The fear of censorship is real

The internet "Wayback Machine".  It is an invaluable resource housed in a server farm in California, and is used by news outlets from both sides of the aisle to extract an objective truth of what was publicly available on the internet at any given time.  I have used it myself for more mundane issues, such as retrieving web pages for a defunct "Church of Elvis" site which has been down for about 15 years. And with the election of President to be Trump, they consider the prospect of government interference enough to announce that they will clone their entire server farm in Canada to preserve their essential data. 

I am not a fan of Trump, and I think worse things could happen than if a GOP congress were to impeach him, and let VP Pence take the reins of the executive branch of government.  But this is far from ideal.  As I write this, the Electoral College hasn't voted, and enough "faithless electors" could potentially change their allegiances to affect this election.  But I strongly doubt this will happen.  For the first time in my memory, we will see a president elected who openly claimed that the election was rigged - even after he won the election!

What does this mean to America?

Sometime in January, President Obama will hand over the reins of government to the new President Trump.  We will have a man in power who has no respect for legal precedent, no respect for the rights of citizens to protest the government, and has no respect for previously negotiated contracts.  His administration will be known for promises not kept, and conflicts of interest that will only serve to make this man and his family richer than they are now. It will also be known for the political extremists who joined his cabinet, as political payback to extremist groups who supported him during his campaign.  

Over time, I expect to see attacks on hard won labor rights and hard won civil rights.  Look at Trump's position on labor issues - he recently said that wages as a whole are too high. Yes, he has flip flopped on this issue several times in regard to the minimum wage.  But can we trust labor rights to a man who discriminates against American labor?  In addition, with a vice president who ignored the AIDS crisis and supported Gay Conversion Therapy, can we expect someone like that to protect the rights of this community?

Trump has said that he'd nominate a man like Antonin Scalia for the vacant Supreme Court seat.  And recently, he has said that he would take away American Citizenship AND put a person in jail for at least a year, if convicted of burning an American flag.  Can we say that he will respect any constitutional right when Scalia himself said that flag burning is a constitutionally protected right?

How do we deal with the potential threats of a Trump presidency?

In an op-ed piece in the New York Times, Luigi Zingales says that the Democratic party should work with Trump when he wants to do something that helps the party achieve some of its goals, and strongly oppose him when he goes the other way. The Democrats should resist having another Clinton dynasty come in the persona of Chelsea, but should grow new leaders from their ranks.  Opposition to Trump should be modeled on Italy's opposition to Silvio Berlusconi, as they were able to remove him from office using issues instead of personality hatred as their means of motivating the electorate.

The above only covers resistance at a macro level.  What about the little people who could get in Trump's way?  For me, I believe that if one could get a second passport, that one should do so now.  Money can slowly moved outside the country and invested elsewhere. This could be done legally, without records, if the amounts are small and the resulting foreign investments were not interest bearing. (I'll let my readers figure this out for themselves. There are legal issues involved in the movement of money across our border that I don't want to discuss here, lest I am charged with giving information on how to commit a financial crime.)  Ideally, one would have a skill that is in hot demand AND would make it possible for a quick exit to Canada. Americans with skills on this list will likely be welcomed North of our border. But what about the rest of us?  The New York Review of Books published Rules for Survival in an Autocracy. And they are:

• Rule #1: Believe the autocrat. He means what he says.
• Rule #2: Do not be taken in by small signs of normality. Consider the financial markets this week, which, having tanked overnight, rebounded following the Clinton and Obama speeches.
• Rule #3: Institutions will not save you. It took Putin a year to take over the Russian media and four years to dismantle its electoral system; the judiciary collapsed unnoticed.
• Rule #4: Be outraged. If you follow Rule #1 and believe what the autocrat-elect is saying, you will not be surprised.
• Rule #5: Don’t make compromises. Like Ted Cruz, who made the journey from calling Trump “utterly amoral” and a “pathological liar” to endorsing him in late September to praising his win as an “amazing victory for the American worker,” Republican politicians have fallen into line. Conservative pundits who broke ranks during the campaign will return to the fold.
• Rule #6: Remember the future. Nothing lasts forever. Donald Trump certainly will not, and Trumpism, to the extent that it is centered on Trump’s persona, will not either. 

I don't know exactly what will happen over the next few years.  But I do think these will be trying times, and it will be our duty to protect America from its own delusions of greatness.


 

Thoughts on a Supreme Court Justice

In fairness, I did not want to malign this man (whose opinions I usually disagreed with), but to note his importance to America.  Yet, I had to choose a picture whose tone best fit what people thought of the man - for better and worse. So I chose a monochrome image of Scalia, as he tended to see things in Black or White, and not with the conflicting nuances that many people live with.

- - - - - -

This justice was a devout Catholic, a person who took 6 day creation as real (from what I've heard - which may or may not be entirely accurate). His life and his court decisions were influenced by his lack of doubt about anything.  And this is where I fault the late justice.

One of the things I learned in Grad School was the idea of "Transformative Learning".  This process involved a person doubting one of his/her core beliefs, and developing a completely different world view after examining the facts and testing his/her beliefs.  From what I can tell, Scalia never had a transformative learning experience, as none of the reports I've recently read note that he had doubts about his beliefs.

Please note that I am not out to trash this man or his legacy.  I have much to criticize about his believe in "Originalism" - it lends itself to the same intellectual stagnation found in many ultra-orthodox followers of religious faiths.  They tend to argue over minor points, but never question whether the big answers provided to them are really indicative of a true right or wrong. Dogma is more important than what any law is supposed to provide for a society - a way to determine what is the right or wrong thing to do for the average person who has no time to learn all the details....

Why is this important?

As much as I dislike what Scalia stood for, I have to grant him credit for being consistent in the application of his core beliefs. But I fear having another person without doubt in any position of power. I'd have wanted for Truman to question whether dropping the A-Bomb on Hiroshima was the right thing to do, and then justify it to himself by the number of lives s shortened war would have saved.  Can we afford to have another dogmatic person on the Supreme Court?  I doubt it.

At the time I write this entry, the president hasn't nominated a successor to Scalia, nor has the Senate indicated any willingness to hold a vote on any nominated candidate. The GOP has signaled a desire to roll the dice and wait until the next president is in charge, where there will be a 50-50 possibility of the GOP putting in a radical judge.  However, Obama could make a recess appointment (which I find doubtful for the time remaining in the week of 2/15-2/21) of an extreme liberal - who would be on the court until the end of the term, and be a deciding vote in the more divisive of potential decisions.  Or, he could nominate a moderate, and let the GOP take the heat for not giving the person a quick vote. Either way, the public is now aware of how important the Supreme Court is to America.

Would we be better had Scalia lived?

The answer to this question depends on which political party you belong to, and what your core values are.  I want the court stacked with social moderates - people beholding to neither political party, and who will check and balance the extremes of our elected leadership.  Do I think this will happen? Maybe - if we're lucky....