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The Chicken Tax

Scene. It’s 1962. American farmers have cracked the code.

We can raise chickens cheap. Like, really cheap. Industrial-scale factory farms, efficient as hell. We start shipping frozen chickens to Europe by the boatload. German housewives love it. French families love it. Half the price of local chicken. Maybe even tastier!

European chicken farmers do not love it. They’re getting destroyed. So, France and West Germany do what countries do when their people scream loud enough. They slap tariffs on American chicken. Problem solved.

Lyndon B. Johnson is President. He’s not amused. You slap our chickens? We slap back!

In 1963, LBJ announced retaliatory tariffs. 25 percent on potato starch, dextrin, brandy. And … 25 percent on light trucks?

The first three make sense. Targeted. Tit for tat. But light trucks? That was aimed at one company: Volkswagen. Their vans and little pickups were selling like crazy in the States. Detroit hated it. Johnson just gave them what they wanted: A 25 percent wall against the competition.

Here’s the thing about the Chicken War. It ended fast. Europe backed down on chicken tariffs. Trade negotiations happened. The fight over poultry faded into the history books.

But the truck tariff? That one never came down. Sixty-two years later, it’s still the law of the land.

First, let’s clear something up. A tariff isn’t some clever penalty on foreign companies. It’s a tax on us. American importers pay it. Then they pass it along to businesses. Then businesses pass it along to you. At the dealership. At the grocery store. That’s what tariffs are. A tax on Americans buying foreign goods.

That 25 percent wall around light trucks was supposed to be temporary leverage, but it stuck. It became a hidden tax we’ve been paying for six decades.

And with foreign competition locked out, American trucks transformed. They got bigger. Heavier. More luxurious. Way more expensive. The Ford F-150 became the profit machine that drives Detroit. Not because it had to compete on price, but because it didn’t.

Roll back the tape for context. An early 1980s F-150 had a base MSRP under six thousand dollars, roughly nineteen to twenty-four thousand in today’s money, depending on the exact model year and adjustment method. Even after inflation, trucks have leapt to a very different price tier. Now, seventy grand for a well-equipped pickup.

Why would Ford lower prices when the moat was there? Why would GM? They wouldn’t. That’s not how business works.

What started as a spat over frozen chicken became the permanent business model for America’s most popular vehicle.

Harvard PhD Economist Milton Friedman would have loved the Chicken Tax story.

The social responsibility of a business isn’t charity. It isn’t fairness. It isn’t “doing good.” It’s one thing: increase profits. That’s it. Maximize shareholder value. The sacred duty of a business is to make money.

From that view, what Ford and GM did wasn’t shady. It wasn’t corruption. It was textbook. If consumers will pay $70,000 for a truck that costs half that to build, your duty is to keep charging $70,000. Dropping the price voluntarily isn’t noble. It’s malpractice. You’re throwing away profit that shareholders hired you to capture.

It might even be wrong for a business to reduce prices. Voluntarily reducing prices reduces profits. And their duty is to maximize profits.

Now, you can overturn a tariff in court. You can roll back a policy. You can refund the tax.

But you can’t un-ring the bell. You can’t un-teach the consumer what they’re willing to pay. You can’t force a company to charge less when charging more is their duty.

The Supreme Court might rule the tariffs unconstitutional. They probably should. The president doesn’t have the authority to enact sweeping tariffs. It’s about whether one man can impose the largest tax hike on the American people since 1993 without Congress.

But even if the Court strikes them down, even if importers get refunds, your grocery bill isn’t going back to 2024 prices. Your furniture costs aren’t dropping. The new floor is set.

That’s the lesson from the Chicken Tax. Tariffs might be temporary. But once prices go up, they don’t come down. The damage is permanent. It begs the question: What’s the purpose of these taxes?

Why Congress, and Not Kings

Why do we tax ourselves at all?

For most of human history, we didn’t. Early humans lived in bands of fifty, maybe a hundred. Small enough that everyone knew everyone. Cooperation was personal. You helped me hunt, I shared the meat. You watched my kids, I watched yours. No roads. No armies. No infrastructure. No need for taxes, because everything was face-to-face.

Then came agriculture. Cities. Suddenly, humans lived with thousands of strangers. Tens of thousands. Millions. Our brains didn’t evolve for that. We evolved to cooperate with people we know. People we see. People in our tribe.

How do you get a million strangers to cooperate? To build roads none of us would build alone? To fund armies that protect people we will never meet? To create systems like courts, schools, and infrastructure that benefit everyone but cost everyone?

We told stories. Stories big enough that strangers could believe them together. Nations. Laws. Religions. The story of money we all believe is that a one-hundred-dollar bill is worth more than the cotton paper it’s printed on, that invisible numbers on a piece of plastic are worth anything at all.

Taxation is one of those stories. The story says we’re not just strangers, we’re a people. Americans. Because we’re a people, we pool resources. We choose to tax ourselves, to build what none of us could build alone. Interstates, the power grid, the military, the internet.

And tariffs? They’re not some foreign penalty. They’re taxes on us. American importers pay them. Then businesses pass them down. And right now, Americans are paying hundreds of billions through these tariffs. By the time the Supreme Court rules, the total bill could top a trillion dollars.

When one person can tax us without consent, we no longer believe the story. We’re not citizens anymore. We’re subjects.

The American Founders knew this. They’d lived it. James Madison, the architect of the Constitution, said, “Give all power to the many, they will oppress the few. Give all power to the few, they will oppress the many.”

The British Crown taxed the colonies. The colonies had no representatives in Parliament. No voice. No vote. Just the bill. Taxation without representation.

So when the Founders wrote the Constitution, they made a choice. A radical choice for 1787. They gave the taxing power to the American people’s representatives: Congress. Not the President. Article I, Section 8 declares Congress has the power “to lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises.”

That’s the philosophy of taxation in a republic. We don’t tax because a king demands it. We tax because we agree, through representation, to build something together.

The Founders believed in something higher than the Crown. They believed in natural law. Rights granted by God, not kings. Life. Liberty. Property.

Benjamin Franklin proposed a motto for the Great Seal of the United States: “Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.”

That wasn’t a flourish. It was philosophy. If rights come from God or nature, no human has the authority to strip them away. So when a king taxes without consent, it isn’t just unfair, it’s illegitimate. Resisting isn’t rebellion. It’s duty.

So, our choice. Citizen or subject. Representation or tyranny. Republic or monarchy.

America owes allegiance to no king.

Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.

But the Matter Isn’t Settled…

Of course, Congress has delegated some authority to the President over trade. In 1977, they passed the International Emergency Economic Powers Act for times of genuine crises. Freeze terrorist assets. Sanction rogue nations. That kind of thing.

But hundreds of billions in new taxes on American importers, passed straight to American families because of trade deficits? Is that a threat to national security?

The courts didn’t buy it. Not one. The Court of International Trade ruled the move illegal. Another federal court agreed. Then the Court of Appeals, three judges, unanimous, said the same thing. All concluded the law was written for emergencies, not long-standing trade policy. Letting the President tax unilaterally would rewrite the Constitution.

Congress gave itself authority to tax in Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution for a reason. If Congress wanted to give the President authority to impose hundreds of billions in new taxes, they have to say so explicitly.

The Emergency Powers Act doesn’t do that. It authorizes responses to specific emergencies. Not permanent, sweeping taxation of the entire economy. Letting presidents declare trade deficits “emergencies” and impose massive tariffs would essentially rewrite the Constitution. It would transfer the taxing power from Congress to the executive branch. We don’t amend the Constitution through executive order and creative reading of a 1977 statute.

So the tariffs are illegal. Case closed, right?

Hold your horses, cowboy!

The administration appealed. The appeals court paused its own ruling. Meaning the tariffs remain in effect while the case goes up to the Supreme Court. The government keeps collecting the tax. You keep paying it. Even though three separate courts have ruled it’s unconstitutional.

The Supreme Court agreed to hear the case. Oral arguments are scheduled for November 5, 2025. We’ll have a decision probably by year’s end. Maybe early 2026.

In the meantime, the government keeps collecting. Importers keep paying. And we keep paying. By the time the Court rules, the total tab could top a trillion dollars.

If the Court strikes them down, the companies that paid the tariffs will get refunds. Ford. Walmart. Target. Amazon. Every business that imported goods and paid the tax. They’ll get their money back. But the consumer? We already paid.

And even if the Supreme Court strikes down the tariffs, our prices aren’t coming down. Businesses have a solemn duty to make profits. Once they’ve established that consumers will pay $70,000 for a truck, why would you drop it to $60,000 just because your costs went down? You’d be leaving money on the table. Shirking your duty to shareholders.

The market has already adjusted. The new price floor is set. Consumers have demonstrated they’ll pay it. So prices stay high.

The Supreme Court can rule on constitutionality, but it can’t undo the price increases. It can’t force companies to lower prices. It can’t give us back the purchasing power we’ve already lost.

Is It a Win or a Loss for America?

The Court will decide whether the President had the authority to impose these tariffs. The answer, based on every lower court ruling, is probably no.

If the Supreme Court strikes down the tariffs, it will reaffirm a principle that’s stood for 237 years. Congress controls taxation. The President isn’t a king. We govern ourselves through our representatives, not by executive decree.

That’s a win for the Republic. But it’s a hollow victory for our bank accounts.

Even if the Court rules correctly and the system works exactly as Madison designed it, our grocery bills stay high. The damage is done.

The constitutional principle survives. Our purchasing power doesn’t.

And here’s the thing: Tariffs don’t even solve the problem they claim to address.

China controls about 90% of the world’s rare earth element processing. These elements are critical minerals used in everything from F-35 fighter jets to smartphones. Last week, China expanded restrictions on rare earth exports, and the administration threatened 100% tariffs in response.

But raising taxes on Americans doesn’t get us rare earth elements. It just makes Americans poorer while China still controls the supply.

Want to solve the rare earth problem? Build partnerships with Denmark and Greenland, which hold substantial untapped reserves of rare earths and other critical minerals. Work with our NATO ally to develop Greenland’s mining capacity. Invest in domestic processing facilities. Create real alternatives to Chinese supply chains.

That takes diplomacy. Investment. Strategic partnerships. Long-term thinking.

Tariffs? That’s just taxing ourselves and calling it foreign policy.

So is it a win, or a loss, for America?

Jefferson already answered that question.

Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.

Not rebellion with rifles. Rebellion with accountability. Rebellion by demanding our representatives actually represent us. We fire the ones who let presidents tax us without a vote. We pick someone else, even if they are from the same party. We insist that we tax ourselves only by agreement of the people. Consent of the governed. Taxing power stays exactly where the Constitution put it: with Congress. With us.

The system Madison and others put in place is resilient. But only if we defend it.

America owes allegiance to no king.

Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.

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The Six-Hour Bomb: When Alexander Hamilton Almost Killed the Constitution

June 18, 1787. Philadelphia. The temperature in the Pennsylvania State House had already hit 85 degrees. Fifty-five men in wool coats and powdered wigs sat trapped in a room with the windows nailed shut and doors guarded for secrecy. The delegates chose privacy over performance so they could speak freely. They had been arguing openly for three weeks about how to build a government. Nothing was working.

Alexander Hamilton finally stood. Brilliant, abrasive, born a b*****d in the Caribbean. He’d watched the Continental Congress dither while soldiers froze at Valley Forge. He’d seen New York burn while thirteen states bickered over tax policy.

He had been quiet, boxed in by his own New York colleagues. Then he said the hard part out loud.

“I have well considered the subject,” he began, “and am convinced that no amendment of the confederation can answer the purpose of a good government, so long as state sovereignties do in any shape exist.”

In short, there could be no fix to the Articles of Confederation, the governing document that existed before the Constitution. Maybe it was the heat. Or frustration from the gridlock. But Hamilton was done with democracy’s inefficiency. State sovereignty would always gridlock national purpose. He rejected the proposals on the table from Virginia and New Jersey and aimed higher.

He spoke for six hours. All day. The room heard a full design for a national government.

What Hamilton wanted: A president elected for life. Absolute veto over all state laws. Power to appoint every governor of every state. Senators serving for life. A government that Madison judged to be suspiciously like the monarchy we had just defeated in a prolonged war.

Madison noted, “Give all power to the many, they will oppress the few. Give all power to the few, they will oppress the many.”

In the end, America would owe allegiance to no king.

Hamilton’s model pushed far past what most men in the room would accept. Delegates from Connecticut started whispering to each other. The Virginians exchanged glances. By hour three, some walked out. By hour five, even his allies from New York looked uncomfortable. Benjamin Franklin, 81 years old and sitting near the back, closed his eyes, unclear whether from boredom or horror.

No one took it up for a vote. The plan was never seriously considered. His audacity branded him a monarchist to some. The day after, the Convention went back to the real fight over representation. But something had shifted. The center of gravity slid toward Madison’s national vision because Hamilton had stretched the frame.

What happened next tells you how the room felt. Hamilton left Philadelphia on June 29. He drifted in and out. He returned briefly in mid-August and early September. Fleeting presence meant little influence.

In the end, Hamilton signed anyway. He was the only New Yorker who did. On signing day, he told the other delegates: sign it, even if it’s not perfect. The country needs this.

Then he went home and did something remarkable.

New York wouldn’t ratify the Constitution. The state legislature hated it. Too much federal power, they said. Too much risk of tyranny. So Hamilton spent seven months writing essays in New York newspapers under the pen name “Publius.” He wrote fifty-one of them. Madison and John Jay wrote the rest.

These became The Federalist Papers. The most important commentary on the Constitution ever written.

Hamilton’s task was to convince New Yorkers that a strong executive wasn’t a king. That energy in government didn’t mean tyranny. That the Constitution he’d argued against in private was actually the best hope for the republic.

He lost the room in Philadelphia. But he won the argument in the newspapers. New York ratified. Barely. By three votes.

Hamilton defended a Constitution that rejected his vision because he understood something crucial: a flawed republic beats no republic at all.

Read Madison’s notes closely, and you see he understood the logic of the six-hour speech, even though he disagreed. Hamilton believed human passion would wreck any loose confederacy. He feared both gridlocked democracy and entrenched kings. His cure was durability: long terms, firm vetoes, national supremacy over state mischief. He said the British constitution best united strength with security.

Now, the decisive matter. America’s founders did not fear a British king. They feared an American one. They feared what would happen when blind ambition gathered enough levers to bend the entire machine. They wrote a Constitution that mixes energy with friction so no single person or group could run away with the Republic. The secrecy and sealed windows were tools to make that compromise possible, not symbols of elitism.

Hamilton lost the day, but not the argument. His extreme plan made the moderate path possible. But ideas never really die. His left a permanent temptation on the table: trade our Republic’s checks and balances for speed, trade gridlock for efficiency, trade debate for decisiveness. The room said ‘no’ in 1787. That decision created the Republic of the United States of America.

Hamilton lost, but his argument never died.

It waits for every moment when efficiency and allegiance sound better than divided power. That moment is now.

The Shutdown’s Shadow. When the President’s Memo Becomes a Weapon

October 1, 2025. Midnight. The lights went out across Washington. The federal government shut down for the first time in six years. Congress couldn’t pass a budget, and now 2.1 million civilian employees brace for days without pay. National parks lock their gates. Passport offices close. Air traffic controllers work without paychecks. Food stamp checks bounce in rural counties.

This is the machinery of America, seized.

Gridlock isn’t the problem. We have no king. But this shutdown isn’t like others.

Back in Washington, Russell Vought, Project 2025 author and now head of the Office of Management and Budget, directed federal agencies to prepare “reduction in force” notices. To fire employees whose programs don’t match “the President’s priorities.”

Not illegal programs. Not wasteful ones. Programs the president doesn’t like.

It begs the question: Does the power of the purse still reside in Congress, or has it quietly migrated to the White House?

Hamilton wanted the president to veto laws. The room in 1787 said no. This week, we’re watching what happens when Congress gives up.

The shutdown impacts real people, but the crux of the matter is not the impacted programs. It’s not whether the EPA should exist or the CDC deserves its budget. It’s not even whether these firings save money or waste it.

The crux is Hamilton and Madison.

Hamilton wanted a king, or close enough. A president who could veto laws or Congressional policies they found distasteful. Not just unconstitutional laws. Not just illegal spending. Policies the executive simply disagreed with.

Madison said no. He built a system where Congressional power over spending was sacred. Where the president couldn’t just refuse to execute laws because he thought they were bad policy. Where gridlock wasn’t a bug. It was the entire point.

The question in 1787: What happens when the legislature passes something the executive hates? Does the executive get to ignore it? Does one person’s judgment override the people’s representatives?

The Convention answered: No. The president executes the laws. Congress controls the purse. If you don’t like what Congress funds, you veto the bill before it becomes law. Once it’s law, you follow it.

But what we’re watching now is Hamilton’s vision, 238 years late. A shutdown that becomes a veto. An executive using Congressional paralysis as permission to act. Not just managing the crisis. Reshaping government during it.

This isn’t about President Trump. It’s about whether America still believes what Madison wrote in 1787: that ambition must check ambition. That we must divide power to limit power. That even good policy imposed by one person is tyranny.

Hamilton lost that argument. But his idea never died. It keeps popping up, waiting for the right moment.

Nixon’s Impoundment Crisis: When a President Tried to Be His Own Congress

Richard Nixon looked at the federal budget in 1972 and saw waste. Not illegal spending, just programs he thought were stupid. He blamed the Democratic-led party for excess spending. Water treatment plants in Democratic districts. Rural development funds. Clean water grants.

Congress had passed these appropriations. Nixon had even signed some of the bills. But he decided: I’m just not going to spend this money.

He called it “impoundment.” What it meant: The president can refuse to spend money Congress allocated if he thinks it’s a bad idea.

By 1973, Nixon had impounded over eighteen billion dollars, about twenty percent of controllable federal spending. Clean Water Act funds. Highway construction. Housing assistance. Food stamps.

When Congress asked why, his answer was simple: These programs are wasteful. I’m protecting the economy.

Nixon’s position was that the president has inherent constitutional authority to refuse to spend money he deems unnecessary, regardless of what Congress wants.

Congress sued. The Supreme Court unanimously ruled against Nixon in Train v. City of New York. The law said money “shall be allotted,” not “may be” or “at the president’s discretion.” Shall meant shall.

The courts said clearly: The president cannot refuse to spend appropriated funds based on policy disagreement.

Congress passed the Impoundment Control Act of 1974. The law was simple: The president cannot permanently cancel spending that Congress appropriated. To rescind funds, the president had to ask Congress. Both chambers must approve within forty-five days. If they didn’t, the money must be spent.

The president can temporarily delay spending, but must notify Congress. Congress can force immediate release anytime.

The law was bipartisan. Senate Republicans joined Democrats. Because they understood: If a Republican can do this, so can the next Democrat. This guts Congress’s power permanently.

America need not fear a British king. We should fear an American one. The power of the purse is the power of the people. If we surrender it to the executive, we surrender the Republic itself.

Nixon resigned in August 1974. Every president since has operated under the Impoundment Control Act. They’ve all chafed against it. But they generally followed the process: propose rescissions, let Congress vote, spend the money if Congress says.

Until now. We’ve seen this before. Canceling foreign aid, withholding domestic spending, using shutdown authority to cut programs. It’s Nixon’s playbook.

The argument is similar. These programs are wasteful. The president has inherent authority to manage the executive branch. The Impoundment Control Act itself might be unconstitutional.

The question is the same question from 1787:

Does the president execute the laws Congress passes, or does the president decide which laws are worth executing?

Hamilton said the executive should have that discretion. Madison said no, that’s monarchy. Nixon tried to claim it. Congress and the courts said no.

Now we’re asking again.

Congress Built This Trap

Here’s the uncomfortable truth: Congress created this problem.

Not President Trump. Not Russell Vought. Congress did this by refusing to do their job.

The Constitution gives Congress one primary measure against executive overreach: the power of the purse. Article I, Section 9. Every dollar spent must be “in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law.” Congress decides what gets funded. The president executes those decisions.

For decades, Congress has punted. They pass continuing resolutions instead of budgets. They kick hard choices down the road. They let government lurch from crisis to crisis because making actual spending decisions requires something they can’t muster: consensus.

And when Congress won’t decide, someone else will.

When the legislature abdicates, the executive fills the space. Not because presidents are tyrants. Because someone has to keep the lights on.

Obama used executive orders when Congress wouldn’t act on immigration. Bush claimed war powers when Congress wouldn’t debate authorization. Every modern president pushes boundaries because Congress left the boundaries undefended.

Both sides have constitutional arguments.

Advocates for presidential power claim the Unitary Executive position. Article II vests “the executive Power” in the President. Executing laws includes discretion over how and when to spend. The president has inherent authority to decline spending he deems wasteful.

Advocates for congressional power claim the Congressional Supremacy position. Article I gives Congress the power of the purse. Appropriations are laws. The president’s duty is to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.” The Framers rejected a presidential line-item veto by design.

Both can cite Founders. Both can find judges who agree. This debate only happens because Congress stopped defending its own power.

The Framers created friction deliberately. Madison designed it that way. Ambition to check ambition. The government grinds to a halt when consensus breaks down because gridlock is the price of divided power.

Here’s the originalist paradox: If this executive power existed all along, why didn’t presidents use it for 184 years?

From Washington to Nixon, presidents generally spent what Congress appropriated. Not because they lacked ambition. But because they understood the constitutional bargain.

When Nixon broke that norm, both parties slapped him down. Republicans joined Democrats on the Impoundment Control Act because they understood: If Nixon can do this, so can the next Democrat.

That’s the test. Not “Do I trust this president?” but “Do I trust every future president?” We can’t complain about executive overreach if Congress won’t exercise legislative power.

Do We Trust Every Future President?

Hamilton wanted a king. The room said no. They built a system where Congress could check the executive through the power of the purse.

But that check only works if Congress pulls the lever.

Madison’s design assumed ambition would check ambition. That Congress would jealously guard its powers.

He didn’t account for a Congress that would rather avoid hard votes than defend its constitutional role.

What’s happening now looks like Hamilton’s vision. But Madison’s system didn’t fail. Congress is failing Madison’s system.

The Founders gave us the tools. Congress just refuses to use them.

So, again. Do we trust every future president?

May God bless the United States of America.

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October 17, 1933. New York Harbor

Albert Einstein stepped off a passenger ship at the Port of New York, carrying two suitcases and a violin case. He and his wife, Elsa, had fled Nazi Germany. His books were being burned. There was a bounty on his head: one million dollars. He had to flee. The Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, offered him refuge.

American universities, including Harvard, Princeton, and Yale, kept Jewish faculty to a minimum under quotas that lingered into the late 1940s. In 1933, Germany barred universities from employing Jewish instructors.

But Einstein’s unparalleled scientific reputation made him an exception. By 1940, he became a US citizen. A hunted mind found safety and gave its work to the country that offered it. His was the story of America’s ability to attract extraordinary talent in times of global crisis, benefiting both the individual and the country.

Then, a great war… (artillery shells in the distance)

Twelve years later, in September 1945, Wernher von Braun arrived at Fort Strong, Boston Harbor, under very different circumstances. He was a prisoner under military control, not a welcome guest.

Von Braun had been a key figure in Germany’s rocket program. He surrendered to the US Army in the Alps and denied Nazi allegiance. Through Operation Paperclip, the Army shifted his custody into contract work. In total, we brought over more than sixteen hundred German scientists in similar fashion.

America faced a critical shortage of expertise in rocketry, and the Germans were good at rockets. Operation Paperclip prioritized strategic advantage in a rapidly escalating Cold War. We acquired technical skills to compete with the Soviet Union. Yes, Von Braun’s past and role in Germany’s rocket program were controversial. But his expertise helped lay the foundation for America’s space program, including the Apollo missions.

Von Braun would lead teams that researched space programs and weapons technology. He later became the director of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.

Our stories highlight two faces of America’s approach to global talent. Einstein’s arrival was a humanitarian and intellectual triumph. We welcomed a persecuted genius. He enriched our scientific landscape.

Operation Paperclip, by contrast, was a shortcut. We imported expertise rather than developing it. We chose to prioritize providing for the national defence over the longer work of creating homegrown American rocket scientists.

It would not be the last time we brought in talent rather than build it here at home.

November 29, 1990. The White House

It was the day after Thanksgiving. President George HW Bush was about to sign what seemed like routine paperwork. The Immigration Act of 1990 sailed through Congress with bipartisan support. Democrats held strong majorities in both the House and Senate, but Republicans voted for it too. Senator Ted Kennedy shepherded it. Bush praised it as expanding basic entry rights beyond numbers.

Buried in technical language was a new tool. An H-1B visa for temporary workers in specialty occupations. A cap of 65,000. It felt generous for the handful of firms that might need niche skills. The press barely noticed the H-1B provision. Nobody understood we had just created a constitutional time bomb.

By 1998, the dot-com boom raged. Tech companies begged for more skilled workers in STEM fields. For the first time, we reached the 65,000 visa cap. Instead of asking why American universities weren’t producing the workers American companies desperately needed, Congress simply raised the cap.

Then, we raised the cap again to 115,000. Today, the nominal cap is 65,000 plus 20,000 for US advanced degrees, with exemptions and extensions that let total approvals exceed the cap. It’s the same pattern each time: Companies complain about shortages, and Congress increases the supply of foreign workers.

Nobody asked the hard question: Why can’t we train Americans to do these jobs?

Thirty-five years later, that same temporary program turned constitutional failure just got a $100,000 price tag. But the underlying problem, the broken infrastructure we need to develop human capability, remains untouched.

If this is a temporary measure we’ve already had for 35 years, let’s ask some easy questions. What conditions must we achieve to reach readiness? How will we know we achieved those conditions? How long is too long to keep the program? How much preference is too much? If the goal is a tech-ready American workforce, who decides when we should kill the program?

What Ted Kennedy and George Bush created in 1990 wasn’t an immigration program. It was an admission of constitutional failure. A Band-Aid slapped over a bleeding cut. Our inability to fulfill two of our founding promises: to promote the general welfare and establish justice.

Our constitutional goals often compete. We sometimes ignore one to prioritize another. But not in this case. In this case, we flat-out ignore two of them at the same time.

Call infrastructure what it is: the general welfare. If we expand H-1B, we admit we failed to build the system that produces capability. Justice is the fierce guardian of opportunity. We withhold that protection when we keep Americans born in even our poorest areas from the system.

We’re still overlooking our constitutional requirements today.

September 25, 2025. Capitol Hill

Senators Chuck Grassley and Dick Durbin, Republican and Democrat, sent identical letters to America’s biggest companies. Amazon. Apple. Microsoft. Google. JPMorgan Chase. The question was simple: Why are you hiring foreign workers while laying off tens of thousands of Americans?

The numbers told the story Congress refused to see for thirty-five years. Amazon alone got approval for more than 14,000 new H-1B hires in fiscal 2025, the most of any company, even as it announced layoffs affecting tens of thousands of American jobs. Microsoft, Meta, Google followed the same pattern: hire foreign, fire domestic.

The senators wrote to CEO Andy Jassy…“With all of the homegrown American talent relegated to the sidelines, we find it hard to believe that Amazon cannot find qualified American tech workers to fill these positions.”

The median H-1B salary hit $120,000 in 2024, nearly double what the average American worker earns. These aren’t low-skill jobs being outsourced. They are exactly the high-paying careers we promise American students they can achieve through education and training.

But here’s the constitutional violation hiding in plain sight: We built a system where companies find it easier to import talent than develop it. Amazon can process 14,000 foreign visa applications, but claims it can’t find qualified Americans.

We’ve abandoned the infrastructure that should create American capability and the general welfare in favor of global recruitment.

But there’s another question we have to ask. Is there justice for small businesses?

These big tech companies can absorb the new $100,000 fee and keep hiring foreign workers. Amazon processed 14,000 H-1B applications. What’s another $1.4 billion to them? Microsoft, Google, and Meta can simply pay the tax and move on.

But the startup in your town? The small software company trying to compete with Amazon? The local engineering firm bidding against Deloitte? They can’t afford a $100,000 visa fee. Because we haven’t built our necessary tech infrastructure, they get priced out of skilled talent entirely.

When we create a two-tiered system where only the biggest corporations can access global talent, we’re rigging the game against small business owners. The fee doesn’t solve America’s skills shortage. It hands Amazon an even bigger competitive advantage.

The Constitution promises to establish justice, not auction it off to the highest bidder. We didn’t fix the pipeline. We priced out the people who could.

Eighty years of shortcuts have brought us here. But the Constitution offers a different path.

In Case We’re not Picking Up on the Pattern…

In 1945, we imported German rocket scientists instead of training Americans. In the late 1990s, we imported H-1B tech workers instead of training Americans. In 2025, we raised H-1B fees instead of training Americans.

Rather than decisive efforts to fix our deficiency, we bring in skilled immigrant workers from nations that do a better job of achieving our goals than we have.

Each time, we chose the shortcut over the constitutional path. Each time, we treated symptoms instead of causes. Each time, we failed to ask the fundamental question: What would it take to make these visas unnecessary?

The answer isn’t complicated. It’s just hard. Lucky for us, America is a great nation with tremendous resources.

If we’re serious about reducing H-1B dependency, not just making it more expensive, we need to address the infrastructure failure that created the problem. Three specific steps would transform our approach from Band-Aid to cure:

First: Measure H-1B applications per capita.

Stop tracking how much money we spend on training programs and start measuring whether they work. H-1B applications are a direct measure of American workforce readiness. When applications drop, we’re succeeding. When they rise, we’re failing. Make this the primary metric for evaluating our education and training infrastructure.

Second: Require H-1B companies to participate in local training.

Any company filing H-1B applications must demonstrate active participation in developing American talent. Partner with community colleges. Host career days. Present real-world challenges to students. No participation, no visa applications. This aligns private profit with public need. Exactly what the Constitution requires.

Third: Eliminate student loan interest for low-income students.

The government isn’t a for-profit institution. The nation benefits when its citizens improve their capabilities. Charging interest on federal student loans for low-income students creates a barrier to the technical education we need. Genius hides in poverty. Remove that barrier.

These aren’t radical proposals. They’re constitutional obligations we’ve ignored for thirty-five years while wondering why we still need temporary foreign workers to fill permanent American needs.

The question isn’t whether we can afford to invest in American capability. The question is whether we can afford not to.

So…Why Do We Still Need Temporary Workers After 35 Years?

Einstein’s arrival was a triumph, for him and for America. Von Braun’s expertise launched our space program. Both stories show immigration enriching our nation. But neither shows us building the infrastructure that creates American capability.

The H-1B program continues this pattern. It fills immediate needs but doesn’t address the underlying question: Why can’t we systematically develop the talent we keep importing?

It doesn’t promote the general welfare, because we’re not building American capability. Nor does it establish justice, because it ignores homegrown American tech workers and prices small businesses out of competition.

Let’s come back to our questions. Again, H-1Bs are a temporary measure we’ve already had for 35 years.

What conditions must we achieve to reach national tech readiness? How will we know we achieved those conditions?

How long is too long to keep the program? How much preference to corporations is too much?

If the goal is a tech-ready American workforce, who decides when we should kill the program?

These aren’t rhetorical questions. They’re real questions that demand specific answers from policymakers. They’re the questions Congress should have been asking since 1998. They expose that we’ve never planned to end H-1B dependency.

So, instead of building infrastructure that lets every American kid lead the world in tech innovation, we’re still asking the same question we’ve avoided for thirty-five years…

Why do we still need temporary workers after all these years?

The constitutional violation is the infrastructure neglect, not the immigration. Immigration works when America offers opportunity. We should build the infrastructure that offers that opportunity to Americans, too.

May God bless the United States of America.

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On September 10th, a gunman killed Charlie Kirk in Utah. The event reminds us that no one should die over speech, and that we must wrestle with big questions calmly. You don’t have to love him or hate him. At times, his message resonated with many across America. At times, it divided us. If we say we disagree with his points, we should be able to make the case. If we can’t, his spears carry weight.

One of his sharpest questions was this: Does the Civil Rights Act of 1964 violate the Constitution?

Let’s sit with that for a moment. If your first thought is, “That law ended Jim Crow. How could it be wrong?” you’re not alone. We wrote the law to strike down a national disgrace. To end segregation. To stop the humiliation of being turned away from a lunch counter, of being told you couldn’t buy a home in a certain neighborhood, of being trapped in second-class status.

We intended the Civil Rights Act to end those humiliations. To tear down the walls of segregation. To give every American a fair shot.

In that moment, justice demanded action.

But justice isn’t just a word. It’s a goal that shapes real lives. It’s the chance for a kid who grows up in a leaky trailer or in project housing to work, to save, and to buy a house in a neighborhood where their children have a good school and a fair shot. From a word on a page to life on the ground.

According to the Constitution’s chief authors, justice may be the most important of the six national goals that bind our Republic.

But justice isn’t a handout program. Justice is the chance to earn your place. It’s not a promise of results. Because the goals in our preamble, meaning union, liberty, welfare, defence, order, and justice, sometimes compete or clash, we must hold them in balance.

In the end, our goal isn’t to win an argument. It’s to get better, together, at pursuing the ideals that bind us.

So here’s the question: in the balance between Union, Liberty, and Justice, does the Civil Rights Act of 1964 violate the Constitution?

Act One. A Plate of Segregation

In the mid-1960s, Maurice Bessinger’s Piggie Park barbecue ran popular drive-ins and a sit-down sandwich shop around Columbia, South Carolina. The chain routinely denied Black customers full and equal service. Those who were served had to take food at kitchen windows and were not allowed to eat on the premises.

After Congress approved the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Title II barred restaurants and other public accommodations from excluding people by race. President Lyndon B. Johnson signed it on July 2, 1964, in a nationally televised ceremony attended by lawmakers and civil-rights leaders, among them Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Had equality arrived?

Not everywhere. Piggie Park didn’t change. On July 3, Anne Newman, a mother and minister’s wife, wanted a sandwich. Instead, she got a full plate of rejection. She and her friends went to Piggie Park for lunch. The waitress came out, saw she and her friends were Black, and turned back inside without taking the order.

They went back a month later and were again refused service.

The moment sparked a fight for justice. Newman, Sharon Neal, and John Mungin filed a class action suit seeking an injunction to stop the discrimination at the restaurants.

This wasn’t a casual “we can agree to disagree” dispute. Bessinger stocked his restaurants with booklets defending racial separation. You could pick up this reading with your barbecue. It drew on the Genesis 11 story of the Tower of Babel to argue that God scattered the nations and meant them to remain separate. Integration, he preached, defied divine order. Some pamphlets even claimed biblical warrant for slavery.

At first, the courts split. They wrestled with how far the law reached. The district court agreed that there had been discrimination. They also ruled that drive-ins, where most food was takeout, didn’t have to follow the law. The Fourth Circuit disagreed, saying all Piggie Park locations were public accommodations.

Newman v. Piggie Park went to the Supreme Court in 1968. The high court sided with Newman and made it plain: religion is no excuse for segregation in a public restaurant. The justices called Piggie Park’s claim “patently frivolous.”

Piggie Park wasn’t about handouts or special favors. It was about human dignity. The right to walk into a public restaurant and be served like anyone else. Believe what you want. But if you open your doors to the public, you serve the public.

So…did the Civil Rights Act of 1964 violate the Constitution in Columbia, South Carolina?

Did the decision rob Maurice Bessinger of his religious liberty? He was still free to believe, worship, preach, and pass out booklets. What he couldn’t do after choosing to run a public restaurant was use those beliefs to keep people out.

And he didn’t stop speaking his mind. Before he died, he deeded a tiny patch of ground under the flagpole to the Sons of Confederate Veterans for five dollars so that future owners couldn’t take the Confederate flag down.

But the issue isn’t cut and dry. The stories don’t stop in South Carolina.

Act Two. A Seat With Conditions

In the late 1960s, the University of California, Davis School of Medicine faced a stark reality: its classes had almost no Black, Latino, or Native American students. Justice is the opportunity to earn a place, but what does opportunity mean when the doorway to a profession has been locked for decades?

UC Davis tried a fix: Out of 100 seats each year, they reserved 16 for “disadvantaged” applicants. UC Davis judged those applications by a separate committee, with different standards, and the underrepresented minority applicants competed only for those 16 seats.

Enter Allan Bakke. A Marine Corps veteran and engineer in his early 30s, Bakke had set his sights on medicine. He’d spent years preparing, earning strong grades and MCAT scores. He applied to UC Davis in 1973 and 1974, along with a dozen other medical schools, and he was rejected by all of them. Later, he discovered that some minority applicants admitted through the special program had lower scores.

He believed the school had shut him out because he was white. In reality, records later showed that competition was stiff; as many as 67 applicants had higher scores than his.

Nonetheless, Bakke sued. He argued that a publicly-funded state school couldn’t deny him a seat and still honor the commitment to prohibit race discrimination in federally funded programs.

Regents of the University of California v. Bakke reached the Supreme Court in 1978. The ruling was messy. Quotas, like the 16 reserved seats, were unconstitutional. They could not exclude Bakke based on race. The court ordered him admitted.

But the Court, led by Justice Lewis Powell, also said diversity in education is a compelling goal. Race could be one factor in a holistic review, as long as every applicant competes in the same pool, with no guaranteed quotas.

So…Did the enforcement of the Civil Rights Act violate the Constitution? Did it violate Bakke’s right to justice?

UC Davis had its opinion of justice. It argued that set-aside wasn’t favoritism. It was a correction for a pipeline bent by decades of exclusion. A diverse medical class would better serve California’s diverse communities.

If you were Bakke, would you see justice denied?

If you were a minority applicant, would you see the set-aside necessary to level a field tilted by history?

The Court decided justice meant the opportunity to compete equally, but not a scripted outcome. There could be no reserved seats, no separate tracks. But a school could consider race as one thread in a larger fabric, if every candidate competed equally.

Bakke went on to have a successful career as a doctor in Minnesota.

But the issue still isn’t settled. Let’s move on to Louisiana.

Act Three. From the Classroom to the Shop Floor

In 1965, President Johnson signed Executive Order 11246. In it, Johnson outlined that if a business wanted to compete for federal contracts, it had to follow the rules. If you wanted to do business with the federal government, you had to take “affirmative action” to ensure equal opportunity. This meant companies had to create goals and timetables to hire underrepresented groups. The government insisted these were not quotas. They were temporary tools, intended to pry open doors rusted shut for generations.

At the time, Kaiser Aluminum in Gramercy, Louisiana, filled skilled jobs almost entirely with white workers, and it intended to change. They made a goal that their workforce would represent the local labor force. The company and the union built a training pipeline and reserved half of the slots for Black workers to correct the imbalance.

A white worker named Brian Weber was passed over for promotion in favor of workers with less seniority. He saw a new door being closed in the name of opening another, so he sued. The local court and the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit agreed that Weber was a target of discrimination, but the matter was not settled. Kaiser appealed.

In 1979, the Supreme Court decided United Steelworkers v. Weber. Kaiser Aluminum’s plan survived. The high court said a business could give preferential treatment to minority groups, as long as the company intended the effort to be a temporary fix to balance workforce diversity.

In 1987, Johnson v. Transportation Agency approved a similar approach for gender. A business could choose to hire a woman in a male-dominated job if she and a man were comparably qualified for a promotion, if the plan was modest and temporary.

The tension between the classroom and the shop floor became plain. The high court killed fixed quotas in college. But numbers could steer workplace decisions if businesses called them goals, kept them temporary, and technically kept the door to all applicants open.

On the ground, these goals felt like quotas. If a business chose a woman or minority applicant for a job or a promotion, some believed they were a token hire, not the top choice. If even the rules were fair, the optics were not.

Ricci v. DeStefano drew a bright line in 2009. New Haven, Connecticut, gave firefighters a vetted, job-related promotion exam. One of them, Frank Ricci, was dyslexic. He paid to have the textbooks read onto audiotape. He studied eight to thirteen hours a day. He earned his spot at the top of the list. In total, nineteen of the top candidates were eligible for immediate promotion. 17 were White, two Hispanic. No Black candidates scored well enough for promotion. Fearing a lawsuit, the city threw out the test results.

Ricci sued. In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court found that a city couldn’t discard a valid, job-related test because it didn’t like the racial outcome. Merit, tied to the job, had to matter.

Fast-forward to January 21, 2025. President Donald Trump signed Executive Order 14173, revoking President Johnson’s Executive Order 11246. The new executive order barred workforce balancing and preferential hiring. It outlined that federal agencies would enforce civil rights laws without identity-based preferences.

Some call Trump’s executive order a return to racism. Others point out that official policy and case law framed federal goals as non-quota, remedial tools. Temporary in purpose and bounded by merit and non-discrimination.

So…Did the enforcement of the Civil Rights Act violate the Constitution? Did it violate Brian Weber’s right to justice? What about the firefighters in Connecticut?

Some would rightly point out that we have not achieved equal representation in the workforce. Others would ask: If the federal government intended numerical goals as temporary, who would decide to eliminate them, and when?

Act Four. The Permanent Question

But hold on. The play on our stage so far today moves from clear, undeniable injustice to increasingly problematic bureaucratic overreach. One endpoint whispers this bureaucratic mission creep has become a cure worse than the disease. That government enforcement created to stop obvious discrimination became a mechanism for institutionalized reverse discrimination.

Before we close the book on this constitutional drama, we need to wrestle with the hardest question of all: What if we didn’t open the door?

Take Cheryl Hopwood, a white mother from San Antonio who sued the University of Texas Law School in 1992. Like Allan Bakke, she argued that racial preferences had cost her a seat. The Fifth Circuit agreed in Hopwood v. Texas and struck down the school’s affirmative action program. Texas celebrated a return to “pure merit.”

But how did Texas measure merit? The LSAT is the test students take to get into law school. The scores correlate with first-year law school grades. But the scores also correlate with family wealth, parents’ education, and zip code quality. When Texas stopped considering race, Black and Latino enrollment plummeted. In 1996, exactly five Black students enrolled in a class of 500.

Was that justice?

Texas panicked.

Rather than accept that merit-based admissions had produced an unwanted outcome, the university created a workaround. UT quietly began weighing “socioeconomic factors.” Were they first-generation college students? Did they come from underrepresented communities? Had they overcome economic hardship?

Admissions officers still tracked racial numbers. They still worried when minority enrollment dropped. They just found new ways to achieve the same results without using the forbidden language of race.

Was the new approach race-neutral? Or was it just more sophisticated racial engineering?

The constitutional question gets thornier when we think more about what “temporary” means. In 1978, Justice Powell allowed race as one factor in holistic admissions. 25 years later, in 2003, Justice O’Connor warned we would be ready to stop considering race in no more than 25 more years.

Here we are, on the cusp of the expiration of those 25 years.

And we have many unanswered questions. What conditions must we achieve to reach equality? How will we know we achieved those conditions? How long is too long? How much preference is too much? If the goal is a level playing field, who decides when we’ve reached it?

Act Five. Dignity and the Doorway

So, where does this play in five acts leave us?

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 opened doors that should never have been closed. For Anne Newman, it was the glass door of a sandwich shop in the South Carolina heat. For Allan Bakke and Cheryl Hopwood, the door to an admissions office.

The law didn’t give them a sandwich or a degree. It gave them the dignity to participate. The right to compete. The right to be judged on their own terms.

But what began as a tool to unlock a door became, for some, a bureaucratic machine rearranging the room.

On the one hand, the foundation of the Civil Rights Act is that all people are equal in dignity and rights. If that is true, no disadvantaged group needs permanent quotas. Promoting a system of quotas only strips the dignity from minority groups. It ensures that every magnificently qualified woman or Black man is seen as promoted because of the need to fill a quota and not based on their merit.

Think of a female pilot in the cockpit of a 747. She is there because of her immense skill, courage, and dedication. But a system of preferences allows a passenger to whisper, “She’s probably only there to fill a quota.”

We can call that passenger a bigot. And he is. But the system feeds his bigotry.

On the other hand, dignity cuts both ways. A female pilot hears whispers about quotas, whether affirmative action exists or not. But if she did receive preferential treatment because of her gender, the injustice becomes undeniable.

The system validates the prejudice it claims to fight.

We cannot reject our commitment to civil rights. We must always celebrate the moral courage of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. He spent Easter Sunday, 1963, in a Birmingham, Alabama jail cell, after urging for equality and peaceful protest. He denounced us for being “more devoted to order than to justice … (preferring) a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice.”

We passed the Civil Rights Act so people wouldn’t have to throw their dignity under the train to join public life. But we must also remember Dr. King’s central vision: a nation in which his children would be judged not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

Merit and character are not the enemies of equality; they are its ultimate destination.

In the balance of our six national goals, justice is the bedrock. It is our most important national goal. But justice is not a guaranteed outcome. It is not a handout. It is the fierce, unwavering protection of opportunity. It’s the promise made to the boy I was, stacking hay in stuffy Missouri barn lofts: that a kid from a leaky trailer or project housing can, through grit and talent, earn a place at any table in the country.

This leaves us with the sharpest question of all.

Does the Civil Rights Act of 1964 violate the Constitution?

May God bless the United States of America.

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Joel Douglas (00:03) My guest today is Shaka Mitchell, a senior fellow for the American Federation for Children, a Nashville-based attorney, a Belmont adjunct teaching constitutional law, and a leader dedicated to transforming education for underserved families. He’s a featured guest on TEDx Nashville and podcasts like The Learning Curve and Charterfolk. The charter schools Shaka has worked with drive real growth for Nashville’s underserved kids, often doubling district test scores in math and reading. While high-poverty public schools rank in Tennessee’s bottom 30%, Shaka’s schools rank in the top 20% to 25% serving the same communities. Shaka, thanks for being here. Your work with high-performing charters raises big questions about how we fund and deliver education. So, I feel like we have to ask a basic question to get started.

Shaka Mitchell (00:49) Hey, thanks for having me.

Joel Douglas (01:02) Should we fund education at all?

Shaka Mitchell (01:05) Yeah, good question. Well, thanks for having me, Joel, and you’re starting out with a big swing right out of the gate. Should we fund education? I would say yes. I would say yes.

And I want to also give the early disclaimer that I am not a big-government guy. I tend to be pretty skeptical of government. I used to work at one point at a constitutional law firm that came from a libertarian perspective. I really believe in individual liberty, individual rights, and also just an individual’s work ethic. So I am not a big-government guy. That being said, when we’re talking about education, it’s something that I think has a community impact. It’s also something that, from a rule of law perspective, is provided for by every state constitution in the country.

