The Bedrock of Democracy

You can tell a lot about a person by the way she speaks of the Constitution. I've noted four general ways that people respond to mention of the document when it comes up in conversation. I refer to them as Affirmative, Objective, Indifferent, and Hostile.

An affirmative response usually comes from a person who has some knowledge of the Constitution and enjoys talking about it.

Objective responders typically have a neutral response. They usually understand the general importance of the Constitution but don't think about it unless some part of it directly affects them.

Those who are indifferent really couldn't care less. Mention the Constitution to them, and their response will likely be something like, "Oh, yeah, that. Whatever."

Then there are those who actively believe the Constitution is a bad thing, usually because it gets in the way of something they want to do, or the way they think things should be. These are people you don't want to know. Police often fall into this group, as do some politicians.

In the present day, the unpresident of the United States and probably most of his Cabinet is firmly in this camp. This is an unprecedented and dangerous situation. The Constitution is the only thing that stands between the ordered society we know and a power-mad would-be tyrant. Or, if you like, between order and chaos.

The first time I visited the Constitution at the National Archives was almost a religious experience for me. It came to me that those few pieces of parchment, faded and wrinkled as they are, represent a pinnacle of accomplishment in humankind's long search for a means of just government.

Since at least the third millennium BC rulers and peoples have sought to establish codes of law that would provide order and protection. Some of them were successful. Others were unbearably severe. Many included practices we consider absurd, and punishments so horrid that we can scarce imagine them. Yet they were all needful experiments leading to the document that gives our society order.

Donald Trump wants to be a supreme autocrat with nothing controlling him but his own whims. He does not want to be limited by a system of laws that will prevent his becoming a dictator. Were it up to him, he would replace the Constitution with the occultist and libertine Aleister Crowley's mantra: "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law."

The Constitution of the United States may not be a perfect document. It may not be the last word in the search for and perfection of a just system of laws. Yet it is our system, bought with the blood and sacrifice of our ancestors. We must defend it against Donald Trump, a thug and a pig of a man who already dismisses and dishonors it, and would destroy it if he could.

Four pages of parchment are the bedrock of our country. They must remain inviolate.


--- Diogenes, 9/3/2020

Cowards, Cretins, and Fools

435 Representatives
100 Senators
15 Cabinet members
1 Vice-president

And not a scruple of conscience among them. Not a whiff of courage to call out dishonesty and injustice. Not a shred of evidence that each one of them once swore to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic."

Every day these 551 individuals plus a host of staff watch the alleged leader of the free world lie, scheme, cheat and swindle his bumbling way through life and not one raises their voice to call him out.

Only the press, in their Constitutional position as government watchdog, call him out regularly. The 551 should be listening. There was a time when the editorial boards of major newspapers had the ear of Congress. Now the portion of Congress that isn't deaf listens only to its own voice crying for attention in a masturbatory maelstrom of fear and self-loathing.

Donald John Trump is not special. He is a man, not a superbeing. He is not unstoppable. He puts his pants on one leg at a time. He belches, farts, and picks his nose. He is nobody's Chosen One. He has such little self respect that when he cannot gain praise from others he invents it himself.

His Twitter handle is @realDonaldTrump, but there is nothing real about him. He is a creature of his own imagining, cobbled together from whole cloth into a simulacrum of a leader, but lacking any knowledge or talent for the role. He is material but lacks substance. He is false from the hair on his head and the complexion of his face to the emptiness of his heart. He is the living embodiment of the emperor's new clothes.

The 551 know this but cannot admit it. They are politicians, hacks, and wonks so entrapped by the system they have built for themselves to ensure a continuing spot at the trough of public money that they can understand nothing else. They are cowards, cretins, and fools who will continue to be accomplices to the crimes and misdeeds of the Poser-in-Chief who squats atop the house of cards they have built. They disagree superficially but know they are totally interdependent, so not one will say "Enough! Stop!" Not one. Not. one. They are beyond shame.

Meanwhile the Traitor-in-Chief who has not betrayed his oath because he never intended to follow it attacks genuine patriots. He defends murderers and domestic terrorists like Kyle Rittenhouse, and the mouth-breathing, tattooed lowlifes who drove into peaceful demonstrators in Portland, Oregon.

Speaking to the National Republican Club in February 1938, Vermont Governor George Aiken said Abraham Lincoln "would be ashamed of his party's leadership today."¹ A plaque with that quote should hang in every Congressional Republican's office to remind them of their responsibility to be a check on executive actions.

Government functionaries don't fear the Bully-in-Chief; they fear the power he wields. That is a small but significant distinction. There is nothing to be feared from Trump the man. He is a small, insignificant entity whose personal power over others is limited to insults and epithets. But he holds the presidency, and with that can cause irreparable damage, if not destruction, of careers. He holds it over his minions like Damocles' sword, threatening them with the worst possible fate: expulsion from a government job and the loss of their place at the trough.

Elected officials are beyond his reach, but cower nonetheless because even after four years he remains a phenomenon foreign to their culture. They fear the unknown and therefore bow before it.

There are 551 of them and not one will stand up. The refusal of every one of them to stand and announce their opposition to the Cretin-in-Chief is disgraceful and cowardly. Bullies respond to being pushed back, but we Americans and our Constitution have no one to push for us.

In a post several weeks ago I said I would not condone assassination as a means of removing Tyrant Trump.

I have reconsidered that position.


--- Diogenes, 9/1/2020


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¹ D. Gregory Sanford, "You Can't Get There From Here: The Presidential Boomlet for Governor George D. Aiken, 1937-1939," Vermont History, Vol. 49, No. 4 (Fall, 1981), p. 204.

Too Stupid To Live, Part Two

Things people do who are too stupid to live:

Believe Donald Trump.
Swim with sharks.
Cross heavy traffic against the light.
Vote for Donald Trump.
Carry a loaded rifle in a crowd.
Turn peaceful protests into riots.
Go maskless in a crowd.
Think Donald Trump is a good president.

Believe humans have never been in space.
Get high on wood alcohol to see what it's like.
Think Donald Trump is a good man.
Get news from the Internet.
Handle poisonous snakes.
Look down the barrel of a gun to see if it's loaded.
Prop an electric fan on an unstable shelf above their bathtub.
Think Donald Trump is a good father.
Sneak up on a mule from the back.

Eat fugu on a bet.
Drive a car into water.
Believe Fox News.
Trust Donald Trump.
Play Russian roulette.
Believe dinosaurs and humans coexisted.
Believe every conspiracy theory they hear.
Rewire an electrical switch with the current on.
Flirt with their boss's wife in his office.
Jump off a roof into a pool.

Think Donald Trump is a good ___________.


--- Diogenes, 8/31/2020