Thoughts
I follow Amanda Nelson on Instagram and she said something recently that I have not been able to get out of my head, which is that the United States has been in a “cold” civil war for many years. I think it obvious that what we are experiencing today has been simmering for a long time, perhaps since the end of the Civil War. I also think this “cold” civil war became more organized when Republicans and Newt Gingrich took over the House because Gingrich initiated the switch of the purpose of Congress from governing to “us versus them” in which compromise is not allowed. Since 1995 the battle lines between factions of the powerful have been clearly drawn, with American citizens as pawns.
I just took a walk outside. According to Accuweather, it’s 5 degrees but the RealFeel is 17 degrees thanks to the sunshine and lack of wind. With the proper clothes on it’s actually pretty nice given the sunshine.
The Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution:
A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.
For years people have been ignoring the full text to the second amendment as if there is no consequence to ignoring its purpose. In my opinion overlooking the beginning of the amendment exposes originalists for who they are, hypocrites. I think we are seeing the consequences of neglecting the idea of “well regulated” in Minneapolis right now.
We watched Star Fleet Academy last night, which started slow in the first episode and got better in the second. Most likely because they have to build so much backstory. What I find amusing is that the show is set in San Francisco thousands of years in the future and the Golden Gate Bridge still stands in all its glory, and incredible feat of engineering if you ask me.
I wonder, is all the posturing about Greenland really about data centers for AI? What is the benefit of such a conquest to the wealthy class and how does Trump profit from it?
It is another bitterly cold day here, so much so that I really don’t want to go outside, which impedes my walking plan. I walk several times a day, primarily after eating, as a key tool for managing glucose. On days like today I take those walks on the treadmill, but that does not come with the benefits of being outdoors.
This morning I watched this interview of James Talarico by Ezra Klein, and it was interesting enough to me that I did not fast forward through it. I think the most valuable information came toward the end when James talked about working with a Republican colleague on legislation because it had two valuable lessons.
First, form relationships with people you disagree with, particularly such people with whom you have to work with. Relationships take time to find common bonds and love to the point at which even though you have disagreements the bond, the love, is more important.
Second is humility, which is a willingness to admit that you might be wrong and be willing to change your mind. I find this second point so important because it is literally foundational to the teaching of Jesus.
It is so easy to hate the other that you do not know and with whom you are not in relationship, and progress is not possible without being willing to be vulnerable to admit you are wrong and publicly learn that lesson.
I agree with James that the path from where we are today in the United States to something better is the path of Jesus, which is counter to the norm of civilization as it existed in the time of Jesus and prevails today. What the world tells us is normal is the idol of power and that the only path to peace is through power. Power, like all idols, is made equivalent to God.
The path of Jesus leads to the cross. It is the exact opposite of power, and instead of an idol his path of self-emptying takes us to what is real and that is love.
“Heritage Americans: ‘You’re less American than I am because my ancestors built this country.’ Also Heritage Americans: ‘Don’t blame me for slavery or segregation. I’m not responsible for what my ancestors did,’” – Avik Roy.
Source: https://intellectualoid.com/2026/01/16/friday-1-16-26/
I was taught to not be a hypocrite, the implication being such a person cannot be trusted because you don’t know their true values. My childhood friend once told me what he dislikes the most is hypocrisy. I think we all at one time or another are a hypocrite, but the real problem is not recognizing it as a problem enough to be embarrassed by. In fact, it seems as though most people today have so little self-awareness that they can’t be embarrassed.
In his essay today Om Malik shared this quote from psychologist Rollo May, observing 1950s America:
The opposite of courage in our society is not cowardice, it is conformity.
Malik says May diagnosed this when McCarthyism was literally hunting down anyone who thought differently. The subject of Malik’s post was technology platforms, but I think in reality the quote is most applicable to where we are in the United States today. Supremacy does not seek peaceful co-existence, which is the alleged premise of the founding of the U.S., but rather conformity and compliance to a hierachial world view of winners and losers.
Who Can Be Accountable?
I think most people trying to interpret Trumps actions in Venezuela are making a mistake of doing so through a lens of what is thought to be normal, or how or why things were done in the past.
The same formula seems to be repeated: “Trump claims the reason why he did this is because X but here is an instance of Y that is completely opposite of X.” The implication is, Trump’s claim cannot be true because it’s inconsistent. I think the real problem is paying any attention to any claim made by Trump.
Everything that Trump does appears to be in the moment, his actions are mostly emotional and whoever has access to him last greatly influences what he does. In my opinion the real root problem is that Trump believes he can do whatever he wants and doesn’t need to convince anyone, neither Congress, the Supreme Court, nor citizens, that what he is doing is good or right or just. Sure, he very much wants us all to like him, but in the end nothing matters, the only thing that matters to Trump is what is in his head at any given moment.
I think we need to spend much less time on Trump and much more time on his enablers. Why is all this happening? It’s happening because the Supreme Court ruled Trump is above the law and made him king and the majority in Congress is only there for the LOLs and not there do their job, and a wealthy class of people willing to pay and participate in tearing it all down for the sake of keeping what they imagine to be their wonderful life.
The response to every action Trump takes should be a push to remove any enabler and make them accountable. All this has to start with us not reacting to anything Trump does from what we think to be normal. Making claims that what he did is illegal does not matter because there is no accountability of him. Pointing out Trump’s hypocrisy does not matter. Nothing you can do or say about Trump matters. What does matter is how we view and consider those people who enable him now and work to replace them.
It's Not AI That I Fear
It’s people. I think there are similarities in how people make claims about guns in the United States and the claims about AI.