Right? So all 50 states have a constitution that says something about education—that education is valued, that it is highly prized, and that the state is going to do something to fund some system of education for the public. Now, whether or not the government has to provide the actual services, I think we can differ about. That’s where I would say no. But in terms of funding, I would say yes because, listen, if we don’t do it, you can’t just fund your own children. I don’t believe that. I think that looking out for one another’s kids in that regard is a societal benefit.

Joel Douglas (02:47) And really, that’s why I feel like we have to answer this question first. It’s what you just alluded to: you have to fund your kids and everybody else’s kids. If you look at it from a constitutional perspective, I would think about it as, well, we have six national goals, and if one of those is justice, one is liberty, and one is defense, then education fits into a lot of those buckets.

If you think about it from a justice perspective, it kind of gets to an individual—like we need to fund education to help individuals who grew up in a less prosperous or less advantaged background succeed. If you think about it from a defense standpoint, you might think, like the school lunch program was started from a defense requirement standpoint. So if we think about education from a defense standpoint, then that’s kind of a collective; we need to have an infrastructure of training-ready Americans who can go and join the military and serve in defense industries to protect the people of the United States.

But it’s both, right? You can’t just do it from a justice standpoint—that’s not the only reason you do it—but you also don’t only do it for the collective benefit. It goes back to exactly what you said about how we have to pay for each other’s kids, too, because some of them might join the military and also because constitutionally, we have a commitment to the justice of those kids that grow up in a less prosperous environment.

Shaka Mitchell (04:25) Yeah, I think that’s right. And, you know, education is one of these things that, as opposed to, maybe other, say, commodities—things that we buy from the store. The education that I get for myself, yes, it’s important to me personally and individually, but if I’m better educated, that’s going to benefit the community that I’m a part of. It’s going to benefit the private company that I might work for or the nonprofit. It’s gonna benefit the military if I’m a part of the service, right? It’s gonna benefit my neighbors.

So education is not one of these things that’s like going to the grocery store and you buy the kind of breakfast cereal that only you like. You’re the only one in your house that likes it and you say, “Forget about everybody else, I’m eating whatever, Fruity Pebbles. I don’t care if nobody else likes it.” No, education is not that kind of good. It’s the sort of thing that actually has so much benefit.

And I mean, you highlight something really important, too, that I took a look at a little bit this summer and might just write about later. And that is that the armed forces right now are going through the lowest recruitment cycle in history, right? Our military is having such a hard time finding academically and physically ready young men and women, and that becomes a defense problem. So that speaks a little bit to this “education as a national defense” and national security issue as well. There’s a lot of overlap there.

Joel Douglas (06:06) Absolutely, and I don’t want to take too much time on it, but just from a physical education standpoint, PE. When I was a kid, and I grew up in a small town in northern Missouri, the high school football coach was the PE teacher. He used it as the football training program so that we essentially had an extra hour to do stuff. So, Monday, Wednesday, Friday, we'd lift weights. Tuesday, Thursday, we played some sort of sport, so we were running, chasing each other, doing field hockey, or whatever that was.

But my kids today, because I have two teenagers, they don’t do the same kind of stuff in PE. For half of the year, they sit in a health class. And rather than go run for 45 minutes and then have 45 minutes of health class—I don’t want to digress too much—but if they ran for an hour every day, would the military benefit from them being more fit and having a higher pool of candidates who could join after they graduate? Absolutely.

Shaka Mitchell (07:14) Yeah. I’m a big believer in physical education and just the benefits of physical activity in general. I really think that it’s something that, frankly, kind of links together with education in this sort of virtuous cycle. Right? I mean, I think for a lot of kids, and even personally, when I feel better physically because I’ve exercised, I think I’m more mentally sharp and focused and ready for the workday. And I think that’s the same for elementary, middle, and high school kids, too.

Joel Douglas (07:52) Yeah, that’s right. But I’ll get back on track. You said something about how the government doesn’t necessarily outline how to achieve education. So it says what to do. Well, it doesn’t even say that. It says the goals are justice, liberty, defense, and the other three. So you alluded to there being different ways to achieve those. And I know you work with a lot of those, and that’s the work that you do. So, can you talk about that?

Shaka Mitchell (08:24) Yeah, so, you know, a lot of state constitutions—most state constitutions—are really broad, even vague, when they talk about education. They’ll say something like, "The state of [fill in the blank] will provide for an equitable education system." You go, okay, what does that mean exactly? Right? Does that mean we're talking about dollars? Equitable that way? Are we talking about kids who are gonna exit the system with the exact same amount of coursework? It’s so vague nobody really knows. It’s just kind of one of these adjectives that they threw in there, and it sounded good. And then you fast forward just a few years, and you don’t really know what it means.

So one of the problems, of course, in any state is that on the one hand, it’s really efficient, or it seems like it’s going to be efficient, to have one system that you have in place for all the kids to participate in. That seems like it would work on paper; it seems efficient. But then what happens is, as soon as you meet more than one child, you realize that they are different, and you realize that the same system isn’t likely to work for a whole range of students. And that’s within one school, let alone a whole district, state, or country, right?

I live in Nashville, Tennessee, and we’ve got about a hundred thousand school-aged kids. There’s no way one system with one school board of nine people is going to be able to figure out a system that works for every single child because they have different interests. Even in my own house—and I bet this is the same for you and your kids—same parents, but my kids are interested in different things. One is better at math. One is much more interested in the arts. One is much more interested in reading, nose in a book, right? They’re just interested in different things. They’re going to learn in different ways. And that’s in one family. You multiply that out across the whole city, and you've got to do something different. And so that’s really, I think, why I believe so much in school choice.

The idea is that, yes, we’re going to fund education from a central pot. Because again, let’s collect the money that way, easy peasy. But let’s not assume that those nine people on the school board can come up with one system that works for everybody. Let’s let different models work. So if it’s a charter school that’s got a focus on science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM), cool. Do that. In my city, there’s another charter school that’s really focused on students for whom English is not their first language. Okay, great. Let’s do that because that was something that the district was really struggling with. Or maybe it’s a values-based decision that a family wants to make. You really want your kids to go to a faith-based school. Okay, cool. I think that that’s your right to do. So let’s figure out how to make it work for families and make it more of a partnership rather than this top-down, command-and-control model where you say, "Alright, here’s the one thing that we say you get to have, and if it doesn’t work, too bad. See you in 12 or 13 years." Like, that doesn’t work.

Joel Douglas (12:07) Yeah, and I don’t know if you’ve read the book The End of Average, but it’s a great book. It breaks down that if we average all everybody’s traits, thinking that whatever we produce to make the average will work for most people...

Shaka Mitchell (12:13) Yeah, yeah, I love it.

Joel Douglas (12:28) ...what in fact happens is we average everybody, and it doesn’t fit anybody because nobody is average. And so if you make a pair of pants that fit the average person, then they fit no one. And so that goes to school performance also, because some kids may not necessarily be low performers, but they may need extra time. The book talks about how they may need extra time in a particular core group of academics. And then later, when other kids who performed higher in that block are ahead of them, they might be bogged down by something else that they need to slow down for. But this kid who took more time in block two, as an example, can now speed through block three, and then they’re caught up in block four as compared to the kids who sped through block two, took more time at block three, and now they’re all in the same place in block four.

And I feel like that is a very tough governance problem to have because our public schools today are designed to make everybody fit through the funnel at the same time, and students just don’t do a great job doing that. How would a charter school, or—I’m getting into what you do specifically—but how could other schools kind of solve that problem?

Shaka Mitchell (14:02) Yeah, I think it’s the right question in that we have to be thinking about how we make this work for the end user: the students. So part of that is making sure we’re framing the question in that way. What I see happen too often in school districts is that we say, "Hey, how do we make this easier on the adults?" rather than, "How do we make it work better for the kids?"

Joel Douglas (14:30) Do you mean the parents or the teachers, or both?

Shaka Mitchell (14:32) No, I think we often ask how do we make it easier—sometimes it’s not even for the teachers—it’s how do we make it easier for the central office administrators to track, or how do we make it easier for folks at a state department of education to check the boxes? And so I think a lot of teachers would tell you they spend too much time checking the boxes rather than doing the things that their training would indicate they are uniquely qualified to do. And those are the things that really motivate them, which is, "Okay, how am I going to unlock learning for these specific students?"

That’s what we want teachers focused on, rather than checking the boxes to say, "Okay, well, did my kids have this much seat time this week or this year?" Right? I mean, that’s not—seat time doesn’t mean much. There’s a whole lot of ways to sit in a seat and not be productive.

So I think some things that schools can do—district schools, public schools, private schools, charter, it doesn’t really matter—is to really be student-centric. And then I would also say to not be afraid of innovation. And that’s something that happens in a lot of districts. They say, "Why are you doing it this way?" And the answer is, "Well, we’re doing it this way either to check the box for compliance reasons, or we’re doing it this way because we haven’t looked up and looked around to see what else is even working." And that’s a really unfortunate dynamic if it exists, right? We want to have a place where our schools are innovative and are taking best practices from other industries even and saying, "Alright, what can we do? What’s working at a school across the state? Can it work over here?" rather than just doing things the same old way. Unfortunately, I think that our incentive system is not set up well to foster innovation; it sort of does the opposite. It encourages schools to sometimes just keep doing the same old, same old, and that doesn’t benefit students.

Joel Douglas (16:55) There are at least three challenges, though. I’m sure there’s way more than just three. But what about rural schools that don’t have enough kids? So if you in Nashville can break up a school for this and a school for that, a rural area just can’t do that. They don’t have enough. If you only have, like my school growing up had 27 kids in my class, how do you break them up? And then another challenge is if you take the money from these five kids away from the school and give it to this other school, then what happens to that first school? I think that that’s probably a challenge. And I’ve got my third one already, but I’ll turn it back to you.

Shaka Mitchell (17:37) Yeah. Well, thinking about the rural school question. Here in Tennessee, we have a lot of rural schools also. I mean, obviously, not Nashville; anybody who’s been to Nashville recently knows that Nashville is not rural. Nashville is a little bananas, quite the opposite lately. But you don’t have to go far to find rural schools. And so I think things have shifted a whole lot since you and I were in school. There are a lot of things that did not exist when we were in school. Among them is the ability to take classes online and virtually, right? And connect with faculty members on the other side of the world or connect with students on the other side of the world.

Just a couple of quick examples of this. I received this demo from a company that’s doing work out of Florida. Florida, you know, really leads the country, I would say, in innovative new school models. And Florida actually has a lot of rural schools, too. You don’t really think of it that way because they have some big cities, but there’s not a whole lot between Tampa Bay and Tallahassee. You’ve got a lot of rural areas. So this company has pioneered some virtual education, and it’s with these big VR goggles, right? And so I sat in a coffee shop in Nashville with the VR headset, and I did a lesson on the Constitutional Convention. I was walking around, you know, in this virtual world. I’m walking around Philadelphia, and the professor was there with me. I don’t even know what state he was broadcasting from. His avatar was there with me. We’re looking at things. I’m asking questions. I could turn pages in a book. I mean, it’s just pretty wild. Now maybe that’s not for everybody, but that sort of thing didn’t even exist 10 years ago in a way that was so tactile and constructive. So I think there are just more options in rural schools now.

The other thing is to think about the school building and that time when kids are coming together. It’s like, well, what’s the value of that grouping? Meaning maybe we still want kids to come together for certain subjects or for certain lessons or certain group dynamics, right? People often talk about socialization and whatnot. But even in the homeschool communities now around the country, they have ways of getting together so that their kids have time with one another. And so I can envision things in rural communities where you say, "Okay, we’re going to still be learning in a similar environment, but it’s going to look much more like a one-room schoolhouse, for instance." And you’ve got kids who are working on different content simultaneously, right? It doesn’t all have to be the same one lesson for all the kids in the classroom. It should be differentiated. Because like you said, just because you’re a student who’s doing well in reading doesn’t mean that you’re doing just as well in math. You might be ahead or behind or whatever. And so that’s where you can shift the lessons and really make the lessons match the kids. And you’re seeing a lot of parents are able to piece that together through these choice programs. And again, in Florida, it’s happening. It’s happening in states like Arizona, Indiana—increasingly around the country.

Joel Douglas (21:32) And even here in Wyoming. So my daughter, who is a sophomore this year, is able to take Japanese classes through the University of Wyoming as a part of her high school curriculum. And she can do that at her high school; like she has a free period, and during that free period, she enrolls in a Japanese class that’s taught at the University of Wyoming.

Shaka Mitchell (21:42) Wow. Wow.

Joel Douglas (21:57) And so she also gets college credit for doing that, which saves her money in the long run because she’s not at the university paying tuition rates; it’s included in the cost of the high school. So I could definitely see that that distributed training environment would be—sorry, I have a lot of military instructor background, so I say "training," but let’s just assume I said "education."

Shaka Mitchell (22:09) Right, that’s amazing.

Joel Douglas (22:25) That distributed education environment would really suit a lot of kids well, especially those who were interested in computers or a very unique subset of material that not everyone in their small school would be interested in taking.

Shaka Mitchell (22:44) Yeah, for sure. I mean, AP classes are the best example of this because, you know, unless you’re at a big school—and in particular, a big school in a place that’s more densely populated, maybe an urban area or a suburb that’s close to an urban area—it’s hard to have a lot of AP classes, right? Because you don’t know from year to year if you're going to have enough students who even want to take, say, AP Physics or something like that. I think that’s a place where rural schools have traditionally struggled a little bit to have all those different course offerings, even though the kids might have the aptitude to do it.

So yeah, the virtual space, that’s super cool. To be able to save money and get college credit—even if you didn’t get credit by eventually scoring a four or five or whatever you need to on the AP test, that exposure already is going to be super helpful. You’re still going to get the high school credit you need, and you might just find out, "Hey, I thought that I was really interested in business, and then I took a college-level business course, and it turns out I’m not actually that interested in it," or vice versa. And I think that exposure is really, really good for kids.

You asked a question about money shifting around, too, and that’s one where I think we’re just seeing different dynamics around the country than what we grew up with. We’re just seeing the dollars start to follow the students. And that, I think, is the model that we want to get to. It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to have all those resources, all that capital tied up in a building. And often that’s where it gets tied up. I mean, I heard a stat out of the state of Texas where the debt load that districts are carrying because of football stadium construction costs is just astronomical, right? Why do we have so much money tied up in that? And I get it. I mean, folks would laugh if I said that I played high school football, but I did for a very brief period of time. I get it. It’s fun. I like going to games, watching games, whatever. But we don’t need all of our education dollars tied up in the buildings and the stadiums. The whole point is to make sure that when the Friday night lights go off, these kids are prepared to do something as adults. So let’s work on that.

Joel Douglas (25:30) And that may not be a battle that we can win, as far as not having football, but...

Shaka Mitchell (25:36) That’s right. Yeah, I’m not trying to turn Texas away from football anytime soon. I’m not gonna die on that hill.

Joel Douglas (25:43) But there’s also a compliance piece, too. So if we say, "Okay, kids only need to study from home so they can do all their curriculum at home, and then they come to a centralized location to do interaction or whatever," there’s just an inkling in the background of, if they commingle, are they gonna meet all the same public health requirements and the same nutrition requirements as the core group of kids who are in the mix? And that’s very challenging because there are a lot of people, for instance, with vaccines, who feel right now that they want to have a choice in whether or not their kid gets a measles vaccine. But then they also want their kid to be able to play football. And so then if they’re on the football team, do they need to have a measles vaccine? That’s a challenge that legislators are fighting right now.

Shaka Mitchell (26:39) Yeah, for sure. It’s challenging. We don’t wade into those sorts of public health areas, but it’s definitely a challenge. I mean, I think one of the things it highlights, frankly, is that for better and for worse, schools have truly become a hub for lots of other things that are not related to education. Right? So you’ve got schools that are used as public health centers, you’ve got schools that are used for giving out food resources... and I get it, because if this is the place in your community where you’re most likely to see kids or families, I get why you would want to take advantage of that time. But to the extent that we put all that responsibility on school leaders and teachers, I don’t think it’s been really constructive. Let them focus on what they can do, and their locus of control needs to be education. And if that means we’ve got to come up with other ways and other places to do, say, a food pantry, you know, maybe so be it. But I would prefer letting the educators focus on that one thing.

Joel Douglas (28:03) Sure. Yeah, and I know you don't. Because you work with so many underserved communities, I know that you readily acknowledge that for some of those kids, that’s the only meal they’re gonna get that day. And so that is an important thing, and I know that you believe that.

Shaka Mitchell (28:15) Right, right.

Joel Douglas (28:21) You’re talking about a different subset than here in Wyoming or in Missouri where I grew up. We didn’t necessarily see that at the school level, but I certainly believe that in other places, that’s a different thing. So what do you say when a legislator talks to you about, "We don’t want you to take money away from the public schools"? How do you answer that?

Shaka Mitchell (28:49) Yeah, it’s a good question. You know, assuming that it’s asked honestly, right? Then I think that it’s helpful to try to get folks to think about what it is that they actually want the money spent on. And so oftentimes, what people say is, "Well, we don’t want to take money from our public schools." But if what they really mean is, "Let’s make sure students in public schools have the same amount of resources," then I’m like, "Okay, yeah, I get that."

Because here’s the deal: your daughter, the one that we were talking about earlier, the sophomore—let’s just say hypothetically that she moved from a public school to a different school environment, to a private school. Well, she would no longer be a cost to that original school. So why in the world would we continue to send 100 percent of the funds to that original school? Wouldn’t we want her to be funded wherever she goes?

And by the way, here’s the thing: people make it sound controversial when you’re talking about a charter school or a private choice program, but this is exactly what happens anytime someone moves from one county to another county, right? And we don’t stop people from doing that. We don’t say, "Hey, you live in Davidson County, and it’s not fair that if you move to Williamson County, you’re taking money from the public schools." Well, it is true in some sense, but you’re taking the student, too, right? And so I try to get legislators to think about how this kind of already happens in the natural context of people moving around, and we want families to be able to do what’s best for them. So that to me is a higher priority than just sustaining this particular building or that particular building. I want families to thrive, irrespective of what type of school they attend.

Joel Douglas (31:13) Sure, love it. Also, I love the distributed education environment thought. I wrote a piece once about how I feel that, in general, high school kids are not well prepared to move into the working world directly. They have a hard time getting their first job, and then they have a hard time building expertise in whatever they want to do as they grow up.

But if we took kids who were seniors—so say the kids that were on the university track just keep doing their thing, and then kids who were gonna go into a tech field or were hoping for tech certifications—they take their senior year of high school or the first year after high school and do distributed training. And we have businesses that sponsor real-world problems that they’re having. So then during the class, the kids are actually thinking, "Oh, this is a problem that this business is having; this is how I would approach it." Then I think that that would be really valuable real-world expertise that those kids could get. I would love to see that integrated into high school or early post-high school curriculum, but I also understand that that breaks the education mold, and that’s a challenge.

Shaka Mitchell (32:37) Well, you know, it breaks the mold, but it’s not without some precedent. There are many European countries, actually, that have a system of high school internships where the curriculum is basically created by industry and by business leaders. So you’ve got the business leaders who are themselves saying, "We anticipate these needs or those needs..."

(Sound of strong wind in the background)

Sorry, is there—do you hear that?

Joel Douglas (33:20) I was gonna say something. I believe that is the Wyoming wind making its presence felt. Yeah, that’s just our wind in the background. Wyoming is known for our wind, and there it is.

Shaka Mitchell (33:27) No kidding. Okay. Well, I apologize for breaking up our talk. That’s amazing. Okay, well, good, I’m glad it’s that and I’m glad your house is still standing, because that sounds intense.

Anyway, so, yeah, there’s this European model where you’ve got industry and business leaders who might say, "Okay, hey, here’s the training that we think is gonna be really important in the heavy mechanical engineering industry," right? So, big engines, big motors, and things like that, maybe for ships or something. And they say, "Here are the things that we think are going to be really valuable skills and knowledge for the next five years." And they actually work with schools to create that curriculum on a year-by-year basis. And there are some European countries where something like 80% to 90% of high school kids have basically an externship that year where they’re getting some hands-on training. These are kids where some of them are gonna go into the trades, and some of them are gonna go on to do more education.

So I love the idea, not just for one sector of kids, because the reality is, most of us don’t know what we’re gonna do when we’re 16. And maybe we will go to college, maybe we won’t, maybe we’ll go later in life. I mean, I have a lot of formal education, and you know how I spend a lot of time on the weekends? Fixing things around my house. Right? And so it’s not like these things are mutually exclusive. If I have no idea how electricity works, I could get really hurt when I’m trying to, you know, a couple of weeks ago, when I had to fix our washing machine or install a new garbage disposal or whatever. So I think those technical skills really can benefit anybody.

Joel Douglas (35:37) Absolutely, and that idea really comes from the Air Force Weapons School. The Weapons School is the Air Force’s version of Top Gun. It’s structured differently, and I won’t go into it... but there are blocks. And in that block, you might have two or three days’ worth of education. You’re in class from 7:00 in the morning till 5:00 or 6:00 in the evening, and then you study that evening. You take a test in the morning the next day, then you start academics again at 7:00. You go through two or three days of that, and then on, say, day four, the instructors give you a problem set of, “Hey, this is a real-world scenario, and you have until tomorrow night to come up with a presentation which you will teach back to the instructors outlining your approach to solve this real-world problem.” And what you learn is, on day four, you feel ready to go, and you’ve gotten good test scores the first three days because you take a test every day. You get the problem set, and you learn you didn’t retain what you thought you did.

Shaka Mitchell (36:47) Right.

Joel Douglas (36:50) And then you have to teach it to yourself again so you can teach the instructors at the end of the next day. It’s a fantastic education model, and I would love to see it—well, it was a very beneficial education model for me, and I’m sure it would benefit other kids. It’s a tall order to ask a high school kid to do that kind of stuff.

Shaka Mitchell (37:16) Maybe it is, but I’ll tell you, I had a conversation with a researcher at Johns Hopkins University, and she does a lot of work on what she calls "education pluralism." She’s done a whole lot of work researching different school models around the world, really. And then also school culture within a school building—meaning, like, how rigorous is it? You know, what are the expectations? And she would say that we are grossly under-challenging our kids in school. And that resonates with me.

I mean, you think about how many kids are so-called "behavioral challenges," but actually the challenge is often academic, right? Kids who talk a bunch in class—it’s often because they’re not engaged for one reason or another. Maybe they’re not engaged because they don’t understand the content. Maybe they’re not engaged because they do understand it, and it’s really boring, and they would rather be doing something else. They’re not dumb, and they realize, “What am I doing here?” Right? And so in both cases, unfortunately, we end up doing the wrong thing, and we sort of say, “Alright, you’re out of here, go to the principal’s office,” or whatever, rather than saying, "Are we actually matching the challenge to the child’s aptitude and their capabilities as we see them right now?" And so I think we could do a better job. So it sounds like a tall order, what you have in mind, but I would be willing to say, hey, let’s not play slow-pitch all the time. Let’s throw a little bit harder and see if our kids can make contact.

Joel Douglas (39:14) Yeah. I want to give you a chance to talk about whatever you want to talk about for however long you would do that for. So you could pitch charter schools, you could pitch the work that you do.

Shaka Mitchell (39:26) Yeah, thanks, Joel. Well, one of the things that I’ll mention—I think it’s a really exciting time in education policy in terms of what we’re seeing around the states and even at the federal level. And I think it couldn’t come at a better time. So just yesterday, some new data was released from the National Assessment of Educational Progress. It’s called the NAEP.

Joel Douglas (39:56) Yeah, I saw the performance report.

Shaka Mitchell (39:56) Yeah, and what was released were some 12th-grade math and reading scores and an eighth-grade science score. This is often called "the nation’s report card." So this isn’t some ticky-tack little assessment. This is for kids in every state in the country—kids in private schools, public schools, charter schools take it. But the public schools' scores were released, and in math and reading—in reading, for instance, the scores were some of the lowest in history. In math, they were the lowest point since 2005. And remember, these are the kids whose eighth-grade year was when COVID hit. So it’s been super disruptive for them. And I think in some ways, these scores just confirmed what a lot of parents saw during that time, which is, "Hey, this system just isn’t really serving our children as well as it could be." Again, not all schools, but system-wide, we had some major problems.

What that looks like, for instance, is that only 35 percent of 12th-graders were proficient in reading. Thirty-five percent. In math, on the opposite end of the spectrum, 45 percent were below basic. So it goes below basic, basic, proficient, and then there's advanced. But 45 percent below basic in math. So who’s gonna be surprised if we have a rising and continuing national debt problem in the future? Who’s gonna be surprised if personal finance is just a mess for this cohort of kids? If you can’t do basic math, it’s gonna be a problem. It’s gonna manifest itself as a major problem when you do hit the working world and you’re not quite sure, like, what do these things like interest rates mean? Whether it’s on a credit card or for a home that you’re trying to purchase or a car or whatever.

So those do concern me. That being said, on the encouraging side of the ledger is what’s happening in many states with these programs that allow parents to get public dollars for their choice in education. I think now we’ve got 18 states that have what we call a universal choice program. And we also have now, I believe, 48 states that have charter schools. And so those are public schools that are independently run and operated so that a school leader and its school board can make personnel decisions, they can make curriculum decisions.

And really, I encourage families to not feel like you have to be satisfied anymore if your child is in a school that’s not working well for them. In most states now—not all, but in most states—you have some options, and that number is increasing on an annual basis. You know, if you’re in a position where your child comes home and he or she is really discouraged, really disappointed in what’s happening, don’t take it for granted that this is your only option. You may have some other options out there. I definitely encourage folks to, you know, check out our website or do some other research online and see what options are available in your state because you might be able to get some scholarships to attend the school of your choice.

Joel Douglas (43:54) Awesome. Hey, Shaka, I really appreciate you being on the show today.

Shaka Mitchell (43:59) Yeah. Thanks so much for having me. I really enjoyed the conversation.

Joel Douglas (44:03) Thank you.

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Should Public Money for Schools Guarantee More Than Learning?

This week, the National School Lunch Program, born out of national defense, and the rise of homeschooling vouchers, where freedom meets responsibility.

And next week, we’ll dig even deeper with our guest, Shaka Mitchell!

But for now … the lights are dimming.

Look! There's the curtain!

Scene One. Frontier America, 1809

Education, even without public funds, can serve national goals like Union and Liberty.

A father and mother have their second child! A boy named Abraham, born in a one-room log cabin in Kentucky. The father, a cold and stern man, had built the structure by hand. Dirt floor. No windows. A fireplace for heat and little else. The boy’s father couldn’t read. His mother knew her letters, but not much more. When she died, the boy was nine years old. He was left in the care of his 11-year-old sister.

His father soon arranged a marriage of convenience with a widow who had three children of her own. When she arrived at the farm, she found his two children so filthy that the first thing she did was draw a bath for them.

She was a godsend for the boy, loving him like her own children. Neighbors called him lazy because he wasn’t much for farm work, and the boy and his father had heated arguments. But his new mother saw something different. He was hungry. Yes, for food. But also for words.

There was no school, so she taught him how to teach himself. She got him books, like the family Bible, but also “Aesop’s Fables,” “Robinson Crusoe,” and “Pilgrim’s Progress.”

She taught him “how” to learn, to study, to chase every scrap of knowledge he could find. At night, by firelight, he copied passages onto wooden shingles with charcoal. He had no paper, no ink. He’d rub out the words, write again, and memorize them line by line.

Neighbors remembered seeing him walking with a book in one hand, axe in the other, reading between swings.

He left home in his young twenties to seek his fortune, but he always came back to see her every year or two. He bought some property for her to live on after his father died.

The last time he saw her was in 1861, when he stopped to bid her farewell before leaving for Washington and his inauguration as the 16th President of the United States. She mourned his death in 1865, and she passed in 1869.

With Sarah Bush Johnston Lincoln’s backing, the boy who copied Bible verses onto wooden shingles with charcoal grew into the man who wrote the Gettysburg Address, President Abraham Lincoln.

Would we say today that Abraham Lincoln was homeschooled? Uneducated? Self-taught? However we label it, no one could argue that his lack of formal schooling limited his potential.

Lincoln, self-taught in a Kentucky cabin, became a president who preserved the Union. His education, guided by a caring stepmother, shows how learning builds national strength, even without public funds. But when public money enters the picture, what ensures the child’s welfare?

Scene Two. Perris, California; January 2018 — Justice and Welfare

Before dawn, a 17-year-old girl climbed out of a basement window with an old phone and dialed 911. She planned her escape for two years, practicing how to use a phone because she’d never been outside alone. Her voice shook as she tried to explain what the house looked like inside. At one point, she said, “My two little sisters right now are chained up.”

Riverside County Sheriff's Deputies walked into darkness and the sour smell of waste. They found 13 siblings, ages 2 to 29. Some were shackled. Most were so thin the deputies thought the older ones were still children.

Food was rationed; they only ate once a day. Showers, once a year. Teeth never seen by a dentist. Beatings and strangling as punishment. The district attorney later said the house was “foul-smelling,” and the children showed signs of long starvation and nerve damage. Seven of the captives were adults, but their bodies looked like they had been kept small. One victim, 29 years old, weighed about 82 pounds.

On paper, this was a school. The adoptive father had filed a private-school affidavit with the state. He listed himself as principal of “Sandcastle Day School.” In California, that filing exempted children from compulsory public attendance, and there was no routine state inspection of such “schools.”

No one looked inside for years.

The girl who called 911 gave them an opening. Deputies cut chains. Paramedics carried out brothers and sisters who could barely stand. Prosecutors charged the parents with torture, false imprisonment, willful child cruelty, and abuse of dependent adults. They later added perjury against the father for lying on the school affidavits. In 2019, both parents pleaded guilty. The court sentenced them to 25 years to life in prison as part of the plea agreement.

The rescue did not end the harm. Some of the younger children were later placed with foster parents who also abused them, and those foster parents were convicted and sentenced. Five years after the rescue, county officials acknowledged that the state failed to get basic services to the siblings.

This case is a sinister mirror of President Lincoln’s homeschool experience. A “homeschool” on paper can become a blessing or a cage in practice.

In 2018, a California homeschool hid torture behind a private-school affidavit. Public funds for homeschooling, like those for school lunches, must ensure kids are safe and fed, not starved and chained.

The Test of Legitimacy — Welfare and Tranquility

Now the scene is set, and we can ask our question. As states expand vouchers and tax credits for homeschooling, what obligations follow?

Does accepting the American people’s money for schooling create an obligation beyond academics?

Liberty in private is one thing. Liberty with the people’s money is another. Public funds carry obligations of legitimacy. These are the same assurances schools already provide: food, safety, health, and visibility.

Religious liberty and government overreach are real concerns. So are child welfare checks, meals, vaccinations, and sports. We need a standard that defends liberty and protects children.

We think we care about the freedom to choose how a child learns. We think we care about waste of public funds. We think we care about officials telling our children what they should know.

Take a couple of examples. Some parents want physical education to mean kids running for an hour, not sitting for “health.” Others say there is no such thing as an average child, and any system built for the average will fail the real ones in front of us.

These are legitimate concerns for individuals. I say again—Individuals. Parents should exercise their liberty in how they educate their children. That right stands whether or not public money is involved. And while critics point to abuse in homeschooling, most homeschoolers are not abusive. Abuse exists everywhere. Public and private schools are not automatically safer.

But that is not the decisive concern. The issue is not good parents versus bad parents. It is the obligations that come with public money.

The government owns nothing. Every dollar it spends is the people’s money. We pool those dollars to build what no family can build alone: roads, bridges, water systems, and schools. Because there is more to school than classes.

That collective pool comes with obligations. Every day, in public or private schools, an adult lays eyes on a child. Every day, a child who needs a meal can get one.

So yes, we can support individual choice with the American people’s money. But if we choose to take that money, we also choose an obligation to legitimacy.

The test is simple. Education is a public function, bound by federal rights. Parents have broad freedom to educate their children, but when public money follows the child, they are spending the people’s money.

No one gives you money with no strings attached. The people may ask for basic assurances: that a child is seen, safe, nourished, and protected from disease.

Food as Defense — Provide for the Common Defence

Let’s think about the school lunch program.

Almost every presidential administration fights over school lunches. But the political theater hides the real purpose of the program.

One of the nation’s six goals is to Provide for the Common Defence. That doesn’t stop at buying tanks or building fighter jets. It also means building the human infrastructure to fly those jets and stand watch. A healthy, fit young America is part of national defense.

That’s where food comes in. The men and women who step forward to serve often come from the country’s poorest households. They are America’s finest, but not our wealthiest. For many, school lunch is the one reliable meal of the day in childhood.

The modern program itself grew out of war. During World War II, the Army discovered too many young men were unfit for service, with a nontrivial share failing for nutrition-related reasons, about one in nine by some estimates. That was not just a battlefield problem. It was a factory-line problem, too.

Congress answered with the National School Lunch Act of 1946. The law says its purpose, “as a measure of national security,” is to “safeguard the health and well-being of the Nation’s children” and to soak up US farm output. President Truman signed it on June 4, 1946. He praised it as “strengthening the Nation through better nutrition for our school children.” Those two concepts, national security and better nutrition, are the program’s DNA.

Today, the program serves around 30 million kids on a typical school day. This is infrastructure, not charity. It is a national system that keeps children fed so they can learn now and serve and work later.

In short, the American people pool our money to pay for school lunches so those kids can grow up and, in return, protect the Republic.

The lunches build “human infrastructure” by ensuring future generations, often from poor households, are physically fit to serve in the military, work in defense industries, or contribute to national resilience. This directly ties child nutrition to America’s defense.

The school lunch program builds human infrastructure for defense, welfare, and justice. Homeschooling with public funds should mirror this, requiring proof that children are nourished and seen, aligning with the same national goals.

Parents who take public money for homeschooling aren’t just teaching math. They’re spending our collective resources. Like school lunches, which ensure kids eat to thrive, homeschoolers should show kids get enough food and regular check-ins to prevent abuse.

Does Public Money for Schools Demand More Than Academics?

We’ve seen what education can do without public funds: Abraham Lincoln in a Kentucky cabin, teaching himself by firelight.

We’ve seen what happens when freedom without oversight collapses: thirteen children chained in a California basement, hidden under the cover of a “school.”

And we’ve seen how public funds, when tied to national goals, build lasting infrastructure: the National School Lunch Program. It isn’t charity. It’s defense.

So the question stands: when the American people’s money funds schooling, what are we owed in return? Is it enough to teach math and reading? Or do we, as a people, have a right to expect food, safety, health, and legitimacy?

Break break.

Next week, I’ll be joined by Shaka Mitchell, Senior Fellow at the American Federation for Children. Shaka is an expert in constitutional law and education. He’s helped shape voucher and education savings account debates in states like Tennessee.

Our opening question will go one level deeper: Should we pay for public education at all?

May God bless the United States of America.

Postscript. If you read this, you might check out the audio version just for the song! Starts around 15:10. Enjoy!

v/rJoel

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Act 1: The Insurmountable Challenge

In 1817, New York voted to dig a ditch. And not just any ditch. A grand canal! Dug by hand, 363 miles long, across forests, swamps, and rock. Most experts scoffed. George Washington had dismissed similar ideas decades earlier. Thomas Jefferson called it “a little short of madness.”

At the time, farmers and manufacturers in the West faced a brutal choice. To reach markets, they had to send their goods down the Mississippi River to New Orleans, the country’s greatest seaport. From there, shipments went out through the Gulf, around Florida, up the Atlantic, and finally to cities like New York or Philadelphia. It was slow. It was costly. And it made western settlers dependent on a southern trade route they couldn’t control.

The Erie Canal wasn’t dreamed up by powerful men in Albany. The idea came from a flour merchant named Jesse Hawley. He had a strong customer base, but to move his flour to market, he had to ship it by wagon over the Appalachian trails or float it on rivers that ran the wrong way. He went broke, ended up in debtors’ prison, and there picked up a pen. In a series of essays in 1807 and 1808, he sketched a bold plan: a canal from Lake Erie to the Hudson River. He mapped the route, described the locks, and argued the benefits. He didn’t have all the details, but he had vision, and he put it on paper.

New York City mayor and later Governor DeWitt Clinton picked up that vision and ran with it. He wasn’t an engineer or a canal man. He was a politician with a sense of scale. Clinton saw what Hawley’s prison essays meant: an inland waterway would break dependence on the Mississippi, open the interior, and turn New York into the nation’s gateway.

As Governor, Clinton pushed the legislature to back the canal in 1817. The cost was staggering. Seven million dollars, one state spending roughly a third of the entire federal government’s annual budget. Critics mocked it as “Clinton’s Ditch.” They predicted it would bankrupt New York. Some said it would never be finished.

But Clinton pressed forward. He didn’t sell the canal as an engineering marvel. He sold it as a doorway. At the time, moving freight from Buffalo to New York City cost one hundred dollars a ton and took weeks. Clinton promised the canal would cut that to under ten dollars, and in just a few days.

The Erie Canal wasn’t just a ditch. It was America’s first true megaproject, built long before steam shovels, bulldozers, or dynamite. It was the biggest engineering challenge of the 19th century.

How did they dig it? By hand. Tens of thousands of laborers, mostly Irish immigrants and local farmers hired in the off-season, used picks, shovels, wheelbarrows, and horse-drawn carts. There were no roads. When they hit swamps, they laid down logs to make floating roads so carts wouldn’t sink. When they hit limestone cliffs, they drilled holes by hand, packed them with black powder, and blasted inch by inch.

The canal had to climb about 571 feet from the Hudson up to Lake Erie. To solve that, engineers built 83 locks; locks are stone elevators for boats. No one had done this on such a scale in America before. They were inventing the craft as they went.

But they finished it in just eight years.

When water first flowed in 1825, it wasn’t just an engineering triumph. It was an economic revolution. Shipping costs dropped from $100 a ton to under $10. A journey that took weeks now took days. It made bread cheaper. It put tools in the hands of farmers.

It made New York City the nation’s port. It opened the Midwest to settlement. Within a generation, roughly three-fifths of the nation’s trade moved through New York’s harbor, powered by the canal.

Today, we face another insurmountable challenge: a housing crisis.

Instead of a wilderness of rivers, swamps, and mountains, we face a wilderness of bureaucracy. A maze of zoning codes, permit boards, and fragmented governance. Each with its own tolls and delays. Builders spend months fighting hearings and paperwork before they ever turn a shovel, driving up costs and denying millions the chance to build equity through homeownership.

Then, as now, we face skepticism from critics who believe working-class Americans aren’t worthy of bold projects. Washington dismissed it. Jefferson called it madness. The rich, who owned the existing shipping lanes, mocked the project as “Clinton’s Ditch.” Today, skeptics argue that small, affordable homes aren’t profitable or that zoning reforms are too radical. Politicians treat it as impossible.

But every bold fix begins as madness.

Housing is our canal. It’s not a matter of skill or resources. We have both. It’s a matter of clarity, incentives, and purpose. Just as Clinton used a bold state project to open opportunity, we could use a Small Business Innovation Research program to open the housing market.

As of mid-2025, the US median home price sits at around $410,800, while median household income is estimated at $84,000. This makes homes over 4.8 times income, compared to just twice in the 1960s. A record 22 million renter households are cost-burdened, spending over 30% of income on housing, and affordability is at an all-time low. Programs like USDA’s SBIR for rural development and HUD’s $20 million innovation grants (with recent deadlines in July 2025) show the tools exist. We just need to earmark them for starter homes under $150,000, tied to zoning reforms that cut red tape.

This isn’t about handouts; it’s about competition driving innovation, much like Hawley’s essays sparked a revolution.

Instead of a canal, let’s build a pathway to the American Dream for the working class.

Act 2: The Crisis Today – Voices from the Ground

(Voice: Young Homebuyer; mid-20s female, fiery with a mix of grit, sarcasm, and unshakable hope. Think a teacher who’s had it but won’t quit. Background: Gritty urban soundscape. Honking cabs, slamming apartment doors, distant subway rumble, fading in and out.)

Picture me: 25, a teacher in a mid-sized city, grading papers by day, tutoring by night, slinging coffee on weekends. I’m hustling like my life depends on it...because it does. But the American Dream? It’s slipping through my fingers like sand in a busted hourglass.

I’m not asking for a penthouse. I just want a home. A small one! 600, maybe 1,000 square feet. A bedroom, a bathroom, a kitchen where I can burn my first attempt at dinner. But in 2025, that’s a fantasy. I looked it up... the median income is something like 84 grand a year. Median home price? Try 420 thousand. That’s nearly five times what I make. It’s crazy! Back in 1960, homes cost twice the income: twelve thousand on fifty-six hundred. Since then, prices ran past wages and never looked back.

And I hear the pushback: “Homeownership rates are fine.” Sure, overall. But at my age, it used to be higher. By thirty, nearly 6 in 10 Americans from the Silent Generation owned a home, 1 in 2 Boomers, just under half of Gen X, and about four in ten Millennials. Today, 25–34-year-olds sit in the high 30s, recently near 36%. The overall rate didn’t crash. The doorway for us did.

Builders don’t touch starter homes anymore. Why would they? Land’s a fortune, materials are through the roof, and zoning boards pile on fees like they’re playing Monopoly with my future. So they churn out McMansions, the sprawling status symbols for the rich. Me? I’m left scrounging for scraps, priced out of the game before I even roll the dice.

This isn’t just my story. It’s a crisis crushing millions. Over 22 million renter households are drowning, spending more than 30% of their income on rent. Twelve million are barely breathing, forking over half their paycheck. Since 2019, home prices have spiked 60%. If you’re pulling $50 grand a year, good luck! Only one in ten listings is even close to affordable.

It’s like rowing upstream in a boat made of tissue paper. You paddle; work overtime, skip vacations, eat instant noodles, but the leaks keep coming. Rent. Student loans. Fees. They drain you dry before you can save a dime for a down payment.

So we wait. We put off kids. We put off dreams. Some of us are still crashing in Mom’s basement, not because we’re lazy, but because the system’s rigged. We don’t need marble countertops or three-car garages. We need homes under $150,000! Twice today’s median income, like our grandparents had. Without that, the American Dream isn’t just delayed. It’s sinking, drifting downstream, out of reach for my entire generation.

But I’m not giving up. There’s a way to fight back. We need to drain this bureaucratic swamp and build a bridge to ownership. We just need the right tools, the right vision, and a whole lot of grit.

Act 3: Innovation – SBIR for Housing

(Voice: Policy Expert – Confident male, mid-40s, professor-like with a spark of enthusiasm, like a TED Talk speaker rallying for change. Background: Subtle office sounds: typing, flipping blueprint pages, faint construction hum, fading in and out.)

So, how do we pull the American Dream back from the brink? We need homes under $150,000! You've heard the grim math from our teacher in Act 2. That five-times-income ratio is a trap. But it's a trap we can engineer our way out of. It’s our Erie Canal moment, and the tool to dig it is competition.

Picture this: builders racing to craft small, affordable homes. 600 to 1,000 square feet, sturdy and smart, not some cookie-cutter McMansion. The spark? A Small Business Innovation Research program, an SBIR for housing. SBIRs are America’s secret sauce, fueling breakthroughs in tech, defense, and agriculture with competitive grants for small businesses. Phase I: dream up designs, like modular units, shipping-container conversions, energy-efficient builds. Phase II: build prototypes that hit $150,000 or less. Phase III: scale the winners with private capital, flooding the market with homes for first-time buyers, not hedge-fund vultures. Really promising defense proposals go direct to Phase II to get started quicker.

This isn’t a pipe dream! It’s already halfway here. The USDA’s SBIR program for rural development is a goldmine, funding innovations to lift rural America, including housing. USDA’s rural SBIR runs in recurring cycles. We need to earmark funds for starter-home prototypes. For cities, HUD’s got $20 million in innovation grants, with deadlines like July 2025 already pushing affordability. But we need Congress to greenlight a full HUD SBIR, turning empty lots, old warehouses, and dead-end parking slabs into homes for workers, not speculators.

In short, SBIR is Phase I: design; Phase II: build; Phase III: scale, with prizes for those who hit price, speed, and energy targets. USDA’s rural SBIR has upcoming cycles we can earmark for starter-home prototypes; HUD has piloted innovation grants, but Congress should create a full HUD SBIR for cities.

Here’s the kicker: we tie the money to slashing red tape. No zoning reform, no funds. Cities and counties need consistent guidelines: by-right approvals for small homes, no lot-size nonsense above 2,500 square feet, no parking minimums near transit, fees capped at 3% of costs. Reward builders under 500 employees (better yet, under 100) who deliver fast. Under 120 days to occupancy, and cheap, with bonuses for sub-$125k homes. This isn’t a handout; it’s a race. Just like the Erie Canal turned a bankrupt merchant’s sketch into a national artery, SBIR can turn small builders into the architects of a new American Dream.

We’ve done the impossible before. We dug a 363-mile ditch by hand, no dynamite, no excuses. If we can build canals, railroads, and the internet, we can build homes for working families. It’s time to drain the zoning swamp and let innovators lead the way.

Act 4: Bureaucracy Reform – No Reform, No Funds!

(Voice: Builder – Gruff, hands-on male, late 30s, with a tool-belt swagger and a fed-up edge, like a contractor who’s battled city hall and won. Background: Construction site bustle. Hammer strikes, saw whirs, gravel crunch, fading in and out.)

I’m a builder. I don’t wrestle swamps or blast limestone cliffs like those Erie Canal boys. My battleground’s worse: zoning codes, permit desks, and bureaucrats who think they’re gatekeepers to my toolbox. Those rules cost more than stone, and they’re crushing working families.

Take “by-right approvals.” Fancy term, simple idea: if my plans for a 600-square-foot starter home follow the zoning rules, such as lot size, height, and setbacks, I get my permit, no questions asked. No six-month hearings, no neighbors stonewalling, no planning board playing king. Just a quick check by a city clerk to confirm I’m legit, and I’m breaking ground in 30 days. Projects that fit the code skip the red tape.

Adam Smith nailed it in 1776: I don’t build homes out of charity, like some saintly carpenter. I build to make a living. But right now, the system’s rigged. Land’s pricier than gold, materials cost a fortune, and every permit hearing’s a shakedown. Build a 600-square-foot starter home? I’d lose my shirt. McMansions? That’s where the profit’s at. So that’s what gets built, while young folks like that teacher in Act 2 get priced out.

Here’s the fix: homes should cost twice the median income, like in the 1960s. Twelve thousand against fifty-six hundred. Today, with incomes at 84 grand, that means $150,000 homes. Not subsidies, not studies; actual affordability. And the only way there? Competition, unleashed by draining the zoning swamp.

