The square root of negative one is symbolized by the lower case i. Such a number is imaginary. I think we must find our imagined self in order to truly know ourselves. The upper case I (ego) is a shallowness that feeds upon the physical to the detriment of this Earth. I think the lower case i would be more in harmony with this Earth as it would revel in its connectedness to all that is of this Earth.
Churches were supposed to pick up the slack when the safety net was destroyed. How’s that working out? I’m hearing more and more stories of churches cutting back because they cannot meet the need and of food banks running out of food. Where is the government that is supposed to serve the people?
One of the purposes of taxes is that such are to be spent for the general welfare of the citizens of the United States. The Supreme Court’s early Spending Clause case law culminated, in 1937, with an embrace of a relatively expansive view of Congress’s power to tax and spend in aid of the general welfare. That same expansive view permeates the Court’s modern Spending Clause case law. The Court has repeatedly stated that, by allocating federal funds and attaching conditions to those funds,1 Congress may pursue broad policy objectives.2 Congress may even achieve policy outcomes that it could not directly legislate using its other enumerated powers.3 https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/artI-S8-C1-2-4/ALDE_00013359/
How is spending tax dollars for a wrestling exhibition, a ballroom, gold veneers for the general welfare? How is giving no-bid contracts to incompetent providers for the general welfare? How is paying for posh vacations for government officials for the general welfare? Our tax dollars can be wasted on pomp, circumstance, and frivolity as parodied in Animal Farm while citizens are hungry, unhoused, uneducated, and asked to pay more taxes. Really?
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Looks like something prehistoric, doesn’t it? Eastern eyed click beetle. On my porch. However, I think a cicada may look even more pre-historic.
How low can this State go? How about honoring a racist, a white supremacist, a person of no character, a person who offered nothing positive to this Earth when he was alive… There is no bottom when there is nothing within. And every day, the persons sitting in the halls of government tell us in no uncertain terms that they have nothing within. I suppose it’s a repeat of what the Daughters of the Confederacy did. If you honor evil, evil becomes the norm.
What entertains people is a commentary on their society. Why are police procedurals and murder mysteries so popular? Why is it so entertaining for the white male to be depicted as a predator, soulless, evil, murderous? Is it because in his narcissism he delights in being shown just as he is?
Just saw a commercial–Ford Motor Company–most of the Americans per that commercial are white males and females. (One of the actors may have been Black or a person of color, but iffy.) Catering to the white supremacists? Ford, the founder, was a virulent racist, so the company is reverting to its origins? Or maybe, the company has different commercials for the different geographic regions. This is the South, so since Southerners are triggered by Blacks having jobs or just being–the commercials cater to that. Like the television shows once did. A different edit for the South so the fragile Southern audience wouldn’t be offended.
This is the story of Marcus Porcius Cato as told by H.G. Wells in The Outline Of History—(L)ived to be eighty-five years old, and his ruling passion seems to have been hatred for any human happiness but his own. (Remind you of anyone? Unlike certain persons who shall not be named, he actually served his country in war. A bit of history–Punic wars–Rome versus Carthage. Cato was Roman. Punic Wars were fought between 264 to 146 B.C.E. This is the time of Hannibal the Great Carthagenian general.) (C)ommand in Spain, and distinguished himself by his cruelties. He posed as a champion of religious and public morality, and under this convenient cloak carried on a lifelong war against everything that was young, gracious, or pleasant. Whoever aroused his jealously incurred his moral disapproval. He (Cato) was energetic in the support and administration of all laws against dress, against the personal adornment of women, against entertainments and free discussion. …(As Censor) he was able to ruin public opponents through private scandals. He persecuted Greek literature, about which, until late in life he was totally ignorant. …From his writings… One of his maxims was that when a slave was not sleeping, he should be working. Another was that old oxen and slaves should be sold off. He left the war horse that had carried him through his Spanish campaign behind him when he returned to Italy, in order to save freight. He hated other people’s gardens, and cut off the supply of water for garden use in Rome…. He admired his own virtues very greatly… (H)e wrote ‘those who saw him charging the enemy, routing and pursuing them, declared that Cato owed less to the people of Rome than the people of Rome owed to Cato.’ … His last public act…was to urge on the Third Punic War and the final destruction of Carthage. (Why?) Because (he) had gone to Carthage…and had been shocked and horrified to find some evidence of prosperity and even of happiness in that country.
So, there have always been horrible human beings who have held positions of power. But isn’t it sad that in over two thousand years there has been no beneficial evolvement of the human character? The same type of narcistic, misogynistic, greedy, egotistical, evil, ignorant male wields power in 2026. Cato…an example of the Dunning–Kruger effect more than two thousand years ago. {Dunning-Kruger effect (identified 1999)–a cognitive bias where people with low knowledge overestimate their competence and fail to recognize their own ignorance.}
Asoka–an adherent of Buddha who experienced war and found it horrible and cruel, who then decided that any conquest should be by religion. Asoka’s reign circa 225 BCE was peaceful. He actually ruled for the benefit of his people…among other benefits, he dug wells for water, planted trees for shade, he encouraged charitable works, he built hospitals, he planted gardens of medicinal herbs and public gardens. he educated the women, he introduced his people to the precepts of Buddhism. Asoka reigned for twenty-eight years. Wells says that of all the known rulers in the known history of man, Asoka stands out. Asoka appears to be the closest to a philosopher king that this Earth has produced and, I repeat, he lived more than two thousand years ago.
Why is Cato so much more attractive to those who rule than Asoka? That is the question, in order for us humans to progress, that must be answered.
One cannot trust the white lens. In Uganda there is a tribe called the Ik. A white anthropologist wrote a book about their individualism and their culture in which love and altruism were rarely practiced. That was his skewed lens which could not see that these people at that particular moment in time were under extreme stress–probably drought and famine. When visited at a time when not under extreme stress, that behavior was not noted. Also, let’s mention Margaret Meade and her study of the Samoans. The Samoans were intelligent and cunning. I read somewhere, I forget where, that they told Meade what she wanted to hear. They played to her misconceptions of them and, as a result, her research was not based in reality or truth.
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I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country… corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed. Abraham Lincoln
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