I love religious people. You know, the ones who are truly humble and who try to do the right thing at all times. They're friendly and easy to get along with; they will go out of their way to help others; they don't cheat, or lie, or steal; they work hard and hardly ever complain. In other words, I love those who walk their walk, whichever walk that may be-the one they profess to believe in. Even those whose beliefs are dark and hopeless, as long as they are true to their stated beliefs, they deserve respect.
   On the other hand, I hate what religions do to the minds of their adherents. Dogma, that great dam of free thought, restricts people from expressing new ideas about the things that they supposedly believe in so strongly. If an idea produces opinions that rise to the level of a belief, surely it can withstand a thorough analysis. (In the same vein, authorities in any arena should stand ready to answer any question with which they are presented. Of course there are things in every area of study that cannot be answered by anyone, but whoever claims to be an authority in a certain subject should be able to answer almost every question posed.) By eliminating doubt, blind faith suppresses that flow of ideas that hallmark the advance of civilization. Whereas civilized behavior ought to be the goal of all religious inclinations, religion itself prevents different peoples from achieving a unified code of ethics and ethical behavior within a society provides the only support to that society's claim to being civilized.
   My understanding of sharia law is simple and undoubtedly incomplete. However simplified by me, apparently it expects corrective intervention between and amongst citizens whenever unlawful behavior is observed. If you observe your friend stealing something, you are expected to try to prevent it. Likewise with all other obvious ethical transgressions.
   In a functioning civilization, all members would serve as rectifying agents in regard to themselves and one another. Seems like a pretty good idea to me- establishing the pursuit of ethical behavior as an occasional theme of everyday conversation. Of course, humans will always find ways to circumvent rules that limit their freedom to act as they please. 
   A friend in Nevada once told me a joke about his Mormon friends, whose faith expects them to refrain from consuming alcohol. It goes like this: How do you prevent a Mormon from drinking all of your beer when you take him fishing? You invite two Mormons to go fishing.

   This is no attack on Mormons; without a doubt, every religion has a version of this joke that applies to their stated beliefs. My personal belief contends that righteous behavior only concerns behavior that has society-wide implications. Other than that, everything is in play, as long as the behavior affects no one besides the individual or some unique group whose beliefs allow such behavior. This idea provides a perfect segue from one unpleasant topic (religion) to another (politics).
   Under what amorphous cloud of reasoning would political correctness be expected from everyone? How stale and uninvigorating life would be without the freedom to get laughs at the expense of our friends and relatives! Typical gatherings with my friends would fail any test of political correctness by a large margin. Why? Because our affections for one another are unquestioned and we provide license to one another to insult, assault, hurl pejoratives, and impugn each others' characters. Group size has everything to do with this concept. The way to provoke laughter is to state the unexpected. Comedians would lose half of their arsenals if they weren't allowed to say unkind things.
   There is one group whose ability to say those types of things should be limited by political considerations-politicians. They are expected to represent the entire population in serious matters, and as such, they should not be allowed to insult anyone. It is a standard of honor that a civilized society should expect from those who have a hand in passing laws that affect everyone. If they happen to say improper things in private, and are recorded unaware, some level of understanding should be extended by the general population.
   

I am watching Trump at CPAC.
The smarmy, smug attendees, especially the young ones, are despicable. The false patriotism is the only thing that unites all of them. What is the fixation with the flag ? The voters who supported this thief loved the flag too, but theirs was the Confederate battle flag which lead hundreds of thousands of their duped forebears to death against the very flag now fetishized at CPAC. This CPAC crowd was spawned by a mythologized version of Reagan, united by and committed to cutting taxes for decades now, so they support Trump because they envision $$ taken from the safety net and channeled into their already overstuffed pockets, as opposed to the voter deplorables (absent at CPAC, largely a Heritage Foundation elitist set) united by hate of minorities and of anybody getting anything not going to them. What truly unites these two disparate groups is their lip-service Christian identity, which constitutes my biggest problem with them - hate/exclusion of struggling refugees, and fetishization of self- interest as their dominant, maybe only, moral virtue, constitute the epitome of precisely that which the Sermon on the Mount preaches against; none of these people can call themselves real Christians. CPAC is now a union of the despicables and the deplorables, a sum of everything that's wrong with the American character.

   The economy and the environment are inextricably intertwined. Anyone who thinks they can advance the interests of either without addressing the concerns of the other is running a fool's errand.