Enter the rule: No reform, no funds. Want federal SBIR cash to spark those starter homes? Cities and counties sign a Housing Reform MOU or get nothing. That means: By-right approvals. Capped fees. 30-day permits. Lot sizes under 2,500 sq ft. No parking minimums near transit. Five-foot setbacks. Pattern books. 120-day to occupancy.

This ain’t about gutting safety codes. Fire, seismic, egress stay tight. Fair housing rules stand. But the games? Done. Only reform zones get SBIR grants. Extra reforms, like lot splits or ADUs everywhere, earn a scoring boost, say 1.2x. We’ve seen it work: the “Montana Miracle,” where the state response limited local governments’ power to impose costly development restrictions, and Texas’ permit streamlining. Scale the concepts nationally, and we change the cost curve.

Government’s job is to protect life, liberty, and property for working people. Today, that means clearing the path so regular folks can own a home, not just rent from some corporate landlord king. This is our Erie Canal. We need to cut through red tape, not rock. No reform, no funds.

Let’s get to work.

Counterarguments: Facing the Skeptics

“$150,000 homes are impossible.”

Not everywhere. Land is cheap in many small cities and rural markets. Factory-built modules, like LEGO homes, are built off-site, cutting labor and waste; new methods can trim material costs. The target isn’t San Francisco high-rises. It’s starter homes where land and rules allow them. The goal is a repeatable $150k path, not a one-off miracle.

“Local governments won’t reform.”

Tie money to reform and priorities move. No reform, no funds. Cities sign a Housing Reform MOU: by-right approvals, capped fees, fast permits, or they sit out. We’ve already seen states streamline reviews and allow more small homes. Put the carrots where the gates are.

“This is a handout.”

SBIR isn’t charity; it’s a race. Phase I designs, Phase II prototypes, Phase III scales with private capital. Builders win by delivering price and speed, not by lobbying for special favors. That’s competition with a finish line that matters.

“Cheap homes will tank values and crowd neighborhoods.”

Small homes done well stabilize ownership and add options without chaos. Pattern books keep design coherent. ADUs and small lots add gentle density. More neighbors, not high-rises.

“We can’t afford this.”

We can’t afford not to. The canal was audacious for its day; it paid for itself in growth. A national SBIR pilot is modest compared to the programs we already run, and it targets the one lever that drops costs for everyone: supply at the starter tier.

Every big American project sounded like madness. Until it didn’t.

We, the People – Our Canal, Our Moment

We, the People, carry a lot at once: wages trail the bills, healthcare scares the insured, debt nibbles every paycheck, childcare rivals tuition, heat and light outpace our raises.

But housing affordability is our biggest opportunity. Businesses can’t pay livable wages if the cost of living keeps outstripping revenue. Workers can’t save for retirement or have babies if they can’t afford a house to sleep in. More than anything, Americans need food on the table and heat in the house.

If we are to open the door to opportunity, housing is the hinge. Fix the hinge, and the door swings freely.

Think of that teacher in Act 2, grading by day, tutoring by night, rowing a tissue-paper boat while the Dream drifts away. Think of the builder in Act 4, fighting fiefdoms of permits, ready to put up the homes she can actually buy.

They’re not asking for favors. They’re asking for a fair doorway. Our grandparents had it: a house only twice a family’s income. Today, the ratio is more than double that. The doorway is slamming.

This is our Erie Canal moment. In 1817, a bankrupt merchant’s prison essays sparked a 363-mile cut through forest, swamp, and stone, paying the nation back many times over. Now we cut through paper, not rock.

The tool is competition: a Small Business Innovation Research program, or SBIR for housing, racing to deliver $150,000 starter homes. And the rule is simple: no reform, no funds. By-right approvals. Capped fees. Fast permits. Pattern books. Public trackers. Competition and conditions that support changing the market for working Americans.

We dug a continent-shaping canal with shovels and black powder. We can clear a pathway to ownership with pens and political will.

Housing is our canal. Open the gates. Build the doorway.

May God bless the builders, the trades, and the teachers, and God bless the United States of America.

Music from #Uppbeathttps://uppbeat.io/t/ceridwen-mccooey/the-peacockLicense code: PLAJBRCEHGUZQDVS

Our neighbors say they love their EVs. We take a test drive. They’re quick. They’re quiet. They’re fun!

Then the facts elbow in. EVs were sold as being cheaper, but in America, they aren’t. Many lose value fast. Some models shed close to half their value in a year. Sales have flattened. They’ll likely spike before the federal credit expires September 30, then sag after.

Some of us want to love EVs, but something isn’t quite right.

Is it the range, shorter in winter, the waits at chargers, or that stations aren’t where we need them?

Maybe none of those. Maybe the cars are designed to be replaced, not to last.

So our question:

Is this new tech built for my life, or for the next sale?

Curtain. Scene One. The 1,000-Hour Lightbulb.

Close your eyes and step onto a city street in the late 1920s. Windows glow like jewels. Streetcars hum. Night is no longer darkness. By 1930, nearly nine in ten urban and nonfarm rural homes had electricity. About one in ten farms did. Light is not a luxury. It is the texture of modern life.

Enter stage left.

At first, bulbs lasted a long time. Early tungsten lamps often burned well past fifteen hundred hours, many to two thousand and beyond. Families loved that. Companies that had built factories did not. In Germany, Osram’s sales fell from sixty three million bulbs in fiscal year 1922 to 1923 to twenty eight million the next year.

On December 23, 1924, the leading manufacturers met in Geneva to form what we now call the Phoebus cartel. Osram, Philips, Compagnie des Lampes, and General Electric’s overseas network joined. Its global reach was unusual for the time. By early 1925, they set a benchmark of a one thousand hour life for household bulbs, down from the fifteen hundred to two thousand hours common before. Shorter than families expected, and exactly what manufacturers needed.

This was not sloppy work. It was engineering with a new purpose. Each factory shipped samples to a central laboratory in Switzerland. Technicians tested life spans against the benchmark. A company paid a fine if a bulb lasted too short or too long for its class. Reliability became real, but a different kind of real. It was no longer ‘this bulb will endure.’

It was equipment that reliably failed on schedule.

Consumers adjusted fast. Every brand converged near one thousand hours. Burnout stopped feeling like a defect and started feeling like life. A 1927 Tokyo Electric memo to the cartel reported a fivefold jump in sales. More failures meant more purchases. The cartel redesigned the market not with a breakthrough that gave people more, but with a standard that made sure they would buy again soon.

At the same time, the manufacturers claimed progress. They said shorter life meant brighter light and better efficiency. At a higher cost. The new standard raised turnover and margins and punished any member tempted to make a bulb that lasted too long.

Companies got paid for replacements. They were not just selling a lightbulb. They were selling this lightbulb and all your next lightbulbs on a schedule.

The world has limits. The cartel did not last. Patents expired. Members fought. World War II shattered coordination. In the United States, courts scrutinized General Electric and its partners for collusive control of the lamp business. In 1949, a federal district court found that General Electric monopolized the incandescent lamp industry in violation of section 2 of the Sherman Act.

A tool’s death isn’t a breakdown. It’s the quiet moment it stops serving your life. The market plans what you will buy next. Some call that progress.

We, the People, need governance to stop failure by design.

When we set standards, we should ask: Is this new tech built for my life, or for the next sale?

Humanity, Existence, and Time

We miss what being is because we forget time.

Life is not a thing on a shelf. It moves. Picture a clearing in a green mountain forest. We step in already involved, tools in hand, neighbors around, choices pressing in. Our kind of life is being-there. We show up to a world that already matters.

Meaning comes through time. Past, present, and future braid every moment. We carry what has been, deal with what is, and anticipate what could be. A rancher does not just cut hay; they remember last year’s rain, read today’s moisture, and watch the three-day forecast. Time makes the work make sense because time sets the limits.

The hard edge of time is death. Not only ours. Tools die too. Death frames our choices. Faced clearly, it does not make life grim; it makes it ours. It calls us to live with purpose.

In that clearing, a tool “lives” when it disappears into the work. It “dies” when it fails our project and forces itself into attention. Philosophy calls the first ready-to-hand; the second is an object in the way.

A tool is alive for us only while it supports our next possibilities. It may not die in a crash. It dies when it stops supporting our lives. Some would schedule that death and call it progress. That is why we need rules that resist quiet, coordinated failure.

In tech, death is not when the device stops working; it is when it stops working for you. So, what does this philosophical lens reveal about our devices today?

Curtain. Scene Two. Apple and Failing Batteries

Winter 2017. Your phone feels slower. Not creek-dropped slow, just sticky. Screens load like they are pulling a sled. Benchmarks confirm what our thumbs already know. Older iPhones with worn batteries run below design speed and perk up after a battery swap. A developer posts the charts. The story catches fire.

Enter stage right.

Earlier that year, Apple pushed a software update that changed how the phone handled power. When a battery aged, or when cold or a low charge cut peak power, the system quietly managed performance to prevent sudden shutoffs. No pop-up. No heads-up. A rule under the hood to smooth over an old battery’s limits. Later, Apple explained the machinery and added a setting so the user could see it and choose to turn it off or replace the battery.

One version of the story called this protection. Better a slower phone than a dead one in your pocket. Another said it felt like a schedule, set without consent, that made aging devices feel obsolete. Apple apologized, cut the out-of-warranty battery price from 79 dollars to 29 for 2018, and promised more transparency. They added battery-health readouts and a switch to disable the slowdown.

Regulators and courts weighed in. In France, consumer authorities fined Apple 25 million euros for failing to inform users that a software update could reduce performance. In the United States, 34 states reached a 113 million dollar settlement over alleged misrepresentations about batteries and slowdowns (without admitting wrongdoing). A federal class action settled for up to 500 million dollars on related claims (again, without admitting wrongdoing).

This is not an attack on Apple. Here is what matters for our piece.

A battery is mortal chemistry. In the cold, it cannot deliver the same peak power. With age, it cannot hold the same charge. The software’s job was to stretch usefulness. Keep the tool “alive” for your day by preventing blackouts.

But the choice was hidden. People felt like their tools were dying because they no longer supported the day’s work. Only after the controversy did Apple present the controls and the explanation. Starting in 2018, Apple and its customers quietly renegotiated the tool’s life.

A tool dies when it stops serving you. We need governance to stop failure by design. When choices are hidden, tools die for us. Is this new tech built for my life, or for the next sale?

Curtain. Scene Three. The Electric Vehicle.

Combustion vehicles age as a negotiation.

Yes, parts wear. But you can rebuild, swap, and refresh. Engines come out. New rings go in. Transmissions get replaced. That is why Americans keep vehicles so long. The average age is nearly thirteen years, and many go far beyond that with routine upkeep. With maintenance, a truck that is twenty years old can still deliver the same range and near original power. The fuel tank did not shrink. Compression and fueling are serviceable systems. Keep the machine fit and it keeps carrying your life.

Electric vehicles age as a countdown.

EVs run on two clocks. First, the seasonal clock. In real cold, range drops because the cabin needs heat and the chemistry slows. Controlled tests around twenty degrees Fahrenheit found some EVs lost roughly forty percent of their range with the heater on. Reporting from recent cold snaps shows a 10 to 36 percent hit depending on model and use. Preheating and heat pumps help, but they don’t erase the penalty. When spring returns, most of that loss is temporary.

Second, the chemical clock. Lithium ion packs fade slowly. Large fleet datasets put average loss near two percent per year, and many packs are usable for twelve to fifteen years in moderate climates. Most makers back this with eight year, 100,000 to 150,000 mile battery warranties that guarantee about seventy percent capacity within the term.

Many owners, especially those who live in warm climates, will never hit a hard stop. Average degradation is slow and largely predictable, and mild winter penalties are manageable with preheating and heat pumps.

A combustion engine is an open ended project. Repairs may stop penciling out at some point, but the owner has the choice.

An EV is a timed performance. One day the battery will no longer support a trip across the state in the cold. You might be able to replace the pack, but depending on model and supply, it can take weeks or months.

Unlike the secret cartel of the 1920s, today’s EV countdown isn’t an illegal conspiracy. It’s a design trade-off. But the choices nonetheless steer consumers toward the next sale.

Some argue that mandating longevity and a ‘right to repair’ for a nascent technology like EVs would be a catastrophic mistake. It would saddle innovators with the burden of supporting old models, lock in today’s inferior battery chemistry, and dramatically raise the upfront cost of vehicles. But if that argument is true, we shouldn’t be nationally trying to transition to this nascent technology, and there certainly shouldn’t be federal incentives trying to push us in that direction.

This is not a choice between longevity and innovation.

Our goal is not to freeze technology in place, but to make it modular. We should favor swappable, upgradable battery modules intended to achieve a durable chassis that serves a family for twenty years, and a battery system that can be renewed with the best technology available a decade from now. It aligns innovation with ownership as well as sales.

Neither is morally better. A tool dies the day it no longer supports your being. For combustion, when the repair math fails. For EVs, when winter, aging, and route outgrow the pack you have, unless you choose to reset the clock.

If aging becomes a schedule, choose renewal over replacement. Is this new tech built for my life, or for the next sale?

And That Brings Us To Governance

Here’s the transparency. The federal clean-vehicle tax credits end after September 30, 2025. Expect a rush before the deadline and a sag after.

So what should We, the People ask for next?

Tools die when they stop serving us. We need governance that stops failure by design and points incentives at renewal, not replacement.

First, make a right to repair for every car, combustion or electric. Owners and independent shops need parts, tools, and software to keep vehicles alive. States are already moving: Massachusetts’ 2020 law is cleared to be enforced after a federal court dismissal, and Maine voters approved a repair law in 2023. Lock this in nationwide.

Second, write longevity into EVs. Require clear battery-health readouts at sale and resale, enable module-level repair with transparent parts pricing, and set minimum parts-availability windows. If the battery is the heart of an EV, policy should make a heart transplant possible without games.

Third, pursue and deter quiet coordination. The lesson of the 1,000-hour bulb is simple. When firms profit most from replacement, innovation masks decline. Antitrust scrutiny and transparent standards are pro-durability, not anti-business.

Finally, fix the incentive mix. Replace the purchase credit with longevity credits. Support certified battery refurbish or replace programs. Reward vehicles that hit durability milestones with verified pack health. Seed a secondary market for factory-remanufactured modules. Tilt progress toward renewal and individual choice instead of the next sale.

The success of this policy could be measured by a 15% increase in the average age of EVs on the road within a decade, and the emergence of a secondary market where refurbished battery modules cost less than 50% of a full pack replacement. If, after 10 years, the average EV lifespan hasn’t increased and module repair remains niche and expensive, the policy has failed to achieve its goal.

Right now, Americans are asking. Is this new tech built for my life, or the next sale?

Let’s champion the ability for individual Americans to choose a tool that supports their lives.

May God bless the United States of America.

Belief vs. Biology: Is a Sustainable Environment a Human Right?

This week, the world’s highest court spoke. The United Nations’ top judges issued a sweeping opinion: nations might violate international law if they fail to act on climate change (Associated Press, July 23, 2025, Molly Quell and Mike Corder reported). The International Court of Justice (ICJ) opinion posited that a sustainable environment is a human right. And that nations harmed by climate change might be entitled to reparations. The ruling came in response to a campaign by Vanuatu, a small island nation slowly sinking beneath rising seas.

The court’s word carries no binding weight. No country must follow. No law compels it. No court can enforce it. It levies no sanctions, no penalties, and no compliance demands. Though not binding, ICJ opinions shape international norms and give weight to future legal and diplomatic efforts.

The ICJ argued that inaction threatening human health, safety, or survival could violate international law. It cements the idea that environmental protection is a human rights issue. Court President Yuji Iwasawa called climate change ‘an existential problem of planetary proportions.’

The big idea is simple: if clean air, a livable climate, and ecological stability keep us alive and dignified, then they are human rights.

…

This ruling feels detached from reality. We need to dig deeper.

So this week’s question: Is a sustainable environment a human right?

We Have to Start at the Beginning. What is it to be “Human”?

Before we decide whether a “sustainable environment” is a human right, we need to ask a deeper question.

What is it to be human?

A courtroom will tell you a human is a natural person, Homo sapiens, endowed with dignity and moral status. That’s just a shallow definition. Strip it away, and the reality is older and harder.

A human isn’t a symbol or a legal category. A human is a biological creature. We arrive slick with blood. We hunt, dig, plant, and tear up what we need to live. We kill both plants and animals to survive. When our crops fail, we raid new ground. When danger comes, we fight or we flee. That instinct carried us through ice ages, famines, and wars. It still drives the hand that guides the harvester combine or closes a factory gate against cheaper imports. Biology never rests.

No matter how much philosophy or law we try to layer on top, we can’t escape that fact.

But we’re also unlike any other animal. We believe. We invent things no other animal can imagine: laws, borders, rights, money, marriage. Those beliefs let strangers cooperate by the millions. We write constitutions, build courts, and carve order out of chaos. But belief is fragile. When enough people stop believing, currencies collapse, treaties shatter, and thrones fall.

These two forces share the same skull. Biology pushes us to survive at any cost. Belief tells us to restrain that push for the greater good. Sometimes they align. Often they clash.

The International Court of Justice calls a “sustainable environment” a human right. That is a statement of belief, not a law of nature. It says humans must throttle back the internal engines that feed, warm, and defend us. On paper, the duty sounds noble. But in the flesh, it hits every nerve wired for survival.

Humans haven’t been here long in Earth’s timeline. Yet we survived ice ages, famines, and wars by adapting and producing. By overwhelming problems with force. Not by scaling back.

If the obligation demands we shrink the engines that power modern life, the conflict isn’t legal. It’s primal. We are watching belief walk into the ring with biology.

The court asks us to trade proven tools of survival for a moral blueprint still waiting on bricks and rebar. That trade is not impossible, but it will not be easy, and biology will keep the score.

So let’s test this idea against history, starting with the Marshall Plan.

The Marshall Plan

The United States launched the Marshall Plan in 1948. After World War II, Europe lay in ruins. Factories were silent, currencies worthless, and cities hollowed out. Communist parties gained ground, and Washington saw the danger.

We poured more than $13 billion, over $130 billion in today’s dollars, into Western Europe. The program remains a rare case study of large‑scale aid that actually worked: it restored stability, jump‑started shattered economies, and lowered the risk of renewed violence. But the motive was not ideology alone. The United States also needed solvent trading partners to buy American goods and help anchor a fledgling rules‑based order.

Europe needed security; we needed industrial muscle. America cranked up production of steel, food, fuel, and machinery at a pace that could hold the continent together. The emissions were massive, but the overriding question was survival, not cleanliness. We had to build fast enough to keep Europe from falling apart.

Look at the Netherlands. German fortifications and Allied bombing leveled whole districts of a city named The Hague and displaced more than 130,000 residents. After the war, America churned out the steel and cement that rebuilt the city, and the smokestacks poured emissions into the sky. Today, The Hague is the home of the same International Court of Justice that ruled a sustainable environment is a human right.

Marshall Plan funds of about $1.1 billion, the highest per‑capita aid in Western Europe, paid for coal, cement, and specialized equipment to the Netherlands. We rebuilt ports, factories, and housing stock. Within a decade, the city had gone from “largest building site in Europe” to a functioning capital again.

Would we generate more industrial and manufacturing capability to rebuild The Hague today, if necessary? Absolutely, yes. Even though the court that sits there ruled that the resulting emissions might violate international law. The Marshall Plan demonstrated what happens when biology takes precedence over belief.

But of course, nothing is black and white. The ICJ opinion looks forward, not back. It doesn’t punish the Marshall Plan or any past policy.

Let’s look at another story.

The Right to Clean Air: Delhi, India, 2019

In 2019, the air in Delhi turned poisonous. Schools shut down. Authorities grounded flights. Visibility dropped to near zero. Emergency rooms filled with children who couldn’t stop coughing. Construction halted. People wore masks long before COVID made it normal. The Indian government called it a public health emergency.

This event was the predictable result of crop burning, unchecked industrial pollution, vehicle emissions, and seasonal weather patterns that trapped smog like a lid over the city. It happened every year, and every year, people died.

Then, inside India, in one of the most polluted cities on Earth, belief overruled biology in court.

Biology said: Adapt or suffer. People were coughing blood. Kids were developing lifelong respiratory damage. Entire populations were living in a toxic cloud, and from a purely biological standpoint, they should have either fled the region or accepted the toll as the cost of living.

But they didn’t. Citizens sued.

In 2021, the Indian Supreme Court ruled that the right to life included the right to clean air as a binding constitutional right. The court ordered governments to coordinate, enforce pollution controls, and protect public health.

For India, this point wasn’t woke ideology. It was survival. No emissions cuts would fix it overnight, and Delhi still struggles with pollution, but the ruling forced governments to act. Environmental collapse became a human dignity violation, not a policy failure.

Follow-up data show that the ruling was more than symbolic. Since the court’s directives and India’s National Clean Air Programme kicked in, Delhi’s air is about fifteen percent cleaner today. Still triple the safe limit, yes. But every fraction means fewer asthma attacks, fewer cardiac emergencies, and thousands of school days reclaimed each winter. Belief did not cleanse the air overnight. But it forced measurable gains. It’s proof that a legal idea tied to enforcement and money can bend biology in the right direction.

But Now, the Brutal Truth

Even if America reduced its emissions today, would climate change stop? No. Even if we cut all emissions to zero tomorrow, the planet wouldn’t stop warming. Not right away. Not for decades.

Carbon dioxide stays in the atmosphere for hundreds of years. What we’ve already emitted, along with China, India, Europe, and the rest, is already baked in. That legacy carbon keeps trapping heat, melting ice, and driving storms, no matter what we do now.

And we aren’t the only emitter. We are currently responsible for about 13–15% of global emissions, depending on how you count. China emits more than double that. India’s emissions are rising fast. Developing nations, in total, now emit more than developed ones. And we are improving. We’ve cut emissions from electricity production by 35% since 2007.

But even if the United States went to zero, the warming would continue. Sea levels would keep rising. Places like Vanuatu would still drown, just more slowly.

That’s not an excuse for doing nothing. But we need to be honest.

Cutting emissions isn’t a rescue plan. It’s a brake. It slows the damage. It might help future generations, but it doesn’t undo the past. And it doesn’t save the people standing in the water right now.

If we’re serious about survival, emissions cuts aren’t enough. We need adaptation. We need infrastructure. And we need to stop pretending courtroom declarations can replace concrete, steel, and hard physical work.

We survive by adapting, producing, and overwhelming problems with force, not by scaling back. Countries like Vanuatu need our help, not promises made in cities we rebuilt with industrial might that pumped emissions into the air.

What’s It Going to Be?

We began with a court opinion and a question of rights. We trekked through biology, belief, wartime industry, and Delhi’s burning air to see how those rights collide with reality. Now the path loops back to you, the listener.

Here is our problem, simplified: believing that a stable climate is a human right does not cool a single degree of ocean or raise a single stretch of road. Biology will continue to test us, and belief alone will fail that test.

Our solution is equally plain: we need to turn belief into infrastructure. We need to cash our chips out as reinforced coastlines, relocated villages, cleaner grids, and resilient economies. Engineers first, lawyers later.

Every nation, especially the ones with means, has a choice. We can cling to declarations and watch biology take its toll, or we can pick up the tools that have saved us before and aim them at the new threat. History will judge us by reformed infrastructure, not by the eloquence of our court filings.

Belief may bind us together, but it will not overcome biology. Belief sets the goal. Biology will keep the score and decide the winner.

So this week’s question stands: Is a sustainable environment a human right? And if we say yes, what will we build to prove it?

May God bless the United States of America. May we find the resolve to build the consensus to adapt.

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State Government Funding Is a Paradox

State governments do important work, but too often, they’re boxed in. If we want better roads, stronger schools, and healthier communities, we don’t need to cut federal support. We need to change how it works.

Fragmented control kills leadership and accountability. Federal and state officials often share authority with different priorities. That overlap creates seams: delays, miscommunication, and gaps where problems fall through. Even an imperfect decision-maker, if clearly responsible, can move faster than a tangle of agencies working at cross purposes. Clarity beats complexity.

Effective leadership means guidance, resourcing, results, and accountability. To orient in the right direction, there’s one mission, one leader, one line of authority.

State power hasn’t been lost in a courtroom or an election. It’s been hollowed out by how the money works. Federal grants now pay for most of what states do, including roads, education, agriculture, healthcare, and law enforcement.

That might sound like help. But if we look closer, we see that money comes with strings, and those strings are a leash. Voters elect one set of leaders. Then a second, unelected set inside federal agencies writes the rules through grant conditions, deadlines, and compliance forms. The people don’t know who to hold accountable.

So this week we ask: What would it take to make state government matter again?

After all, We the People was never meant to describe a bureaucracy. It was a declaration of self-government. Government of, by, and for the people. Not federal control, but local judgment. Not compliance. Purpose.

The Problem: Compliance Masquerading as Governance

Every year, taxpayers send vast sums to Washington. That money returns to the states, but not freely. It comes with instructions: mandates, formulas, eligibility rules, and layers of accounting. States must apply for federal grants, and they don’t always win. In theory, it’s a partnership. In practice, it’s a transaction with terms that limit what states can do.

State leaders don’t really govern under this model. They implement. Legislators may pass budgets, but terms are set in federal agencies. Local needs or voter demands don’t shape priorities. Instead, federal guidance, often years in advance, sets the conditions.

This isn’t always malicious. The intent is to standardize, promote fairness, and ensure funds are spent wisely. But good intentions don’t guarantee good outcomes. Over time, this system rewards compliance over creativity, and risk avoidance over responsiveness. Innovation dies in the red tape.

Federal power expands under the banner of help; state autonomy shrinks under the burden of compliance. What looks like governance is just administration. What looks like support is control.

The Slow Death of Local Judgment

State governments must be able to set their own priorities, shaped by the needs of their communities. For a long time, they did. As examples, education, transportation, and agriculture were handled almost entirely at the state level. States had less money, but more authority.

Before the 1960s, states ran their own public schools with minimal interference. That changed with the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, which expanded the federal role. The funding helped rural areas, but it came with strings. Testing mandates and performance targets now shape classroom policy, but national academic outcomes haven’t meaningfully improved, especially in reading and math.

Transportation followed the same pattern. After the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956, federal funding brought federal design standards, environmental review processes, and route constraints. Local projects came to depend on federal approval. States could no longer freely set priorities.

Agriculture shifted, too. Local extension offices once worked directly with farmers to adapt to local conditions. That changed with the rise of USDA-administered programs. Now, farmers make decisions based on eligibility for crop insurance, conservation compliance, and commodity subsidies.

One of the clearest effects? Instead of a variety of food crops, the Midwest now grows mostly two: corn and soybeans. Neither is meant for direct human consumption, but they’re the safest bet under federal policy. The heartland used to grow more vegetables; food for people, not for fuel or feed.

To sum up: kids don’t run in PE because they’re prepping for federally required benchmarks, but math scores didn’t go up.

Most roads got safer, but Wyoming got the Snow Chi Minh Trail. It’s I-80’s scenic southern route, built against local advice, now one of the windiest, snowiest, most shutdown-prone highways in America.

And all our food now contains federally subsidized corn sugar. A 2016 study in JAMA Internal Medicine found that Americans whose diets were highest in subsidized calories had significantly higher rates of obesity, high blood sugar, and inflammation.

None of this is inherently malicious. Some of it works. Some doesn’t. But the pattern is clear: as federal dollars expand standardization, local authority shrinks.

The First Stand for States’ Rights

This tension isn’t new.

June and July, 1798. The Fifth Congress of the United States, under President John Adams, passed a series of four laws that became known as the Alien and Sedition Acts. Congress claimed the laws were meant to restrict the activities of foreign residents and silence dangerous speech.

In reality, they made it a crime to criticize the federal government. If an American wrote something unflattering about the president or Congress, they could be fined or jailed. This wasn’t a fringe proposal. They passed and became law. And people were actually arrested, including congressmen, newspaper editors, and publishers.

Now imagine you’re a state leader: a governor, a legislator. You’ve just joined this new American experiment. The Constitution is still fresh. The idea of a federal government this powerful is still new. Suddenly, it starts to look a little too much like the old one you just fought a war to escape. The kind of federal control that reminds you why we added a Second Amendment in the first place.

Even Thomas Jefferson, the man who wrote the Declaration of Independence, and James Madison, the principal author of the Constitution, started to worry. And they didn’t just stand by.

Jefferson drafted the Kentucky Resolutions in October 1798 and quietly passed them to political allies George Nicholas and Wilson Cary Nicholas in Kentucky. The legislature adopted them on November 16.

A few weeks later, Madison followed suit. He drafted the Virginia Resolutions in secret and worked behind the scenes to move them through the legislature. They passed on December 24, just in time for Christmas.

Both men kept their involvement quiet. Jefferson was Vice President. Madison was still in Congress. They knew that open authorship could trigger political backlash, or even charges under the laws they were challenging.

Their resolutions argued that the states had created the federal government, not the other way around, and therefore retained powers not explicitly given away. They claimed the states had both a right and a duty to declare federal laws unconstitutional if those laws went too far.

The resolutions didn’t carry legal weight, but they planted a seed that grew into later doctrines of nullification and state sovereignty.

They weren’t perfect. The resolutions were later cited by those pushing secession at the onset of the Civil War. But in the moment, they were a clear stand for state autonomy against federal overreach.

Most states rejected the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions. But the ideas stuck, and they helped carry the next Democratic-Republican candidate, Thomas Jefferson, into the presidency. When Jefferson took office, he let the Alien and Sedition Acts expire and pardoned those who had been convicted under them. He even returned some of the fines. He erased the laws and made sure their damage didn’t linger.

Today, federal control looks different. It doesn’t come through dramatic laws. It comes through funding and the rules that come with it.

Some of that funding does real good: roads, hospitals, schools. But the more Washington funds, the more it dictates. And the more it dictates, the less space state leaders have to lead.

Federal agencies don’t see day-to-day realities clearly. They’re too distant to make the right call, but they still write the rules.

Maybe there’s a better way.

A Better Way: Fund Goals, Not Control

We need a better way to structure federal support. One that honors constitutional balance, improves real-world outcomes, and respects state autonomy. A model built on four principles: guidance, resourcing, results, and accountability.

Guidance doesn’t mean silence. Congress should set national priorities through laws and budgets. But those broad directions often get buried in red tape, splintered into grant conditions, reporting mandates, and timelines divorced from local realities.

Instead of prescribing how to act, guidance should focus on what we aim to achieve. That means setting shared outcomes, not universal methods, and trusting states, with their varied geographies, cultures, and capacities, to chart their own course. Federal oversight still matters, especially to protect civil rights and prevent abuse, but oversight is not the same as control.

Federal agencies don’t need to vanish. They need to collaborate. Agencies and state leaders should jointly define goals and align their work to meet them. A federal office doesn’t have to report to the state, but it should recognize the state’s voice as legitimate within its borders.

Missouri and Illinois might pursue different agricultural policies. California and Nevada may diverge on environmental rules. Different is okay. A joint state and federal agency team making progress and achieving the goals matters more than methods. The goals are the decisive element.

…

Resourcing

Goals without resources are empty. If states are going to lead, they need the tools to act: funding, usable data, and flexibility. Resourcing isn’t about writing checks. It’s about building capacity and letting strategy guide how dollars are spent instead of bureaucracy.

In a better system, as long as states pursue the shared goals, they should be free to reallocate resources as needed. Leadership works adaptively, not by spreadsheets.

…

Results

People don’t care if a program met its compliance checklist. Not how many forms were submitted, or whether a benchmark was technically met. They care about bridges and infrastructure, if the ER had a doctor, and whether the school taught their kid to read.

Measuring results is harder than measuring process. It requires trust, collaboration, and the humility to admit when something isn’t working. It takes courage to admit we don’t achieve a goal, because it makes us accountable.

Still, we have to measure results against the goals we set. Not because data is perfect. But if we don’t ask whether we succeeded, the system becomes self-justifying.

…

Accountability

In sum, we have the decisive element in place: shared goals. We have the resources to achieve those goals and the flexibility to move them as needed. We have the courage to admit when we succeed, and when we don’t.

We have set the conditions for accountability. When a program fails today, no one knows who to blame. States point to federal rules; agencies point to state mismanagement. When authority aligns with responsibility, voters know exactly who to hold accountable.

Simply Saying We Believe in States’ Rights Isn’t Good Enough

We started with a paradox. State support has become federal control. But the solution isn’t less support; it's smarter support. Support that restores autonomy, honors local judgment, and delivers real outcomes.

We can’t just say we believe in states’ rights. We must prove it. Set goals. Trust states. Measure outcomes. Then hold leaders accountable. Only then will state government matter again.

Government of the people means trusting local judgment more than distant control.

At the same time, federal agencies bring expertise and capability that states don’t have.

Rather than cutting federal agencies that seem to be underperforming, we need to reorient our approach.

Set joint goals. Trust states. Measure what truly matters. Demand accountability.

What would it take to make state government matter again?

May God bless the United States of America, that government of the people might once again serve the people.

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We Don’t Build a Country on Things We Can Touch

Not really.

We build it on belief.

We believe a piece of paper can be worth a dollar. We believe strangers can govern us. We believe that if we follow the rules, justice and liberty will protect us.

None of that is real, not like gravity or fire.

But it works because enough of us believe. That’s what holds a nation together. Not armies. Not buildings. Not slogans. Belief. We think institutions hold society together. But it’s the other way around. We hold them together with belief.

When nothing is real, belief gives institutions value.

Today, we ask, if justice isn’t real, what is its market price?

And I don’t mean metaphorically. I mean literally. What do Americans pay out of pocket to achieve the justice our Constitution promises?

Money Isn’t Real

Money isn’t real. Not like gravity. Not like death. You can’t drop it on your foot. You can’t breathe it. It has no weight, no heat, no life.

Its value depends on whether others believe in it.

Even the bills in our wallets mean nothing. They’re just cotton paper and ink. And most money isn’t even physical. It’s digital, just zeroes and ones on a computer somewhere. If no one believes those numbers are worth anything, they aren’t.

But when enough of us believe in them, they become real.

When we go to the store to buy eggs and butter for breakfast, we might use a debit card for our purchase. We give the store some of our digital zeroes and ones for real eggs that we can eat.

In this way, money facilitates society. It’s a fiction that organizes everything from breakfast to war.

Again, money isn’t real. Even if we think it matters, that’s not enough. It only matters if others think it does. If we stop believing, our money is worthless.

But because enough of us believe in it, belief itself creates the value. The belief makes a dollar worth a dollar, and not just what the cotton paper would suggest.

This principle is society’s basis.

In the same way that money only has value because other people believe it has value, our institutions only have value when enough of us believe in them.

Our institutions aren’t real outside of our shared beliefs. They become real only because we act like they are. Religion, law, the stock market, America, and the Constitution exist only in the human mind, but once enough of us believe, we begin to shape the world.

Our churches can only bring relief to the needy in our communities if enough of us believe not in the rituals, but in the responsibility to care for the needy. It’s not a physical reality. It’s a collective commitment. Shared belief only matters if it produces real outcomes. We measure the value of our churches in meals for the needy, addiction recovery programs, volunteer hours, and youth mentoring. If those disappear, the steeple means nothing.

Our law can only bring order to society if enough of us believe it applies to all of us. If we don’t believe the law applies to all of us, order dissolves. We measure the effectiveness of law by disputes resolved without violence, access to and fair treatment in court, and access to counsel no matter your income.

Belief is the foundation of our institutions. When enough of us share these beliefs, our institutions gain value.

The Day George Washington Gave the Army Back

We think institutions hold society together. But it’s the other way around. We hold them together with belief.

Scene: December 23, 1783. Annapolis, Maryland. The war is over. The Constitution doesn’t exist yet. George Washington entered Congress to resign his military commission.

Everyone held their breath. Washington had led the Continental Army through eight brutal years of war. He was a war hero: beloved, feared, and trusted. If he wanted to become king, no one could stop him.

Rumors of Washington’s intentions to give up power had already crossed the Atlantic. King George III reportedly told the American-born artist Benjamin West that if Washington gave up power, he would be the greatest man in the world.

The American people loved him. He was a star. He didn’t have to give up power. He could be king. The night before the ceremony, they threw him a party. Washington “danced in every set, so that the ladies might have the pleasure of dancing with him, or as it has since been handsomely expressed, get a touch of him.”

But instead of claiming fame and power, he gave it back to the people. America would owe allegiance to no king, and George Washington believed in America. He would not become king.

The next day, he stood before the Confederation Congress, a weak, fragile institution barely holding the states together, and gave up command. To complete his tear-filled address, he said … “Having now finished the work assigned me, I retire from the great theatre of action... and take my leave of all the employments of public life….”

He didn’t have to. He could have stayed in command.

Washington’s single act gave birth to civilian rule. A weak Congress became legitimate, not because it inherently had power, but because one man believed it should. And once Washington believed, others followed. Washington relinquishing command transferred his belief to his fellow Americans.

His belief in rule by the people gave value to the institution that became the Constitution. When James Madison and the other authors wrote the Constitution, they opened with an idea that didn’t exist in governance: ‘We the People of the United States.’ People stopped believing that the Almighty ordained rulers at birth because they came from a ruling family. They started believing people consent to governance for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

The idea didn’t stop at the Potomac. It crossed the Atlantic. Less than ten years later, the French violently overthrew their monarchy. The streets of Paris ran red with blood. The Bastille fell. The people executed their king and queen. They refused to be subjects any longer. And it didn’t end in France. Across Europe, the old order trembled. Monarchies began to fall or reform. The divine right of kings gave way to constitutions, parliaments, and citizens.

The transfer of Washington’s belief in rule by the people to the Constitution is sharply evident. Where a king might believe primarily in order, people believe in justice. A king might believe in rules and obedience. People believe in liberty, protest, and the right to bear arms against their rulers.

His belief in rule by the people made the people believe in themselves.

Washington’s act powerfully illustrates how shared belief underpins our institutions. When we believe in an idea, we build institutions. When enough of us share that belief, those institutions gain value.

Of course, like money, we need to be able to measure this value. To measure justice, we need to pick something concrete and clear. We need measures that reflect real opportunity.

Measuring Ideas Like Liberty and Justice

Some think tanks say they can measure the payoff of our belief in the Constitution’s promises. They call their metrics “market quotes” on the value we assign to liberty, justice, and other national ideals.

Organizations like Freedom House publish global reports with titles like Freedom in the World. They attempt to track civil liberties and political rights across 195 countries. These reports have been cited for over 50 years.

But we should reject every proposed measure that comes from outside sources instead of the people. The people are the governed, and only the governed can say whether they are free. An external judge of internal values falls short.

Others suggest questionnaires, letting people rate their own experience. But surveys are subjective. If belief is real, it must leave a measurable trail. We must be able to measure our values like we measure the dollar.

So, how would we measure ideas like liberty and justice? Let’s consider justice. Justice has a dual meaning. It is equal treatment under the law, and it is access to fair opportunity, no matter where you were born.

Let’s consider two critical areas in society: housing and education. Why these two? Because where you live and what you learn directly determine the opportunities you have. Housing and education aren’t luxuries. They’re the foundation of fairness.

Genius hides in poverty. A child born in a trailer or housing project must succeed by structure, not by luck.

We need empirical data to measure whether we achieve our national goal of justice. If they are willing to work for it, a kid born in a trailer or project housing needs to be able to buy a house in a safe neighborhood with a good school for their children.

To measure our ability to achieve this goal, we need a test. To pass it, America needs a healthy supply of homes for first-time homebuyers that cost only double the household median income. The median cost for a house in 1960 was $11,900, when the median income was $5,600. The median household income in 2023 was $80,610. So a fair entry point today would be a home under $160,000.

Next, education.

Any loan a low-income student must take to attend a public college is a measurable price of fairness. That price tells us how far short we fall of our national ideal.

We need to track three numbers; each for first-time, full-time undergraduates from the bottom income quartile at in-state public colleges:

First, the average net price after grants: tuition, fees, living costs, minus all aid. If that price rises faster than family income, the system is failing.

Second, the average federal loan balance at graduation. If the poorest students graduate with the biggest debts, we have not achieved equal opportunity.

Third, the three-year default rate on those loans. If defaults are rising, the ladder of opportunity is breaking.

We Believe

When we believe in an idea, we build institutions.

When enough of us share our beliefs, our institutions gain value.

If money isn’t real…

If liberty and justice aren’t real…

If even America isn’t real...

Then our common belief is everything.

Led by George Washington, ‘We the People’ owe allegiance to no king. We believe in the America that is justice and liberty for free people.

Simple ideas, like access to housing and education for Americans no matter where they were born, are achievable. But we will not achieve our goals if we do not measure them.

Justice might not be physical, but its price, what ordinary people pay just to access fairness, is as real as any dollar.

So, if justice isn’t real, what is its market price?

May God bless the United States of America, as we work to ensure every American, rich or poor, has the chance to work, to succeed, and to prosper together.

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The One Big Beautiful Bill: A Poem

Our lives pass like shadows, despair takes root within us.

We convince ourselves property is our natural right; that we can own the land here before us, remaining when we are gone.

We guard it jealously, believing what we earn must remain ours alone.

We charge our leaders with duty: to defend our lives, our liberty, our property.

Yet to do so, we bury the unborn beneath our debt.

One generation fades, another rises. The earth endures; we are dust, mere travelers through a brief season.

We tax our days with worry and grief over troubles we might never see.

We borrow endlessly, debts stretching beyond bearing; chains placed silently upon shoulders yet unborn.

They never chose, never consented.

The dead hold no rights over the living, yet we, the living, pledge away a future’s harvest, earnings of lives not yet begun.

Theft, delayed.

When we pass, soon enough, what do we gain from our toil if all we leave behind is burden?

…

We say we protect property by cutting taxes. So our question: Can we protect what we own today by stealing from the unborn?

Debt Versus Property

Our lives pass like shadows, and despair grows in us. We tax our days and wring our hands with worry and grief over what may never come. No matter how hard we labor, what we own eventually passes to others. We arrive with nothing, leave with nothing, and gain nothing from our labor that we will take with us.

And it makes us worry.

Our humanity creates this problem. Aware of our smallness and short time on earth, we gather what we can and hold tight. We want to keep it. Even when our children die, we carry the feed bucket anyway. The desire to keep what we’ve earned is as old as the first harvest, the first hands that grasped their work with pride.

Out of this hope came the idea of property as a right; that no ruler, mob, or distant power could unjustly take what we’ve earned. This belief is freedom itself. If our labor belongs to us, we are free. If it can be seized, we are servants, whether our master is king, neighbor, or voting majority.

We established laws to protect what we earn, rules that say no one’s wages, harvest, or home can be taken without true cause. Protecting property safeguards liberty.

When we are free to keep what we work for, we can express our being. We can choose. We can grow from the effects of those choices. That is liberty.

But liberty has a cost. To protect our property today, we’ve embraced a dangerous shortcut: borrowing from tomorrow. We say cutting taxes preserves our property, that government should take only what it must. But instead of paying the cost with our own labor, we mortgage the lives of our unborn children. We pass the bill forward to generations who have no voice.

This is our tension. Our contradiction.

We protect the property of the living by indebting those not yet born. We say no one should steal from us, but we steal from those who will follow, who have no vote, no voice, no choice.

Promise

We made a promise in property, and a promise in liberty. We believe a person is entitled to the fruits of their own labor. That what they build, they may keep. That no power, however great, may seize it without just cause. If this is not so, then no man is free.

But this promise carries another. If a person is entitled to the fruits of their labor, then we cannot buy our comfort with another’s sweat. We cannot, by our actions, burden those who had no voice.

Yet today we break both promises at once. We declare no one may take what’s ours, that no ruler or future vote may steal it. But in the same breath, we pledge the labor of unborn generations to pay our debts.

This contradiction cannot stand. A nation cannot uphold a principle and violate it simultaneously. We cannot protect today’s harvest while mortgaging tomorrow’s.

Seed corn is the harvest reserved for planting next year’s crop. Eat it today, and we survive, but guarantee starvation tomorrow.

We must not consume our children’s seed corn or warm ourselves by burning their future fuel. Liberty isn’t free. It cannot be bought with debt or paid with the wages of those yet to be born and who cannot speak, vote, or stand for themselves.

If we believe in keeping what we earn, we must guard it ourselves, paying our cost today. Spending our children’s money means standing for a principle even as we betray it.

An America built on contradiction will not survive.

Broken promises bleed forward, generation to generation, until only the dead remain to answer.

The Dead’s Silent Claim

The dead hold no claim over the living. The next generation owes nothing to the bones beneath the grass.

Every age must choose for itself. Every generation must decide which burdens it will bear, which debts it will pay, and which work it will complete.

We have erred. We claim to protect our property, to keep what is ours, to stand free. But we build our freedom on promises made with labor not our own. We insist future generations pay debts we refuse to shoulder today.

This cannot stand. Freedom and bondage cannot coexist. We cannot guard our harvest by mortgaging someone else’s future. A nation cannot love liberty while chaining children who never chose their burden.

We call ourselves defenders of property, but we steal from tomorrow. With one hand we raise our fists and shout ‘freedom!’ With the other, we tighten our chains.

If reason has a law, it must be this:

A generation cannot call itself free while binding the next.

The dead have no rights over the living. Neither do we have any right to seize from those not yet born, to pile debt on backs that have yet to draw breath.

We claim to guard what is ours, but we have promised away what was never ours to promise.

Back to our question: Can we protect what we own today by stealing from the unborn?

May God bless the United States of America, and grant us the courage to pay our debts today before we ask our children to pay what they do not owe.

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When the Cure Doesn’t Serve the People, the System Fails the Constitutional Test

Public money, on its face, should yield public benefit. But every year, the federal government sends almost sixty billion dollars to universities like Harvard for research and development, most of it through the Department of Health and Human Services.

A university takes federal funding, makes a breakthrough, and licenses it to a drug company. Nothing stops that company from setting a high price, because while the research was public, the product isn’t.

Taxpayers fund the research, then get stuck paying again at the pharmacy. For many, the cost of needed treatment puts the remedy out of reach.

…

We drift because we forget our purpose.

The Constitution names six national goals: Union, Justice, Domestic tranquility, Liberty, the common defense, and the general welfare. Every law and every dollar must serve at least one. When a policy misses the mark, it serves power, not people.

The point of American governance is to serve the people. That philosophy is the reason we were born at war. Why we owe allegiance to no king. Why we have our uniquely structured Constitution.

We lose sight of aligning our effort with these national goals. We need to get back on track.

