing, and call his wife to trade stock based on insider information.
America’s guardian of law and order, the US Supreme Court, has no law and order. One justice received millions of dollars in “gifts” from a political mega-donor over 32 years. When challenged, this justice replied that he didn’t know it was wrong to accept millions from an uber-wealthy “friend” six years AFTER the man became a justice on the Supreme Court. His “friend” is Harlan Crow, an ultra-Conservative donor and an art collector who owns paintings by Claude Monet, Winston Churchill, and Adolph Hitler. Crow is worth THREE TIMES MORE than the Democratic boogeyman, George Soros. It is not surprising that Justice Clarence Thomas votes 110% in favor of ultra-conservative issues coming before the Supreme Court. In 2023 we have a justice of the Supreme Court receiving millions for having his butt on the scales of justice, while a simple butcher would be fined $5,000 for having a crooked meat scale.
These folks are cynically manipulative and have no interests beyond their own. An embarrassingly fake congressman from Long Island won his contest in 2022 and is currently an active congressman. His party merely shrugged and implicitly said, “He’s one of us; there are no droids here; we need his vote,” after his credentials were proven entirely bogus.
Thanks to our agrarian founders, the US Constitution, and many state constitutions have a rural bias that skews democratic “representation” in favor of the sparsely populated rural areas. California and Wyoming have two US Senators, yet California has a population of 39.4 million, and Wyoming has 600 thousand. Wyoming has one representative in the House of Representatives for its 600 thousand people, but each California congressperson represents 800 thousand. From a popular vote perspective, parties that LOSE the popular vote win the presidency based on the antiquated, rural-biased Electoral College system. In the last eight presidential elections, the Republican Party has only won ONE popular vote.
These rural-dominated states act with reckless regard to the spirit of the US Constitution and rely on old-fashioned gerrymandering and crude, brute political force. In the 1890s, states from the old Confederacy looked the other way when unimaginable violence was perpetrated on black citizens. This month, two black state representatives in Tennessee were removed from office by the “good ‘ole boys,” while a WHITE woman committing the same “crime” was not removed. Other states routinely commit all sorts of political crimes that are either clearly illegal or violate the spirit of the laws and the Constitution.
This underscores an inherent flaw in the US Constitution. As we all know, the United States of America is not a democracy. It is a republic heavily influenced by a rural calculus that can be easily manipulated by wealthy, powerful special interests (including today by foreigners.) America’s foundational document probably made sense in 1791 but less so 232 years later.
The fear of a “pure” democracy controlled by uneducated, populist anarchists (as in the case of the French Revolution) was a clear and present danger in 1791. Creating a republic dominated by agrarian landowners made sense when 80 to 90% of the population lived on farms. However, less than 2% of America’s population lives on a farm today (although many still live in rural areas.) Despite this obvious rural bias, there is no need to scrap our Constitution. The Founding Fathers allowed the US Constitution to be modified as warranted.
Our US Constitution, created during the Age of Reason, is still a stunning document and compact for all Americans. However, as recent events have shown, the danger of a government takeover or destruction by anarchists or autocratic wannabes is possible. It happened in 1861, and it can happen again. Extremist politicians and their media channels create cult-like followers who become magnetized and mesmerized by their collective Jedi mind tricks. America should not be dominated by extremist politicians on either pole of the political horseshoe magnet.
It is time to amend the Constitution to eliminate the legal loopholes used by the extremist and fanatical mobs bent on the perversion and destruction of American Democracy. America was founded by brave people of reason, not fanatical extremists, cult followers, religious zealots, or groveling tag-alongs.