   After reading a few things about presidential advisor Steve Bannon and some of his stated ideas, I think it is quite clear that Donald Trump wants to start a war with Islam. Of course, he will refer to it as 'militant Islamic terrorism', while he clearly thinks that the United States is a Christian country. These twin misconceptions (that the U.S. is a Judeo-Christian nation, and that Islam has a monopoly on terrorism) lead the hyper-militant Bannon and his trusty sycophant to the absolute belief that their aggressive stance toward dissent equates to the quashing of a mutinous rebellion against morality. If you're against them, you are against everything that is right and holy in the world.
   This inability to see two sides of an issue will provide the basis for Trump's downfall. There's no way that his approach to governing will work in the real world. In his business dealings (and probably his personal life as well), Trump has had to answer to no one. He can label every defeat as a victory, every setback as a gain, and every bankruptcy as a testament to his business acumen. Whoever disagrees gets fired.
   He doesn't seem to understand that his new position makes him a servant of the people. This is his first real job, and he moves from never having had a boss to having 350 million of them. It's an untenable situation. His impeachment is inevitable. If the Republicans manage to get Neil Gorsuch onto the Supreme Court, their next move will be to get rid of Trump. He will have served their purposes and we all know that they don't really like him at all.
   If, however, the Democrats manage to stall Gorsuch's appointment, things will get sticky and there will be some real unrest in the country. Either way, this is truly a pivotal point in our country's history. Gorsuch's appointment would leave a very bitter taste in the mouths of Democrats who saw Merrick Garland's nomination wither on the vine. The denial of Gorsuch would create a firestorm on the right, claiming that the will of the people had been denied. How do we avoid a boiling over of conflicting emotions among the general population?
   The thing to do is to amend the Constitution and hold an election for the Supreme Court. I don't see any other solution that would satisfy the general population. Of course there would still be some sore losers no matter what outcome may be reached. I would think that it would provide a chance for the country to let off some steam. Maybe for future vacancies in the court, the sitting president could nominate his choice and a Senate committee of the opposition party could nominate another candidate, in order to avoid the primaries of a general election.
   The Supreme Court vacancy supersedes all other political considerations of the moment. I expect Trump's presidency to implode without any outside assistance.

  Speaking of cheating on the blog instead of coming up with something original, I was also considering the notion of instinct and its current popularity in our country. The entire concept owes its value to nature and, in some respects, is an absolutely admirable trait. When a mother protects her young, when people strive to improve their lot in life, when people respond viscerally to an injustice, when heroes disregard their own welfare to save others- these are all wonderful examples of instinct bearing out its value in a socially important manner.

 But there is another side to instinct that is as ugly as ugly can get. When people automatically blame others for their own problems, when people denigrate others because of their differences, when people take advantage of others' weaknesses because it creates an advantage for themselves, when people cheat because they can get away with it- these are examples of our instincts' serving against our best interests. 

 Everyone is familiar with sports teams whose talent is not as great as their opponents, but whose teamwork enables them to defeat another team with greater talent. It is always thus- people working together will defeat those who glorify individual achievements over teamwork. I write this as a notice to those who think America can get away with isolating itself away from a global economy. We need our trading partners as much as they need us. It is in our best interests to help bring their quality of life up to our level instead of trying to treat them as inferiors. Otherwise, they will team up on us and we will lose. 

 Robert Frost speaks directly to the issue of instinct in his classic poem "The White-Tailed Hornet". He expresses wondrous admiration of the insect's innate ability to fly out of its burrow like a bullet "And stab me in the sneeze-nerve of a nostril". It's pretty generous of Mr. Frost to admire an animal after such an attack, but then he gathers some second thoughts about the event. Here is the final stanza of Robert Frost's

 "The White Tailed Hornet"

Won't this whole instinct matter bear revision?

Won't almost any theory bear revision?

To err is human, not to, animal.

Or so we pay the compliment to instinct,

Only too liberal of our compliment

That really takes away instead of gives.

Our worship, humor, conscientiousness

Went long since to the dogs under the table.

And served us right for having instituted

Downward comparisons. As long on earth

As our comparisons were stoutly upward

With gods and angels, we were men at least,

But little lower than the gods and angels.

But once comparisons were yielded downward,

Once we began to see our images

Reflected in the mud and even dust,

'Twas disillusion upon disillusion.

We were lost piecemeal to the animals,

Like people thrown out to delay the wolves.

Nothing but fallibility was left us,

And this day's work made even that seem doubtful.

The key idea is that projecting negative images of other people actually projects reflections of ourselves.

This post is a bit of a cheat, because it largely consists of a comment I wrote in connection with a NYT opinion piece, "The Non-Politics Of Disability"; the NYT designated it as one of its picks. I wanted to post it here before losing the ability to retrieve it. Here goes : 


" I am 60 years old, I have cerebral palsy, and I've practiced law for 34 years. In my opinion the Trump/mocking incident exemplifies how our society views disability : we are all acculturated to treating the disabled with generosity of spirit and seeing ourselves as committed to realizing the equality of disabled people, hence the loud condemnation of Trump's behavior; on the other hand, there is still yet an element of our biological makeup which causes us to, at some perhaps subconscious level, turn away from or even be repulsed by those of us who are visibly or otherwise more obviously less biologically suitable to society, hence the lack of any real consequences to Trump's behavior, indeed among many in the electorate a quiet acceptance or at least acquiescence. Just as in matters of race, our society has a long way to go before truly extending equality to all."  

Rereading it, I think another, more cogent way to state my position might be: Our animal instincts cause us to reject (visibly) handicapped people, even if only subconsciously, whereas we are culturally conditioned to overcome that revulsion. The result is that most people are helpful and kind, and only a minority (evidently including our President) allow their ancient animal instincts to control their reactions. 

It was quite surprising to me that so many Trump voters did not give dispositive weight to his behavior, his seeming inability to reign in his animal animus to the disabled reporter, or worse yet his unwillingness to do so. On the other hand, maybe they did. 

Everyone should go to the whitehouse.gov website, then to the We The People page that's there, and sign the Petition calling on Trump to release his tax returns. There's another Petition calling for divestment of his businesses as the proper remedy for violation of the Emoluments Clause of the U.S. Constitution.