So today, we’re asking whether public funding for private research still serves the general welfare. Does it help all of us, or just a few? To answer that, we go back to the beginning, with a boy named Jimmy, a Boston hospital, and a small act of hope that changed cancer research.

Jimmy’s Radio Miracle

In May 1948, a boy named Einar Gustafson wanted to watch his favorite baseball team, the Boston Braves. Einar had a problem: he didn’t have a television. But he had a bigger problem. He was in the Children’s Hospital ward in Boston, dying of leukemia.

At the time, leukemia was effectively a death sentence. It had been first identified a hundred years earlier, but there was still no treatment, just blood transfusions and comfort care. Then came Dr. Sidney Farber.

…

Farber was a pathologist at Children’s Hospital. He’d grown tired of trying to learn why a patient didn’t respond to treatment after they had died and decided to try something new. He devised an experimental blood treatment he thought would block the food cancer cells needed to grow. His small study of just 16 children showed that 10 of them improved. The remissions didn’t last, but the fact that they happened at all was groundbreaking. It was the first time a chemical agent had ever worked against a non-solid tumor.

Farber had introduced the world to chemotherapy, or now the more common term, just “chemo” treatment for cancer.

That same year, Farber and a member of the Variety Children’s Charity were looking for a way to raise money for research. They needed a face for the cause. They found it in Einar, but to protect his identity, they called him “Jimmy.”

…

So they told his story on a national radio broadcast. They said Jimmy wanted a television to watch his Braves. They said cancer research needed support. The country responded. In just eight minutes of airtime, Americans sent in $231,000, more than three million in today’s dollars. The Jimmy Fund was born.

That money launched the Children’s Cancer Research Foundation, which later became the Sidney Farber Cancer Center, and eventually the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, now Harvard University’s principal cancer research center.

But Farber didn’t stop at the lab. He kept pressing Congress, explaining that major breakthroughs would take national funding and sustained effort. And Congress listened. Between 1957 and 1967, the National Cancer Institute’s budget more than tripled.

…

Then, in 1971, President Richard Nixon called on Congress for an extra $100 million, nearly $700 million today, to launch an intensive campaign to find a cure for cancer. Later that year, he signed the National Cancer Act, declared a formal War on Cancer, and pumped billions into cancer research nationwide. The act expanded the National Cancer Institute’s power, created new research centers, and marked the first time the federal government treated cancer as a coordinated national challenge.

Since the increased 1971 national commitment, the American people have sent more than $1 trillion to universities for medical research. Progress slowly advances. This year, Harvard Medical tested an anti-tumor vaccine with promising results.

…

We could look at this story as either a success or a failure. A success in that private contributions provided seed money that helped create a medical breakthrough. We have made great advancements. A failure that significant public obligations showed diminishing returns. We have not cured cancer, and American life expectancies have not increased in the last 20 years.

But that is too short-sighted.

It’s not that we should rely only on private funding commitments, or that public funding for private institutions is irresponsible.

Likewise, the crux of the matter is not that public funding is essential to make progress in research and development.

The decisive point is: does our effort advance our progress towards achieving one or more of our national goals? Let's ask the hard questions clearly.

Justice and the General Welfare

Can we definitively say that giving universities money for research and development improves the general welfare?

Can we say the effort advances justice?

Certainly, national infrastructure benefits the whole country. Medical research depends on nationwide clinical trials, standardized data sharing, drug-approval pipelines, and outreach to rural and underserved areas. Only the federal government has the mandate and capacity to serve everyone. We don’t serve the general welfare if cures stay bottled up in Boston.

But if we pay for research and development, and private companies turn the patents into private property and set prices that most families can’t afford, then the investment the American people made to advance justice and general welfare falls short.

The prostate-cancer drug Xtandi is a classic example. Our money helped discover it, but the company that holds the license lists the therapy at more than one hundred twenty-nine thousand dollars a year. More than ten thousand dollars a month! Far beyond the reach of most American families.

Patient advocates have multiple times asked the government to use its lawful authority to force wider access. NIH refused both times. In total, this authority has never been used in the forty-plus years it has existed.

Let me say that again.

In more than four decades, the federal government has never once stepped in to come to the aid of the American people to lower the price of a publicly funded drug.

When a publicly funded drug ends up on the market at a price well beyond what the average American family can afford, the spending fails the general welfare test. It also fails the justice test, because wealth divides the rich and poor, urban and rural, insured and uninsured.

Yes, inequality exists everywhere. But America was built to be different, on purpose.

Part of the reason America exists is justice. Every state in the union agreed that if the people fund medical research, then a poor man and a rich man should have equal access to the benefit.

So… it seems the way we structure public funding for cancer research at Harvard and other universities doesn’t align with our national goals.

How Would We Change That?

Right now, universities take our money in the form of federal research grants, but only part of that money goes to the actual research. The rest, sometimes nearly half, goes toward overhead. This includes administrative costs, building maintenance, and salaries for university staff who never touch the lab.

At Harvard, that indirect rate is nearly 70 percent for research conducted on campus. The indirect rate for research conducted at other Harvard facilities is still high, 26 percent.

So when the American people send a million dollars to find treatments for cancer, four hundred thousand might go toward the effort. The rest feeds the institution.

Second, we have a problem with private ownership of public money. Since 1980, universities have been allowed to patent inventions made with public money. They can then license those patents, often exclusively, to drug companies. There’s no requirement that the final product be affordable or widely available. The government has the power to step in when the public is denied the benefit, but in over forty years, it has never once used it.

Third, we admit where trials fall short. There are rules encouraging inclusion across race, gender, and geography, but enforcement is weak. Most trials still happen at elite hospitals. Rural Americans, tribal communities, and low-income patients are left out.

Again, the structure of public funding for cancer research doesn’t align with our national goals. It doesn’t reflect justice or promote general welfare.

A better system would start with a simple rule: 100 percent of public money goes to the research. If a university believes in the work, it can cover its own administrative costs. The taxpayer’s role is to fund discovery, not to subsidize building cafeterias and paying deans.

Next, any treatment developed with public dollars must be subject to a universal access guarantee. That means open licenses for nonprofit hospitals and VA clinics, and a price ceiling for commercial sale. If a private company uses public research to build a profitable product, the benefit must reach the people who paid for it.

Finally, we demand equity in clinical trials. That means conducting research across the country and proving that results apply to everyone. If we measure every dollar spent by whether it serves the people, across race, income, and geography, then we align with the Constitution.

The effort isn’t intended to punish universities or end research.

The effort intends to ensure that the commitment the American people make to justice and their general welfare serves the nation in return.

Wait…What Happened to Einar?

Einar Gustafson, or “Jimmy,” lived. He left the hospital and went home. He stayed out of the public eye until 1998, when he revealed his identity at a Jimmy Fund event in Boston. By then, he was in his sixties, working as a potato farmer in Maine.

We don’t lack commitment or generosity. We don’t even lack funding.

What we lack is purpose and structure.

Our question isn’t whether we should fund research. We already do. It’s not whether we can make breakthroughs. We already have.

Our question is whether we’re serious about what our Constitution says that funding is for.

This story isn’t about punishing Harvard. It’s about the promises we made when we became a country. It’s about justice, the general welfare, and holding ourselves to our highest standard.

If our effort doesn’t serve justice and reach the people who paid for it, then we are failing to achieve the goals America stands for.

So, should we continue to fund cancer research at Harvard and other universities?

May God bless the United States of America.

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Misunderstanding Iran’s Ideological Nature Invites Endless Conflict

American B-2 bombers struck Iran’s uranium-enrichment sites at Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan. President Trump called the raid successful. Tehran vowed retaliation.

Washington insists the raids sought to halt Iran’s march toward a nuclear weapon. No one in America supports a nuclear-armed Iran. Iran’s nuclear march is a real threat, but unilateral bombing rarely brings lasting stability; it breeds resentment and invites retaliation.

We look at Iran and see a country, but that simplified lens is short-sighted. Iran acts like a cause as much as a state, and when we fight a cause, we forfeit the momentum every strategist tries to preserve.

Because Iran sees itself both as a sovereign state and as a sacred mission, every rash strike feeds its cause; only disciplined patience denies its advantage.

Iran cannot defeat us militarily, but it doesn’t need to. It only needs to provoke us into endless conflict. It conducted limited strikes in response, but Tehran’s answer may come months or years from now; Iran has a long memory.

When they do respond, we must act with disciplined patience.

If they close the Strait of Hormuz, how do we respond? If a proxy kills US troops? If a cyber-strike paralyzes East Coast shipping overnight?

Disciplined.

Patience.

It’s not to say that we can’t act with appropriate force. But we won’t achieve national objectives by force alone.

To grasp why Iran acts like a cause, not just a country, we must start long before the revolution. Before the Shah. Before the CIA. We start with Persia; not a place on the map, but an idea of moral kingship and enduring memory. We start with the ruler who first fused power and reverence: Cyrus the Great.

Cyrus the Great and the Authority to Believe

Around 700 BC, a Hebrew prophet named Isaiah wrote a decree the Almighty spoke through him. He claimed that a foreign ruler, at the time unborn and unknown, would one day subdue nations and harness kings. He would free a captive people and rebuild their ruined city. The text named him directly: Cyrus. It was remarkable. No other foreigner is singled out like that in the Hebrew texts. And certainly not someone who wouldn’t be born for another 150 years.

We don’t know exactly how the name made it into the scrolls. But we do know what happened next.

In 539 BC, Cyrus the Great of Persia conquered Babylon, in what is now southern Iraq. At the time, Babylon was the most powerful city in the world. Its walls were legendary. Its temples massive. Its armies feared.

But Cyrus didn’t need to lay siege to the city. The priests of Babylon opened the gates. Cyrus walked in without bloodshed, declared himself king, and set the captives free, including the Jewish people, who had been exiled there for 70 years.

Rather than erase Babylonian culture, Cyrus did something rare: he preserved it. He didn’t burn the temples. He rebuilt them. He didn’t force anyone to worship his gods. Instead, he issued a decree, now carved into clay and housed in the British Museum. He declared that all people under his rule could worship freely, in their own languages, in their own lands. Some scholars call it the first human rights charter in recorded history. In 1971, the Shah of Iran presented a replica of the Cyrus Cylinder to the United Nations. The artifact is still on display at UN headquarters in New York, a 2,500-year-old document that helped shape modern human rights in governance.

Cyrus wielded political power through a moral framework. He legitimized his rule through divine-sanctioned tolerance, not fear.

Cyrus wasn’t just a conqueror. He was a strategist. He believed the Almighty gave him authority over the known world. He ruled through force when necessary, but through legitimacy whenever possible. His empire didn’t just stretch across continents. It was stitched together through tolerance, diplomacy, and something resembling vision.

Iran, once Persia, still draws from that heritage. Iran sees itself as a nation, but also an idea. One that mixes governance with belief.

Today’s Iran is built on an entirely different religion, but its political structure echoes the same fusion of moral authority and statecraft. Its constitution invokes divine authority. The Supreme Leader governs people both inside and outside the borders of Iran through law and their proclamation of truth.

So when we in America look at Iran and see only a hostile government, we miss the deeper architecture. Iran doesn’t see itself as just a state. It’s a symbol backed by thousands of years of belief that statehood and faith are separate but the same.

That fusion between divine purpose and political authority continues to shape revolution in Iran. Including the one we started.

The Day Democracy Died in Tehran

In 1953, Mohammad Mossadegh was the Prime Minister of Iran. He was elected by parliament, immensely popular, and bold. Mossadegh nationalized Iran’s oil, kicked out the British-owned Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (now BP), and demanded that Iranians control their own resources.

London and Washington panicked. Together, MI6 and the CIA launched a covert operation, code-named Operation Ajax, to remove Mossadegh from power.

The plan was old-school regime change. We bribed newspapers and paid thugs to stage fake riots. They worked with military officers loyal to the Shah, who had fled the country during the unrest. After just a few chaotic days, Mossadegh was arrested. The Shah returned in triumph, flown back like a king in exile.

To the West, the coup restored order, but many Iranians strongly objected.

They watched as Britain and America overthrew their democratically elected leader with foreign cash and royal approval. They saw that the Shah didn’t stand for Iran; he stood for Britain and America. And even though the oil kept flowing, anger simmered.

…

Fast forward 10 years.

In 1963, Iran’s Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, launched what he called the White Revolution. This initiative included land reform, women’s voting rights, and Western-style law. On paper, it looked modern. In practice, to many, it looked like Western intrusion dressed as reform.

A man named Ruhollah Khomeini objected to the Western influence. Before he was the face of a revolution, Khomeini was just a cleric with a sharp tongue and a sharper pen. In Khomeini’s eyes, the White Revolution looked like surrender.

He saw the reforms as a betrayal, not just of Islam, but of Iran itself. The Shah wasn’t acting alone. American advisors were everywhere. Foreign capital was reshaping Tehran. And then came the final insult: a law granting US military personnel full legal immunity inside Iran. If an American soldier shot an Iranian in the street, Khomeini warned, no court in the country could touch him.

He stood in the pulpit and thundered:

“They have reduced the Iranian people to a level lower than that of an American dog.”

The Shah’s government didn’t take long to respond. In 1964, they kicked Khomeini out. First to Turkey. Then to Iraq. Eventually, to a small village outside Paris. But exile didn’t silence him.

…

From abroad, Khomeini recorded sermons and manifestos onto cassette tapes. Those tapes were smuggled into Iran by the thousands, hidden in books, tucked into luggage, passed hand-to-hand in marketplaces and mosques. Khomeini didn’t need a militia. He had a message.

That message was simple: the Shah wasn’t just corrupt. He was illegitimate. Real authority, Khomeini argued, didn’t come from votes or tanks. It came from God and from those trained to interpret His law. This wasn’t just theology. In Shia Islam, suffering for truth isn’t failure. In exile, Khomeini turned his theology into a blueprint. Velayat-e Faqih: Guardianship by the Islamic jurist. In other words, rule by the clergy over the state.

Not just spiritual guidance. Political rule, or an Islamic government backed by divine logic and revolutionary will. The state was built to absorb punishment and convert it into legitimacy.

Iran’s people are not all the same. They hold a wide range of political, cultural, and religious beliefs, many of which differ sharply from the views of their government.

But by the time Khomeini returned to Iran in 1979, millions were ready to receive him not as a man but as a symbol. The monarchy collapsed. The revolution didn’t just change the regime; it changed the idea of Iran itself.

Persia became Iran. Cyrus became Khomeini. But the idea stayed the same. Iran sees itself as a country of borders, and as a religion inside and outside of them. None of this excuses Iran’s actions. The regime sponsors terror, represses its people, and destabilizes the region. But that’s exactly why misunderstanding it is so dangerous. The more crudely we respond, the more clearly we play the part they have written for us.

So we return to our question:

Is it possible to fight Iran without fighting Islam?

The Cart Before the Horse

Iran’s current political structure directly inherits the ancient Persian fusion of divine authority with state governance embodied by Cyrus the Great. Cyrus legitimized his rule by weaving morality, tolerance, and religious sanction. These qualities solidified Persian power for centuries.

Modern Iran mirrors this model: its leaders invoke spiritual legitimacy to justify actions inside and outside their borders. This isn’t politics; it is an expression of their identity.

So…maybe we’re still asking the wrong question. Instead of asking whether we can fight Iran without fighting Islam, the real question is whether we NEED to.

We are not under siege. Iran is not landing troops on our shores or circling bombers over our cities. Economically, militarily, and geographically, we hold every advantage. No clock is running out.

On Saturday, we chose urgency over patient discipline; now we must step back and reclaim that discipline.

We are committed to Israel, but Israel is not defenseless. They are not blameless in choosing to escalate. We don’t have to choose to let Israel drag us into a shooting war. We can maintain our commitment to Israel while defining our own interests, our own timeline, and our own limits.

Again, we are in a position of strength. In Eastern thought, that’s when we wait. Not because we are weak or passive, but because we are disciplined. The side with leverage doesn’t chase shadows. It observes, lets the opponent move first, and watches them spend their effort and overreach.

In America, we confuse patience and restraint with weakness. We think power only matters when the bombs are falling. That’s the cart before the horse.

When Tehran answers, and if we choose to keep fighting, what would victory even look like? We could raze the nation of Iran to the ground today, but destruction is not victory. Would we seek a toppled regime? A new government that still draws legitimacy from faith, just wrapped in different slogans? Would we fight the nation, or the shadow?

To achieve our national objectives, we must first observe. Then orient. Then bring decisive effort to bear at the point of advantage.

If our goal is stability and not empty symbolism, then we won’t achieve national objectives by force alone. It requires leverage, clarity, and diplomacy with teeth. Military action might play a role, but diplomacy and disciplined patience must carry the weight.

…

Iran is still a nation, still the shepherd of a religion. They are separate, and they are the same. Iran and Islam are intertwined. And now, for the first time in decades, the direct target of American bombs.

Iran will respond, and when it does, America’s path forward is clear. Iran cannot defeat us militarily, but it doesn’t need to; it only needs to provoke us into endless conflict.

We must adopt disciplined patience, clearly define our strategic objectives, and exercise diplomacy backed by strength, not impulsive force.

Our efforts must advance national interests, not the aims of those who provoke us.

May God bless the United States of America.

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The Spark

This week, outrage erupted after law enforcement used force against protesters opposing ICE raids in Los Angeles and other cities. We shouldn’t be surprised by any of it. For anyone paying attention, there’s already a blueprint. The administration intends to restore their version of order.

Then came the political theater. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez condemned the violence. Governor Gavin Newsom echoed her. Senator Alex Padilla got thrown out of a meeting. Senator Bernie Sanders warned that violent protest, no matter how passionate, won’t achieve its goals.

Let’s be clear. The right to PEACEFUL protest is a core feature of American identity. Most of these protests were exactly that: peaceful. But not all. Alongside them, we saw looting and destruction of public and private property. We don’t argue whether Americans have the right to protest. We argue over what kind of protest is justified, and when.

Just as we have a right to liberty and free expression, we have a right to domestic tranquility and order.

On one hand, government exists, in part, to protect our property. That’s one of its most basic roles. It’s part of why we consent to be governed in the first place. When government fails to protect what’s ours, we’re left with two choices. We can choose to surrender that property to someone else, or defend it ourselves, with the right to bear arms secured by the Second Amendment.

And on the other hand, Americans also have the right to protest their government. Even undocumented immigrants are guaranteed due process under the Fifth Amendment. When Americans believe that right is being denied, they protest. That impulse isn’t lawless. It’s constitutional.

Now here’s the harder truth. Whether we admit it or not, and even if it didn’t turn out the way we thought, the American people voted for this. The plan wasn’t hidden. It was published, promoted, and ultimately activated by the ballot box.

The Tinder

The protests and response to them were the spark. But the fuel for the fire was already stacked.

Project 2025, also called Mandate for Leadership, The Conservative Promise, wasn’t just a 900-page policy recommendation. It was a blueprint. A deliberate, detailed plan to realign American policy with parts of the Constitution that some favor over others.

In order to achieve its goals, Project 2025 recommended concentrating power in the executive branch, dismantling major federal agencies, and purging the civil service of those labeled “disloyal.” Gaining consensus and working through Congress was too slow a process. It relies too much on compromise. Because of this approach, some say Project 2025 was a plan to bring a king to America.

As a couple of examples from the document, page 142 recommended US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, specifically Enforcement and Removal Operations, be designated the lead agency for civil immigration enforcement. Not just at the border, but anywhere in the country. On the same page, Project 2025 further recommended that ICE officers act both with and without a warrant to arrest immigrants.

What’s more, page 137 called on the Federal Emergency Management Agency to withhold funding from any state, city, or private organization that isn’t fully aligned with federal immigration enforcement. In other words, access to disaster aid depends on loyalty.

Project 2025 isn’t law, but it’s not fiction either. It attempted to derive some legitimacy by using constitutional language as an outline. Unfortunately, it cherry-picks pieces of the language. Specifically, the plan aligns itself with only two of our six national goals: to provide for the common defense and promote the general welfare.

The others, including union, justice, order (or domestic tranquility), and liberty, are notably missing from the plan.

Perhaps the authors of Project 2025 don’t believe conservatives have a constitutional duty to pursue justice and liberty. But they do. That duty isn’t partisan. It’s foundational to America.

Even if we find the goals of Project 2025 too narrow, we shouldn’t all waste all of our precious time and effort shouting at a fire that’s already burning. Our effort is too limited, too valuable.

Project 2025 recognized that there are small windows, only fleeting moments, when we have both the political consensus and the public will to achieve progress. Moments of consensus don’t last. And when they come, we have to be ready.

Instead of only raging against the machine, we should be working to build something better.

So…if we are dissatisfied with Project 2025, is political theater going to fix it? While cars and dumpsters are burning in protests in Los Angeles and other cities across America, who’s writing Project 2029?

The Logs

Every fire needs more than a spark and tinder. If we want it to last, we need logs that hold the heat and maintain the flame.

Project 2025 won’t last. Not because it’s poorly organized, but because it’s incomplete. It’s shallow and empty. It aligns itself with only two of the six national goals. We will not achieve defense or general welfare without liberty. And there can be no lasting order without justice.

We don’t need a plan that burns fast and fades. We need purpose with endurance. It doesn’t matter whether we call it Project 2029 or something else entirely. What matters is our decisive effort and a focus, or framework, to guide it.

Every part of that framework must tie back to the Constitution’s six national goals. Union. Justice. Domestic tranquility, or order. Liberty. The common defense. The general welfare.

Every government action, to include every law, every dollar spent, every policy, should be traceable to at least one of those six. If we can’t do that, the action doesn’t belong.

Let’s take two examples: climate change spending and first-time homebuyer housing, and ask what it looks like to govern with that kind of clarity.

Climate Change Spending

We can debate the causes and consequences of climate change, but we can’t debate the fact that it’s happening. Some argue that human activity, especially the burning of fossil fuels, is the primary driver. They point to rising greenhouse gas concentrations. Others believe that natural forces, like volcanic eruptions and wildfires, play a larger role.

The 2022 National Security Strategy claimed that of all our challenges, “climate change is the greatest and potentially existential for all nations.” As of that year, three laws obligated the American people to spend more than $500 billion on climate technology and clean energy. An issue of that magnitude should pass our constitutional check with ease. Let’s give it a test.

…

First, does climate change spending directly tie to union?

We could argue that it brings Americans together around shared infrastructure, energy resilience, or the protection of common resources. But even if we fail to stop climate change, no state is going to secede from the union because of rising temperatures. So while the effort may involve shared concerns, it doesn’t directly tie to the preservation of union in the constitutional sense.

…

Second, does climate change spending directly affect justice?

Justice is both equal protection under law and access to opportunity, especially for the needy, for rural families, for children growing up in communities with no escape from hardship. If climate policy helps kids who grow up in trailers or in the projects, it can serve justice.

But climate spending doesn’t do that. It funds industry, infrastructure, and research, much of which is concentrated in business interests, urban centers, or corporate contracts. If justice is the goal, the spending should begin with those who have the least power to adapt, the fewest resources to rebuild, and the most to lose. So while the effort may possibly benefit the needy in the long run, it doesn’t directly tie to justice for Americans.

…

Third, does climate change spending directly affect domestic tranquility, or what we might call order?

Climate change drives rising utility costs, unpredictable harvests, and the slow loss of reliable seasons. These all create strain beneath the surface. But does that reach the level of threatening national order?

Most Americans aren’t protesting in the streets over the weather. They’re protesting over wages, housing, policing, and rights. Climate instability may be a stress multiplier, but it isn’t the source of disorder. And climate spending, as it exists today, doesn’t restore trust in the system or bring peace to our communities.

So while climate change may contribute to unrest in subtle ways, the spending itself does not directly preserve domestic tranquility.

…

Fourth, does climate change spending directly support liberty?

Liberty is the freedom to make choices about how we live and work. It also means limiting the reach of government into the private lives of citizens. When climate spending leads to regulation, such as banning gas appliances, restricting travel, or mandating energy sources, it can start to feel less like liberty and more like control.

Even when well-intentioned, we must scrutinize any policy that narrows individual freedom in the name of collective benefit. If liberty is the goal, climate policy should expand options, not limit them. It should make clean energy cheaper, not mandate it. It should protect the individual, not penalize the outlier.

So while some climate investments might indirectly support liberty through innovation or energy independence, the broader trend moves toward restriction. And restriction is not liberty.

…

Fifth, does climate change spending directly support the common defense?

Climate change has been framed as a national security threat, and in a sense, that is true. Rising sea levels can threaten naval bases. Drought and food shortages can destabilize foreign regions, creating migration pressures and conflict. Natural disasters can strain military logistics at home.

But does climate change spending actually strengthen our ability to defend the nation?

The funds could tie to defense if they go toward hardening bases, securing supply chains, or preparing for climate-driven conflict. But if the money is directed primarily toward consumer incentives, carbon markets, or long-term emissions modeling, then the connection is indirect at best.

And even if our efforts to stop climate change fail, we will still have the capability to defend the American people and our interests worldwide. That’s what the defense budget ensures. That’s what the military trains for. Climate instability may change the terrain, but it doesn’t erase our strength.

So while some elements of climate policy may touch national defense, the spending itself does not directly serve that goal.

…

Last, does climate change spending directly support the general welfare?

This is where the connection is strongest, at least on paper. A stable climate benefits everyone. Cleaner air, more predictable weather, and fewer disasters serve the general good. But again, the question isn’t whether climate stability is good. The question is whether the spending directly applies to the American people, not just business interests.

Climate change funding goes toward subsidies, research grants, and corporate incentives. That may advance long-term goals, but it bypasses the people who need it most today. If general welfare means improving the daily well-being of Americans through health, housing, food, and mobility, then climate spending should be measured by whether it helps people live better lives now, not just maybe someday.

While the goal of climate action may align with general welfare in principle, we judge the spending by its outcomes. If it lifts the many, it belongs. If it benefits the few, it doesn’t. The Constitution does not support spending money to benefit only a subset of America.

…

So…we’ve considered our six national goals. It’s difficult to argue that climate change spending strongly supports any of them. And spending half a trillion dollars on any item should never be loosely tied to the Constitution.

Let’s move on to our next example: first-time homebuyer housing.

First-Time Homebuyer Housing

Let’s apply the same constitutional test to another issue: first-time homebuyer housing. Unlike squishy climate change spending, this one’s easier to track.

Does it promote union? Yes. A nation of homeowners is a nation of stakeholders. Homeownership strengthens the social contract by giving people something to lose and protect.

Does it serve justice? Absolutely. This one is rock solid. Justice is access to opportunity. If a child grows up in a trailer or a crowded apartment and has no path to owning a home, then we’ve failed to deliver the kind of justice our Constitution demands.

Does it contribute to domestic tranquility? Yes. When people can afford stable housing, they’re less likely to fall into desperation. That means lower crime rates and stronger communities.

Liberty and defense…maybe. But the connection isn’t as strong as justice and order.

Does it promote the general welfare? Without question. Affordable housing improves health, education, employment, and civic participation. It’s one of the most direct, measurable investments in national well-being we can make.

Compared with climate change spending, obligating funds for first-time homebuyer housing has a strong connection to Constitutional goals.

So…what’s the path?

We need to apply the SBIR model, Small Business Innovation Research, to the housing market.

Right now, the USDA has an SBIR program under Rural and Community Development. It’s already authorized to fund technologies that improve life in rural America. But their scope is too narrow. They fund maybe someday research programs instead of spending funds that benefit Americans today.

Instead of this narrow scope, USDA needs to earmark part of that funding every year, in every state, specifically for innovation in small, affordable homes across rural America.

At the same time, we need legislative action to create a parallel SBIR program under Housing and Urban Development. Urban America has empty lots, abandoned warehouses, and entire blocks that need purpose. HUD should drive innovation in cities, spearheading ways to build affordable homes, not just funding old methods with higher price tags.

The SBIR model works. It rewards innovation. It scales good ideas. Phase I grants can fund design concepts, including modular homes, prefabricated units, and even reclaimed shipping containers. Phase II can fund prototype builds. And the best designs should win support, not just by cost or materials, but by outcome.

Aligning first-time homebuyer housing with Constitutional goals would be a sure win for the American people.

Who’s Writing Project 2029?

These were just two examples; climate change spending and first-time homebuyer housing.

But every policy deserves the same scrutiny. Tariffs. Criminal justice. Corporate subsidies. Food assistance. Each one must answer clearly: Which constitutional goal does it serve?

If a policy doesn’t support union, justice, domestic tranquility, liberty, common defense, or general welfare, it doesn’t belong.

This isn’t only about constitutional fidelity. It’s about purpose. Without a clear purpose, America drifts. Project 2025 provided a clear, but dangerously incomplete, blueprint. If we reject its narrow vision, it’s our responsibility to create something better.

So, we have a willful choice.

We can continue reacting to chaos rather than shaping order. We can continue engaging in political theater. Or we can commit our precious time and effort to building a lasting, purposeful framework. A framework that serves all Americans, not just the powerful.

So…who’s writing Project 2029?

May God bless the United States of America.

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We Say We Believe in Justice. But We’ve Stopped Asking What That Actually Means.

Some say it means equality. Others, freedom. Some try to manage it with policy. Others trust the market to sort it out. We argue. We legislate. We campaign.

But half of working American families still need government help just to survive.

That’s not justice. That’s a national failure.

We’ve normalized, excused, and even celebrated this failure in partisan terms. We’ve hidden the truth.

We don’t lack resources. We lack clarity and intent. We don’t lack compassion. We lack consensus.

This isn’t about left or right. It’s about whether we still pursue the goal that founded America: justice, not for the powerful, not for the loudest voices, but for the people.

Justice for the kid in the trailer or the projects. Justice for the single mom clocking in before sunrise. Justice not through handouts, but through wages. Through dignity. Through the freedom to work and build a life.

This piece asks a hard question: If none of our political tribes is delivering justice, how do we intend to?

And we’ll offer a real answer. Not another slogan. Not another tax. Not another mandate. A real answer, starting from a truth too many have forgotten: we will only achieve justice by building consensus.

It’s a Truth as Old as Humanity Itself

We take the advantages we’re given instead of giving them away. We don’t do it out of malice. We do it for survival. Over time, that instinct shapes the systems we build. They bend toward imbalance, not because someone planned it, but because some people find the edges faster than others. And once they do, it’s not in our nature to let them go.

This is why kids born in mansions go to better schools than kids born in trailers or projects. They get better doctors, better nutrition, safer neighborhoods, and more chances. A parent in Atherton, California, zip code 94027, median home about $7.9 million, can hire a private SAT tutor at two-hundred dollars an hour.Their kids earn top scores and reach elite schools.

A kid in a single-wide works full-time while going to school full-time, if they go to school at all. And this isn’t just one zip code in California. It’s true across America.

Books written three thousand years ago ask: Should we race horses in fields of rocks? We’d cripple the horses. Should we plow the sea with a tractor? We’d flood the engine and ruin the machine.

The questions sound absurd. Yet the same book then asks why we build systems that claim to offer opportunity while stacking the odds against those who need it most.

It’s an ancient question: How do we achieve justice?

The question is even more urgent today in America. Most nations were not founded to achieve justice. Nations rose to consolidate power, defend land, unify faiths, or escape colonial rule.

But America, born at war, is different. We are unique in putting justice at the heart of our identity. Our Constitution says it plainly: “We the People… in order to establish justice… do ordain and establish this Constitution (as the foundation) for the United States of America.”

Simply put, America was founded on the idea that a kid in a trailer should have the same chance as a kid in a mansion.

That idea is justice.

America set out six national goals. The first, and most important, is justice. Justice is the end of government, the reason it exists.

We can’t claim to be conservatives, progressives, or even Americans if we ignore this truth. Justice isn’t a side goal. It’s the point.

Will Capitalism Achieve Justice?

America’s financial system is capitalist. It isn’t good or bad. It’s a tool. Capitalism drives growth, sparks innovation, and lifts our standard of living. It meets consumer demand better than any system we’ve tried.

The problems we saw earlier aren’t capitalism’s fault. They happen when markets run without enough guidance to meet society’s needs. Markets respond to incentives, not morality. People act in their self-interest. Government exists to protect people’s rights and property, and to ensure the rules serve everyone.

Because markets do not guarantee justice, government must work within markets to set conditions that create justice. When the system ignores the worker, the worker gains nothing from the system.

We work for our bread. If the financial system forgets those who sweat for that bread, we end up with no bread at all.

Or, more accurately than no bread, we end up with half of American families with parents who go to work and still need handouts from their fellow American taxpayers, according to a US Department of Health and Human Services analysis from 2023. That is the reality of America today. Some tout the programs as federal programs that slash poverty. That’s a lie.

If half of working American families need government support to survive, that isn’t success. It’s proof we’ve failed to achieve our nation’s primary goal. But some celebrate this failure and keep the handouts coming.

It’s not the fault of those families. They are working families. But because we have failed to set conditions that allow American families to earn their bread, they cannot earn enough without government assistance.

So… America was founded to establish justice, and on the freedom to pursue self-interest and protect property. Bring those two ideas together, and a simple truth follows:

Every American, whether they grow up in a mansion or a trailer, must have a real chance to work, earn, and shape a life of their choosing. That is the promise of a just society.

If It Were Easy to Achieve Justice, We Would Already Have Done So

Republicans call for relying on the markets. But we will not achieve justice by relying only on the free market. Markets are great at many things: allocating resources, driving innovation, rewarding efficiency. But markets chase profit, not fairness. Justice requires intention and design. We must look beyond what markets reward, and instead focus on what an American family needs: food on the table and heat in the house through wages: real wages, not handouts.

Some think they’re kings, but we will not achieve justice through Executive Orders. They’re fleeting. They don’t last. They don’t demonstrate leadership. One president signs them in; the next one signs them out. Back and forth, election after election, no stability. We can’t build justice on paperwork that disappears with the next election.

Those who believe in government call for more rules. But we will not achieve justice through unfunded mandates. Mandates like raising the federal minimum wage sound righteous on paper. They promise higher wages, safer workplaces, better benefits. But government mandates arrive without resources to make them work. Small businesses run on tight margins. If we demand higher wages without helping businesses raise revenue, we ask them to defy economic gravity. When they can’t, they fail. We must give small businesses tools to succeed, even as we lift workers.

Socialists call to tax the wealthy. But we will not achieve justice through taxes. Taxes are necessary. They pay for roads, schools, defense, and the core functions of government. But if our strategy for justice starts and ends with taxing the wealthy, we’ll wait forever. Even if we taxed billionaires out of existence, most of that money would vanish into bureaucracy long before reaching a struggling family. Government-funded bureaucracy spends money managing poverty, not ending it.

Democrats call for social equality. But we will not achieve justice by dying on the hill of democracy. Justice does not mean equality. Some people will always earn more. Some will work longer hours, take greater risks, build businesses, invent tools, or manage others. And some will simply be luckier. That’s liberty. Not something to erase, but something to extend. We can’t reduce the advantages of the successful. Instead, we must expand the conditions that created their success, so others can follow the same path.

So… how will we achieve justice?

Focus on the Goal

We will only achieve justice through consensus. We are a nation of competing interests. Inside one state, many might agree. But across coastal states, the Great Plains, the mountains, and the Mississippi River basin, needs differ.

A policy that works in San Francisco might break a family business in rural Nebraska. A rule written for Wall Street might choke a rancher in Montana. One size does not fit fifty states.

Justice isn’t about uniformity; it’s about legitimacy. That means people across regions, backgrounds, and ideologies must see themselves in the outcome. We don’t need to erase differences. We need to build common ground.

And the place to begin is with agreement. Agreement on a goal. A simple, measurable idea most Americans still believe in: if you work, you should be able to provide for yourself and your family without government help.

It’s not a partisan idea. It’s a promise of justice. It’s the primary goal of America.

To fulfill it, we need a system that rewards employers for paying livable wages, not one that punishes workers with dependency when the market fails them.

So, how do we build that consensus?

Business Taxes in America are Low. But They’re Not Low Enough

Democrats say the answer to poverty is raising taxes to fund the government. They rage against cutting business taxes.

Here’s the truth: business taxes in America are low. But they’re not low enough. Not low enough for businesses that actually help us achieve our national goals.

We need real prosperity for working Americans. Not temporary patches, not programs that hide failure with handouts, and not policies that pile debt onto our children. If that’s the goal, then we must build a system that rewards the right behavior.

Consider the champion of Democratic leadership: President Franklin D. Roosevelt. FDR’s success didn’t come from control. He aligned incentives for businesses and individuals alike. He showed how the right incentives could rally a nation. And in doing so, he set a persuasive precedent for incentivized wage policy today.

Democratic leaders have forgotten his example.

Today, we tax businesses that pay livable wages. We tax businesses that provide healthcare. We tax businesses whose employees don’t need food stamps or Medicaid.

Meanwhile, businesses paying poverty wages shift their labor costs onto taxpayers. Their workers survive only because we pay through programs like SNAP, Medicaid, and the Earned Income Tax Credit. That cost isn’t small.Means-tested welfare spending approaches one trillion dollars a year.

So yes, business taxes in America are low. But they’re not low enough for the right businesses.

Using FDR’s example, we should flip the logic. If a business pays every worker a livable wage, it shouldn’t pay any federal tax at all. Because that business is already doing its part. It’s meeting the national goal: food on the table and heat in the house for every working American, without government assistance.

If we want a system that works, we need to stop taxing virtue and start taxing failure.

That’s what we mean when we say: business taxes in America are low.But they’re not low enough.

Wages in America are High. But They’re Not High Enough

Republicans argue that the solution to poverty lies in the free market. They say workers must make themselves more valuable, and that government action only distorts the market and slows growth.

But here’s the truth: wages in America are high. They’re just not high enough for families to support themselves without help.

We can’t support the idea that every American must work for their bread, then defend a system where millions work full-time and still go hungry.

We can’t say we value dignity and then ask working Americans to rely on handouts. We can’t say we believe in liberty and then block the conditions that allow a man or woman to earn enough to choose their own path. If labor has value, and it does, then all workers must be paid enough to reflect the cost of living in the country they support.

Consider the champion of Republican leadership: President Abraham Lincoln. He understood we couldn’t support this contradiction. Some claim Lincoln didn’t lead the fight for labor rights. In fact, Lincoln led the fight for the right of enslaved workers to be paid at all.

Lincoln didn’t need a modern welfare state to tell him that sweat deserves bread. He believed every worker, free or born enslaved, should see a path to prosperity.

Today, we subsidize businesses that underpay their workers. We tax businesses that take care of their workers. We spend nearly a trillion dollars each year dealing with the consequences of low wages, and then fight about whether social programs are bloated or broken.

We’ve missed the point.

The point isn’t whether we should have social programs. The point is justice.It’s whether our system reflects our stated values: that work has dignity, and every American who works should live without government aid.

If we believe people should work and provide for their families, the system should reward that work with enough to live, without handouts.

Wages in America are high. But they’re not high enough for half of American families to thrive without help.

With This Ring, I Thee Wed…

America is a union of states and individuals who live in those states. Like any marriage or partnership, a union lasts only if it’s built on commitment. And commitment demands we focus on what matters most.

We shouldn’t fixate on whether business taxes are too high or too low.

We shouldn’t argue over whether certain jobs "deserve" a living wage.

We shouldn’t let debates over social programs distract us from deeper truths.

These debates feel urgent. But they miss the point.

America wasn’t founded to preserve tax codes or pick economic winners. It was founded with a purpose, and that purpose was justice. Justice is our founding promise and enduring challenge. If we are to keep our union and remain Americans in more than name, justice must be our shared goal.

So… back to the question that opened this conversation:

How do we achieve justice?

We clarify our purpose. We incentivize progress on both sides. We build consensus to move toward the goal, even if we must sacrifice the method.

We won’t all agree on the path. But we can agree on the destination.

May God bless the United States of America.

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Americans Struggle Today with how Openly our Leaders Should Express Their Faith

I had a buddy growing up. His name was Emmett.

He wasn’t a classmate. He was much older than I was. One of those men from the Greatest Generation who made time for a kid who asked too many questions.

Few of us really know the stories of most of the people in our lives. And until I interviewed him for a Junior High grammar class assignment for Mrs. Adams, all I knew about Emmett was that he greeted me every Sunday in my small country church with a smile on his face.

I knew some details before the interview. Emmett Donovan. Born in Monroe County, Missouri. Carpenter by trade. Long-time deacon at the First Baptist Church. He had a second refrigerator in his garage where his lifelong bride, Hazel, let him keep his fishing worms.

I learned a lot about Emmett in that interview.

He was the only kid from Monroe County to board a boat in England on June 4th, 1944, bound for Normandy to fight Nazi Germany.

The weather across the channel was dicey. The operation delayed a day because of it, but there were too many soldiers to unload the boats. It would have taken too long. They had to stay an extra day on the boats, waiting. They played cards. Wrote letters. Tried to keep their spirits high. Emmett had married Hazel in 1937. She was on his mind, and he on hers.

The weather cleared up enough to try the assault on June 6.

At 2300 hours on June 5, paratroopers started taking off from their bases in England.

At midnight, June 6, the Allied Fleet pushed off. Five hours later, dawn bled into gray.

In the darkness just before dawn, the men had spent almost a full two days aboard the ships. The rough English Channel tossed the vessels to and fro. Many men were ill from seasickness and nerves. They knew they would not all survive and return home to America.

Sunrise in Normandy, France, came at 5:46 AM local time that day. From the boats, the men could see a faint outline of where they were going, but no clear view of what awaited them.

Landing craft carrying the first wave launched from the larger vessels about seven to 12 miles offshore. From aboard these landing craft, the faint outline of the coast was visible in the near dawn light.

But by 0530, the Germans absolutely knew something big was happening. Just after midnight, over 13,000 US and British paratroopers had dropped behind enemy lines. German units in Normandy were engaging paratroopers. German radios reported landings and firefights throughout the night.

Allied bombers, fighters, and gliders filled the night sky, lit by the flicker of explosions below.

Now, in the early morning, German radar and lookouts tracked an armada of ships. German defenses saw glimpses of the landing craft through the rough sea chop and the fog.

Not every landing craft made it to shore.

The sea was violent that morning. The swells were high. Beach obstacles and mines sank some boats. Artillery hit others before they ever touched sand. Engines failed. Men jumped into water over their heads and drowned under the weight of their packs. All under heavy German fire.

The obstacles and fires damaged, misguided, or destroyed hundreds of landing craft before they could reach their designated beaches. Omaha was the worst of the five landing zones. Nearly half the tanks sank before firing a shot. Some landing craft circled for too long, disoriented in smoke and chaos, and ran aground.

Emmett’s boat made it. But that didn’t mean it went well.

He jumped into the water, rifle held high, and slowly waded in heavy water toward the beach. On his way toward his objective, Emmett stopped to provide first aid to a fallen soldier on the beach. It was bad. He told me he tried to help the soldier put himself back together. But with bullets cracking around him, there wasn’t much he could do.

Allied forces paid a high price. Two-thirds of some initial landing units suffered casualties. Company A of the 116th Infantry Regiment, part of the 29th Division, hit Omaha Beach first. In just the first hour, 96% became casualties, a grim testament to the brutality of that morning.

Emmett would achieve his objective. Behind him, wave after wave of Allied troops poured onto the beaches, clawing out a foothold, marking the beginning of the end for Nazi Germany.

As a reward, Emmett had the pleasure of going on to fight at the Battle of the Bulge.

To the credit of many, America would help defeat fascism and liberate Europe from Nazi Germany.

After the war, Emmett returned home to his small country town. He and Hazel would stay married for 61 years. They had two sons and three grandchildren. She passed away when he was 85. He would survive her for 12 more years.

Many years later, as a young boy, I only saw him act with grace and dignity. He was always quick with a smile and a handshake.

He didn’t talk about politics or pride. Had you not known and asked about his experience, he would not have told you. You would have assumed he had lived his entire life in a little Missouri town.

He had a quiet faith. He was a proud member of his congregation, but he didn’t talk much about it.

I’ve never forgotten that interview. I was just a Junior High student. And like most kids, I didn’t ask enough of the right questions. He remembered the beach vividly. The chaos. The noise. The man he tried to help.

But if I could sit with Emmett again today, I’d ask about the hours before that.

What was he thinking about on the boat? Did he write a letter to Hazel? Did he stare out at the gray horizon, wondering if he would see her again?

I’ll never know. But knowing him later in life, I believe he carried something more than fear. Duty, maybe. The quiet strength of his generation.

I believe a strong component of his grace and dignity came from his faith.

Emmett and Hazel weren’t the only Americans praying that day.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s June 6th Address

1944 was a time of hand-wringing across the country. We worried about our nation’s sons and daughters fighting in Europe and the Pacific. When people worry, they turn to the Almighty. When they turn to the Almighty, they pray.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s calendar on June 6, 1944, detailed only one appointment. Invasion Day.

The FDR Library says that “During the tense early hours of the invasion, FDR monitored reports from the front. That evening, he delivered a statement to the American people. It took the form of a prayer, which he read on national radio.”

FDR sought to offer the nation strength with a heartfelt address.

“My fellow Americans: Last night, when I spoke with you about the fall of Rome, I knew at that moment that troops of the United States and our allies were crossing the Channel in another and greater operation. It has come to pass with success thus far.

And so, in this poignant hour, I ask you to join with me in prayer:

Almighty God: Our sons, pride of our Nation, this day have set upon a mighty endeavor, a struggle to preserve our Republic, our religion, and our civilization, and to set free a suffering humanity.

Lead them straight and true; give strength to their arms, stoutness to their hearts, steadfastness in their faith.

They will need Thy blessings. Their road will be long and hard. For the enemy is strong. He may hurl back our forces. Success may not come with rushing speed, but we shall return again and again; and we know that by Thy grace, and by the righteousness of our cause, our sons will triumph.

They will be sore tried, by night and by day, without rest-until the victory is won. The darkness will be rent by noise and flame. Men's souls will be shaken with the violences of war.

For these men are lately drawn from the ways of peace. They fight not for the lust of conquest. They fight to end conquest. They fight to liberate. They fight to let justice arise, and tolerance and good will among all Thy people. They yearn but for the end of battle, for their return to the haven of home.

Some will never return. Embrace these, Father, and receive them, Thy heroic servants, into Thy kingdom.

And for us at home -- fathers, mothers, children, wives, sisters, and brothers of brave men overseas -- whose thoughts and prayers are ever with them--help us, Almighty God, to rededicate ourselves in renewed faith in Thee in this hour of great sacrifice.