More often than not whenever you encounter a person who opposes any form of restrictions on access to or use of guns they tend to make the claim that “guns don’t kill people,” which is obviously true. Guns are inanimate objects, they don’t just on their own fire and kill. The real problem are the people who have access to guns and what they do with them. In reality, all gun regulation laws apply to people, what they can access, how qualified to use them, etc.
Most promoters of AI go to great lengths to try and persuade us that there is nothing to fear about AI. My response when I hear this is that I don’t fear AI, I fear the people behind AI and I fear the people who will use AI. My fear is driven by the reality that greed drives everything in the United States, if not the world.
Giving greedy people access to AI is equivalent to giving a person who has nothing but contempt for others or does not have hope or can’t control their emotions and wants to go out in a blaze of glory access to guns.
The lengths to which I see people in power in the United States are going to try and convince me there is nothing to fear about AI does nothing more than increase my skepticism and fear. You have not earned my trust and you cannot earn my trust until you demonstrate the maturity of self restraint.
On November 27, 1989 I boarded an airplane for the final destination of Plano Texas on the first day of my employment with Electronic Data Systems (EDS). Over those 36 years that I worked what was a subsidiary of General Motors became again a standalone company in 1996 only to be acquired by Hewlett Packard in 2008. In 2017, after a brief stint as part of Hewlett Packard Enterprise, I and what was left of EDS was merged with Computer Sciences Corporation to form DXC Technology. On December 1, 2025, on the 37 year mark of the first Friday of my employment with EDS I submitted my resignation for the purpose of retirement. I didn’t plan it this way but I am struck by the timing of this moment.
Talk about the current state of affairs needs to place the reason behind them on Republicans and not Trump. Our problems are really not because of one man but because of an entire party that allows if not embraces what is being done. Whenever there is a federal election the debate needs to be framed in the context of a clear difference of what is America between the parties. A person’s affiliation with the parties means that person stands for those things because they choose to run as a member of the party.
Every time I see a new “productivity app” announced I think to myself why? Humans are not robots. I want more art and less productivity. In mean time I just need to be able to record stuff and retrieve stuff from anywhere.
If you spend any time reading the Gospels and paying attention to Jesus you know that he spoke and taught about an alternative to how society functioned at that time. Jesus called that alternative the kingdom of God and his is a way to live as God dreams for us to live and not as we are lead to believe is the norm of civilization. The fact that Christianity is no different than what we see of civilization today ought to be scandalous. Jesus is not the founder of the Christianity you know, that was founded by a Roman Emperor.
I get that social networks force this type of publishing, but I don’t get why anyone really wants to do it. If you write more than a paragraph publish it on a web page then share a link.
BTW, I wrote this post using Drafts on my iPad Mini, which I still think is the best tool for sharing links on micro.blog. To create a link like the one above I first copy it to the clip board, select the text of it in my post and press the Link button above the keyboard. The correct markdown syntax and the URL are correctly placed.
I am reading “How the Ivy League Broke America” by David Brooks, published in The Atlantic (gifted link), and agreeing almost entirely with the points that Brooks is making.
Looking back, I know that my grandmother’s (who raised me) strongest desire for me was a college degree that lead to achieving “the American Dream.” Her desire was influenced by the meritocracy Brooks describes, even if the arc of her life started before the meritocracy view of the world was instituted.
So, I fit in the college educated category, except that my grandmother was not wealthy and my education was paid for mostly by Pell Grants and student loans. The grants sufficiently covered my credits, so I only needed a relatively small amount of loans for things like books.
I feel as though if I were born just ten years later I probably would not have the life I have today, because I probably would not have afforded that college degree or I would have been hugely in debt.
Like most of her generation, my grandmother wanted me to partake in the American Dream and she believed that would only happen if I had a college degree. She wasn’t wrong, but the problem is that if you can boil down the achievement of a better life to one thing it becomes very easy to put a dollar value on that thing and when that happens a barrier is created.
What Brooks describes in this article is a cultural problem that government itself cannot fix. Yet, government made up of people who see the problem can make government an enabler of a fix rather than a barrier. Does eliminating the Department of Education help or hinder? Honestly, I am not entirely sure.
I guess Nixon was right. Is what Trump did on January 6 an official act as POTUS? What is the definition of an official act? Anyone celebrating this decision ought to stop and realize the ruling applies to all presidents regardless of party. It applies equally to Obama and Trump. Still happy?
I wish that my RSS feed reader could filter out items behind a pay wall, or at least flag them in some way. It would also be nice if bloggers either didn’t link to stuff behind pay walls or at least indicate that a subscription is required. I think it is ironic how Dave frequently argues against the burden of pay walls and also frequently shares links to stories that are behind pay walls.
Currently reading: Naming the Powers by Walter Wink 📚
I think this is a good book (series of books actually) for those who desire to follow Jesus to read at this time. The quote below is just one example:
The Weather Underground correctly criticized the U.S. government for its barbaric violence in Vietnam and then mirrored the very barbarism it condemned by adopting violence as its means. Whenever we let the terms of struggle be dictated by the Power that we oppose, we are certain to become as evil. Nothing about this insight is new. It is written for anyone to read in Rev. 17:15-18. There the Beast on whom the Harlot (Roma) sits turns against her and shifts his allegiance to the ten enemy kings. These will hate the harlot and burn her up with fire. The Beast can shift loyalties precisely because he knows that the means employed to overthrow the Harlot will make the kings every bit as much the children of hell as she. (Emphasis added)
I assume that in the above Wink is referring to the Weather Underground as known as The Weathermen. The Weathermen emerged from the campus-based opposition to United States involvement in the Vietnam War and from the civil rights movement of the 1960s. Wikipedia