Many people have urged that I call the Nation into a single day of special prayer. But because the road is long and the desire is great, I ask that our people devote themselves in a continuance of prayer. As we rise to each new day, and again when each day is spent, let words of prayer be on our lips, invoking Thy help to our efforts.

Give us strength, too -- strength in our daily tasks, to redouble the contributions we make in the physical and the material support of our armed forces.

And let our hearts be stout, to wait out the long travail, to bear sorrows that may come, to impart our courage unto our sons wheresoever they may be.

And, O Lord, give us Faith. Give us Faith in Thee; Faith in our sons; Faith in each other; Faith in our united crusade. Let not the keenness of our spirit ever be dulled. Let not the impacts of temporary events, of temporal matters of but fleeting moment let not these deter us in our unconquerable purpose.

With Thy blessing, we shall prevail over the unholy forces of our enemy. Help us to conquer the apostles of greed and racial arrogancies. Lead us to the saving of our country, and with our sister Nations into a world unity that will spell a sure peace a peace invulnerable to the schemings of unworthy men. And a peace that will let all of men live in freedom, reaping the just rewards of their honest toil.

Thy will be done, Almighty God.

Amen.”

Now we are ready for our question.

If a national leader leads a prayer event, is that a violation of the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause? Specifically, the part that says the government can’t establish a religion?

Thomas Jefferson: A Case Study in the Tension Between Personal Faith and Public Office

Thomas Jefferson was a deist. A deist believes in a single creator who made the universe, set natural laws in motion, and then does not interfere with those laws through miracles or revelations.

He saw a providential Creator behind human rights but viewed organized religion and government-issued prayer as matters best kept separate.

Jefferson believed Biblical miracles were myths. He doubted the power of prayer. At the same time, he recognized humans are obliged to worship God, and he prayed publicly.

He helped draft a 1774 “day of fasting and prayer” to protest the British Intolerable Acts, then later dismissed the event and claimed that the resolution had been cooked up for political effect.

As governor of Virginia, he passed along Congress’s request for another prayer day. But as president, he flat-out refused to issue one. In an 1808 letter to Rev. Samuel Miller, he said any “recommendation” from the chief executive would still carry pressure and that “it is not for the interest of religion to invite the civil magistrate to direct its exercises.”

Then, in his Second Inaugural address, President Jefferson said…

“I shall need, too, the favor of that Being in whose hands we are … and to whose goodness I ask you to join with me in supplications.”

No contradiction there, in his eyes. A president may pray aloud as a private believer, and at the same time refuse to command government power to stage a national fast.

Jefferson’s view became the foundation for religion in America. Freedom of religion and freedom from religion.

First, freedom of religion. A president, or any other American, may kneel in a church, chant in a temple, light a menorah, face Mecca, or follow any creed they choose.

Second, freedom from religion. We may skip worship altogether. No tax supports a church. A courthouse may never force a prayer. Citizenship never hinges on belief.

That distinction, personal expression versus official endorsement, became the core of our modern Establishment Clause test. It is why FDR’s D-Day prayer passed muster, and why a leader may still pray in public. The invitation must be voluntary.

At the same time, FDR’s address offended some Americans who believed we had no role in World War II. Isolationists urged that we ought to stay out of the war and continued to resent US intervention even after the attacks on Pearl Harbor. Pacifists lamented the tragedy of humanity and urged prayer for deliverance instead of military action. Activists objected to the prayer. When Congress later tried to add the D-Day prayer to the WWII Memorial, the ACLU and an interfaith/atheist coalition wrote that the plaque demonstrated a lack of respect for religious diversity that would detract from national unity.

So…what’s it going to be?

Lead with Grace and Dignity

Emmett understood better than most of us ever will that grace and dignity must lead us.

The separation of church and state isn’t about eliminating faith from public life. Faith cannot be government coercion. It is personal conviction.

Emmett, like Jefferson and Roosevelt, demonstrated that strength doesn’t impose itself. It reveals itself quietly, in dignity, humility, and quiet confidence.

When a national leader prays voluntarily in public, rather than immediately claiming a First Amendment violation, we should respond as Emmett would, with grace and dignity.

In truth, Emmett’s quiet faith, Roosevelt’s prayer, and Jefferson’s wall aren’t about religion at all.

Our greatest responsibility isn’t to defend what we believe or correct what we think is wrong in others. Greatness never comes from insisting others share our beliefs. Greatness comes from humility, courageously living our beliefs ourselves.

May God bless the United States of America.

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June 21, 1788.

New Hampshire becomes the ninth state to ratify the Constitution, activating the new government and binding America to a single compact.

Our Republic is dedicated to the premise that we are created equal. We fought a war to escape a king. We ratified a Constitution to rule ourselves. The Constitution is a contract between states. We can sum up the foundational basis of that contract in one word…

Trust.

Each sovereign state pledges to certify its vote and accept the certifications of every other. If that handshake fails, the Union fails.

Trust demands proof. How do we make every voter, every state official, and every member of Congress accept the tally as fact?

January 6, 2021

Tear gas. Pepper spray. Flashbang grenades.

The cameras didn’t miss a moment. Two thousand protesters from nearly every state turned into rioters. The floor of the House emptied. Staff members grabbed the mahogany boxes that, since 1877, have held the certified electoral votes of each state. They ran.

The count stopped.

Photojournalist and Marine veteran Chris Jones at the Capitol Building that day observed that “The looks in people’s eyes seemed religious to me, not political. So it was important for me to use that iconography in my pictures, to talk about how people do things for their faith that they wouldn’t do for their politics.”

For most Americans, the counting of votes had always been a formality. It wasn’t exciting. It wasn’t dramatic. It was supposed to be boring. That’s the point of a stable system.

But not on January 6.

The nation watched in horror as the institution of the American democratic Republic lost trust in itself.

That day, the count became the crisis. Some stormed the Capitol because they believed the tally was rigged. Others defended the building because they believed the tally was sacred. While the crisis was unfolding, a precious few, but enough, stood firm and did their duty to preserve the Republic. We owe them a debt of gratitude.

No matter our opinion of the facts of the legitimacy of the vote or the cause for the distrust. Either way, something broke. The numbers no longer spoke with authority. Many Americans believed they no longer trusted the count.

And the problem persists. In 2024, the FBI warned that foreign actors continue trying to undermine Americans’ trust in elections through disinformation. The fracture isn’t healing. It’s spreading.

Somewhere along the way, the foundation of the institution cracked.

January 6 wasn’t just an isolated moment of chaos. It revealed something deeper. Something dangerous. Trust in the vote itself fractured. That fracture didn’t heal when the building cleared. It’s a live threat today. Without trust, our elections lose their meaning. Without trust, our Republic crumbles from the inside.

Trust demands proof.

We Are One Nation Because We Are a Union of States

The Constitution isn’t a rulebook. It’s a contract between states that each state agreed to sign. As a part of the contract, New York agreed it would accept a certified count from Alabama. Wyoming agreed to trust the vote in California. Ohio agreed they can’t override Georgia’s tally just because it doesn’t like the outcome.

Article II, Section 1, Clause 2 of this Constitutional contract outlines that each state decides how to choose its electors, based on whatever method its legislature sets. Article I, Section 4, Clause 1 identifies that states and not a federal authority govern the times, places, and manner of their elections.

In short, states decide their vote. Not the federal government.

Congress does retain some authority to intervene and standardize practices to ensure consistency and protect voting rights, but only because the states amended the contract to give Congress this authority. Every state later agreed voting rights could not be denied by race (15th Amendment), sex (19th), failure to pay poll taxes (24th), or age over eighteen (26th).

Bottom line. Each state runs its own election. That’s not a flaw. That’s the design. When we ratified the Constitution, we had just fought with everything we had to win a war against a king, and we weren’t about to give the keys to another one.

We decided that no one person in Washington, or even a group of people, would manage elections. We gave that power to the states. But inherent in that power is responsibility. States agreed that once a result was certified, the rest of the country would accept it.

We didn’t personally sign the Constitution, but every Election Day, we delegate our voice to whoever wins, and we live with their choices. That’s representative governance. Institutions endure because each generation inherits them unless it chooses to dismantle them. Without that carry-forward consent, fifty states would drift apart and the Union would fracture. Trust in the contract, then, is necessary for national survival.

When one state casts doubt on another’s election, or when Congress or the President threaten to reject results a state has already decided, the entire structure starts to crack.

The states don’t all have to agree. We never could anyway. But we have to trust each other and accept the vote from other states. Without trust, the contract collapses.

Trust demands proof. How would we prove the results of elections?

The Technology Test

With mass elections, we face two different vulnerabilities. Both are technology-based. There is paper, and there are machines.

Some call to rely on paper ballots. But paper ballots, counted by hand or scanned, carry a human burden. Humans make lots of mistakes. We are slow. We scale poorly. We are prone to fatigue, bias, and clerical error.

The weakness of paper ballots isn’t in the vote itself; it’s in the count. Large-scale studies show hand counts differ half a percent to two percent from audited totals. Some one-off experiments collapse entirely. Nye County, Nevada’s 2022 “full hand count” logged a discrepancy of nearly twenty-five percent between manual and machine tallies before the state shut it down. Even the low end, half a percent, would swing 25,000 votes in a five-million-ballot state. That gap alone can decide a close race. In the 2020 election, President Biden won the vote in the state of Georgia by 12,000 votes. Arizona, 10,000. Wisconsin, 20,000. Trust demands proof.

The more complex the recount, the more faith we have to place in people. Humans perform poorly on repetitive, tedious tasks.

So, if we want to maintain trust, a human count isn’t proof.

Digital machines offer a different problem. They are fast. They scale beautifully. But their weakness is perception. They aren’t transparent.

If they’re connected to the internet even once, they open the door to doubt. A single confirmed breach, or even a plausible story of one, is enough to rupture confidence. If people believe the machines can be tampered with, they no longer trust the count. A machine count where we can’t see behind the curtain isn’t proof.

So we have a tradeoff. Paper risks accuracy and timeliness. Machines risk legitimacy.

Both fail the test because they can’t answer the central question.

Can they prove the result?

Maybe there’s another way. Trust demands proof. To fix trust, we need a new standard. One that we already apply when the stakes are life or death.

I Am Become Death, the Destroyer of Worlds

Few systems achieve the high standard of societal trust. These systems have zero‑failure tolerance because the stakes are civilization‑level.

Let’s think about how we certify weapons platforms that carry nuclear warheads. Each platform must achieve nuclear certification before it becomes active.

Nuclear certification isn’t a casual process. We subject those systems to a standard of review that assumes one tiny mistake could end civilization. When the cost of failure is existential, that system must meet a no-failure bar. Every bolt, every microchip, every software patch.

The standard is a transparent reliability rate of fewer than one error in one billion events. The 1-in-1-billion benchmark is not a metaphor; it comes straight from official federal nuclear safety guidelines. DOE Order 452.1F and DOD guidance require that the probability of an accidental or unauthorized nuclear detonation remain below this threshold.

If our election system counted 160 million votes with the same reliability, it would permit fewer than one single miscounted ballot. Practically zero. “Good-enough” paper or opaque machines fall short. That is the cost of keeping legitimacy non-negotiable.

The nuclear certification process is slow, rigorous, and unforgiving. Why? Because when the stakes are existential, “good enough” isn’t enough.

An election collapse threatens the Republic with equal finality. Once voters stop trusting the count, they stop trusting the system. At that point, we’re not debating the process. Just like we did on January 6, 2021, we watch in horror as some challenge the continuity of the Republic itself.

In short, instead of choosing between paper ballots and machines that count behind a curtain, we should hold vote-counting systems to the same standard we use for nuclear weapons platforms.

A nuclear weapons-grade election system means air-gapped hardware that’s never connected to the internet. No remote access, ever. Open-source, frozen code base. An immutable paper backup for every ballot. A public, mathematically verifiable audit trail. Continuous independent surveillance and testing. Tamper detection alerts. A public record briefing to each state’s election body detailing every abnormal event. Full transparency.

Engineers test, states see the data, and voters can download the report. A continuous loop from opaque process to transparent, verifiable record.

No more challenging the legitimacy of elections.

No more threatening the legitimacy of the Republic.

Results everyone can see and prove. Trust demands proof. If we already use this zero-failure standard to protect lives, shouldn’t we use it to protect our democratic Republic itself?

If the Republic lives on trust, shouldn’t trust deserve our decisive effort?

Yes, a zero-failure system is expensive. But the question is bigger than price.

We already spend fortunes to protect the Republic’s borders. We should spend what it takes to protect the Republic’s integrity.

Preserving the Union is our first national goal. That Union lives or dies on public faith in the count. Lose that faith, and no army can save us.

Union is not the absence of conflict; it is the shared burden of conflict. We win and lose together, and we accept the result together.

Union depends on trust. Without trust, we risk permanent fracture.

Trust demands proof.

May God bless the United States of America.

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We live in an age where the oath of office often feels like a formality. But President George Washington didn’t see it that way.

Why not?

He was an honorable man. He led decisive action that saved a ragtag set of colonies and their fledgling fighters. He helped forge an America born at war, and then spent his life, with others, shaping it into a lasting union.

We asked him to be king. He refused. Instead of seizing power, he handed it back to the people. He is one of only four presidents honored with a monument on the National Mall.

Washington saw the presidency not as an achievement, but as a duty. The office wasn’t his. It was the nation’s. He was only a temporary occupant.

His first term was a dry run of an experimental system. At his second inauguration, he delivered the shortest speech in presidential history: 135 words. Four sentences. In it, he asked to be judged not by success or failure, but by fidelity to the Constitution.

He never saw the oath as ceremony. He saw it as a public binding. An act of submission to law, to philosophy, to something greater than himself. He swore to uphold that ideal above riches, safety, or power. He made himself small beneath the American ideal.

The oath directs the president to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution. Then it adds a quiet line: to the best of my Ability.

That phrase carries humility. In the hands of someone like Washington, it becomes a unifying voice. But not everyone is like Washington.

In lesser hands, “to the best of my ability” promises nothing. It demands no wisdom. No courage. No character. The Constitution doesn’t define “Ability.” It sets no standard, offers no test. It doesn’t ask whether a president understands liberty, grasps law, or even knows the six goals of the preamble. It only asks that he act according to his ability.

So what happens when a man with no moral compass takes the oath?

What if his ability begins and ends with self-interest? What if we choose someone whose ability is shaped not by humility, but by ambition, ignorance, or vanity?

He can still raise his hand. He can still say the words. He can still claim he did his best.

And the Constitution won’t stop him.

It gives the people the power to choose. And once we choose, it assumes we chose well. It assumes we chose someone who understands what it means to defend a republic.

Which brings us back to the same words every president has spoken since Washington.

A Constitutional Clause Built on Subjectivity

Found in Article II, Section 1, Clause 8, the Constitution outlines that before they enter the office, the President shall take the following Oath or Affirmation:

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.

The oath is a mirror. It reflects back the character of the person who takes it.

Most constitutional clauses set standards. Common verbiage includes “shall,” “must,” and “only with advice and consent.” Not the oath. It doesn’t bind the office to a standard of excellence; it binds it to the standard of the person. It says the president will act to the best of their ability, which turns the focus inward. It’s not a promise of outcome. The oath is filtered through the person’s internal fidelity. It limits the obligation by what the individual president is capable of and not what the Constitution demands.

We could ask why the framers didn’t just say the president must uphold the Constitution or shall ensure its defense. Perhaps they feared the tyranny of perfection just as much as the tyranny of incompetence.

The framers wrote before modern party systems, before mass media, and before the idea that one person might use the presidency as a personal brand empire. They assumed men of honor, or at least men with a reputation to protect. For the framers, “ability” was a nod to human limits, not human depravity.

They assumed, wrongly, that the people would never elect someone without basic ability and a high ethical standard. Of course, there is the law, and the law is measurable. Not all ethical violations break the law.

But having a high ethical standard is not a requirement to be president. We have several examples of presidents with an ethical standard many would consider deficient.

Let’s look at three moments where the oath bent under pressure.

James Buchanan – The Man Who Watched the Union Burn

Imagine this. It’s 1857. The country is fracturing. A sharp economic downturn, the Panic of 1857, has shaken public confidence and threatens the livelihoods of thousands. Slavery has already turned Congress into a battlefield. The Kansas–Nebraska Act has opened the door to “popular sovereignty,” allowing settlers in new territories to vote on whether to allow slavery.

Pro-slavery and anti-slavery protestors flood into Kansas. Violence breaks out; the territory earns a new name: Bleeding Kansas.

Then, the Supreme Court delivers the Dred Scott decision. The Court declares that Black Americans can never be citizens. That the federal government has no power to prohibit slavery in the territories. That the Constitution itself offers no protection to the enslaved.

In the middle of this firestorm, James Buchanan takes the oath of office. The country needed leadership more than ever.

He swears to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States. And then he proceeds to do ... almost nothing.

Buchanan personally believed slavery was immoral. But he believed even more deeply that the Constitution gave him no power to act. He saw himself not as a leader, but as a caretaker of a document, and the document, he claimed, left no room for federal intervention.

He was a staunch states’ rights advocate. When Southern states began seceding, South Carolina first in December 1860, Buchanan declared secession illegal ... but also claimed the federal government had no authority to stop it.

His cabinet fell into chaos. Several members were Southern sympathizers. One of them, Secretary of War John Floyd, secretly funneled arms to the South. Buchanan, weak and indecisive, let it happen.

So the Union dissolved while the President, bound by his narrow reading of the Constitution, stood aside.

He felt he had done his duty. He said,

“I feel that my duty has been faithfully, though it may be imperfectly, performed, and, whatever the result may be, I shall carry to my grave the consciousness that I at least meant well for my country.”

He also recognized his leadership had failed. In a moment of despair, as the nation cracked beneath his inaction, Buchanan reportedly declared,

“I am the last President of the United States!”

It’s one of the most devastating examples of a president interpreting “to the best of my Ability” as a command to do nothing at all.

And it left Lincoln to inherit a war that may have been prevented if the man before him had seen the oath not just as a legal clause, but as a moral charge.

Andrew Johnson – The President Who Fought Reconstruction

In April 1865, the war was ending. The Union had held. And then, at Ford’s Theatre, John Wilkes Booth assassinated President Abraham Lincoln.

Into that moment stepped Andrew Johnson, a Democrat from Tennessee, loyal to the Union but hostile to the idea of racial equality.

He took the same oath Lincoln had taken: to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution.

But Johnson didn’t use that oath to finish Lincoln’s work. He abused his veto power to preserve white supremacy.

He vetoed civil rights legislation. He openly opposed the Fourteenth Amendment. He told white Southerners they could regain power quickly and face few consequences. As if the war had changed nothing, as if emancipation had never happened.

He said,

“It is the province of the Executive to see that the will of the people is carried out in the rehabilitation of the rebellious States, once more under the authority as well as the protection of the Union.”

And when Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1866, the first law to declare all persons born in the United States as citizens, he vetoed that, too.

Congress overrode him. Twice. It was the first time major legislation passed despite a presidential veto.

Johnson argued he was defending the Constitution. That federal enforcement of civil rights was an overreach. That states had the right to decide, even if they used that right to deny freedom.

He didn’t see Reconstruction as a duty. He saw it as an intrusion.

And so, under the cover of “to the best of my ability,” Johnson tried to undo the meaning of Union victory.

He became the first president in American history to be impeached. He survived conviction by one vote. But his legacy was clear: he used the oath not to heal the country, but to hold it back.

Richard Nixon – The President Who Tried to Redefine the Law

Richard Nixon took the oath in 1969. Then again in 1973. He swore to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution.

What followed was one of the most profound breaches of public trust in American history.

Nixon authorized illegal wiretaps. He used the CIA to block FBI investigations. He compiled enemy lists, with the goal to “use the available federal machinery to screw our political enemies.” He used the IRS to target his political opponents. And then, when the Watergate break-in exposed the rot, he tried to cover it all up.

He didn’t deny that he broke ethical norms. He didn’t even deny the facts. What he denied was that he could be held accountable.

He told interviewer David Frost in 1977:

“When the president does it, that means it is not illegal.”

President Richard Nixon’s name has an asterisk next to it in history books as the biggest crook to ever hold the office. The man who took an oath to defend the Constitution believed he was functionally above it.

He saw the office not as a duty to the people, but as a shield against them. He interpreted “to the best of my ability” not as an internal check, but as a blank check. Nixon wasn’t after money or fame; he hungered for power, control, and a place among history’s greats.

Nixon resigned before the House could impeach him. In his farewell speech, Nixon said plainly,

“To leave office before my term is completed is abhorrent to every instinct in my body.”

But he left. In the end, even Nixon understood that while the oath might be vague, the consequences of breaking it could still find you.

Fast Forward to Last Week

In an NBC News interview, Kristen Welker asked President Trump if he’s duty-bound to uphold the Constitution.

He answered,

“I don’t know… I have brilliant lawyers that work for me, and they are going to obviously follow what the Supreme Court said.”

That answer says a lot. The oath doesn’t bind the lawyers. It binds the President. And yet, instead of owning that responsibility, he passed it off.

Some lawmakers responded with outrage. But while they bicker, real people are out here hurting.

We should be focused on our purpose. The Constitution gives us one: to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, ensure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common Defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty.

Justice is the first obligation. America doesn’t exist to serve the strong. It exists to protect the weak. That means every family has heat in the house and food on the table. No new burden on taxpayers. No ballooning bureaucracy. Just results. And that takes consensus. Political theater kills consensus.

To any president who says they “don’t know” if they’re bound to defend the Constitution, we shouldn’t pretend. You don’t need to lie. We can just say it plainly. The office exists to serve the Constitution. And you are serving it to the best of your ability.

But when you fail to meet even the most basic obligations, that reveals your ability.

The Fifth Amendment protects all persons, including citizens, immigrants, and anyone under US jurisdiction, from being deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. If we use taxpayer dollars to process, detain, or deport someone, they are under our jurisdiction. They are owed due process.

History gives us examples of presidents who fell short. They have names that include Buchanan, Johnson, and Nixon. We remember none as great.

Washington made himself small beneath the Constitution. We ask no less from anyone who follows.

This isn’t a constitutional crisis. The system the framers built is strong. The Constitution gives the structure. But the oath still matters. The success of the presidency still depends on the person who takes the oath, and how they choose to fulfill it.

May God bless the United States of America.

Music from #Uppbeathttps://uppbeat.io/t/studiokolomna/chamber-timeLicense code: IC3A9HDXIT3FAWUV

Tariffs will certainly raise prices at home. That’s their purpose. Tariffs are taxes. When a product crosses the border, a tariff adds a fee. The item is the same, the seller worked no harder, but government tilted the scale to favor domestic goods.

So here’s the real question. If the state forces you to pay more than the market demands, and the extra money flows to a private pocket and not to a public good, is that a government theft of your property? It’s not as black and white as saying yes.

Trade Walls and the Great Collapse

(Background: somber string swell. An overture to a tragedy.)

In 1929 America walked to the cliff’s edge. On the day historians now call Black Monday, October 28, the stock market plunged 13 percent. The next day, it fell another 12. And the slide continued.

By mid‑November the market had surrendered half its value. But this was no abstract loss for wealthy speculators. Credit froze. Banks failed. Capital vanished.

The drop tore through real people’s lives. Factories emptied, foreclosures surged, crime climbed. City tax bases collapsed; boarded windows lined dark streets.

In manufacturing-heavy cities like Detroit and Chicago, unemployment reached 40 percent. On the plains, farmers who had expanded acreage during World War I and loaded themselves with debt to feed Allied armies now could not sell grain for the cost of planting it. Some burned corn for heat because coal was more expensive. Families lived in makeshift shacks made from scrap wood and tar paper.

The shock ran so deep it took twenty-five years and twenty-five days, an entire generation, to recover. Only on November 23, 1954, did the Dow Jones Industrial Average climb back to its 1929 peak.

It took the Second World War, an immense post‑war industrial boom, and the rise of a broad middle class to erase the wounds opened in those brutal weeks of 1929.

…

But in 1929, the nation was still reeling.

Into that chaos stepped two well-meaning legislators: Senator Reed Smoot of Utah and Congressman Willis Hawley of Oregon. Smoot chaired the Senate Finance Committee. Hawley led the House Ways and Means Committee. Both were Republicans. Their fix looked simple on paper. They intended to raise tariffs and shield American jobs, especially in struggling farms and factories.

Tariffs were nothing new. All through the nineteenth century they filled the federal treasury and sheltered northern mills before an income tax even existed. 

But by 1930, the economy was global. Exports mattered. War‑debtor Europe owed the United States billions, and America needed foreign buyers to keep those payments flowing. The system was fragile, stretched by World War I debts and sliding prices.

This fragile system was about to get kicked in the teeth.

Smoot and Hawley introduced their bill in 1929 as a narrow farm measure. Washington lobbyists smelled opportunity. Amendments poured in. Every senator, every representative, tacked on protection for home‑state industries. The schedule exploded.

Tariffs climbed on more than twenty thousand imports, including shoes, lumber, eggs, cement, even musical instruments.

[Sound cue: typewriters clacking rapidly, fading into thunder]

Over a thousand economists signed a letter urging President Hoover to veto it. They warned it would spark retaliation and crush trade.

Hoover, boxed in by party pressure and a panicked electorate, signed the Smoot‑Hawley Tariff Act into law on June 17, 1930.

…

That’s when the backlash began.

Canada struck first, taxing American wheat and produce. Europe followed. Germany, France, Britain. The global economy was already fragile. Retaliation sent it into a spiral. Within a few years world trade fell more than sixty percent. American exports were cut in half. Factories shut their gates. Jobs vanished. Farms that hoped for relief found only isolation.

[Background: wind blowing through an empty field]

Unemployment soared past 20 percent. Dust storms rolled across the heartland.

The Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act didn’t cause the Great Depression. But it poured gasoline on the fire. It bruised American credibility and hardened global resentment.

The lesson came fast and harsh: Economic nationalism backfires in a global crisis. Economists still cite the Smoot-Hawley Act as proof that fear-driven policy can deepen disaster .

Voters felt the pain. In the 1930 midterms, Republicans lost both chambers of Congress by huge margins. Smoot and Hawley were “shown the door.”

Even progressive Republicans who had campaigned for Hoover switched sides and backed Democrat Franklin Roosevelt in 1932. By his inauguration on March 4, 1933, banks were closing, unemployment hovered near twenty-five percent, and prices and productivity had fallen to one-third of their 1929 level .

We now know FDR would lead the country through the Great Depression and to victory in World War II. He would go on to win four consecutive presidential campaigns. It would take 20 years and a war hero named Dwight Eisenhower for the Republicans to win the presidency again.

Decades later, economists point to the Smoot-Hawley Act as the moment protectionism went too far.

What are Tariffs?

A tariff is a border tax. Each time a shipment enters the United States, from raw materials to cars, the US importer pays the tariff before the goods clear customs. That cost travels through the supply chain until it lands in the shopper’s cart.

The Constitution calls such a fee an impost and grants only Congress the power to levy it.

In the early Republic, tariffs kept the government running. We only had to pay for a small army, a handful of diplomats, and debt payments. Customs duties and land sales covered it all. No income tax. No redistribution. In that setting, tariffs were neutral revenue.

Today, they play a different role. Lawmakers use them to shield selected industries. The higher price never builds a road or pays the debt. It settles in the profit line of the firm that now faces less competition.

As a buyer, you pay more, without consent, to subsidize a private interest. The protected company can hold prices high and still move product. That extra margin is private gain created by government design.

So the question stands.

If the state makes you pay more than the market asks and the surplus flows to a private pocket, are tariffs a government theft of your property?

Are Tariffs a Government Theft of Your Property?

Let’s look first through the lens of the individual and their natural rights.

The decisive purpose of governance is to preserve your life, liberty, and estate.

Life is your own being. It includes every decision that keeps you alive and whole. By nature, you own yourself.

Liberty is the right to choose a path that leads to fulfillment. When we chart our own course, we observe, plan, and act. Our choices bring results, good or bad, and from those results we develop skill, talent, and personal responsibility. What we do matters, but who we become by doing it matters more.

Estate is the concrete result of that pursuit of happiness. It is your paycheck, the land you work, your tools, the food on your table, the heat in your house. It is everything earned by your labor and freely exchanged with others.

We consent to governance so our representatives can preserve those rights.

When government collects taxes to keep the peace, enforce contracts, and build institutions that enable Americans born in trailers and penthouses alike to be great, it strengthens the pillars. When it shifts wealth from many citizens to a favored few, it weakens them.

The Constitution reflects that balance. Article I empowers Congress to collect tariffs to promote the general welfare. But that power has limits. The spending must serve everyone, not private lobbies. When public money settles in private hands, it no longer serves the people. It serves the powerful.

America was built to protect the weak, not exalt the well‑connected. We owe allegiance to no king, no oligarch.

And there is a second lens: not just citizen, but creator, builder, innovator, entrepreneur; anyone who brings something new into the world through mind and labor.

The Creator’s Rights

Now let’s switch lenses and see tariffs through the eyes of the creator, the builder, the entrepreneur.

Creators share the same trinity of rights every person holds: life to think and act, liberty to choose a path, and estate to keep the value they earn. A competitive market is simply those rights at work.

This market sets conditions supporting freedom from coercion, not shelter from stronger rivals. Every creator is an end in themselves. A business must win customers by persuasion, never by force. The moment a company runs to government for a tariff that inflates a rival’s cost, competition ends and confiscation begins, without the buyer’s consent.

A tariff used in this way becomes legal plunder. It lifts money from many pockets and drops it into one. Real competition is buyers and sellers meeting on equal terms, each free to walk away. The state’s duty is to protect that freedom, not tilt it.

The Constitution backs this logic. The Commerce Clause lets Congress regulate trade “to promote the general welfare.” That mandate directs open, dependable markets. Congress may clear barriers, chase fraud, and keep trade lanes clear. It may not enrich one faction by taxing all others. When tariffs privilege a lobby, they break the spirit of fair play.

A competitive market environment rests on three conditions: First, rule of law that protects contracts and property. Second, a neutral government that blocks entry to no one and grants no special favors. Third, open information that lets every buyer and seller judge value for themselves.

When we establish and maintain this business environment, the rights of the producer and the rights of the consumer align, because every exchange is voluntary. Businesses have a right to a fair and competitive arena. This means an arena free of special privilege, not free of challenge.

Viewed this way, broad tariffs distort consent, misalign incentives, and reward political access over earned value.

But that’s not the end of the debate.

There are serious arguments in favor of tariffs. They can defend national security, answer foreign coercion, or shelter a fragile industry long enough to stand on its own. Those claims deserve a closer look.

The Strategic Case For Tariffs

Tariffs are strategically compelling in three areas.

First, tariffs are needed for national security. Some items are too important to depend on other countries. America needs to be able to build each and every piece of an Abrams tank or a Strike Eagle fighter inside the country. We need the inherent capability to make every part, from computer chips for fighter jets to rare earth magnets for guided missiles. If we can’t build these items in-house, and a war or embargo cuts the supply, we won’t be able to achieve national objectives. A tariff can push factories to build those parts here at home. Yes, it adds cost, but it pays for itself in risk.

Second, trade only works when both countries play by the rules. If another country blocks our products, forces us to hand over technology, or pays heavy subsidies to its own firms, our businesses can’t compete. A targeted tariff can be a bargaining chip.

Third, young industries. Some businesses start with big upfront costs and need time to grow strong. Early American steel, Japanese cars in the 1950s, and South Korean shipyards in the 1970s all asked for short-duration tariffs while they scaled up. The need to protect these infant capabilities was clear, so they could compete on their own later.

But all three of these examples share a commonality. Tariffs must serve everyone, not just one company. Except for national security, they must be temporary and end once the goal is reached. And they must pass scrutiny. Tariffs must end if industry prices stay artificially high or innovation stalls.

In short, strategic tariffs can be justified if they are narrow, temporary, and transparent. Broad tariffs rarely meet that test.

So, are tariffs a government theft of your property?

Tariffs lift prices at home. That is their purpose. They are taxes paid each time an import crosses the border.

If Congress paired those duties with equal tax cuts for ordinary families, tariffs might serve American families. That rarely happens. Relief flows upward instead. Right now, Congress looks to extend the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which “skews in favor of wealthy Americans, who would see more tax relief not only in the dollar amount but as a percentage of income.”

Without offset, a tariff is simply a hidden tax. Working families, not wealthy ones, pay the price.

Broad, permanent duties threaten your estate. They drain wealth from many and deliver it to a privileged few. Prices climb, choice shrinks, competition thins, all without consumer consent.

Still, not every tariff is unjust. A measure that truly guards national security or corrects foreign coercion can be justified, if it stays targeted, temporary, and transparent. It must protect the whole country, not just favored producers.

The real question is motive. Does a tariff serve the nation or the wealthy lobby?

In the end, every tariff faces a single test. The Constitution outlines six national goals: union, justice, tranquility, defense, welfare, and liberty.

Do these tariffs move us closer to even one?

If a tariff is targeted, temporary, and transparent, the answer can be yes. Tariffs that genuinely protect national security, level the playing field against foreign coercion, or briefly shelter critical new industries can enhance our union, strengthen justice, and provide for the common welfare.

But broad, permanent tariffs that enrich a handful of companies at everyone else’s expense do the opposite. They weaken economic justice, disrupt domestic tranquility, and erode personal liberty. They tilt America away from fairness and toward privilege. They distort incentives, drive up costs, and quietly confiscate property.

So, the answer to our question depends entirely on intent and design. Good tariffs serve clear national goals that benefit everyone, while bad tariffs serve only private interests.

If we can’t clearly explain how a tariff moves America closer to at least one of our goals, then we already have our answer.

May God bless the United States of America.

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From the Kalka River to Lake Peipus: Russia Turns East

(Begin with ambient medieval Eastern European music, fading under narration)

After the Rus’ catastrophic defeat at the Kalka River in 1223, and especially following the full-scale Mongol conquest in the campaigns of the late 1230s, Mongol dominance reshaped the eastern and western reaches of the Russian world.

In the 13th century, Kyiv, now the capital of Ukraine, was still the spiritual and cultural heart of a region known as Kievan Rus. It wasn’t Russian in the modern sense. Its roots were Viking. The Norsemen who arrived in Eastern Europe, mostly of Swedish origin, were Varangians, also referred to as the Rus. They settled among the Slavic tribes, built river trade routes, and founded ruling dynasties. Over the generations, their Norse identity blended into the local Slavic world.

Kievan Rus was a loose federation of Slavic principalities spanning what we now know as Ukraine, Belarus, and the western edge of Russia. Rivers made its borders. Trade flowed south along the Dnieper to the Black Sea and north along the Volkhov and Northern Dvina toward the Baltic and the White Sea. The Dnieper linked Kyiv to Byzantium and the wider Mediterranean, while the collective waterways connected the forest to the steppe and bound distant peoples into a shared political and spiritual world.

(A quick note: If you’re listening to the audio-only version, the written piece available on Substack includes a detailed map. Kievan Rus stretched from the White Sea, above the Arctic Circle, to the Black Sea, just north of present-day Turkey.)

By this point, Kyiv’s political power had faded from its earlier role as the capital of Kievan Rus, but the city still carried immense symbolic weight.

That changed in December 1240. Batu Khan, the grandson of Genghis Khan, led the Mongol army that laid siege to the city. After a brutal assault, they slaughtered its people and left the city in ruins. Many towns across Rus met the same fate. Some never fully recovered. Others vanished entirely.

In the years that followed, the world of Viking Rus, once shaped by Norse leadership and open trade, gave way to something new. In the northeast, Muscovy rose, its name the root of what we now call Moscow. The people were still Slavic, but operated under a different system. Under Mongol rule, governance became centralized, hierarchical, and dominated by Eastern thought.

Western thought emphasized law, feudal contracts, and the rights of lords and cities. Eastern philosophy favored absolute authority, obedience, and control. Power flowed from the top, not from mutual obligation. In the West, oaths bound lords and vassals. In the East, obedience flowed downward from an unquestioned ruler.

Russia turned its back on the Latin West and aligned itself with systems of power born from the East, imperial and unyielding.

That pivotal shift came into sharp focus with Alexander Nevsky’s decisive choice in 1242.

…

Alexander Nevsky, a prince of Novgorod, faced invasions from two directions. From the West, Catholic crusaders from the Teutonic Order pushed aggressively, determined to impose Western religious and political order. From the East, Mongol overlords watched closely, prepared to assert their brutal authority should Nevsky waver in his allegiance.

On April 5, 1242, on the frozen surface of Lake Peipus, Nevsky met the heavily armored Teutonic knights in a legendary clash known as the Battle of the Ice. His lightly equipped Russian troops were agile and intimately familiar with the terrain. They employed tactics blending patience, deception, and carefully calculated retreat. These tactics distinctly reflected Eastern strategic thinking, including principles of manipulation and timing.

The heavy crusader knights were ill-equipped for the battle. The ice cracked beneath their weight, plunging many into the freezing water. Nevsky’s victory became symbolic of Russia’s decisive choice to turn away from Western European dominance and instead accept the Eastern yoke of Mongol power.

Nevsky’s choice entrenched Russia in Eastern political philosophy, characterized by pragmatism, indirect manipulation, and power calculation.

So, the Battle of the Ice wasn’t so much a military victory as a decisive statement that Russia’s future would unfold under the Eastern logic of calculated statecraft. Russia would be shaped by the pragmatic wisdom echoed centuries earlier by Eastern philosopher Kautilya.

The Philosopher Kautilya

Long before the Mongols or the Rus, one philosopher wrote the handbook for survival in a ruthless world.

Kautilya, also known as Chanakya or Vishnugupta, was the chief adviser to Chandragupta Maurya, the founder of India’s Mauryan Empire in the fourth century BC.

Educated at the ancient university of Takshashila, he wrote the Arthashastra, a sweeping manual on statecraft, intelligence, and war. It describes how politics works, not how it ought to work.

Kautilya was a ruthless realist. Even the philosopher himself was born in legend.

Picture a dusty village in fourth-century BC India. A newborn boy arrives to a humble household. His father is Chanin. His mother is Chaneshvari. Both are followers of the Jain faith. Jainism is one of the world’s oldest religions. Jains believe in the existence of souls and strive to minimize harm to all living beings, including plants and animals.

In the newborn parent’s tiny courtyard, the village elders gather. They are curious for signs that foretell the child’s fate.

The baby startles everyone. He is born with a full set of teeth, a sign in local belief that marks a future king.

The boy’s father worries. Kings collect enemies, and enemies bring suffering. To blunt the omen, he breaks one of the infant’s teeth.

The monks study the infant again and shake their heads. The prophecy shifts. He will never sit on a throne; he will stand behind it, guiding its power.

Kautilya guided Chandragupta Maurya to dismantle the Nanda dynasty, unify the Indian subcontinent, and lay the foundation for the Mauryan Empire, one of the most powerful and administratively sophisticated empires of the ancient world. At its height, it controlled almost the entire Indian subcontinent, from the Himalayas in the north to the Deccan Plateau in the south, and from the Indus Valley in the west to the borders of present-day Bangladesh in the east.

The Mauryan Empire ruled about sixty million people, nearly a quarter of humanity at the time. No one matched that scale for more than a thousand years, until the rise of the Mongols.

When he wasn’t training an emperor or shaping a dynasty, Kautilya wrote. His words, etched in Sanskrit, became a manual for survival in a ruthless world.

In the Arthashastra, survival rests on four tools.

First, ‘Sama.’ Sama is persuasion, but not for the sake of harmony. Sama is influence without resistance. It is calm words, flattery, charm, even seduction, if the moment demands it. The aim is not agreement, it is control. Power exercised without force, where the opponent believes it was their own choice.

Next, ‘Dana.’ Dana is inducement. A reward, but not a gesture of goodwill. It is a calculated investment. Gold, land, favors, each given not for kindness, but for leverage. In the East, generosity is often strategy in disguise.

Third, ‘Bheda.’ Bheda is the use of logic or trickery to influence others. It plants suspicion, quietly unravelling unity from within. The most efficient way to defeat an enemy is to make them defeat themselves.

Last, ‘Danda.’ Danda means the open use of force. Not unleashed in anger, but in certainty. When all other tools have served their purpose, Danda completes what the others began.

Eastern thought is vast, but Kautilya’s four-tool schema offers its sharpest lesson in political realism. Kautilya serves as a diagnostic lens, not as evidence that medieval Russia consulted the Arthashastra; the parallels emerge from convergent strategic logic. That blueprint echoes through Sun Tzu, the Mongol khans, and the rulers of Muscovy.

Eastern philosophy does not ask a ruler to be noble; it asks the ruler to be effective. A wise leader puts self-interest first and moves between persuasion, reward, division, and force when the moment demands.

When Muscovy absorbed Mongol methods, it closely echoed Kautilya’s ideas, whether consciously or simply through historical resonance. Two centuries after Nevsky, on the banks of the Ugra River, a grand prince would embody these Eastern lessons.

Ivan III and the Great Stand on the Ugra

Picture Muscovy in 1480.

Two centuries have passed since Nevsky. The grand princes of Moscow now rule a realm knit together by tribute, surveillance, and a network of loyal boyars. Over those two centuries, Muscovy gathered taxes for the khan, slowly turning that machinery to its own ends.

Ivan III, Grand Prince of Moscow, born in 1440, hidden from murderers as a child, who started leading armies at the age of 12, has stopped sending silver to the steppe.

Akhmat Khan of the Great Horde leads his army west to punish Ivan’s defiance.

Summer turns to autumn. The two armies meet on opposite banks of the Ugra River, a quiet tributary of the Oka about one hundred fifty miles southwest of Moscow. It is a tense, prolonged standoff. Ivan blocks every ford, posts archers in the reeds, and waits. No arrows fly. No charges thunder. Day after day, the river lies between them like a mirror.

Ivan is not idle. He enters negotiations with the khan to delay. He uses persuasion and trickery to buy time.

Meanwhile, he sends envoys to Lithuania, urging them to stay neutral. He releases gifts to minor Tatar princes who resent Akhmat. He spreads whispers that Muscovy’s allies had already raided the Horde’s rear camp.

Persuasion, reward, and division work together silently while the army shows strength only in reserve.

Weeks pass. The Horde’s supplies run low. Winter fog settles over the water.

Hidden from Akhmat, Ivan’s allies struck, or seemed to strike, at the Horde’s base. Whether real or whispered, the threat broke the Khan’s nerve.

On a cold November night, Akhmat breaks camp and retreats to the steppe. Ivan’s host watches the torches fade, then marches home without a battle. Russians will remember it as the Great Stand on the Ugra River, the moment the Mongol yoke snapped without a sword stroke.

Ivan returns to Moscow and orders the double-headed eagle of Byzantium carved above the Kremlin gate. He claims the title Sovereign of All Rus, collects tribute for himself, and binds the boyars under a single, autocratic will.

The lesson is pure Kautilyan philosophy: persuade, reward if useful, divide when necessary, and strike only when certainty is absolute.

Ivan’s stand at the Ugra wasn’t a single moment in history. It became a blueprint. From Ivan, through the tsars and into the Soviet era, Russia’s leaders have consistently drawn from that Eastern playbook, refining persuasion, division, and deception into an art.

Today, we continue to miss the obvious.

Russia still plays from the Eastern playbook. They don’t play with obvious brute strength. The Eastern playbook necessitates Kautilyan precision.

Sama - to persuade us with lies, false narratives about NATO aggression (Putin’s 2007 Munich speech), historical grievances, red lines, and misunderstood borders. Their aim isn’t agreement. It’s control.

Dana - to induce us to enter into prolonged negotiations, knowing some in the West will see a path to glory in a quick diplomatic win. But this generosity is leverage in disguise. It results in delay.

Bheda - to divide us, whispering into the cracks between NATO allies (2016 Brexit disinformation), feeding fatigue, exploiting dissent, and making us question each other’s allegiance long before we question them.

Danda - to strike. Yes, with missiles raining down on Kyiv and Kharkiv, but also in quieter, equally destructive ways. Think of the Sandworm Team cyberattacks crippling Estonia and Ukraine’s power grids, or the carefully planted disinformation campaigns that fracture the West from within.

We, the democratic republics, NATO nations, the transatlantic West…still haven’t learned how to play the game. Many days, we don’t even remember our purpose.

And yes, sometimes we compromise our ideals, trading principles for short-term security or convenience. Iraq in 2003 showed the West can trade procedure for speed, too, and we paid the strategic price for that haste. But we still believe those ideals matter.

The war in Ukraine isn’t just about Ukraine. It’s not even just about NATO or security guarantees.

It’s about the deepest division between West and East. In the West, power answers to the people. Governance is a messy, slow contract built on consent. Liberal systems aim (imperfectly) to make power answer upward.

In the East, people answer to power. In Russia’s strategic culture, rooted in centuries of centralized rule, power tends to flow downward.

We reject Eastern philosophy because it relies on influence built on lies and division to control the people.

Instead, we believe the Almighty grants us all the inherent right to life, liberty, and self-determination. We believe that no government can endow individuals with those rights. That governance is for the people, not the oligarchs.

In the long arc of history, governance for the people promotes strong, resilient societies.

How long will we appease Russia, hoping for peace on their terms, while the war in Ukraine grinds on?

May God bless the United States of America.

Music from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!):

https://uppbeat.io/t/arnito/le-quarter-du-samedi-soir

License code: ITDHTFNPJJJMUH0X

Before we get started, a personal note. Last week, “I Believe” broke into Apple Podcasts’ Top 10 in philosophy.

The show would go on out of conviction alone, but your encouragement makes the work lighter. Thank you for listening, thinking, and being here.

And in the words of Bill Belichick, “We're on to Cincinnati.”

Part 1. The Broken Oath and How the Mongols Deceived the Rus’ Princes

(Sound of galloping horses fades slightly into the background, replaced by a more narrative, almost hushed tone)

Imagine the vast, open grassland steppe. For centuries, the scattered principalities of Rus’ fought their own small wars. But a new threat was emerging from the East, a storm on horseback: the Mongols.

At first, these nomadic warriors were a distant rumor. But in 1223, they arrived in force. The Rus’ princes, for once united by a common enemy, gathered their armies. Among them were Mstislav the Bold and other proud princes with their own ambitions.

After initial skirmishes, as the Rus’ and their Cuman allies faced the seemingly relentless Mongol advance, a message arrived. It was from the Mongol generals, a promise of safe passage if the princes would lay down their arms. They swore on their honor that no harm would come to those who surrendered.

(A slight pause for dramatic effect)

Mstislav the Bold, trusting in this oath, perhaps foolishly, perhaps desperately seeking to avoid further bloodshed, convinced some of the other princes. They agreed. They laid down their swords, believing the conflict was over, that a truce had been secured.

But the Mongol word, it turned out, was as brittle as dry steppe grass in winter.

(Sound of a sudden, sharp, metallic clang)

The moment the Rus’ princes and their men were vulnerable, disarmed and unsuspecting, the Mongols fell upon them. It became a slaughter, not a battle. The ground ran red with the blood of the betrayed. Some princes were brutally executed; legend says the Mongols crushed the remaining princes under a platform where the victors celebrated their gruesome triumph.

(Tone becomes slightly lower, more somber)

This wasn’t just a military defeat; it was a betrayal that echoed through Rus’ for generations, deepening distrust and revealing the invaders’ ruthlessness. Though Rus’ stayed connected to Europe, Mongol rule pushed trade and politics eastward. Harsh penalties, executions, and torture grew common. Scholars still debate the human cost: estimates run from single‑digit population losses to claims approaching one‑half.

Kalka became a stark warning that promises can vanish like steppe wind. This initial, devastating betrayal paved the way for the Mongol Yoke, centuries of subjugation that forever shaped Russian history.

…

The betrayal at the Kalka River is the first key piece to understand when negotiating with Russians. For Russia, betrayal isn’t theory; it’s memory.

Napoleon and Tsar Alexander I of Russia signed the Treaty of Tilsit in 1807, forging an alliance. Napoleon then invaded Russia in 1812.

In 1939, Hitler and Stalin signed a non-aggression pact. Two years later, Nazi tanks crossed the Russian border.

Russia claims that Western leaders gave informal assurances in the early 1990s that NATO wouldn’t expand eastward. Declassified memcons show James Baker told Mikhail Gorbachev in 1990 that NATO would move ‘not one inch eastward.’ When NATO expanded anyway, Russians logged it as another broken promise.

Put plainly, Russians assume promises are conditional and alliances are temporary. America views international relations through the lens of the Rational Actor Model, or the idea that leaders make decisions like rational calculators. We view logical entities as pursuing self-interest. We assume to generally uphold agreements because they serve our long-term interests.

As the first key piece to understand, this truth is also the biggest limitation. Russia assumes we will double-cross them.

That assumption changes how we should orient ourselves. Negotiation, to Moscow, is zero‑sum. Anything they concede feels like a loss they’ll pay for later.

This is a legacy of Kalka, Napoleon, Hitler, and NATO.

Should we be Russian apologists? No. But we should treat our adversary with dignity and respect.

When negotiating with Russians, understanding this environment of deep-seated suspicion is critical. And it’s important to recognize its self-fulfilling potential. Russia’s expectation of betrayal provokes actions that make trust impossible.

This isn’t to say that negotiation is impossible. But it does fundamentally alter the landscape. We need strategies that accept mistrust as the starting point.

Next, let’s think about why orienting talks solely from a Western lens falls short. When we think about negotiations, we need to consider how the Russians approach negotiating. We fast-forward to 1962 and a moment when misunderstanding nearly ended civilization, the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Part 2. The Cuban Missile Crisis

(Sound of a ticking clock begins—steady, deliberate—fades slightly under narration)

October 1962. The Cold War reached its most dangerous peak.

American U-2 reconnaissance flights over Cuba captured photographic evidence that the Soviets were emplacing medium- and intermediate-range ballistic missiles just ninety miles from the coast of Florida.

An American early warning radar designed to watch for incoming missile strikes became operational in Thule, Greenland, in 1959. Another in Clear, Alaska, came online in 1961. Both looked north, towards the North Pole and the direction of ballistic missiles from the Soviet Union.

We were blind to the south.

To President John F. Kennedy, the missiles in Cuba were an intolerable threat. With missiles only minutes away, our radars would give no advance notice, leaving the United States no time to respond.

For Soviet leadership, particularly Nikita Khrushchev, the move was not sudden. It was strategic and rooted in a long-standing perception: that the United States had already encircled the Soviets.

In 1961, the US had Jupiter nuclear missiles in Turkey, a NATO ally and direct neighbor to the Soviet Union. These missiles could strike major Soviet cities with very little warning. To Moscow, they were a daily reminder that the US held a gun to their head. The US refused to remove them.

Until Cuba.

In early 1962, Khrushchev approved Operation Anadyr, the secret plan to deploy Soviet nuclear missiles, troops, and equipment to Cuba. Officially, this was framed as a defensive act, meant to protect a fellow socialist state from US aggression. Unofficially, it intended to correct a strategic imbalance. If the United States could threaten the USSR from Turkey, the USSR would threaten the United States from Cuba.

Simply put, Khrushchev matched threat for threat because he believed it was the only way the US would listen. To negotiate on equal footing, the Soviets needed a threat of equal measure.

And so, Soviet missile forces began shipping warheads and launch equipment to Cuba. When the U‑2s spotted them, most sites were nearly ready.

What followed was thirteen days of unprecedented tension. The Kennedy administration weighed air strikes, invasion, and ultimately settled on a naval blockade. American military forces were placed on DEFCON 2, meaning war was imminent.

Meanwhile, Soviet field commanders in Cuba continued to complete missile deployment, unaware of the full extent of the geopolitical negotiations underway. And both sides knew how close they were to catastrophic escalation.

Then, backchannel diplomacy broke the deadlock.

On October 26, a Soviet message proposed to remove the missiles from Cuba in exchange for a US guarantee not to invade the island. American intelligence questioned the authenticity of the message. On October 27, a more formal message insisted any deal include removing US Jupiters from Turkey.

(Sound of a ticking clock grows slightly louder, then recedes)

The Kennedy administration was divided. Publicly agreeing to remove the missiles could make the US appear weak. But ignoring the second message threatened progress in negotiations.

So they did both.

Publicly, the US accepted the first offer: the Soviets would remove their missiles, and the US would pledge not to invade Cuba.

Privately, through Robert Kennedy’s backchannel meeting with Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin, the US agreed to dismantle the Jupiter missiles in Turkey, and we would do so within a few months, quietly, without any public linkage to the crisis.

…

Russians win concessions by making America lose something tangible.

Understanding Russian logic means recognizing negotiation is zero‑sum. Leverage and pressure, not goodwill, drive results, though Moscow accepts deals when symmetry and verification are airtight.

As an interim summary, let’s remember:

First, Russia expects betrayal.

Second, negotiation is pressure, not compromise.

There’s at least a third piece that demonstrates Russia’s approach to negotiation. Russia negotiates to, and beyond, the brink of conflict. Brinkmanship means the US must back diplomacy with credible, non‑symbolic military power.

There are many ways to exert military influence. A great example of military influence that potentially averted conflict was the Berlin Airlift.

Part 3. The Berlin Airlift

June 24, 1948 to May 12, 1949

By the summer of 1948, the postwar alliance between the Soviet Union and the Western powers had unraveled. Germany, divided among the victors, became the front line of a new kind of war. The Soviet Union controlled East Germany and the eastern half of Berlin, while the US, Britain, and France administered the west. West Berlin was 100 miles deep in the Soviet zone of Germany.

When the Western allies announced plans to introduce a new currency, the Deutsche Mark, in their zones, including West Berlin, Stalin saw it as a direct threat to Soviet influence. The day after the Western Allies announced the Deutsche Mark, the Soviets cut off all ground access to West Berlin. No roads, no trains, no barges. Nothing and no one could enter the city by land or water. The aim was to starve West Berlin into submission and force the Allies out without a shot fired.

Roughly two million Berliners depended on outside supplies for survival. The city had food for just over a month.

The Soviet calculation was that the US and its allies wouldn’t risk war over a remote, encircled city. They expected we would withdraw quietly and allow East Germany and the Soviets to take over. But Washington and our allies chose a different path.

On June 26, just two days after the blockade began, the Western Allies launched the Berlin Airlift. US Air Force C-47s and C-54s began flying continuous missions into the city’s airports, landing supplies around the clock. The British joined almost immediately, followed by other allies.

At the height of the airlift, a plane landed every 45 seconds. Over the course of 11 months, Allied aircraft made 277,000 flights, delivering more than 2.3 million tons of supplies, including food, medicine, fuel, clothing, and coal. Crews even dropped candy with miniature parachutes to the children of Berlin, an effort led by US pilot Gail Halvorsen that became known as Operation Little Vittles.

These weren’t just missions of mercy. They were statements of resolve. The Soviets disputed the Western Allies’ currency and opened negotiations, intending for us to change our position. They had used military influence to exert pressure, and we would need to use ours to overcome that pressure.

The operation required incredible coordination. Crews flew through narrow air corridors set in post‑war agreements that the Soviets could not legally block. Any accidental deviation could have been used as a pretext for military escalation. US and British crews flew in all conditions, including fog, snow, and darkness, risking mechanical failure, Soviet harassment, or fatal crashes.

And yet, they kept flying.

Meanwhile, the Soviets intensified pressure. East German newspapers mocked the airlift, calling it doomed. Soviet planes buzzed Allied aircraft. Propaganda tried to portray the West as abandoning the people of Berlin.

The Soviets pushed Berlin to the brink because they expected America to back down diplomatically rather than risk conflict.

The effort continued, and the gamble failed. Public opinion in West Berlin solidified around the Allies, not the Soviets. The West had not only refused to back down, it had demonstrated both logistical superiority and moral clarity.

On May 12, 1949, after 322 days, the Soviets lifted the blockade. They had lost the battle for Berlin without firing a shot. In the months that followed, West Germany became a democratic state, and the NATO alliance soon took shape.

The Berlin Airlift remains one of the clearest examples of what works when confronting Russian brinkmanship.

Knowing we prefer to avoid conflict, the Russians provoke it, hoping we’ll back down.

To clarify, the Berlin Airlift wasn’t an act of war. It was an act of resolve. Military influence can be forceful without being aggressive.

In sum, we must respond to Russian brinkmanship by combining diplomacy with direct action.

When negotiating with Russia on the world stage, credible willingness to act militarily is essential to successful outcomes.

So…What Have We Learned?

First: Russia expects betrayal. That mindset is centuries deep.

Second: They negotiate through pressure, not compromise. To them, negotiation is zero-sum.

Third: They push to the brink and expect us to pull back.

So negotiating with Russia means pairing diplomatic finesse with credible resolve, an approach grounded in their centuries‑deep suspicion, zero‑sum mindset, and brinkmanship.

To achieve our goals, the US must fully understand how Russia plays the game and be ready to respond to Russian brinkmanship by combining diplomacy with direct action.

May God bless the United States of America.

Further Reading / Source Material

* Airbridge to Berlin by D.M. Giangreco

* CIA Declassified Document: Soviet Harassment of Allied Aircraft during the Berlin Airlift

* The Berlin Candy Bomber by Gail Halvorsen

* Essence of Decision by Graham Allison (for theoretical backdrop)

☘️ Joel (00:00:00):

Today, I'm pleased to host Crom Carmichael. Crom is an entrepreneur, investor, and business leader. He has served as the CEO and board member of Nishai Biotech, and if I said that wrong, I apologize, since 2002.

🎤 Crom (00:00:16):

Nope, that's exactly right.

☘️ Joel (00:00:19):

He's a native of South Bend, Indiana, graduated from Vanderbilt University in 1971. Crom has extensive leadership experience and a demonstrated strong commitment to innovation and growth, especially in biotech.

Key aspects of your career include you're a founding investor in Serif Group, who provides seed and early stage funding to startups.

You sit on the board of multiple companies, and those are all going to be in the written version (including Consensus Point, TrackPoint Systems, Confirmation.com, BancVue, 3SAE Technologies, and The Gardner School).

You own an audio program that covers history's most influential thinkers called Giants of Political Thought. And the series fascinatingly outlines the philosophy of governance, including thinking of giants such as Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, John Locke, Adam Smith, and others.

And you and Mike Hassell now just started to host a podcast From Our Generation To Yours, where you offer lessons on business, politics, and life for the next generation.

Crom, it's great to talk to you today.

🎤 Crom (00:01:22):

Well, Joel, thanks for having me. I appreciate it very much.

☘️ Joel (00:01:26):

I really appreciate that you focus so much on philosophy in governance because philosophy informs how and why we think about things.

We establish goals based on some hopefully philosophical logic. And we need to orient ourself toward those goals because when we take our eyes or focus off of the goal, we get to start doing things that don't really make sense.

I bet we can find common ground with the question, well, I bet we would both answer yes to the question of whether individuals have a duty to prepare for an uncertain future so they aren't a burden on others.

I'm fascinated to hear your take on:

Do we have a mandate for individuals to prepare for an uncertain future?

As in, like a government requirement mandate. Essentially, should we have social security?

Do we have a mandate for individuals to prepare for their future? And you have to make the assumption that me paying into Social Security is me funding my own Social Security in the future. I know that is not the way the system works.

I know that it's not me paying in because I pay in for someone who's older than me and then somebody younger than me would theoretically pay in for me. But if I don't pay into the system, then I don't get the benefit.

🎤 Crom (00:03:02):

Right.

So Social Security, when it was founded, it was promised to be like an insurance program where the money that you put in would go into your own social security account.

And every year people get in the, I get, now I'm on social security and I get a piece in the mail that tells me how much I'm going to get. And I believe that even when you're younger, I believe that you can request and find out what the Social Security system, quote, promises, unquote, to pay you.

But the Social Security system, as it actually works today, and you hit it right on the head. You're right on target. The Social Security tax is just simply a tax.

The Social Security benefit is a promise that the government makes so long as it's able to keep it.

But the money that you pay in, it does not go into an account in your name.

It just goes into a Social Security fund that then is used to pay for Social Security and any other general expenses that the government might need the money for.

And so the right word for it is, unfortunately, it's a Ponzi scheme.

☘️ Joel (00:04:29):

So I was going to ask, so some people call it a Ponzi scheme instead of an insurance program or, or however you want to describe it.

Um, so you and I agree that it is not, that you put money into a bucket that money grows like the stock market or like a bond or whatever. And then at the retirement age of your life, you have access to that money.

You don't ever theoretically own that money.

And because you don't own it, some people call it a Ponzi scheme.

I don't, I think that institutionally, there's a reason that we created the program and that came out of the Great Depression and people not having enough.

So if that is still true, if we eliminated the program, then don't we have an obligation to maintain our commitment to it?

🎤 Crom (00:05:34):

Well, I mean, you know, Social Security from a political standpoint, I mean, people who have worked all their lives and now everybody who is retired today worked their entire life and paid into the Social Security system.

So it is an obligation that the government has based on the promise that the government has made to every American citizen.

And the government will keep that promise as long as it can. But the point that you make is that somebody's ability to receive or the government's ability to pay the benefit is what will depend on whether or not the benefit always gets paid.

And so what age, I'm 76. And so I've been collecting Social Security for about, let's say seven or eight years. I paid into Social Security for about 45 years. And most people who are collecting Social Security feel that they have earned the money that they are receiving.

And the reason that they do is that the people who started receiving Social Security in the 40s and 50s and even in the 60s paid very little into the system compared to the benefits that they were receiving.

And so therein lies the Ponzi scheme.

☘️ Joel (00:07:04):

Sure, yeah.

🎤 Crom (00:07:05):

It's a little bit like, when I was in college many years ago, if I needed, I may be telling on myself here a bit, but if I needed a few bottles of alcohol I would send out a chain letter. Do you know what a chain letter is?

☘️ Joel (00:07:21):

Yeah.

🎤 Crom (00:07:23):

And I would put my name at the top. I'd put three of my friends under me and I'd send out the chain letter to about 100 people that I didn't know and tell them to send a bottle of such and such to the top person on the list and then remove that person, move the second person to the top and put their name on the bottom.

And I'd send out 100 of those things, and I would inevitably get three or four bottles of whiskey. And so that's how Social Security worked from the beginning.

Now, there was a senator named Senator Clark who offered an amendment to make it so that when people put money into Social Security, that it would actually go into an account in their name in the same way that an IRA works today.

And that amendment, it was voted down.

☘️ Joel (00:08:19):

I wrote a previous idea back in, I think, May of last year. Why doesn't the government give every baby born in America a $100,000 loan when they're born?

And over the lifetime of that child, and I understand the math doesn't perfectly work out because there's inflation and the reality of things,

but...

That individual repays their $100,000 to the government over their lifetime.

And then the investment of that grows at some government promised kind of low rate, like 3%.

And then at their retirement age, then they get, depending on what year they retire, then they get a benefit of that divided into 30 years.

And so then if you don't live long enough, which most people won't because if you retired 65 and your benefits are planned to last till you're 95, then most people just statistically don't live to be 95. Then whatever you didn't earn in that, you still don't own. The government seizes it.

And then that funds people who through not necessarily any fault of their own were injured or for whatever reason couldn't work.

And so then the program always has full funding because of that.

But I understand that there's political consensus that would have to take place for Congress to pass that and change Social Security.

But to me, that makes sense that FDR could have when he created the Social Security program. He could have created it to benefit retirees at the time, but then somehow morphed it into a self-funded thing.

Because we're going to have generations that are smaller than than previous generations. And like Gen X is smaller than the baby boomers. And so we have a problem now that social security is running out of funding because the baby boomers are a bigger generation than those that follow.

And so then there are not enough people in the way that FDR set up, there's not enough people paying into the program.

🎤 Crom (00:10:26):

Well, yeah, and, you know, your ideas make a great deal of sense as a practical matter.

I mean, they make a great deal of sense from a mathematical matter, but as a practical matter, getting Congress to agree to do something like that, I think would probably be giving $100,000 to every baby.

I'm not quite sure how that $100,000 would be invested on behalf of that person.

And then the problem becomes the politicians as that amount of money, if you even could establish it to begin with.

Politicians would see that pool of money and want to do something, do something with it.

And that's always been the problem because when Social Security was originally passed, I went back and did a little bit of preparation for this conversation.

And the original Social Security tax for the individual was 1% on their first $3,000. So it was $30 a year. And the employer matched that. So the employer also put up $30 a year. And Roosevelt promised that those two numbers would never change. And, of course, that was not true. But he said that in order to get the bill passed.

And then the media then reported what Roosevelt said, and the bill got – the Social Security bill got passed.

And then as politicians started to see, well, gee, there are a lot of people who are now, and by the way, when Roosevelt passed that bill, average life expectancy was 62 and you didn't start collecting Social Security until you were 65.

Well, then over the next 25 years, life expectancy increased to approximately 75 and they actually lowered the year that you could collect Social Security down to 62.

And they increased the benefits.

And that's because politicians found that if they ran on a platform back in those days of increasing Social Security benefits by 5%, people who were collecting Social Security benefits would vote for them.

And so it's unfortunate that we could have an interesting conversation sometime on what the founding fathers, what some of their discussions were, and it's all in the Federalist Papers, by the way, what their discussions were when they were devising the Constitution, what were the principles that they tried to take into account in writing a constitution that they hoped would last for hundreds of years.

Please, go ahead.

☘️ Joel (00:13:26):

It is really interesting to me, the John Locke piece that got lost in the translation between John Locke's philosophy and the Declaration of Independence that Life, liberty, and property, because it was one of John Locke's big things.

The role of government is to protect your property. And then Jefferson changed that to Pursuit of Happiness.

So I understand the challenge of saying that the government's role is to protect your property, because some people might hear that and say, oh, I don't own a house. I don't own 10 acres or whatever, so I don't have property, and the government promised me property, and so now you are obliged to give me a yard or whatever.

That's not what that means.

But it does mean that for your body, as an example, you can make decisions about your body.

But if your dollars are your property because you work and generate funds from that work, and those funds become your property, then does the government have a responsibility to protect your property?

And then that actually ties in with the insurance piece, because if the government does have a responsibility to protect your property, but you're facing an uncertain future, then do you buy an insurance plan to make it so you still have some money at the end of your life or in the instance that you can't work and that insurance would become Social Security?

That's an interesting premise that I thought about.

🎤 Crom (00:15:04):

Back in the 20s, before the Great Depression, back in the 20s, more than half of the American people bought insurance policies in the form of annuities. And that was buying insurance privately that would provide for their retirement.

☘️ Joel (00:15:27):

So do you think we should still commit to Social Security?

Essentially, you and I agree you have a mandate to prepare for an uncertain future.

There are different ways that you can do that.

How do you think we should get that done? Because we need to probably reform the program so that it's healthy again.

🎤 Crom (00:15:52):

Well, the government does have. A number of years ago, he federal government passed legislation they passed.

And I'm going to I may get this, Joel, slightly wrong, but they provided for people if people wanted to set up IRAs, individual retirement accounts, they could do that if they worked for a company that offered a 401k. Then they could contribute to the 401 , and oftentimes the company matched that amount.

And then there's this other thing called Roth IRAs. And I'm not that familiar with any of those in very, very specific detail other than there's lots of tax deferring that goes on in those plans so that they can build.

And so for the average, for the regular person, if they work in a company that has a 401k, and the company contributes to that 401k with a matching grant, matching amount of money, I encourage people to put as much as they possibly can in those IRAs if they're matched by the company because that automatically gives them 100% return on that investment.

And there's nothing that comes close to that in any other way of investing.

☘️ Joel (00:17:22):

But I agree, totally agree with the investment vehicles that are there.

If it's going to take the place of social security, though, they can't be an elective thing. They have to be mandated, right?

Because there will always be people that choose not to invest because they don't have the money, because we talked about low wages a minute ago.

And because they don't have the money, they're not going to do it.

And then they're going to get to the end of their life. And what do you do?

Do you just leave them to die?

And the answer is no, you can't. And so if you're going to have people be able to use their 401k as their retirement money, then it can't be optional.

🎤 Crom (00:18:10):

Well, in the society that we're in today, Social Security is going to exist until it can't. And that would be if you had an economic collapse and the value of money would have to be redefined. That's a possibility.

That type of thing has happened throughout history.

But for our discussion, for practical purposes, Social Security benefits are going to continue to be paid out because it would be political suicide to call for the elimination of Social Security benefits and exchange it for some other program.

And so as long as Social Security benefits are going to be paid out, there would need to be some form of Social Security tax that really forces people who are working and earning money to pay money toward, as you say, the Social Security for the people who are currently retired.

So I don't think there's a way out of the Social Security trap, if that's the way that you and I want to describe it, only because it's been around now for close to 90 years.

☘️ Joel (00:19:35):

Yeah, I don't know that I would call it a trap. I don't know that I would use that term. I would probably say it's a very inefficient vehicle to prepare for your retirement.

And anytime we choose to funnel money through the government, you're just going to waste at a minimum 40% of it by people working government jobs.

They're going to kind of siphon off that money.

And so then by wasting 40% of it, you would have less money than you would if you had invested that money instead.

But I don't know that the only way I think that we could change it, and that's an interesting point, if you elected to invest your own money and could prove that through your taxes every year, whether or not you could elect to not pay Social Security.

That'd be an interesting point.

🎤 Crom (00:20:34):

Well, that's why I called it. That's why I referred to it as the Social Security trap.

Because if you work and receive a paycheck, your employer is required to take your Social Security tax out of your pay.

So it's not a choice that you as a worker, you don't have that choice.

You can't say, well, I think I'd rather do this rather than pay the tax. You don't have a choice.

☘️ Joel (00:21:01):

Yeah, then it gets back to the Edmund Burke thing that institutionally we chose as a nation to do X at this time.

And Burke would say we have a commitment to the institution to maintain the viability for people who don't have resources.

So...

🎤 Crom (00:21:23):

Yeah, but it's also just there's a philosophical point, and then there's the practical political point, and that is that if anybody, if any politician ran saying that we're going to take away people's Social Security benefits who don't need the money, I will promise you that that politician will not win the next election.

☘️ Joel (00:21:45):

Yeah, yeah.

🎤 Crom (00:21:47):

So the tax will always be there as long as the social security system is viable enough to pay out the benefits.

☘️ Joel (00:21:58):

Yeah.

And I actually, I personally think that we have to have social security or some form of social insurance so that elderly people aren't freezing to death in their apartments.

I think that Social security, as it is shaped right now, probably needs reformed so that it better benefits those people.

Because, for instance, if you consider the $100,000 loan when you're a baby thing, and then the worker pays that back through their lifetime earnings, you would pay less in social security taxes because you could even make poverty level wages and pay that $100,000 back.

And you would almost double your entitlement benefit or your benefit at your retirement age is, I don't want to call it an entitlement at that point because that's an investment that the government made on your behalf when you were born.

But I think that it's just something that we need to, we can't get rid of because too many elderly people and people who can't work depend on it.

🎤 Crom (00:23:05):

Yeah, I would suggest that the biggest area of federal savings is not going to be in Social Security because I would disagree with you just a bit on the cost of administering Social Security is actually relatively low compared to the cost of managing our healthcare system because with Social Security, it's just a formula and they pay it out.

☘️ Joel (00:23:38):

I really appreciate your time. And thanks for sharing the phone call with me.

🎤 Crom (00:23:43):

Joel, I appreciate it. Thanks for having me.

May God bless the United States of America.

Jennifer worked for more than forty years. She spent just a few years at home when the baby was born, then went right back to it.

She didn’t ask for handouts.Never made a scene.She went to church on Sunday and to work every day during the week.She paid her taxes, saved a little, and kept going.

She wasn’t rich.Didn’t have a pension.But she had her 401K and maybe some Social Security waiting if the government didn’t take that away.She thought she was doing it right.

Then, her son got sick.

He was in his twenties. Just getting started. No real savings. Barely enough insurance.The money he had didn’t come close to what he needed.

He was the kind of sick that throws everything into chaos.The kind that doesn’t care how old you are or how prepared your mother thought she was.

Jennifer fought the denials.Sat through the waiting lists.She watched the out-of-pocket bills pile up. The bills didn’t care about her budget or her plans.

She wasn’t going to watch her son die sitting on any money, so she drained her savings.Sold her car.Skipped her own treatments to stretch the money.

She never complained.She just did what any mother would do. She tried to save her child.

So now, she’s 60.

Her son’s alive.The savings are gone.She hopes to get a small Social Security check. She knows that because of the choice she made and would make again, she will have to work longer to cover rent. She doesn’t regret her decision.

…

Jennifer’s situation begs a question: what do we owe those struck by misfortune?

To answer that, we have to ask something deeper…

Why does this system exist in the first place?

We consent to governance in order for those we elect to protect our property.

Individuals possess inherent rights. These include the right to life, liberty, and the ability to strive toward purpose. These rights are your property. No one can own you but you. So, you are your own property, and only you have the right to make decisions about yourself.

These rights exist independently of government. Even if government didn’t exist, we would still have the inherent right to live, make choices, grow from the result of those choices, and strive for a fulfilling life.

By choosing to submit to governance, we assign a duty to those we elect to protect these rights and the property that comes from us exercising those rights.

Beyond protecting the property that is our natural rights, government also resolves disputes over property. These might involve employers and workers, neighbors, families, or other rub points in society.

This duty is not optional, and it applies to both the strong and the weak. Elected officials are charged with protecting the life and property of every individual, including those who cannot defend their rights on their own.

We give up some control through laws, regulations, and taxes. Sometimes, we pool our resources to build things that multiply our individual capability, like roads, power grids, or schools. Other times, we give up control because we know we can’t always protect our own rights alone.

This is where the tension in funding Social Security begins.

Some succeed and come to see it as a kind of fraudulent Ponzi scheme. They feel that if they can’t access the money their government took from them in taxes when they want it, then those officials failed to protect their property.

But that’s the view from the top of the hill. It’s not wrong, just incomplete. It’s the view of the world from the folly of wealth.

Because eventually, time and chance happen to us all.

The fastest runner doesn’t always win the race. The strongest doesn’t always win the fight. Wisdom, intelligence, and skill don’t always lead to wealth, health, or success.

Sooner or later, misfortune visits everyone. We get injured. Or sick. Or old. Or maybe our child is the one who suffers.

Because we don’t know when misfortune will strike, we hedge our bets. As a nation of individuals, we buy insurance in case we, as individuals, can no longer work due to age or injury.

So…

Our property begins with our ability to choose and pursue our life’s purpose. That includes our labor, our time, and what we create with them. But we live in a world that’s unpredictable and sometimes violent. We know that no amount of planning can fully protect us from injury, illness, or age.

So, in our individual self-interest, we agree to pool some of what we earn. We buy insurance together so that if misfortune strikes before we’ve saved enough, we’re not left with nothing.

This insurance is called Social Security. It’s not built to be flexible. It’s built to be there for when we can no longer work.

But we still haven’t directly answered our question about Jennifer’s situation:

What do we owe those struck by misfortune?

What do we owe those struck by misfortune?

We don’t owe those struck by misfortune sympathy. Nor do we owe them charity. We may have personal beliefs that direct us to love and serve others through our churches and nonprofits, but we cannot force others to share our personal beliefs.

What we owe those struck by misfortune is commitment to stable institutions that protect the life and property of individuals, including those who cannot defend these rights on their own.

Institutions like Social Security don’t spring up by accident. They develop organically over generations and embody the collective wisdom of society. They are built over time in response to painful lessons and misfortune. They reflect the accumulated judgment of generations who saw what happened when nothing was there to catch the falling. They are not the product of a single generation’s will. They are the accumulated wisdom of America refined by need and time.

These institutions carry memory. They remember the cost of doing nothing, the pain of the Great Depression, and the reason we built a floor for those struck by misfortune to stand on.

For those blinded by the folly of wealth and comfort, it’s easy to call for reform. They make claims of fraud without showing evidence. They bought in like everyone else, but now they want to walk away with their share as if the deal was only about them.

We do need to reform the institution to better serve the needs of those struck by misfortune while still maintaining our commitment to it. Not to eliminate it or make it more difficult to use but to better serve those who depend on it.

But reform should come from people who understand the purpose and history of the institution, not from oligarchs in power trying to tear it down.

So, what does America owe Jennifer and others struck by misfortune?

We owe Jennifer commitment to institutions that protect the rights and property of every American, including the weak who cannot defend those rights on their own.

May God bless the United States of America.

Music from #Uppbeathttps://uppbeat.io/t/eversafe/eversafeLicense code: STFNDGAT8W2XKNIF

We want real prosperity for working Americans without piling debt on future generations.

So, we’ve got to be open to new ideas. Some of those ideas might sound like they’ll never work. That’s fine. What matters is that we consider the options, build consensus, and stay focused on the results, not just the method.

Consensus makes lasting change possible. If we build real consensus across parties and regions, then we open the door to a rarity in American policy: a permanent solution. Not a temporary fix. Not a patch for the next election cycle. We need a system that works because enough people agree on the goal and not the method for achieving that goal.

Achieving the goal matters. How we get there is secondary.

There’s another angle we need to consider. When we’re looking at solutions, we have to be willing to think all the way to the edges. On one end of the spectrum is the “do nothing” option. This option is something we should consider even when everyone’s yelling that we have to act. On the other end is the option that delivers overwhelming, decisive results.

At both ends, we have to ask: Why wouldn’t that work? And if we can’t find a good answer, then maybe that so-called extreme isn’t extreme at all. Maybe it’s the best option we’ve got.

So, with that in mind, here’s a question worth asking:

If our goal is food on the table and heat in the house for all American workers, why do we tax businesses at all?

If that made you pause or even angry, that means we’re asking the right question.

Goals Matter More Than Methods

During World War II, America faced a nearly impossible problem. The country needed tanks, planes, and ships. We needed millions of them. We needed them fast. But at the time, the factories that could build them were busy making cars, stoves, and washing machines.

The problem was so dire that adversary global leaders assessed there was no way we could achieve our goals and win the war. Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring, one of Adolf Hitler’s top lieutenants, said that Americans could only make refrigerators and razor blades. He assessed we would never be able to produce the military equipment and supplies necessary to defeat Nazi Germany.

At the time, Göring was right.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt knew it, too. So, Roosevelt started building consensus in order to create permanent effects to win the war.

And he had a tough row to hoe. Many thought FDR was anti-business. He had expanded government oversight of banking, labor, and markets. He raised income taxes on the wealthy and introduced new corporate taxes many saw as hostile to business investment. He supported unions and workers’ rights that businesses viewed as empowering strikes and weakening employer control. He framed the wealthy elite as obstacles to recovery.

But FDR wasn’t anti-business. He was pro-American worker. He opposed exploitation. He knew he needed a strong business culture. In his annual Budget Message to Congress on January 5, 1942, FDR said…

“We cannot outfight our enemies unless, at the same time, we outproduce our enemies. It is not enough to turn out just a few more planes, a few more tanks, a few more guns, a few more ships, than can be turned out by our enemies. We must outproduce them overwhelmingly, so that there can be no question of our ability to provide a crushing superiority of equipment in any theater of the world war.”

FDR’s administration couldn’t mandate patriotism or force companies to comply. It had to make the pivot profitable. The administration partnered with industry and offered massive contracts, tax incentives, and full-throttle support to retool factories for war production.

The government offered something called cost-plus contracts. For every dollar a company spent retooling its factory, it got that dollar back, plus a guaranteed profit. There were advance payments, tax incentives, and full reimbursement for production costs. That meant zero financial risk for the companies. If they stepped up, they didn’t just help the country. They came out ahead.

The results were fantastic.

Ford built a mile-long assembly line just for B-24 bombers. Chrysler stopped making cars and started producing tanks. General Motors converted its plants to churn out machine guns and aircraft engines. These weren’t small measures. They were full-scale industrial makeovers. Entire factories partnered with FDR’s administration and reimagined themselves for the singular purpose of achieving the national goal. The method for achieving that goal was secondary.

And it worked. Not because everyone agreed on the politics but because everyone agreed on the goal. And the government made it profitable to help achieve that goal. The system rewarded those who helped achieve it.

America became the Arsenal of Democracy not just through sacrifice but through consensus. The right incentives produced the right results in the timeframe we needed.

Fast forward to today. If we want prosperity for American workers, if we want families to thrive without leaning on public assistance, maybe the answer isn’t another patch or another tax. Maybe it’s the same principle. Let’s reward the businesses that help us achieve our national goals.

If a business pays livable wages, covers worker healthcare, and doesn’t push its costs onto taxpayers, what are we taxing them for?

In the end, it’s not about the method. It’s about the national goal of any worker being able to work for and achieve food on the table and heat in the house, all without taxpayer support. If we can achieve our goal, the method is irrelevant.

If Low Wages Are a Business Model, the IRS Should Send a Bill

Business taxes bring in less revenue than the cost of low wages. So, maybe we’re taxing the wrong thing.

Let’s take a closer look at the numbers.

In 2024, the federal government brought in about $4.9 trillion in revenue. Out of that, corporate income taxes made up just 10 percent or around half a trillion dollars of that five trillion.

At the same time, low wages cost the American taxpayer far more than half a trillion dollars a year. They cost about a quarter of the entire federal budget or 1.25 trillion dollars.

When companies pay poverty wages, workers still need to survive. No matter what, people need food on the table and heat in the house. We have all agreed to this principle. Both parties have expanded social programs to help people meet these necessities.

Because we all agreed that people need to be able to work for and achieve food on the table and heat in the house, these programs become mandatory funding. Mandatory means we must pay them. So, mandatory taxpayer-funded social programs kick in. These programs, including Medicaid, SNAP, housing aid, and refundable tax credits like the Earned Income Tax Credit, are automatic payments written into law. If someone qualifies, the American taxpayer pays.

In 2024, nearly 25 percent of all federal spending went to these kinds of programs. Much of this deficit is wage-related. Medicaid alone serves millions of low-income workers, especially in food service, retail, and care work. The EITC is specifically designed to supplement low wages with taxpayer dollars. In short, the federal government spends far more cleaning up after low wages than it ever collects from taxing business profits.

But rather than be angry at the state of the world, we need to figure out a healthy path forward.

So here’s the question. If a business pays its people enough to live, doesn’t push its labor costs onto taxpayers, and supports self-sufficiency, should we tax that business at all?

Because right now, we’re taxing good businesses and subsidizing the bad ones. And that makes no sense.

But … we also can’t raise the minimum wage to mandate the change. Just like FDR couldn’t compel businesses to get on board to achieve national goals, we can’t compel businesses to eliminate the need for taxpayer-funded social programs by asking nicely. When we needed Ford Motor Company to build B-24 bombers, we had to incentivize the change.

If businesses don’t increase revenue, they can’t raise wages. Mandating higher wages leads to job losses, not higher wages.

Two Studies Arguing Past the Point

It’s been a year since California raised its minimum wage for fast food workers to $20 an hour. And, of course, some sources claim the wage increase mandate is killing businesses, and others claim it had no negative effect.

First, a study conducted by the Berkeley Research Group, dated February 18, 2025, found that nearly 9 in 10 restaurant operators cut employee hours in the first few months. A third reduced benefits. Most said they planned to cut even more over the coming year.

Jobs declined. According to federal data, California’s fast food sector saw its first December job loss in over two decades outside of a recession or pandemic. That’s not a small dip. That’s a reversal of a long-term trend.

And prices jumped. Fast food menu prices in California rose almost 15% in one year, nearly double the national average. In April 2024 alone, the month the new wage took effect, prices in California spiked by nearly 3%, the biggest one-month jump in the country.

…

But before we jump to conclusions, let’s look at the second viewpoint.

A study by the University of California at Berkeley from February 24, 2025, found something very different.

According to their analysis, the $20 fast-food minimum wage in California did what it was supposed to do. It raised pay by about 8 to 9 percent for covered workers. It did not reduce jobs, it did not cause mass closures, and the price of a typical fast-food meal went up by only about 6 cents on a four-dollar burger.

The University of California study used government data, private payroll sources, and job posting platforms. It compared covered restaurants to valid control groups and adjusted for seasonality and economic trends. Again, they found no significant job losses. In fact, the number of fast-food restaurants in California actually grew faster than in the rest of the country.

University of California economists pushed back on the BRG study. They said BRG cherry-picked data, failed to separate correlation from causation, and relied on sources that weren’t central to the wage policy itself. For example, job losses had already begun before the law took effect, and the price spike BRG cited didn’t account for restaurant type or broader inflation. So who’s right?

Both are likely correct.

Businesses act in their self-interest to maximize profits. This statement does not intend to demonize businesses. If a business can invest in automation in such a way that results in higher profits, it will do so, as it is a means to reduce labor costs.

But let’s get away from the contradiction. It only muddies our view.

The decisive point is not whether the government should mandate a wage increase. Any mandate the government makes to the business pool has ripple effects, and there are winners and losers.

The decisive point is that the government mandating a wage increase does not build consensus.

We will not achieve long-term consensus with a wage mandate. Just like FDR couldn’t compel businesses to get on board to achieve national goals, we will not achieve our goals in a lasting manner with mandates. We have to incentivize change.

We Won’t Agree on the Method. Let’s Agree on the Goal

The first step to building consensus is agreeing on the goal.

And we can agree on the goal: food on the table and heat in the house for working Americans. We can build from there.

Here’s a fact: any business that pays poverty wages costs the American taxpayer more than it pays in taxes.

Here’s another: if we’re against raising wages to a livable standard for every worker, then we are for continued dependence on social programs. You can’t be against both livable wages and social programs. No matter how much we argue for market freedom, if wages stay low, taxpayers pick up the tab.

So, we need to build consensus to get through our gridlock.

Let’s throw out a proposal.

If a business can prove it pays every worker a livable wage, including the dishwasher, the pipefitter, the burger cook, the philosophy major, the ranch hand … then how about they pay no federal taxes?

It doesn’t matter if a business thinks those are low-skill jobs that don’t justify higher wages. If they don’t pay their workers enough, the taxpayer fills the gap, and that costs America a trillion dollars a year.

But when workers earn livable wages, they don’t need food stamps. They can afford private healthcare, so they don’t need Medicaid. They no longer need the Earned Income Tax Credit. Higher wages reduce the taxpayer’s mandatory funding commitment.

As a bonus, this approach reduces the burden on the federal budget and raises revenue because higher wages mean more income taxes paid by workers.

Some will say that we can’t eliminate business taxes because we should mandate businesses pay both livable wages and taxes.

And they have a valid point. But that stance has blocked progress towards our goal for more than 40 years. We will likely never gain the political consensus to make lasting progress with mandates.

Whether a business pays taxes or how large its tax bill is isn’t the point.

The decisive point is whether Americans can work for and achieve food on the table and heat in the house without piling debt on future generations.

That’s the goal. That’s the consensus.

If we reward the right behavior, we don’t need mandates. We build a system that works, even if not everyone agrees with how we got there.

How we achieve our goal matters less than achieving it.

May God bless the United States of America.

Some say we fight for democracy. But what if that fight is misplaced?

Some Hills are Worth Dying On

July 2, 1863, outside of Gettysburg. It’s the second day of the Battle of Gettysburg. The air is thick with smoke, the smell of gunpowder, sweat, and blood. Cannon fire rumbles in the distance, and the screams of wounded men echo through the Pennsylvania hills.

The Confederate Army, under General Robert E. Lee, is pressing hard against the Union lines. After a brutal first day of fighting, Lee has ordered an all-out assault on the Union flanks. He intended to break their defenses, separate the Union Army from Washington, and win the war right here and now.

Up on the far left of the Union line was a rocky little hill called Little Round Top. There, a professor-turned-soldier named Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain stood with his men, the 20th Maine Regiment.

Chamberlain wasn’t a career military officer. Just two years ago, he stood in front of a classroom at Bowdoin College in Maine. He taught students theology, philosophy, and the great ideas that shape nations.

He pursued truth. He was a man of character and conviction and believed in the union of states. He studied the moral arguments against slavery, knowing that America could not truly be free while slavery existed. He believed in liberty and justice.

After the war broke out, Chamberlain volunteered for the Union Army. In his letter to Maine Governor Israel Washburn, Chamberlain stated he had much to learn about military service, but continued that…

“I fear, this war, so costly of blood and treasure, will not cease until the men of the North are willing to leave good positions, and sacrifice the dearest personal interests, to rescue our Country from Desolation, and defend the National Existence against treachery at home and jeopardy abroad.”

So, volunteer he did. But in all his reading and studying, nothing had prepared him for this moment at Gettysburg.

He stood on this hill, gripped his sword, and stared down at the tree line below. The Confederate army was coming. If they broke through and took the hill, the Union line would collapse. And if that happened, Gettysburg could be lost. Maybe even the war.

The first wave hit them hard. The men of the 15th and 47th Alabama came crashing up the rocky slope, firing, shouting, bayonets flashing in the sunlight. The 20th Maine fired down into them, holding the line. The Confederates fell back, regrouped, and came again. Then again. Then again.

Chamberlain’s men fell exhausted, running low on ammunition, some down to their last few rounds.

Chamberlain looked down at his men. They were bloody, battered, barely standing. The logical thing to do would be to fall back. But there was nowhere to fall back to. If they broke, the enemy would sweep through them like a flood.

In war, everything is simple. But achieving even the simplest task is daunting. Fog, friction, risk, and the unknown close in on you. Exhausted, outnumbered, and wounded in the leg, Chamberlain could barely stand. His men had no more bullets. He did not know if help would arrive, and whether his unit would survive the day. He took a breath, steadied himself against the pain, and gave the order.

He shouted, “Bayonet!”

The 20th Maine roared to life. They charge.

Down the slope, straight into the enemy. The Confederates, themselves tired, expecting another volley of bullets, not cold steel, panic. The Union men slam into them, driving them back, pushing them down the hill. Other Union soldiers arriving at that moment on Little Round Top fire volleys behind the Confederates. The Confederate line buckles. Then it shatters. They turn and run.

And just like that, Little Round Top, Gettysburg, the Union Army, and the United States of America, held. Had Chamberlain’s men lost the hill, the Confederates may well have won the war. There would be no America.

Chamberlain had spent his life studying ideas, philosophies, great speeches. He had left a good position in Maine and sacrificed his dearest personal interests for the union of states.

He believed in liberty and justice.

For him, that hill was worth dying on.

And Some Hills Are Not Worth Dying On

It’s 1953, the final months of the Korean War. The war is dragging on. Behind closed doors, diplomats are hammering out the details of a ceasefire. The fighting, at least in theory, should be winding down. But on a barren, rocky outpost known as Pork Chop Hill, men are still killing and dying.

The hill itself is meaningless. It’s a craggy mound of earth, scarred by months of shelling, roughly shaped like a pork chop. No major roads lead to it. No towns depend on it. It has no real strategic value. And yet, it has become a battlefield. Two sides fight not to win the war but to influence the negotiations.

The first battle erupts in April 1953. US forces, led by Lieutenant Colonel William Kern, first hold the hill when the Chinese launch a massive assault. The fighting is brutal. Soldiers fight hand-to-hand, clawing for control of bunkers, trenches, and high ground. The Americans barely hold. Casualties pile up. When the shooting stops, the hill is still ours, but we’ve gained nothing.

Three months later, in July 1953, the Chinese come again. Thousands of soldiers charge up the slopes in waves. The battle turns into a meat grinder. The US high command debates whether we should keep defending this worthless hill, or we should let it go.

(The low rumble of retreating trucks.)

The decision comes down. We abandon the hill. The Chinese take it, planting their flag in the same dirt that had swallowed hundreds of lives over the past few months. And then, just a few weeks later, the war ends.

After the bloodshed and sacrifice, the final armistice line was drawn north of the hill. The Chinese didn’t even keep it. The battle, in the end, meant nothing.

This fact makes the battle even more tragic. Real breathing men fought and died over a worthless position. It was abandoned by the US, taken by the Chinese, and then given up anyway as part of the armistice agreement.

Pork Chop Hill is one of the clearest examples of fighting for the sake of fighting, with no real strategic or territorial gain for either side.

Some hills are worth dying on.

This wasn’t one of them.

History has made clear that some fights are necessary, and some are senseless. Today, we hear calls to ‘save democracy.’ We have to ask: What are we fighting for?

Save American Democracy!

Today, some call for Americans to “Save our Democracy.” This call has echoed for several years.

To be clear, this rallying cry is futile.

The word democracy appears in the US Constitution exactly zero times. That wasn’t an oversight. The founders didn’t build America on majority rule. They built it on structure, balance, and law. American government was designed to restrain power, not distribute it. The father of the Constitution, James Madison, even wrote a series of documents identifying why America is not a democracy.

In Federalist Paper No. 51, Madison identified the purpose of government. He stated…

Justice is the end of government. It is the end of civil society. It ever has been and ever will be pursued until it be obtained, or until liberty be lost in the pursuit.

Justice is the purpose of government. Not power or control. Not democracy. Justice. It is the purpose of civil society. It’s the reason we create laws, elect leaders, and build nations. Only when we start to threaten liberty should we stop pursuing justice.

The American founding fathers outlined a dogma that a just government exists to protect the weak, not to serve the strong. America owes allegiance to no king, and no aristocracy. America owes allegiance to the American people.

The best way to safeguard justice is with many voices, many factions, and competing interests. No single group should be able to seize control and oppress the others. Justice requires checks and balances that divide, limit, and restrain power and influence. No branch of government should dominate. No leader should rule unchecked. No law or executive order should go unchallenged.

Justice and liberty are inseparable. One cannot exist without the other. A government that fails to uphold justice will eventually destroy liberty, and a society that loses liberty will never know justice.

This is a rallying cry.

Our goals are simple. But achieving even the simplest goal is daunting.

Until government servants establish conditions of justice that enable every American family to work for and achieve heat in the house and food on the table without taxpayer support, we will fight for liberty and justice.

Until women have the liberty to make their own healthcare decisions without the government knowing what they decided, we will fight for liberty and justice.

Until American institutions again support checks and balances and no longer threaten the due process and structure of the nation itself, we will fight for liberty and justice.

The list goes on. Sure seems like we have plenty to keep us busy fighting for liberty and justice. We need not die on the hill of democracy.

Those Who Cry for Democracy Have Lost Their Way

Yes, we are a democratic republic. But the point of American governance is not democracy.

The foundation of America has never been majority rule. We are built on the higher purpose of liberty and justice.

Justice for the oppressed.Provision for those in need.Liberty for those whose rights are threatened by the majority or the ruling class.

Some say we must fight for democracy, but democracy is just a process. It means nothing without justice, and it is worthless without liberty. If we fight, let it be for the only things that matter.

America was never meant to serve the will of the strongest, even if the strongest is the majority. It was meant to defend the rights of the weakest.

That is the hill worth dying on.

May we seek justice. May we defend liberty.

May God bless the United States of America.

Why do we spend so much on defense?

Opening Scene – Key West, 1948

[Sound Design: Waves crashing, seagulls squawking.]

Narrator: It’s March 1948, and the tropical heat of Key West, Florida, presses against a group of men in khaki uniforms and dark blue service caps. They sit around a long table in what was once a naval officers’ club, now repurposed for one of the most important meetings in US military history.

This is where the fate of America’s post-World War II military structure is being decided in a meeting known as the Key West Agreement.

Before this meeting, President Harry S. Truman had signed the National Security Act of 1947 into law. It came into effect on September 18, 1947. Among other directives, the act created the Air Force, separated the Marine Corps as its own service, and merged the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force into one big, happy Department of Defense family.

Except they were all unhappy.

At the head of the table sat the first-ever Secretary of Defense, James Forrestal. He was tasked with bringing order to the growing tensions between the military services. There’s no official transcript of this meeting, but Forrestal’s message was clear. He wasn’t here to debate; he was here to decide.

Forrestal (Actor’s Voice): “Gentlemen, this nation cannot afford inefficiency in its military forces. The roles and missions of each service must be clearly defined, or we risk wasting taxpayer dollars on duplicative efforts. The President expects solutions today, not another fight over who controls what.”

Narrator: It was a polite way of saying, “Stop the infighting.” The war was over. The Soviets were the new enemy. And America needed a plan.

The Fight Over Military Roles

Narrator: The stakes couldn’t have been higher. World War II had ended just three years earlier, and now, the services were battling over bureaucracy.

The Air Force, freshly carved out of the Army in 1947, wanted exclusive control over air operations, strategic bombing, and nuclear weapons.

Furious at the idea of losing its aircraft carriers, the Navy fought to keep its fleet air arm.

The Marine Corps wanted no part of being absorbed into the Army.

The Army, which had spent the war defining large-scale land combat, was now struggling for relevance in a world obsessed with air power and nuclear bombs.

[Sound Design: Ice clinking in glasses, the scratch of pens on paper.]

Military Officer (Actor’s Voice): "Mr. Secretary, how do you want to handle this?"

[Sound Design: Chair creaks. A brief pause. Papers being folded shut. Silence hangs for a moment, then quiet murmurs of dissatisfaction.]

Forrestal (Actor’s Voice): “The Air Force will control strategic bombing and nuclear weapons delivery. The Navy retains control of aircraft carriers and fleet operations. The Army’s role remains ground warfare and land-based air defense. The Marine Corps will not become part of the Army.”

Narrator: Forrestal had one goal. He intended to divide responsibilities before the inter-service feuding weakened America’s military effectiveness.

This was the compromise. The Navy kept its carriers and agreed not to pursue its own strategic air force. The Air Force agreed not to pursue carrier aviation. Everyone agreed the Marine Corps would not become a part of the Army.

All the services had vital peacetime tasks except the largest. The Air Force would operate the nation’s global strike weapons and stand watch over the homeland. The Navy would protect shipping lanes. The Marine Corps would project decisive combat power within days of notification.

The Army, the largest service and used to special treatment, was left wondering whether its traditional role would fade away.

And yet, the agreement set the foundation for American defense spending for generations. Instead of reducing redundancy, it baked in inter-service rivalry. Instead of cutting costs, it ensured every branch would fight to justify its share of the budget. And over the next few years, that fight would escalate and become public.

[Sound Design: A military phone rings in the background.]

While the generals and admirals were busy carving up the military’s future, another war was brewing. In Asia.

[Sound Design: The hum of a military transport plane. Fade to silence.]

The Forgotten Warning – Korea, 1949

Narrator: The Korean Peninsula was spiraling toward war a year after the Key West Agreement. The US had withdrawn most of its forces from South Korea, assuming that a small advisory mission would be enough to keep order.

In Washington, the focus was shifting toward nuclear weapons and strategic deterrence. Ground forces and conventional war were yesterday’s thinking. The real threat was the Soviet Union and its growing atomic arsenal.

To make the matter more urgent, the Soviets conducted their first successful test of a nuclear weapon in August 1949. The West had lost its dominance.

Then, in January 1950, US Secretary of State Dean Acheson defined America’s vital security interests in the Pacific. He excluded Korea from that list.

But by the time Washington realized Korea wasn’t just another skirmish, it was too late. A Soviet-backed North Korea invaded the South on June 25, 1950, launching a war that the US wasn’t prepared for.

And this is where General Matthew Ridgway enters the picture. He was the man who would change America’s military spending forever.

[Sound Design: Artillery explosions in the distance. The rhythmic thumping of helicopter blades overhead.]

Ridgway’s War – 1950

Narrator: December 1950. The war was going badly. US and UN forces were retreating. The Chinese had entered the war, pushing American troops into a brutal winter retreat. Morale had collapsed. Soldiers were exhausted. Supplies were low. The US commander had been killed in a traffic incident.

Amidst the turmoil, the Army chose a new commander, Matthew Ridgway. During World War II, Ridgway commanded the 82nd Airborne Division at Normandy and the XVIII Airborne Corps during the Ardennes Offensive.

Upon taking command, Ridgway assessed the situation. He stated:

Ridgway (Actor’s Voice): “The men I met along the road, those I stopped to talk to, all conveyed to me a conviction that this was a bewildered army, not sure of itself or its leaders, not sure what they were doing there. The leadership I found in many instances sadly lacking, and I said so.”

Narrator: Many wondered whether America would leave. This list ranged from South Korean national leadership to soldiers on the ground. Ridgway expressed his intent and stated:

Ridgway (Actor’s Voice): “I’ve come to stay.”

Narrator: Ridgway took over the 8th Army after General Walton Walker’s death and immediately changed everything. He re-energized the troops, stopped the retreat, and launched a counteroffensive. By early 1951, he had stabilized the front and turned the tide. The Forgotten War would end in a stalemate rather than a decisive loss.

But his biggest impact wasn’t just on the battlefield. It was what he did after the war.

The Birth of Permanent Military Spending

Narrator: After Korea, Ridgway became Chief of Staff of the Army. And this is where he made his mark. Not with a rifle, but with politics.

President Dwight D. Eisenhower, himself a former Army officer who led the Allies to victory in Europe, aimed to balance military commitments with economic sustainability. He knew that without military drawdown, America would run deficits due to military funding. He intended to cut the Army and shift spending toward the other services and the global strike weapons that defend America’s homeland. He sought troop reductions in Europe and intended to share defense responsibilities with NATO allies.

Eisenhower stated, “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.”

Eisenhower warned against the establishment of a military-industrial complex.

Ridgway publicly fought back. He argued the US needed permanent large ground forces to handle conflicts like Korea. He testified before Congress, pushing back against budget cuts and warning against over-reliance on nuclear deterrence.

Ridgway won out. Presented with two conflicting arguments, Congress did what it does best. It gridlocked. The Army didn’t shrink. Military budgets remained high. And America locked itself into a cycle of permanent defense spending. This defense spending premise continues today.

People like to say the US spends so much on defense because we have to “fight two wars at once” or “project power.” That’s wrong. Those policies were the result of high defense spending, not the cause.

The real reason was that Matthew Ridgway and others like him made sure each military service had a justification for more funding, even when nuclear deterrence made massive peacetime ground forces unnecessary.

And that’s the story of why we spend so much on defense.

Seventy-five years later, America is still locked into this model. But what happens when the world changes and we don’t?

Fast Forward to Today

Our high defense spending had an unintended consequence. America had such a large defense capability that some partner nations chose to put less effort into theirs. Now, America wants NATO and Europe to spend more to contribute to their own defense. This is an echo of President Eisenhower in the 1950s.

And despite the fact that NATO has only once activated the Joint Defense Act, and that was to come to the aid of the United States in Afghanistan, some call for us to leave NATO.

But in a twist that defies logic, those who call for America to reduce our commitment to partner nations still call for us to maintain high defense spending.

These two positions contradict.

One valid position would be to strengthen the economic footing of every American and reduce the burden of debt on future generations. One generation has no right to bind another generation with debt. The dead have no rights over the living.

This position would acknowledge that we must reduce defense spending during peacetime. A result of this position would be reduced support for partner nations, requiring our partners to increase their capability.

A countering valid position would be to maintain our high defense commitment to our partner nations. Security, economics, and influence are all tied together.

This position would acknowledge that if America will be great, we need to maintain global leadership. We must act alone and with partner nations to create favorable conditions and gain and maintain freedom of action and influence. Nations form and maintain coalitions and international partnerships not out of altruism but as a strategic effort to enhance their own strength, stability, and interests.

But threatening and divorcing our long-term partners while still increasing debt for future generations is both unsound and unwise.

Is a country that burdens its future generations with debt while weakening its alliances making itself great again?

May God bless the United States of America.

Intro…sounds of echoing hooves on stone, a cart creaks, lanterns glow, a horse pulls steady and slow.

1801. The Revolution’s Philosopher Takes Power

It's March 4, 1801. A cold wind sweeps through the muddy streets of Washington, D.C., a rough, partially built capital city. Philosopher, writer, and revolutionary Thomas Jefferson is about to become America’s third president.

As he stood before the partially finished Capitol, the weight of history settled on his shoulders. Demonstrating simplicity, Jefferson wore plain clothes instead of a monarch’s suit. Unlike his predecessors, who arrived in grand carriages, Jefferson walked from his room to the Capitol. When he arrived, nearly a thousand people filled the Senate Chamber, waiting.

This wasn’t just another transfer of power. It was a test. The election had been bitterly contested, newspapers spreading lies to the darkest corners of the nation.

But he had prevailed. Now, America faced a question: Would the young republic stay true to its founding ideals or drift toward the centralized power Jefferson feared?

(Sounds; a horse neighs in the distance…)

We remember Jefferson not just as a president, but as a great philosopher.

He devoted his life to contemplating freedom, governance, and human rights. He upheld the liberal ideal that everyone is born with natural rights no government can take away. His ideas laid America’s foundation. Inspired by Enlightenment thinkers like John Locke, Jefferson regarded government not as an instrument of control, but a protector of individual freedom.

Jefferson’s words in the Declaration of Independence weren’t politics; they were principles of governance and philosophy. He carefully crafted the Declaration to define what America stood for. More than two centuries later, those ideas still shape our views on freedom, representation, and government.

Jefferson’s philosophy shaped America from our earliest days. His principles still inspire discussions about freedom and our democratic republic.

Moving from philosophy to practical matters, Jefferson believed in limited government, fiscal restraint, and individual liberty.

He championed small government, lower taxes, minimal public debt, and strict adherence to the Constitution. He viewed centralized power and extensive government intervention as threats to individual freedom and pursued policies to limit federal influence, reduce government size, and preserve states’ rights and personal liberty.

(Ambient crowd sound…)

Back to March of 1801. Jefferson stood in the Senate Chamber to deliver an inaugural address defining his presidency.

The crowd fell silent.

Jefferson spoke passionately about simpler, smaller government. He declared: “a wise and frugal government... shall restrain men from injuring one another…(and)…shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits…”

His speech echoed a 1799 letter to Elbridge Gerry, where he detailed his vision of a disciplined, frugal, and simple government. Every dollar should strengthen the nation’s economic footing, not expand government control to reward political allies.

The Shadow of Debt

Jefferson entered office with a clear vision, but immediately faced a looming crisis: America was drowning in $80 million of debt, an unimaginable sum for a struggling young country.

Debt wasn’t just a financial burden. Jefferson believed debt represented bondage, robbing future generations of freedom.  

In a 1789 letter to James Madison, Jefferson pondered whether one generation had the right to bind another with debt. He argued that the dead have no rights over the living.

If the government kept borrowing, it had to keep taxing. Endless taxing meant Americans would never truly be free. Jefferson feared policies driven by debt obligations rather than the people’s will.

Taking office, Jefferson didn’t hesitate. He refused to let the new republic fall into the traps of Europe’s monarchies, where endless spending fueled endless war. Determined, he launched an ambitious plan to slash spending, dismantle bloated government offices, and strip unnecessary costs.

He intended to create a government small enough to live within its means, freeing future Americans from borrowed money. Success meant setting a precedent for efficient government. Failure meant endless national debt and expanding federal power.

Jefferson’s Radical Plan

Jefferson saw the military as too big, too expensive, and too dangerous. He believed standing armies led to tyranny, soldiers answering to power, not people. So, he slashed military spending, cutting the army nearly in half. Officers were dismissed, outposts abandoned. Only six Navy ships remained active, enough to protect trade, not wage war. The rest sat idle.

Critics warned Jefferson was leaving America defenseless, vulnerable to Britain, France, or pirates. Jefferson didn’t flinch. He envisioned a citizen-led defense, believing a large military was a threat rather than protection.

While ruthless with military budgets, he trimmed the rest of government more gently. His aim wasn’t to gut government, but to prevent it from growing. Military savings funded debt reduction, the republic’s real enemy.

For Jefferson, this wasn’t just about money. As a philosopher, he wanted government out of people’s lives, power resting with citizens. To that end, he fought against a bloated army and an overreaching federal system.

A Revolutionary Tax Overhaul

Jefferson saw taxes as tools of government control. He quickly eliminated the whiskey tax, a hated levy that sparked rebellion in the 1790s. To Jefferson, the idea that the government would send troops against its own people over taxes was a disgrace.

He didn’t stop there. Jefferson aimed to reshape federal revenue entirely. Instead of direct taxes, he preferred customs duties, or what we would today call tariffs.

At the time, material needs were modest, social programs nonexistent, infrastructure minimal. Federal tax needs were low.

Jefferson proposed there would be no income tax, property tax, or internal revenue taxes during peacetime. Government would be funded only by trade. He bet a thriving economy with goods moving through American ports would suffice.

Critics warned tariffs made America vulnerable. Reduced imports meant reduced revenue. Others argued tariffs raised consumer prices. Jefferson stood firm.

Mostly, his plan succeeded. Government stayed afloat, people kept more money, and he cut the national debt in half.

Triumph and Irony

Jefferson reduced the national debt from $80 million to $57 million his first two years in office. Americans celebrated. It was proof his vision worked.

Yet Jefferson soon faced contradiction. In 1803, Napoleon offered the Louisiana territory, 827,000 square miles, for $15 million. The Constitution gave no clear authority for this purchase.

Jefferson, a strict constitutionalist, faced a philosophical crisis. He suddenly found himself arguing in favor of implied powers that he had long opposed. Ultimately, his practical vision of freedom won out. He justified the Louisiana Purchase as securing liberty for future generations.

With one stroke of the pen, America doubled in size. He opened vast new lands for settlement, farming, and expansion.

Critics highlighted the contradiction. How could Jefferson, who spent years shrinking government, justify this massive federal purchase?

Jefferson believed this purchase didn’t expand government power, but opportunity. More land meant more self-sufficient citizens and less European interference.

Legacy of the Small-Government Philosopher Revolutionary

Jefferson’s presidency leaves a powerful legacy. His dramatic cuts and bold ideas about limited government continue to shape American debates even today.

Much has changed in America in the last two hundred and twenty-four years. Roads stretch from coast to coast. Power lines hum with energy. The internet connects even the most remote corners of the country. Education shapes the next generation. Social security ensures no one is left behind in old age. All of it; our infrastructure, our systems, our stability, comes at a cost.

But Jefferson’s fierce dedication to freedom and simplicity defined an era and makes us question what is possible today.

Should we dramatically cut the size of government?

On the one hand, we’ve forgotten Jefferson’s philosophical principle that one generation has no right to bind another generation with debt. The dead have no rights over the living. Yet, every president since 1940 has increased the national debt. Every president. Both parties.

And on the other, each generation uses, and must pay to maintain, national infrastructure. Roads and telecommunications systems are infrastructure. Education and training is infrastructure. Societal stability is infrastructure. We can’t eliminate federal taxes and still maintain our infrastructure. There is no free lunch.

We can’t claim to be Jeffersonian conservatives and cut taxes on the rich, expanding government control to reward our political allies. Jefferson didn’t cut taxes for his political allies. He intended to strengthen the economic footing of every American and reduce the burden of debt on future generations.

And Jefferson didn’t cut the size of the federal workforce just to slash jobs. He was guided by philosophy.

Cutting the federal workforce while taking steps that increase the federal debt and pass the burden of debt on to future generations is against his philosophy.

Only four presidents have monuments on the National Mall in Washington D.C.

Washington, who helped birth an America at war, and then gave that power back to the people of the republic.

Lincoln, who reunited a nation torn apart from our dispute over whether people from any station of birth have a right to the fruits of their labor.

FDR, who championed the infrastructure that protects working Americans.

And Jefferson, the revolution’s philosopher, who sought to safeguard every American’s right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness through limited government, lower taxes, minimal public debt, and unwavering commitment to the Constitution.

So…should we dramatically cut the size of government? After some reflection, that seems to be the wrong question to ask.

Should we strengthen the economic footing of every American and reduce the burden of debt on future generations?

May God bless the United States of America.

Petro Kalnyshevsky: The Last Cossack

Curtain up. The stage is set. A warrior, a nation, and a betrayal that would echo for centuries.

Imagine. A man who has spent a lifetime fighting for his people, riding into battle, outmaneuvering empires, defending his homeland. He commands warriors, negotiates with kings, and builds a thriving nation from the wild steppe. And then, at 85 years old, after everything he’s given, his so-called ally betrays him.

One moment, he was the leader of the fiercest, freest people in Eastern Europe. The next, a prisoner, dragged away in chains, locked in a stone cell, left to rot in the cold, endless dark.

This is the story of Peter Ivanovich Kalnyshevsky, the last leader of the Zaporozhian Cossacks, betrayed by the Russians. He lived through the rise and fall of a nation and spent 25 years in confinement, refusing to break.

A Warrior’s Rise

Kalnyshevsky was born in the late 1600s in what is now central Ukraine, a land of vast, untamed wilderness where survival meant strength. From a young age, he was drawn to the life of the Zaporozhian Cossacks, the wild horsemen of the steppe. They answered to no king or emperor. They lived by the sword, fought as free men, and bent the knee to no one.

By the time Kalnyshevsky rose through the ranks, people both feared and admired the Cossacks. They were known for their brutal raids against the Ottomans and their cunning ability to play empires against each other. But by the mid-18th century, the world was changing. The Russian Empire was expanding, and the Cossacks were caught in a dangerous game.

Kalnyshevsky was a master of strategy, on and off the battlefield. In 1762, the people elected him Kosh Ataman, the leader of the Cossacks. Russian Empress Catherine removed him in 1763, but the people, undeterred, elected him against her wishes again in 1765. He ruled with a mix of toughness and diplomacy. Under his command, the Sich thrived. The Cossacks became essential allies to Russia in its wars against the Ottomans, and Kalnyshevsky hoped that by proving their loyalty, he could secure their independence.

Catherine had other plans.

The Night of Betrayal

The Cossacks failed to shape the battlefield in their favor. They relied on Russian alliances that betrayed them. They believed their contributions would secure their future.

By 1774, Russian Empress Catherine the Great had secured a major victory against the Ottoman Empire in the Russo-Turkish War. That same year, she signed the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca, which gave Russia control over Crimea and expanded her empire’s reach. The Cossacks, once useful in the fight against the Ottomans, were now a liability.

For years, Catherine had been dismantling Ukrainian autonomy. She had already crushed the Hetmanate, another independent Cossack structure, in the 1760s. The Zaporozhian Cossacks were next. She saw them as too independent, too unpredictable. Their lands were valuable. Their fighting spirit, too dangerous to be left unchecked. The empire could not allow a warrior state to exist within its borders.

On the night of June 4th to 5th, 1775, without warning, General Pyotr Tekeli’s army surrounded the Zaporozhian Sich. Sixty thousand Russian soldiers against a few thousand Cossacks. There was no chance. Kalnyshevsky, then 85 years old, knew that fighting would mean slaughter. So he ordered his men to lay down their arms, hoping to negotiate, hoping to save what little remained.

He was wrong. Catherine’s betrayal wasn’t just political. It was complete.

That night, there was no bloodshed, but two months later, Russia finished the betrayal. On August 3, 1775, Catherine ordered the Sich to be destroyed and wiped off the map. The Russians tore down fortifications, looted homes, and desecrated churches. They seized Cossack records in an attempt to erase their history. Some Cossacks managed to escape to Ottoman-controlled lands. Others were forcibly conscripted into the Russian army. The Zaporozhian way of life, centuries old, was erased.

And as for Kalnyshevsky, the empire couldn’t risk letting a legend roam free.

Ten Years of Darkness

In July of 1776, the American Continental Congress signed the Declaration of Independence from Britain. The same month, the Russians arrested and exiled Kalnyshevsky. And not just any prison. Solovetsky Monastery. A frozen fortress in the White Sea, where political prisoners were sent to vanish.

Then in 1792, the Russians put him in solitary confinement for ten years. His cell was three meters by three meters, a stone box with no windows, no books, and no human contact. Kalnyshevsky sat in the darkness. He went blind. The world outside changed, but he remained trapped, a relic of a lost nation.

He was a warrior who had led thousands into battle, now left alone with nothing but his thoughts and prayers. And yet, he refused to break.

The Russian empire expected him to die quickly, but the old Cossack endured.

Years of isolation and deprivation robbed him of his vision but not his will. Even the monastery guards, hardened men who had seen many prisoners die in despair, came to admire him. He became known not as a broken old man but as a saint-like figure—silent, unshaken, and still carrying the pride of the Cossacks.

In 1801, at the age of 110, Emperor Alexander I of Russia pardoned him. Alexander intended to present himself as a reformer. One of his early acts was to grant amnesty to several long-imprisoned political figures.

But it was too late.

There was nowhere left to go. The Sich was gone. The Cossacks had been scattered. Kalnyshevsky was an elderly blind man without a home, without a people. So he stayed at the monastery, living out his final two years in quiet solitude.

When he died in 1803, he was buried in the cold northern soil, far from the land he had fought for.

The Last Cossack

Today, we remember Petro Kalnyshevsky as a symbol of resistance. He refused to break in the face of an empire.

Despite efforts in the 1990s to repatriate them, his remains were never relocated to Ukraine. His gravestone exists, but the exact location of his grave is lost; buried at Solovetsky Monastery in Russia. In 2008, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyiv Patriarchate canonized him as a saint, recognizing his enduring legacy.

Today, the last Cossack still stands. A legend of defiance. A reminder that free people will always fight against Russian aggression.

(Beat. Silence.)

Curtain down.

Scene Two

Enter Stage Right … the Capitalists

It so happens that funding the fight of a free people against their Russian oppressors isn’t inexpensive. Some Americans think these resources should be a two-way street. If Ukraine wants American support, it needs to prioritize aligning its economic future with US interests. And that starts with a minerals deal.

Some say our relationship shouldn’t be transactional. But Friday’s meeting between President Trump and Ukrainian President Zelensky made it clear that the White House isn’t treating support for Ukraine as a matter of ideological solidarity. The United States is making decisions based on interests. If Ukraine wants continued support, securing the mineral rights deal with American companies must be its top priority.

Ukraine has a stronger hand than is apparent. America is desperate to counterbalance China’s monopoly in the rare earth element business, and getting rare earth elements from Greenland appears increasingly unlikely.

From Ukraine’s perspective, this agreement is about survival. A stable Ukraine isn’t possible without economic security, but economic security depends on stability first. The US won’t invest in a war zone. To establish this stability, the minerals deal must include security guarantees, infrastructure commitments, and long-term stability.

War is diplomacy combined with other means. Wars aren’t won only with kinetic weapons. We achieve national objectives with power, with influence, and with the right pressure in the right places. Money and resources are influence.

If Ukraine wants American support, it must commit to an economic relationship that makes its survival an American interest. The minerals deal isn’t a side negotiation. It is the negotiation.

Enter Stage Left … the Bleeding Heart Liberals

It may seem unlikely that those who champion the struggle of the Ukrainian people would need to root for the capitalists, but here we are. We may lament the state of the world, but that doesn’t mean we can change it.

This is not a new phenomenon. The term “bleeding heart liberal” first appeared in 1938, mocking those pushing for an anti-lynching bill. The bill failed. Lynchings continued. The US didn’t officially make lynching a federal hate crime until 2022—84 years later.

History reminds us that moral clarity doesn’t guarantee action. Righteous causes are every day delayed, diluted, or outright denied. And when they are, people suffer. Ukraine can’t afford to wait 84 years for the world to catch up.

Despite its lack of grace and decorum, the term never quite disappeared. Last week, Elon Musk took aim on X, commenting:

"Every bleeding-heart liberal I talk to about the Russia-Ukraine war wants to keep feeding bodies into the meat grinder forever….They have no plan for success."

It’s easy to mock those who care, but caring without strategy prolongs suffering. If Ukraine is to win, security can’t be a moral stance. It must be a vital American interest, which means money, power, and leverage.

No one wants more bodies in the meat grinder. Passive support in the form of moral backing, speeches, and aid packages that sustain but don’t resolve the conflict isn’t enough.

We need decisive action. That means changing the conditions of the war in a way that forces Russia to back down, not just keeping Ukraine in the fight. We need to turn Ukraine’s security into a US interest through the minerals deal and economic integration.

Moral conviction won’t stop Russian aggression.

Enter Center Stage … The Pragmatists

The capitalists see opportunity. The bleeding hearts see morality. And the pragmatists see reality. They see that security, economics, and influence are all tied together. If we are to achieve a successful outcome, we have to stop reacting and start shaping the battlefield.

Russia is not a friend to the American people. It sponsors violent extremism across Africa and the Middle East, fueling the same instability that leads to deadly attacks on American soil—including the worst in our history, twenty-four years ago.

This threat goes beyond terror networks. Russia actively undermines US alliances and disrupts international stability, making the world more dangerous and unpredictable. The stronger Russia’s grip on Ukraine, the more emboldened it becomes elsewhere.

Russia has no real incentive to negotiate in good faith because it believes it can outlast Ukraine and Western support. They assume political divisions, shifting US priorities, and battlefield attrition will eventually work in their favor. They will drag out the conflict, knowing that American attention is fleeting. They will use the battlefield as their primary negotiating tool, showing little regard for the lives of their own soldiers, let alone Ukraine’s.

Instead of waiting for Russia to decide when it’s willing to talk, the US and our allies need to shape the conditions under which Russia has no good choices.

NATO needs to apply pressure to key pieces of vulnerable Russian geography, such as Kaliningrad. Kaliningrad is a tiny piece of Russia, separated from the main Russian landmass. Even stopping and searching shipping vehicles entering or leaving Kaliningrad sends a message. No blockade, but disruption. It’s not an act of war, but it brings traffic to a standstill. And that means we can blockade Kaliningrad whenever we want.

Stopping and searching traffic in and out of Kaliningrad is a message. A warning shot without an empty casing. If Russia escalates or drags their feet in Ukraine, NATO can escalate in Kaliningrad.

Russia knows this. Kaliningrad on the table changes the calculus for Russia. Every second they delay in Ukraine, we can squeeze them in Kaliningrad.

We need to strengthen our negotiating position. We can’t just ask Russia nicely. Strength is the only thing Putin understands. But leverage isn’t just about more weapons or more aid—it’s about shaping the conditions of the war. We need to make the cost of Russia staying in Ukraine higher than the cost of leaving. And that starts with Kaliningrad.

Russia is a threat to the American people, and we need leverage to negate that threat.

In Sum

Kalnyshevsky fought well. He resisted. He endured. But he lost.

Not because he wasn’t strong enough. Not because the Cossacks lacked courage. They failed to shape the battlefield in their favor and were betrayed by their Russian allies.

Ukraine cannot afford to make the same mistake.

The American capitalists need Ukraine, and Ukraine needs the capitalists.

The world doesn’t operate on sentimentality. Ukraine must commit to an economic future tied to American interests. Securing a rare earth minerals deal is its survival strategy. The minerals deal isn’t a side negotiation; it is the negotiation.

The compassionate need Ukraine, and Ukraine needs the compassionate.

A tragic reality is that history is full of righteous causes that fail. Support for Ukraine must be more than a moral conviction; it must be a vital US interest.

The pragmatists need Ukraine, and Ukraine needs the pragmatists.

We need to shape the battlefield. Russia threatens the American people, and we need leverage. Kaliningrad is that leverage.

Free people will always resist Russian aggression. Will America stand with them?

May God bless the United States of America.

A quick note before we dive in. This week, “I Believe” officially hit the numbers to rank as a Top 10% global podcast for all of 2025. Of course, it’s still February, and we have plenty of room to grow. I just want to take a moment to say thanks for listening!

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How do we bring manufacturing back to America?

🎙️ Tariffs Built American Industry

In the early 1800s, the United States was still an economic underdog. We had won our independence from Britain, but economically we were far from independent.

Across the Atlantic, the Industrial Revolution was transforming British manufacturing. British factories had decades of experience in mass production. They churned out cheap, high-quality goods. Meanwhile, US manufacturing was small, scattered, and struggling to compete.

America’s economy revolved around agriculture. Cotton. Tobacco. Wheat. We relied heavily on European imports for manufactured goods. British industries dominated global trade, producing textiles and iron at such low costs that American businesses couldn’t compete.

That left us with a major vulnerability: We were too dependent on foreign goods. Without a strong domestic manufacturing base, America had little economic control over its own future.

James Madison & The Road to War

In 1808, America elected James Madison as the fourth President of the United States. Tensions with Britain were boiling over.

For years, British naval forces harassed American ships, seized cargo, and forced American sailors into their navy, a practice known as impressment. As an international insult, the British stirred unrest in the Northwest Territory, backing Native American resistance against US expansion.

By 1812, America had had enough. On June 18, 1812, Congress declared war on Great Britain.

The War of 1812: A Mixed Outcome

Militarily, the War of 1812 was a mess. The US attempted to invade Canada, which … didn’t go well. We did capture York, which is modern-day Toronto, and burned public buildings, but the British retaliated in full force. They marched into Washington, D.C. and burned the White House and the Capitol.

But here’s where things get interesting economically.

British naval blockades cut off trade. Those cheap British imports we had relied on were gone.

American businesses had no choice but to step up. Factories that might have otherwise struggled suddenly had a captive market. We had to produce goods for ourselves, and for the first time, we saw what an independent American industry could look like.

The Aftermath & Economic Crisis

In December 1814, the war ended with the Treaty of Ghent. Neither side gained or lost territory. Militarily, it was a stalemate.

Symbolically, it was a turning point. The US had stood up to Britain and survived. National pride soared. The war cemented America’s identity as a sovereign power.

While the fighting stopped, Britain wasn’t done economically. Almost immediately, British manufacturers flooded American ports with cheap goods, undercutting US businesses and threatening to wipe out our industrial progress overnight.

Congress had newfound confidence and a choice. We could let American industry collapse, or step in to protect it.

The Tariff of 1816: America’s First Protective Tariff

In 1816, Congress gained consensus and passed the first major protective tariff in US history. Even the Senate’s most prominent conservative states’ rights advocate, John C. Calhoun (South Carolina), publically advocated for it.

The Tariff of 1816 imposed a 20 to 30% tax on imported goods, particularly textiles, iron, and leather products. Our goal was to make British goods more expensive and give American manufacturers a chance to compete.

And it worked.

Textile mills in New England flourished. Lowell, Massachusetts, became a booming industrial hub.

Iron production surged in Pennsylvania, fueling railroads, construction, and manufacturing.

Infrastructure projects expanded as a growing economy demanded better roads and canals.

This was America’s manufacturing turning point. It was the moment we moved from a country dependent on foreign goods to one that could build its own industrial future.

The Tariff Debate: North vs. South

Now, not everyone was on board.

Southern cotton planters feared retaliation. They worried that if Britain had to pay more for American goods, they’d buy less American cotton in return. Higher tariffs, to them, meant less trade and lower profits.

This tariff debate, whether to protect US industries or keep trade open and cheap, would continue for decades. It fueled sectional tensions between the industrial North and the agrarian South.

Despite the controversy, the US took its first major step toward economic independence.

Instead of relying on Europe, we were finally building an economy of our own.

It’s easy to come to the simple conclusion that tariffs protected American industry. You could say, “Our success all started with tariffs!” But that would be a shortsided conclusion.

The decisive element that protected and grew American industry was consensus.

Tariffs Today

The Wall Street Journal last week reported President Trump is considering tariffs “in the neighborhood of 25%” on automobiles, semiconductors, and pharmaceutical products. He suggested these tariffs could increase over time.

There’s been a lot of discussion lately about tariffs, so that wasn’t so compelling.

President Trump suggested that US companies could be given a phase-in period on the items they import. This period could give businesses time to move production back to the US. He even said he’d allow “a little bit of a chance” for companies to re-shore before ramping up the tariffs.

He didn’t offer details, but the logic behind giving industry time to come home before tightening the screws is what makes this policy intriguing.

He billed it as a different kind of protectionism.

In the early 1800s, Congress passed protectionist tariffs to protect American manufacturing from British manufacturing. But American manufacturing was already here. It just needed a kickstart.

Today, we face a different challenge. We don’t need to protect industry. We need to rebuild it.

Starting in the 1960s and 1970s, America began exporting its manufacturing jobs overseas. Jack Welch and General Electric were at the forefront, pushing for offshoring to boost profits. Other companies followed, chasing cheaper labor and higher margins. Bit by bit, America willingly chose to dismantle our own industrial base. Washington stood by and watched as we destroyed our national capability for a quick buck.

As an example, that was our moment to save American steel. Had we implemented protective tariffs in the 1960s and 1970s, some of those jobs and, more importantly, that capability might have stayed here.

So … the protectionist tariffs President Trump is considering might not just be about protecting our industry from foreign competition.

They might be about protecting us from ourselves.

And the logic behind that is fascinating.

But again, let’s remember that the decisive element that protects and grows American industry is not tariffs. It’s consensus. There’s a key difference between the Tariff of 1816 and today.

James Madison and the Tariff of 1816: The Evolution of a Founding Father

James Madison wasn’t just a president. He was the architect of America.

Few figures in American history shaped the nation as profoundly as he did. Before he ever set foot in the White House, he had already built the American framework.

He was the Father of the Constitution. He meticulously crafted the structure of the US government. When the new republic teetered on the edge of collapse under the weak Articles of Confederation, it was Madison who designed a stronger system that balanced power between the federal government and the states. He sought stability without tyranny.

He didn’t just write the Constitution. He defended it. Alongside Alexander Hamilton and John Jay, Madison co-wrote The Federalist Papers, a series of essays that convinced the states to ratify the Constitution. Without him, there might not have been a Constitution at all.

When critics of the Constitution demanded protections for individual liberties, Madison delivered. He authored the Bill of Rights, enshrining free speech, religious freedom, and due process into law.

He designed the system. He fought for its ratification. And then, he spent the rest of his career making it work.

From Congressman to Secretary of State

Madison served as a congressman from Virginia, playing a crucial role in shaping early American policy. He was one of Thomas Jefferson’s closest allies, standing at the center of nearly every major political battle of the era.

He opposed Alexander Hamilton’s vision of a strong central government and a national bank, fearing that these would concentrate too much power in the hands of the federal government. He fought for states’ rights.

He fought against policies that favored wealthy elites over working-class citizens.

In 1801, he became Secretary of State under Jefferson. There, Madison oversaw The Louisiana Purchase, one of the most important events in US history. Jefferson saw an opportunity to double the size of the country. Madison handled the negotiations. He drafted the plan and authorized James Monroe to offer a price starting at ten million dollars for the land. In total, four cents per acre. The deal secured vast new lands, opened up the frontier for westward expansion, and strengthened the nation’s position on the world stage.

For eight years, Madison handled foreign affairs. He navigated tensions with Britain and France as the US struggled to maintain neutrality during the Napoleonic Wars. By the time he took office as president in 1809, conflict with Britain had become unavoidable.

Quite a list of accomplishments. The nation forever owes a debt to James Madison.

Because he literally wrote the document to govern America, he knew he needed consensus to make America great.

Madison and Tariffs

James Madison was a champion of divided power, states’ rights, and the right of the people over tyranny.

He wrote the document that explicitly gave Congress, not the President, the authority to impose tariffs. The Constitution, in Article I, Section 8, Clause 1, placed that power in the hands of the legislature.

And because he wrote it, Madison knew he could not simply order a tariff into existence. He needed national consensus to prompt Congress to act. A president acting alone creates no legacy, and certainly not a legacy like Madison’s. A policy dictated by one man is erased by the next administration. A policy built through Congress, through debate, and through broad support is the decisive effect that endures.

By 1815, Madison publicly acknowledged that the United States needed a strong manufacturing base to avoid dependence on Britain. In his Seventh Annual Message to Congress, he explicitly called for tariffs to protect American industry, marking a major shift in his thinking.

Madison understood the stakes. America had the natural resources, the labor force, and the potential to be an industrial power, but manufacturing would not develop on its own. He argued that certain industries, particularly those tied to national defense and essential goods, were too important to be left at the mercy of foreign competition.

He knew that without government support, industry could take decades to grow. Without broad, lasting consensus, it would not grow at all. A policy that shifts every four years did not support American industry.

Madison’s public support signaled a major shift in Republican thinking. His endorsement reassured moderates, convincing those who had once resisted federal economic intervention.

If the Father of the Constitution, the guardian of states’ rights, and the protector of the people’s liberty believed it was in America’s best interest to protect its industry, who would dare question the brilliant President James Madison?

Back to Today

The lesson of 1816 is clear.

America owes allegiance to no king. Executive orders are fleeting.

Madison worked to build consensus, spurring Congress to action. It was not Madison alone who reshaped America’s economic future.

The long-term success of American industry does not rest on executive orders or short-term tariff hikes. Just like in 1816, it rests with Congress.

We must deliberate, gain consensus, and pass tariffs that protect American industry, especially our defense capability and goods essential to running American society. We need to make these goods internally and defend ourselves from coercion from other countries.

May God bless the United States of America.

Should America Give Our Surplus Grain Away Every Year?

This week, the nation’s Food for Peace Program—and all other United States Agency for International Development (USAID) programs—found themselves on the chopping block.

Before we go any further, let’s get on the same page.

American agriculture is national security.

Second, let’s share some quick history.

On July 10, 1954, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the Agricultural Trade Development and Assistance Act, allowing the president to ship surplus commodities to “friendly” nations on concessional or grant terms. For the first time, America could give away its excess grain to partner nations.

In 1961, President John F. Kennedy expanded the program, rebranded it Food for Peace, and established USAID to oversee it.

If you believe that those with plenty should help those with nothing, Food for Peace was a success. It became the largest single food donor to the United Nations World Food Programme. In 2022 alone, “American farmers provided more than 4 billion pounds of U.S.-grown grains, soybeans, lentils, rice, and other commodity staples” through the program.

It’s also good business for American farmers. Now, Republican lawmakers from agricultural states are fighting to save it.

Every government program should face scrutiny. But this one is worth saving.

This isn’t about charity. That was a benefit of the program. But Food for Peace wasn’t only about poverty. It was about national security.

Global hunger breeds instability.

Instability creates openings for adversaries.

Adversary influence threatens the American people.

So the real question isn’t whether America should shut down an agency that some see as a global social program driven by ideology.

We need to step back and look at the bigger picture. Forget charity for a second. Let’s take the question at face value.

Should America give our surplus grain away every year?

Food Security is National Security

A country that cannot feed itself becomes a victim of coercion and geopolitical manipulation.

By the late 1930s, Japan relied heavily on imports for most of its food and nearly all of its oil, rubber, and metals. Japan’s domestic agriculture couldn’t keep up with its growing population, and they started seizing food from their neighbors. Between 1936 and 1938, 95% of Japan’s imported rice came from Korea or Taiwan (Johnston, B. F. (1953). Japanese Food Management in World War II. Stanford: Stanford University Press, pp. 45–49, 166–170, 202–204).

Food shortages forced Japan to expand. As its military campaign in China escalated, the US and other Western powers imposed economic sanctions.

Japan’s food problem became catastrophic during World War II. Imports were disrupted, military priorities came first, and by 1940, Japan rationed food. Malnutrition, disease, and starvation followed. Beriberi, a disease caused by vitamin B1 deficiency, spiked.

Hunger was a key factor in Japan’s surrender. By 1945, US naval blockades and bombing campaigns had destroyed Japan’s food supply chains. America targeted Japan’s food vulnerability as a center of gravity in our strategic approach. Even if the war had continued, famine would have crippled Japan’s ability to fight. After the war, food shortages persisted into the US occupation.

This suffering changed Japan’s long-term policies. The country fortified domestic agriculture and imposed high tariffs on imported grains like rice, wheat, and barley. Even today, Japan strictly controls grain imports, avoiding overdependence on foreign suppliers, including the US.

The lesson is clear. Food security is national security. It is not just about feeding people. It is sovereignty, stability, and strength.

Japan wasn’t the only nation that learned this the hard way.

Let’s talk about another fallen American adversary: the Soviet Union.

Khrushchev and Yeltsin Go to the Grocery Store!

On Monday, September 21, 1959, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev went to the grocery store. Not in Moscow. Not in Leningrad. In San Francisco, California.

He walked through aisles of produce, deli meats, and frozen dinners—foods unimaginable in the Soviet Union. The next day, in Des Moines, Iowa, he ate his first American hot dog and joked:

“We have beaten you to the moon, but you have beaten us in sausage making.”

But in 1959, Khrushchev never publicly admitted shock at America’s grocery stores. That would come later.

By the 1980s, Soviet agriculture had collapsed under central planning. Shortages and rationing became commonplace.

Then, in 1989, just two months before the Berlin Wall fell, Boris Yeltsin visited a grocery store in Houston, Texas. Unlike Khrushchev, Yeltsin couldn’t hide his reaction. The Houston Chronicle described how he roamed the aisles of Randall’s, shaking his head in amazement.

Yeltsin had grown up hungry. The Soviet State had taken away his family’s farm, leaving them dependent on a system that couldn’t feed its own people.

That grocery store visit shattered any belief in communism. Two years later, as Russian President, Yeltsin ordered Russian state land to be divided into private family farms.

From the defeat of Japan to the fall of the Soviet Union, our lesson is that:

American Agriculture is National Security

Food isn’t just about feeding people. It is economic strength, national security, and global influence.

Japanese agriculture couldn’t keep up with American agriculture.

Soviet Russian agriculture couldn’t keep up with American agriculture.

And today, we still need agricultural abundance.

Agricultural Abundance

America’s agricultural dominance isn’t an accident. It’s a deliberate national choice. It’s built on policy, infrastructure, and continuous innovation. Both necessity and profit drive this system.

On February 13, President Trump reinforced this priority, signing an Executive Order establishing the Make America Healthy Again Commission. One of its key tasks is to “Work with farmers to ensure that U.S. food is healthy, abundant, and affordable.”

The focus on abundance is critical. Food security isn’t just about today. It’s long-term stability.

A nation that produces only ‘just enough’ food is one disaster away from crisis. That’s why the national agriculture system cannot be designed for maximum profit alone. There has to be excess. The system must be resilient.

Food production isn’t instant. Crops and livestock take time, land, and weather cooperation. For example, with the recent egg shortages, if producers could ramp up supply overnight to chase profits, they would. But you can’t create egg layers out of thin air.

This is why food security requires intentional overproduction.

Without surplus, a drought, flood, or disease outbreak can cripple the food supply. Unlike other industries, agriculture can’t instantly scale production to meet demand. Efficiency alone isn’t the right measure. Resilience is the right measure for agriculture. A strong system produces more than necessary because shortages are more dangerous than excess.

The resulting surplus shields against uncertainty. It stabilizes the food supply, prevents reliance on foreign imports, and protects against market disruptions. On the world stage, a nation that produces more food than it consumes has leverage. Countries that depend on imports are vulnerable to foreign control. When America has a surplus, adversaries can’t weaponize food against us.

In this way, surplus grain isn’t waste. Surplus grain is a strategic asset.

There’s another key factor at play.

Agriculture is Unpredictable

Farmers don’t control the weather, bird flu outbreaks, or global trade policies. One in three years is a bad year for agriculture. A system that only produces ‘just enough’ in a good year guarantees shortages in a bad year.

The only way to secure the nation’s food supply is to grow more than needed every year.

When one region suffers from drought, another’s surplus offsets the losses. When unpredictable events disrupt production, a buffer ensures food remains affordable and accessible. Surplus keeps Americans fed, prices stable, and the country resilient.

Because our agricultural system must be designed this way, we always have more grain than we need. Even though we need surplus every year, we also need to manage it wisely. Uncontrolled surplus drives prices down, hurting American farmers. If we don’t address the grain surplus, we risk losing the ability to grow it.

We also need to think about American influence on the world stage.

Agricultural Surplus and Influence

Without order, scarcity leads to conflict. Nations compete for limited resources. The strong dominate, and the weak suffer. In a world where food shortages create instability, countries that control the global food supply exert power over those that do not.

This is why agricultural abundance is more than an economic advantage. It is a tool of influence. Nations with surplus can stabilize their allies, undermine their adversaries, and dictate the terms of trade. Japan and the Soviet Union failed because they could not secure their own food supply. America’s agricultural surplus allowed it to feed its friends and keep its enemies dependent.

But surplus alone is not enough. It must be managed strategically. An uncontrolled surplus collapses domestic markets, driving prices so low that farmers go bankrupt. A controlled surplus allows America to direct influence where it matters.

Food is both a commodity and a diplomatic asset. Throughout history, America has used surplus grain as a foundation for long-term partnerships. Food aid programs have strengthened alliances, opened trade routes, and cemented US influence in key regions. The Marshall Plan rebuilt Europe and ensured that newly rebuilt economies were tied to American markets. The Food for Peace program fed the hungry while reinforcing US influence in developing nations. It aligned economic structures with American interests rather than Soviet alternatives.

Partnerships built on food endure. A nation that depends on America for food security is far less likely to align with adversaries. A reliable food supplier is a stabilizing force in times of crisis. Strategic agricultural surplus is not just about helping others. Our agricultural surplus secures America’s position in the world.

We need to extend our influence and maintain strong partnerships to achieve our global security goals. And to do that, we need surplus grain.

Which brings us to our question. Should America give our surplus grain away every year?

Should America Give Our Surplus Grain Away Every Year?

American agriculture is national security.

Food is not just about feeding people. It is economic strength, national security, and global influence. On the world stage, America has interests, and we have partners. Reliability and trustworthiness are both virtues and strategic advantages.

Surplus grain is not waste. It is a strategic asset that we need to use wisely. The question is not whether we should give grain away. The real question is how we should use it to advance American interests.

If you believe that those with plenty, like America, have a duty to help those with nothing, then Food for Peace was a success. But food aid is not charity. It is good business for American farmers and a powerful tool of influence.

Food aid programs do more than just feed people. They strengthen alliances. They open trade routes. They cement US influence. They align global economic structures with American interests rather than those of our adversaries.

We might choose not to send our surplus grain through the United Nations World Food Programme. We might prefer more direct control over where we exert influence.

But we must choose to use American agriculture to reinforce partnerships, secure influence, and protect our global standing.

May God bless the United States of America.

Why is remembering American history so hard? It’s a question that needs an answer because Black history is American history, and federal agencies decided to ban Black History Month.

Black history isn’t just Black history. It’s a record of our constant battle between order and justice. To erase it is to erase the struggle that defines our national identity. It may be easier to maintain a neat, sanitized version of our history than to confront the struggle and resistance justice demands, but that ease is detrimental to America.

If remembering Black history is too difficult, maybe we should turn to the one document that defines our national values. Every state in the Union agreed with the verbiage. You’d think it would offer clarity.

But even there, justice and order are locked in a constant struggle. The Constitution sets both as national goals, side by side. Then, history demonstrates again and again how the ideals clash and how essential they are to each other.

Justice Disrupts Order, and Order Suppresses Justice

Last week, we discussed the inherent tension between justice and order. Ensuring domestic tranquility and establishing justice are two of our six national goals, but they are often at odds.

Tranquility means a society built on order, stability, and mutual respect. Tranquility is a deliberate national choice to maintain a collective structure.

Justice is the foundation for a society in which individuals can fulfill their roles and contribute to the nation’s well-being. It includes fair and equal treatment under the law, equal access to individual opportunity, and equitable distribution of resources like education, healthcare, and housing.

Justice threatens order. We build institutions and cultural norms around systems that offer stability but perpetuate inequality and power imbalance. Calls for justice expose inherent flaws. They challenge the status quo.

Order threatens justice. While order is necessary for social stability, the rigid pursuit of order obstructs justice. Groups in power preserve the status quo instead of addressing systemic imbalances. They argue that stability must be maintained at all costs. This focus on order suppresses dissent and marginalizes groups that call for reform.

No American better embodies the tension between justice and order than the great Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

But to really understand the challenge of justice, order, and Dr. King, we need to first understand Reverend Billy Graham.

Billy Graham Believed in Order

In 1954, TIME Magazine called Reverend Billy Graham “the best-known, most talked-about Christian leader in the world today, barring the Pope.” US presidents sought his council. He became the moral advisor to the nation.

By 1957, Graham was at the height of his influence as America’s most prominent evangelist. That year marked his landmark New York City Crusade. The 16-week revival held at Madison Square Garden drew massive crowds. Over two million people attended, and more than 60,000 responded to his call for conversion.

Graham’s sermons emphasized personal salvation and moral living. His message resonated with many Americans wrestling with Cold War anxiety and social change. It offered comfort in uncertain times.

During this crusade, Graham crossed paths with a young reverend, Martin Luther King Jr., for the first time. Graham hoped to expand the reach of his message to a broader audience and invited King to speak in New York. King spoke of a brotherhood that transcended race and color. He hoped alliances with influential figures like Graham could accelerate the fight for civil rights.

By 1960, differences between the two men’s approaches emerged. Graham made it clear he valued social order above civil disobedience. He stated…

“I do believe that we have a responsibility to obey the law. Otherwise, you have anarchy. And, no matter what that law may be—it may be an unjust law—I believe we have a Christian responsibility to obey it.”

There it is. Order versus justice.

Graham wasn’t just preaching personal salvation—he was tapping into a national desire for stability in a time of upheaval. For many, his message was a soothing alternative to the discomfort of systemic injustice.

Graham’s stance reflected the views of many Americans at the time. They were uncomfortable with the confrontational approach of the Civil Rights movement. They preferred order to justice. Graham’s supporters argue he wasn’t racist. They argue he was called to a mission focused on personal salvation rather than political activism. His critics argue that his reluctance to challenge unjust laws reflected a failure to meet the moral urgency of the moment.

No matter the reason, his line was drawn by April 1963. As Graham envisioned order, King led the Birmingham Campaign. This bold, nonviolent movement targeted deep-rooted segregation and racial injustice in one of America’s most racially divided cities.

Letter from a Birmingham Jail

In April 1963, Birmingham, Alabama, was the most violently racist city in the United States. Its aggressive resistance to desegregation earned it the nickname “Bombingham” due to the frequent bombings of Black homes and churches by white supremacists. From 1945 to 1962, white supremacists conducted 50 racially motivated bombings of Black American homes, businesses, and churches.

They bombed the home of Reverend Milton Curry Jr. on August 2, 1949. The home of Monroe and Mary Means Monk on December 21, 1950. The home of the minister of Bethel Baptist Church, Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth, on December 24, 1956. The Ku Klux Klan bombed Bethel Baptist Church on June 29, 1958. It was the second time the Klan had bombed the church.

On and on. 50 bombings.

Amid the years of bombings, Public Safety Commissioner Bull Connor led the city government to openly enforce Jim Crow laws with brutal tactics. They used police dogs, fire hoses, and mass arrests to suppress civil rights demonstrations.

Quite a backdrop.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. arrived in Birmingham, Alabama, on April 3, 1963, to lead the Birmingham Campaign. It was the season of the major Christian holiday of Easter. On Easter, Christians celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ and his love for humanity. We remember our vow to love God and love others.

King’s Birmingham Campaign included nonviolent protests against segregation and racial injustice. King and other activists planned sit-ins, marches, and boycotts targeting businesses that upheld segregation.

On April 10, 1963, Circuit Judge of the Tenth Judicial Circuit of Alabama W. A. Jenkins, Jr. issued an injunction prohibiting the demonstrations.

King and others chose to defy the order. They viewed it as an unjust law meant to suppress their Constitutional rights. On April 12, Good Friday, the day Christians remember the Romans putting Christ to death, authorities arrested King and at least 55 other leaders for “parading without a permit.” King spent 9 days in jail. They loved him so much they denied him even his phone call.

While in jail, King read a public letter from eight white Alabama clergymen who criticized the protests as “unwise and untimely.” They urged activists to seek justice through the courts rather than the streets.

King wrote his response to the letter in the margins of a newspaper and on scraps of paper smuggled in by friends. The pieces became the iconic Letter from Birmingham Jail. In it, King defends civil disobedience and highlights the moral urgency of confronting injustice.

King explicitly calls out Americans who are “more devoted to order than to justice; who prefer a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice.”

There it is again. Order versus justice.

…

Let’s reestablish that this is not a Black history topic. This is a Constitutional topic. This is the interlocked American history of Billy Graham and Martin Luther King Jr. Just as we have a national goal to ensure order, we have a national goal to establish justice.

Order and justice. Two ideals, forever competing. Let’s pause for a minute and honor the genius of Gouverneur Morris, Pennsylvania delegate to the 1787 Constitutional Convention, who wrote the Preamble; the founding fathers that agreed to the verbiage; and each state in the Union for ratifying the document. Together, they laid out national goals that were almost impossible to achieve. They understood the delicate balance needed to hold a diverse and divided nation together.

In the ultimate irony, they placed the words establishing justice and ensuring domestic tranquility side by side in the Preamble.

They knew a society striving for justice would inevitably disrupt the status quo. We would challenge entrenched power. It would create tension. At the same time, they recognized that without order, society could descend into chaos. Chaos makes justice impossible to sustain. This tension is a feature of the system. The struggle forces every generation to wrestle with competing ideals.

Each principle threatens the other. But that’s not why they are next to each other in the Constitution.

They’re next to each other because each value is essential to achieve the other.

Justice Enables Order

Justice sets the conditions for trust. In an environment of justice, people trust that they have rights, that those rights are protected, and that fairness governs social interactions. They trust that they are treated equitably, regardless of race, class, or background.

In a just society, people respect the rules and institutions that govern their lives. Justice fosters legitimacy, and legitimacy is the foundation of stable, lasting order.

Enforcing order without justice is impossible. Without justice, any semblance of order is fragile. Authorities may attempt to maintain control through fear, repression, or coercion, but this “order” is unsustainable. It breeds resentment, resistance, and unrest. A society that values individuals, respects rights, and offers real opportunities for prosperity doesn’t need to police itself into submission.

Back to Birmingham in 1963. Authorities claimed they were maintaining order, but that “order” depended on segregation, discrimination, and suppression. It wasn’t order—it was controlled instability. The American people’s demand for justice didn’t just disrupt order—it exposed what many called ‘order’ was a system built on oppression.

On the surface, one might assume that justice threatens order. But justice and order are not rivals. Justice isn’t just compatible with order—it’s the only thing that makes order possible.

As justice enables order, order sustains justice.

Order Sustains Justice

Order is necessary to sustain justice. Justice requires a strong institution of structure, law, and social framework to establish and maintain it. Without order, these systems collapse. This collapse makes it impossible to protect individual rights, ensure fairness, or maintain trust in governance.

History demonstrates that righteous justice movements rely on some level of structure to succeed.

Back again to Birmingham in 1963. The Civil Rights Movement made lasting change in the nation. But dismantling segregation depended on legal victories, organized protests, and strategic leadership. Without disciplined nonviolent resistance combined with a functioning legal system to challenge unjust laws, racial justice would have remained an ideal rather than a reality.

Even when we achieve justice, we still have a duty to preserve it. A just society cannot exist in a constant state of upheaval. Laws must be enforced, rights must be protected, and institutions must remain strong to prevent injustice from creeping back in. Without order, justice is fleeting. It becomes a moment of fairness swallowed by instability.

Justice corrects and refines order, but order provides the structure that allows justice to endure.

American History

Justice and order are not Black history. They are American history.

They are the interlocked American history of Reverend Billy Graham, who believed in order, and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who knew order was not possible without justice.

This is a Constitutional topic. Just as we have a national goal to maintain order, we have a national goal to establish justice.

Today, we continue to struggle with order and justice. We will always struggle with order and justice. History demonstrates again and again how the ideals clash.

When we look deeper, we see how essential they are to each other. There is no order without justice. We cannot sustain justice without order.

We don’t have to do it in February every year, but if we don’t study Black history, how will we remember American history?

May God bless the United States of America.

Before we discuss progressives today and ask, “Who is the Champion of ‘We, the People?’”, we need some context. We gauge progress by whether our decisive efforts move America closer to achieving its six national goals.

Both conservative and progressive principles are essential for effective governance. Without both sets of principles, we cannot achieve America’s goals.

But progressivism’s focus drifted. To meet our goals, we must restore it as a center of gravity—focused on the people, not just the government.

…

Conservatives believe in America and strive to conserve the institution that is the American ideal. Their principles respect tradition, state and local governance, individual liberty, and personal responsibility. Their philosophy values the wisdom of the past, seeks cautious progress in the present, and envisions a stable, prosperous future.

From a business standpoint, conservatives rely on their commitment to personal responsibility. They advocate for free-market capitalism and minimal government intervention. They believe that to command higher wages, workers are responsible for increasing their value. They oppose unfunded federal mandates because they face the reality that to pay higher wages, businesses must increase revenue or face elimination. High worker pay reduces profitability and can threaten business viability, especially in lean years. Therefore, acting in their self-interest, businesses seek to minimize wages to maximize profits.

Conservative values strongly benefit America. They advance living standards by driving economic growth, encouraging innovation, and fostering competition.

Democrats and Republicans alike can be conservatives.

…

Like conservatives, progressives believe in the American ideal.

Progressives view the government as a go-between representative for the people. An intermediary. Strong progressives advocate for fairness and equality across American society. They believe the government must set conditions enabling every individual to have a fair chance to be great.

Regarding business, progressives believe the government must set conditions enabling fair workplace environments, including pay, safety, and hours. They pass federal mandates that benefit workers and America as a whole. They seek to create a society where individuals fulfill their roles and contribute to the overall well-being of the state.

Progressive values strongly benefit America. They advance American society by promoting justice and economic stability, protecting worker rights, and ensuring fair wages. Government regulations create safer workplaces, prevent exploitation, and help sustain a middle class that drives consumer demand.

Republicans and Democrats alike can be progressives.

…

As a related topic, let’s recall there are six national goals outlined in the Constitution. Union… Order… Defense… Welfare… Justice… and Liberty…

Some might view the goals as having different priorities. For example, conservatives might lean toward order over justice, while progressives might choose the opposite. But the truth is that all six goals carry the same weight.

So … if conservatives and progressives see different priorities—but the goals themselves are equal—then we need both perspectives to achieve them. Relying only on conservative principles threatens justice. Relying only on progressive values threatens order.

Now that we have shared context, that brings us to this week’s question.

Who is the Champion of ‘We, the People?’

Representative AOC and Jon Stewart

On the January 23 episode of The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY)—better known simply as AOC—joined host, hilarious comedian, and all-around great American Jon Stewart for a lengthy interview.

At around 45:20, Stewart and AOC begin a portion of their conversation that YouTube has named “What is the Process of Redefining what the Democratic Party Represents?”

Stewart comments—

“People are thirsty for … leadership. The Democrats, I think, have had a really difficult time responding to that thirst, responding to that action. What is the process then of redefining what this party is, what it represents moving forward, and are there leaders there?”

Representative AOC responds—

“If you ask a working-class American or just any normal American, what is a Democrat? What do they stand for? They will not really be able to give you a clear answer …”

A meaningful exchange.

…

Okay. Let’s tie our thoughts together.

We need both conservative and progressive ideas to attempt to achieve the goals outlined in the Constitution.

Conservatives have not wavered in their commitment to personal responsibility. They believe workers are responsible for their own wages. They oppose unfunded federal mandates. They support business profitability, recognizing the challenges of balancing profitability and survival.

Now for progressives. While both parties can have progressives, Democrats lean that way more often.

So…to answer AOC’s question…what do progressives stand for?

Working-class Americans no longer see a strong group of progressives fighting on their behalf. Progressives face a crisis of identity. They have become the party of government, not the party of the people. Leaders like AOC openly acknowledge this gap.

Let’s ask again. Who is the Champion of ‘We, the People?’

Do Progressives Believe in the People?

There are two points to be made here.

The first is a fundamental truth in life. Never reinforce your shaping effort—focus everything on the decisive action that brings real change. Save and expend all your resources, or as many as possible, towards your decisive effort.

For progressives, this means fighting against conservatives is a waste of time and resources. Political battles for the sake of winning political theater don’t serve the American people. In the fleeting moments when progressives have both the public will and the political consensus to create meaningful change, every ounce of decisive effort must be spent on delivering tangible results. Wasting that energy on ideological fights, political purity tests, or symbolic victories only kills progress for those who need it most.

Progressives need to fight for the people, not against conservatives. Every moment spent trying to score points against the opposition is a moment not spent improving wages, expanding opportunity for kids who live in projects or leaky trailers, or securing a better future for working Americans. If progressives are serious about governance, their singular focus must be delivering real, lasting benefits to the people they claim to represent. Anything less is a waste of precious time and resources.

The second point is even more fundamental: the point of government is not government.

Government does not exist to serve itself. It is not meant to perpetuate its own power or sustain bureaucratic inertia. The entire premise of American governance is that it is of, by, and for the people. That means every policy, every law, and every decision should be measured against a simple standard: Does this advance American interests toward achieving one of our six goals for the American people?

Progressives lose sight of this. Their attention drifts to prioritizing expanded government authority or making governance easier over empowering individuals. They allow their focus to change toward maintaining political control instead of achieving progress for working-class America. This breaks the trust of the people they claim to serve.

So the question remains: Do progressives believe in the people? If they do, then their path is clear. They must fight for them, not against their political opponents. They must use government as a tool to uplift Americans, not as a means to sustain itself. And they must never forget that political victory is not a measure of success. It’s measured by the prosperity of the working-class people they serve.

Many of us are both conservatives and progressives. We strive to conserve the institution that is the American ideal. And we believe in progress toward achieving our national goals for the American people.

Because we are both conservatives and progressives, we can reword our takeaways to make them more relevant.

Both conservative and progressive principles are essential for effective governance. Without both sets of principles, we cannot achieve America’s goals.

Relying only on conservative principles threatens justice. Relying only on progressive values threatens order.

The point of government is not government. Political victory is not a measure of success.

We measure our success by the prosperity of the working-class people we serve.

We gauge progress by whether our decisive efforts move America closer to achieving its six national goals.

May God bless the United States of America.

I love hearing from listeners and readers. While I don’t always respond with a dedicated piece, I genuinely appreciate the feedback and seriously consider the questions.

This week, John left a comment at Substack on Reward Work, Build Opportunity:

"Perhaps, instead of waiting for Washington D.C. to work for us, those with skills needed to stimulate the economy and create new jobs could work together."

I love the comment. It challenges the premise that “We, the People,” have a collective mandate to organize and address inequality. It reflects frustration with our elected officials’ inability to fulfill their Constitutional duty. But more than that, it suggests a belief that we can make America better—even without complete consensus.

So! … Let’s explore it.

Capitalism

The heart of John’s comment gets into capitalism as our foundational economic system. The fundamental truth of capitalism is best illustrated by a 1776 quote from Scottish Economist and Philosopher Adam Smith:

It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages.

In a capitalist system, private citizens control property and act in their self-interest to gain economic prosperity.

Capitalism drives significant economic growth and innovation. It undeniably demonstrates the ability to drive progress and meet consumer demand. Supported by order and defense, capitalism is the foundation of America’s high standard of living.

Let’s consider a series of questions as an example of this exceedingly high standard of living. How many of us put milk or cream in our coffee or butter on our toast this morning? How many of us woke up at four to milk the cow and churn the butter? After months or years working on a dairy, you will never take cream or butter for granted. Our national abundance of butter comes from capitalism.

Our butter example highlights one of capitalism’s great strengths: its ability to pool individual effort into a system that delivers abundance for others. Producers work to meet consumer demand in ways that create economic growth and improve living standards for everyone. As John’s comment suggests, collaboration within this framework—through competition, business partnerships, innovation, or shared effort— creates even more opportunity.

A capitalist system aims to enable individuals to act in their self-interest. Its success—economic growth, innovation, and increased living standards—motivates us to keep it as the foundational economic system.

A Simplified Premise

Let’s pose a simplified premise: inside this capitalist system, there are business owners (such as corporations, small businesses, etc.), and there are individual workers.

Businesses are solely responsible to their shareholders. They focus on profit and maximizing business value within legal and ethical limits. Diverting resources away from profit involves using others’ money—shareholders, employees, or customers—without their consent.

Some criticize this focus on profit, but it serves a vital role in a capitalist system. Profits enable businesses to reinvest, innovate, expand, and create more opportunities for workers and consumers. Without this commitment to profitability, businesses fail, jobs disappear, and economic progress stalls. In essence, by focusing on their bottom line, businesses indirectly contribute to the broader economy. Profits are what remains from revenue after expenses, taxes, and costs.

Worker pay is a component of revenue. Businesses generate revenue by selling goods or services, using part to pay wages among other expenses. They also invest in infrastructure, technology, taxes, raw materials, manufacturing, logistics, and research and development.

In sum, high worker pay reduces profitability and threatens business viability, especially in lean years. Therefore, acting in their self-interest, businesses seek to cut wages to maximize profits.

Let’s keep pulling on this thread. In this simplified system, individual workers command higher pay by raising their value. Workers seeking to raise their value need to change their position on the ‘Supply and Demand’ scale.

In simple systems, supply and demand explain free market prices. Supply refers to how much of a product or service is available, and demand is how much people want it. This applies to wages, too. Supply represents the number of workers available with the skills needed for a particular job, and demand represents how many employers compete for those skills.

For example, consider a dishwasher. It’s easy to find people capable of washing dishes, though maybe not easy to find someone willing to do so. The perceived value of the job remains low because the skill level required is minimal, and employers can usually find enough workers to fill the gap.

On the other hand, consider a computer engineer. It’s harder to find someone who can do the job because the skills required are specialized and take training, education, and time to develop. The limited supply of qualified engineers, coupled with the high demand for their expertise, drives their wages higher. Employers in this scenario must compete more aggressively for skilled talent. This competition means they offer higher pay and better benefits to attract the best candidates.

This back-and-forth illustrates why raising worker value is vital to supporting both workers and businesses. Workers who invest in learning new skills, gaining certifications, or entering high-demand fields improve their position on the supply-demand scale. They move into roles where their skills are scarce, making them more valuable to employers. As a result, they command higher wages. Businesses leverage their increased value to innovate and grow revenue, which supports paying higher wages.

Now that we have a common understanding of these basics let’s return to John’s comment. His suggestion touches on the idea that workers, business owners, and communities can collaborate within this system to raise worker value and create opportunities that benefit everyone.

Stimulate the Economy and Create Jobs

John suggests we work together through our capitalist system to create higher-paying jobs. In a non-regulated free market economy, this means raising worker value so businesses can innovate and grow revenue. As businesses grow, this revenue allows workers to command higher wages in the market.

Working together to raise worker value without taxpayer dollars or regulation likely involves creating a non-profit organization that would enhance the professional development of young workers. This organization could become a collaboration hub where businesses, educators, and communities work toward a shared goal of preparing local workers with in-demand skills.

This non-profit organization would establish a vision, mission, task, and purpose. Funding would come from private sources—particularly businesses needing a more skilled workforce. Local businesses would be instrumental in shaping the training programs, ensuring they align with actual market needs. With these resources, the organization could develop educational and training materials tailored to young individuals with no education and training beyond high school. These workers, equipped with quality skills, would enter businesses ready to innovate, boost productivity, and generate revenue. In turn, they could command higher wages, benefiting both themselves and the broader economy.

This organization would need to track results, such as job placements, wage increases, and productivity gains, to ensure its programs remain effective and relevant.

Of course, there would be severe challenges. Securing funding, maintaining a relevant curriculum, and scaling the program require focus and determination. But with the right partnerships and a clear purpose, it’s possible. Businesses, workers, and communities would need to come together, but the potential payoff of a more skilled workforce and a stronger economy is worth the effort.

It wouldn’t be easy, but it would provide businesses and individuals with a solution that works within our capitalist system. And it supports John’s idea of taking ownership of our shared future instead of waiting for the government to act.

…

In the meantime, we are spending the American people’s money to support society as a result of low wages. Half of American working families needing social program support is wildly excessive. Because businesses exist to achieve profitability, they seek to cut wages to maximize profits. Building consensus to reduce inequality through regulation is necessary and must continue.

Build Consensus…

Changing culture is hard. It takes dedicated and sustained effort.

A part of realigning our culture with the American ideal is building consensus.

Building consensus involves developing messages that resonate broadly across diverse populations, reminding us of our shared goals and the principles that unite us.

If we are to orient our perspective towards the goals that are America, we have to use our decisive effort to achieve our goals. It could take ten or more years.

So! … In the meantime, we focus on these guiding principles: Union, Justice, Tranquility, Defense, Welfare, and Liberty.

We conserve the institution that is our Constitutional democratic Republic.

We progress toward the opportunity for all Americans to be born from nothing and achieve greatness.

May God bless the United States of America.

We often hear that land doesn’t vote; people do.

How about a different perspective?

Land doesn’t have rights, but land endows rights.

What would repealing Birthright Citizenship mean?

We often hear that “land doesn’t vote; people do.” This phrase highlights the humanity of our democratic republic. The adage emphasizes rights of the individual and the collective power of the electorate to shape governance and policy. But, the viewpoint oversimplifies the intertwined relationship between people and the soil.

Land doesn’t have rights, but land endows rights. Geographical boundaries and birthplaces shape individual rights, demonstrating the enduring influence of the land on our legal and societal frameworks.

The Latin Jus soli, or the right of the soil, is a cornerstone of our legal and societal frameworks. It grants individuals a national identity rooted in their birthplace.

Our Constitution establishes rights granted to all Americans by the soil, including rights of citizenship, representation, and national service.

This connection between land and individual rights becomes especially clear when we consider the legal foundations of citizenship in America. Citizenship’s roots grow into this concept of the soil.

Citizenship

Citizenship in America is founded on jus soli, the right of the soil, and jus sanguinis, the right of blood. The right of the soil carries into the right of blood.

Wong Kim Ark was born in San Francisco in 1870 to Wee Lee and Wong Si Ping. The couple were not American citizens and had no path to citizenship; they returned to China when Wong was eight.

In August 1895, at the age of 24, Wong made a return trip to San Francisco with papers certifying his identity and legal standing as a citizen born on American soil. US customs official John H. Wise denied Wong’s entry on the grounds of the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act and the 1880 Angell Treaty between the US and Qing Dynasty China, which recognized America’s ability to restrict Chinese immigration. Wise ordered Wong deported.

Wong appealed the decision and remained on shipping vessels for several months off the coast of California. In 1897, the US Supreme Court heard his case. In United States v. Wong Kim Ark (1898), the court found Wong to be an American citizen on the grounds of the 14th Amendment’s first clause: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside."

During deliberation, the court found Wong was born in the US. Further, though his parents were subjects to the Emperor of China, they were not “employed in any diplomatic or official capacity under the Emperor of China.” The court affirmed that Wong was subject to US jurisdiction at birth and thus a citizen by virtue of the 14th Amendment.

United States v. Wong Kim Ark upheld the principle of the right of the soil for determining citizenship. It firmly clarified that children born in America to foreign citizens are US citizens, even if their parents have no allegiance to America. The Supreme Court's decision established a broad interpretation of the 14th Amendment. It ensured that the vast majority of children born on American soil are entitled to citizenship, regardless of their parents' nationality. Though the fight for equal treatment of Asian Americans continued well past Mr. Wong, this ruling has had a lasting impact on immigration and citizenship policies.

Jus soli grants citizenship to all born on US soil and carries through blood. The right of blood extends the right of citizenship across borders, allowing children born abroad to American citizens to inherit their citizenship. This dual foundation reflects a comprehensive understanding of national belonging—rights rooted in the physical land of America that reach through the blood to extend the inalienable rights to those born to American parents worldwide.

Just as jus soli grants citizenship, it also confers the right to participate in our democratic republic. This extension of rights from the land empowers us as participants in the national discourse.

Representation

The 14th Amendment is not the earliest affirmation of the right of the soil in the Constitution. The first reference to the premise that soil endows citizens with rights is earlier than even the Bill of Rights.

Specifically, Article II, Section 1 of the US Constitution identifies, “Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress…”

This section was later amended by the 12th Amendment after some drama in the 1796 and 1800 elections. It forms the basis of the Electoral College, which grants individuals the right to representation in national elections. By ensuring that residents' votes in each state contribute to the national outcome of presidential elections, the Electoral College grants them a meaningful role in the democratic process.

The Constitution achieves this by guaranteeing that every state has a certain number of electors, regardless of population. This system grants "rights" or influence to regions, paralleling how jus soli grants citizenship rights to individuals born on US soil.

Just as the right of the soil grants citizenship, it also guarantees that each geographic state has a say in national elections. Because land doesn’t vote, the Constitution extends this guarantee to the voters in each state.

“Land doesn’t vote; people do” is a misconception. The statement overlooks how the Electoral College system carefully balances geographic diversity and population. The system allocates votes in a manner that accounts for geographic distribution, thereby preventing larger population states from completely dominating national elections. It also supports the underlying principle of our democratic republic—every vote is an expression of an individual's choice, and all states have a voice in national elections.

In short, land doesn’t bestow on Americans the right to vote; it grants people from each state influence in national elections, no matter how small the state. Elected representatives from all states ratified both the US Constitution and the 12th Amendment. Therefore, every American agreed with the premise that each state has a voice in national elections.

The influence of land on rights extends into the highest offices of national service, reinforcing the critical role that birthplace plays in determining who may lead the nation.

National Service

Serving the nation in any capacity is a privilege. Serving in the highest office is a privilege only available to those who are endowed with the right of the soil.

Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 of the US Constitution states, “No Person except a natural born Citizen…shall be eligible to the Office of President.” If you weren’t born on US soil or with the right of the soil carried into the right of blood, you are ineligible for the nation’s highest office.

The founders included the natural-born citizen requirement to ensure the President would have the deep-rooted allegiance to the United States that only the right of the soil bestows. They believed the requirement would reduce the risk of foreign governments having control over the nation.

Eight Presidents had parents, or both parents, who were not born on US soil. They range from Andrew Jackson, whose parents were both immigrants, to Donald Trump, whose mother was an immigrant. But all Presidents have been natural-born citizens, either born on US soil or to US citizens abroad in an official capacity.

National service is a distinguished honor, especially when it involves leading the country. Only those granted citizenship by the right of the soil or the right of the soil through the blood are eligible. This precedent safeguards the presidency from foreign influence, ensuring the President's loyalty lies firmly with America.

Now for our question: What would repealing Birthright Citizenship mean?

Birthright citizenship isn’t a legal formality. It’s a fundamental cornerstone of American democracy and identity. It ensures that every person born on American soil is a part of the nation's fabric, endowed with the rights and responsibilities that fortify our collective future. Overturning the precedent would lead to a future where many are isolated, disenfranchised, and alienated from the civic body.

Attempting to repeal birthright citizenship would disregard the strong precedent that allegiance to America is gained through the right of the soil.

Some argue that we should repeal birthright citizenship to preserve national identity and ensure we grant citizenship only to those with a provable connection to the United States. But national identity and unity come from commitment to the American ideal, not from repealing birthright citizenship.

Some argue for the repeal of birthright citizenship because children of non-citizens place an undue economic burden on American taxpayers. They cite the costs of public education, healthcare, and other social services. This perspective overlooks the long-term economic contributions of immigrants and their children, who stay in America for generations.

Finally, proponents of repealing birthright citizenship argue it would enhance national security and more effectively control immigration. In fact, it would lead to stateless individuals inside the country, creating a marginalized group that's more vulnerable to radicalization and exploitation. Individuals born on American soil have a clear and immediate stake in the country's future, promoting societal integration and cohesion.

Throughout our discussion, from citizenship to national representation and service, we see a consistent theme: soil bestows rights on Americans.

Our Constitution firmly establishes that we are tied to the soil and the soil through blood. Birthright citizenship is crucial for American identity and the health of our democratic republic.

The Constitution grants individuals rights of citizenship, representation, and national service based on the soil. These rights underscore the importance of soil—whether a specific place of one's birth or the geographic boundaries of states—in defining what it means to be American.

National identity and unity come from shared values and commitments to the American ideal.

What would repealing Birthright Citizenship mean?

Attempting to repeal birthright citizenship would disregard the strong precedent the Constitution establishes: namely, jus soli imprints allegiance on Americans.

May God bless the United States of America.

Last week, David Leonhardt, writing for the New York Times, questioned whether any of President Biden’s legacy would endure. Most Americans view his term unfavorably. Parties with one-term presidents often see those presidencies as failures and shift their focus to the future. However, Leonhardt highlighted one aspect of Biden’s agenda that may leave a lasting mark. This is the idea that “the federal government should take a more active role in both assisting and regulating the private sector than it did for much of the previous half-century.”

President Biden is not alone in his assessment. Both parties agree to some extent that unfettered free market globalization is not in America’s best interest. Similar to an approach used in the Gilded Age, President Trump intends to influence the global economic system through tariffs.

In his farewell address from the Oval Office, President Biden said, “Today, an oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power, and influence that literally threatens our entire democracy…We’ve seen it before, more than a century ago, but the American people stood up to the robber barons back then.”

Biden’s use of the term ‘robber barons’ is a reference to a phrase from the late 19th century, when Mark Twain’s The Gilded Age gave that period its name. From the 1870s to the early 1900s, the Gilded Age saw rapid industrialization, economic growth, glaring inequality, and societal transformation. It was also a time of innovation. From the birth of America to 1870, the US Patent Office granted 40,000 patents. By 1900, that number exploded tenfold. The country’s population nearly doubled in those 30 years from immigrants flooding into the nation to work in the factories. During this era, industrial magnates like Rockefeller, Carnegie, Vanderbilt, and Stanford amassed immense wealth. Twain satirized their greed and the corruption that defined America’s elite.

As the country experiences rapid digital transformation and robust economic growth, parallels to the Gilded Age are hard to ignore. Unlike then, wealth is concentrated in corporations rather than individuals and families. Like in the Gilded Age, many American families are left behind. Inefficient social programs that did not exist in the Gilded Age prop up society, but these programs come at the cost of unprecedented national debt. Without them, unrest would mirror the turmoil of the Gilded Age.

Leonhardt observed that the emerging idea of a more active federal role in regulating the private sector still lacks a name. Scholars and policymakers have referred to it as the “end of the neoliberal order,” “a new economics,” or “a new centrism.”

He makes a strong point. America has faced at least two significant periods of inequality before. In both instances, unifying messages helped Americans rise to the challenge. But before considering names, it’s worth breaking this idea into two fundamental questions.

First, do Americans have a mandate to address inequality?

Second, if Americans have a mandate and decide to act, what simple message could unite the nation and drive change?

Let’s start by considering the first question. Should Americans choose to address inequality?

Should America Address Inequality?

Businesses have no responsibility to address social inequality. None. Businesses have responsibilities only to their business and their shareholders. Diverting effort away from generating profit is using someone else’s money—shareholders, employees, or customers—for purposes they did not agree to. A business’s primary responsibility is to increase profits, and corporate executives should focus solely on maximizing shareholder value within legal and ethical boundaries. Any effort toward social justice is outside a business’s fundamental responsibility unless it directly contributes to profitability. While some businesses voluntarily pursue social initiatives, their fundamental legal responsibility is to maximize shareholder value.

Therefore, arguments claiming that businesses should pay higher wages to address social inequality are flawed, as businesses have no inherent responsibility to resolve societal issues. Declaring that an individual or group ‘should’ do something for which they have no responsibility (and therefore, no requirement) means they will do exactly what they are required to do. In this case, exactly nothing.

So…if businesses are not responsible for paying livable wages and can find workers willing to accept poverty-level pay, they have little incentive to raise wages voluntarily.

To continue this argument, we need to note that Americans can earn money from two sources: their work, or their fellow taxpayers in the form of the government. Because Americans get money from both sources, this leaves the government to address the shortfall in wages.

Through social programs, Congress spends the American people’s money to support society as a result of low wages. These social programs, subsidies, and incentives are supported by taxes collected from the American people. And our elected representatives certainly have the requirement to spend taxpayer money responsibly.

The basis of this requirement is found in Constitutional provisions that include the Spending Clause (Article I, Section 8), which directs Congress to allocate funds for defense and general welfare. It is further found in the Appropriations Clause (Article I, Section 9, Clause 7), which mandates transparency and accountability in public expenditures. Additionally, federal laws like the Antideficiency Act prohibit spending beyond appropriations, underscoring the Congressional duty to ensure fiscal discipline.

There’s another fascinating wrinkle here.

In United States v. Butler (1936), the Supreme Court ruled that Congress has the authority to spend money for the “general welfare” under the Spending Clause but that the Constitution limits that authority. This spending must serve the common good, not specific groups or industries. Subsidizing low wages with public funds serves business interests but not the American people as a whole.

Spending on social programs to help those who aren’t able to work supports American society by promoting order and tranquility. But half of American working families needing social program support is wildly excessive and points to low wages as a root cause problem.

The burden of wages has shifted from employers to taxpayers, violating the principle that public spending should benefit the nation as a whole.

We, the People, must meet the Constitutional standard to promote the general welfare. Therefore, Congress must act to reduce reliance on social programs by addressing systemic wage issues. Failure to do so violates Constitutional principles and harms the American public.

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In short, we can answer our first question.

Do Americans have a mandate to address inequality?

Yes, Americans and our elected representatives have a Constitutional and legal mandate to address inequality. Failure to minimize spending on taxpayer-funded social programs benefits only special business interests, not the American people as a whole. This violates the Constitution. Therefore, we are mandated to take an active federal role in regulating the private sector.

Now, let’s recall our second question.

If Americans have a mandate and decide to act, what simple message could unite the nation and drive change?

History shows that when America faced inequality in the past, it found its way through unity and purpose. To understand how this was achieved, let’s turn to our nation’s first period of radical inequality and the leadership of Abraham Lincoln.

Lincoln’s Legacy

Abraham Lincoln led the nation through its first great reckoning with radical inequality. The divide between free labor in the North and enslaved labor in the South symbolized a moral and economic conflict.

This divide was too great for Lincoln to tolerate. As a lawyer, he was known for clear reasoning and ability to simplify complex issues. In an 1862 draft titled Meditation on the Divine Will, he wrote that “God can not be for and against the same thing at the same time.” Lincoln sought to preserve the union, the first national goal outlined in our Constitution. The union could not sustain itself half-slave and half-free; it had to be one or the other.

This question defined Lincoln’s leadership. In a nation of free men and enslaved men, who had the right to the fruits of their labor?

In his Fragments of a Tariff Discussion (1847), Lincoln articulated his economic philosophy. He referenced the biblical phrase, “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread,” to emphasize the dignity of labor and the moral imperative that workers should benefit from their toil. Later in his 1861 Annual Message to Congress, he outlined more specifically that “Labor is prior to and independent of capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.”

Further, in Fragments, Lincoln wrote that a “most worthy object of any good government” is to ensure that “each laborer (receives) the whole product of his labor, or as nearly as possible.” This belief tied directly to his fight against slavery as both a moral and economic injustice that denied millions of people their rightful share of the wealth they created.

Critics often downplay Lincoln’s connection to labor rights. They argue that he focused narrowly on preserving the Union or that the Civil War was not fundamentally about slavery. Luckily, Lincoln was a prolific writer who preserved his thoughts in ink. His views on labor were intertwined with his opposition to slavery. He believed that the right to benefit from one’s work was essential to a just and prosperous society.

Lincoln’s leadership was guided by principles that resonate as mantras even today.

“A house divided against itself cannot stand” captured his conviction that the nation’s survival depended on resolving the division between free and enslaved labor.

The Gettysburg Address’s “Government of the people, by the people, for the people” reaffirmed his belief in the republic’s role to enable the opportunity of Americans of any station of birth to benefit from their work.

As we confront modern inequality, we consider Lincoln’s legacy. He faced an economic system that denied millions of workers their fundamental rights. His vision of fairness in labor was twofold: First, each person has the right to benefit from their work, and second, ‘We, the People,’ must protect that right. These principles remain as vital today as they did during the Civil War.

The second national period of severe inequality was the Gilded Age. Several individuals led the nation through this more prolonged period, but Teddy Roosevelt left a decisive impact.

Teddy Roosevelt’s Legacy

President Theodore Roosevelt’s legacy is that for any one of us to be great, we all need to be able to be great. The primary source of our welfare is our work. The welfare of each of us depends on the welfare of all of us.

Teddy Roosevelt stepped forward during the Gilded Age to confront the entrenched power of industrial elites and champion the ability of individual Americans to be great. By Roosevelt’s time, the wealth and influence of “robber barons” like Rockefeller and Carnegie had reached unprecedented heights. They left millions of workers behind for a system that favored the few over the many. Roosevelt saw this disparity as a barrier to the greatness of the American people.

Roosevelt’s presidency is best remembered for his bold actions against corporate monopolies. As the “trust-buster,” he challenged the power of industrial giants, using the Sherman Anti-Trust Act to dismantle monopolies like Northern Securities and to regulate companies like Standard Oil. His actions conveyed that no individual or corporation was above the law. Roosevelt understood that unchecked corporate power created inequality and stifled opportunity, making it impossible for the average person to succeed and thrive.

Roosevelt didn’t believe that the government’s role was to tear down booming businesses or level the playing field. He believed that the government should give every individual a “Square Deal,” or fair chance, to be great. A core premise of his administration was that the government needed to actively intervene on behalf of the general public to ensure economic opportunity for all.

Roosevelt’s mantras reflect these principles.

“Far and away, the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing,” reflected his belief that fulfillment, purpose, and personal greatness are achieved through dedication to meaningful effort.

“The welfare of each of us depends on the welfare of all of us” embodied Roosevelt’s vision of a society where every individual, regardless of birth or background, had a fair chance to succeed. In this society, the government had a duty to protect the rights of workers, promote fair competition, and ensure access to opportunity.

Roosevelt’s legacy reminds us of the importance of empowering individuals to be great. Greatness is a product of good work and a fair share of the profits from that work. Greatness is a collective pursuit. His presidency was a testament to the idea that everyone deserves a square deal to live, work, and achieve.

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Now we can address our second question.

If Americans have a mandate and decide to act, what simple message could unite the nation and drive change?

A New Economics: Reward Work, Build Opportunity

Lincoln faced a nation divided by slavery and inequality, but he never wavered in his belief that every worker deserved the fruits of their labor. Roosevelt fought against monopolies to ensure that individual Americans had a fair chance to succeed.

Both great leaders focused their decisive effort on enabling Americans from any station of birth to reap the value of their work.

They had two simple messages.

First, the messages “A house divided against itself cannot stand” and “Far and away, the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing” share a common theme. The survival of the nation relies on Americans finding fulfillment and purpose through meaningful work and having the right to bring the fruits of their labor home to their families.

Second, the messages “Government of the people, by the people, for the people” and “The welfare of each of us depends on the welfare of all of us” emphasize the government’s duty to safeguard that right and ensure opportunity for all Americans, regardless of their station of birth.

These simple messages illuminate the fundamental human truth that fulfillment comes from enjoying our work and eating and drinking with those we love.

With these truths in mind, we can answer our second question.

If Americans have a mandate and decide to act, what simple message could unite the nation and drive change?

“A New Economics: Reward Work, Build Opportunity” is a good starting point.

May God bless the United States of America.

Should America take economic control of Greenland? Both the Prime Minister of Denmark—who oversees Greenland’s foreign affairs—and the Prime Minister of Greenland have repeatedly said that the territory is not for sale and have rejected the idea of annexation.

But American interest in Greenland has already had its intended effect. Forbes reported that Denmark is “open to a dialogue with the Americans on how we can cooperate, possibly even more closely than we already do, to ensure that American ambitions are fulfilled.”

Even if America taking economic control of Greenland seems imperialistic, rephrasing the question reframes the stakes. As in, we might ask the exact same question but with different wording.

Should China have access to rare earth elements in Greenland?

The shift in wording highlights Greenland’s role in great power competition and underscores the strategic value of its location and resources. Let’s kick our mental exercise off by considering Greenland’s significance on the world stage.

Greenland’s Strategic Value

Greenland’s strategic value has evolved over centuries, shaped by its unique location and resources. In 1721, Danish-Norwegian missionary Hans Egede led an expedition to Greenland to search for descendants of vanished Norse settlers. While Egede did not find the Norse, he established the settlement of Nuuk, which later became Greenland’s capital and marked the start of Danish-Norwegian rule. Over time, Denmark-Norway expanded its control. It established trading posts and integrated Greenland into the European mercantile system. After Denmark-Norway split in 1814, Greenland remained under Danish control.

Greenland’s modern strategic importance emerged during World War II when the US agreed to protect the island after Germany occupied Denmark. The US established military bases that served as critical waypoints for transatlantic flights, weather stations for Allied operations, and a source of cryolite, a key catalyst for aluminum production. During the Cold War, Greenland’s pivotal Arctic location became essential for monitoring Soviet activity and hosting early warning radar systems.

In 1953, Denmark ended Greenland’s colonial status and incorporated it into the kingdom. This granted its citizens representation in the Danish parliament and access to national welfare programs. Greenland achieved home rule in 1979, gaining control over its internal affairs. In 2009, it gained further autonomy, including authority over resources and justice, while Denmark retained control over foreign policy and defense.

As climate change opens new shipping routes and enhances resource accessibility, Greenland’s economic and geopolitical significance grows. Greenland’s vast reserves of rare earth elements and strategic Arctic location make it a focal point for global competition.

Rare Earth Elements

Greenland has some of the world’s biggest stores of rare earth elements (REE), known by unfamiliar names such as neodymium, dysprosium, and praseodymium. These elements are essential for producing wind turbines, electric vehicle motors, and military equipment.

Despite their name, REEs are relatively common in Earth’s crust. However, their distribution and extraction present a mining challenge. REEs are rarely found in concentrated, profitable, mineable deposits. Instead, they are typically dispersed across vast areas, mixed with other elements. Due to their chemical similarity, extracting and refining them is complex and costly. Greenland’s reserves are especially valuable because they are believed to exist in relatively high concentrations, making them potentially more economical to extract than deposits found elsewhere.

Greenland’s untapped resources would allow Western nations to diversify their supply chains, reducing their dependence on China, which dominates the global REE market.

China controls approximately 90% of global rare earth production. Approximately 80% of the REEs used domestically in the US are imported from China. This dominance is due to its vast reserves, advanced refining infrastructure, and government policies prioritizing REE production as a strategic industry.

China’s near monopoly gives it significant leverage in geopolitical and economic arenas. Rare earth elements are critical for manufacturing everything from smartphones and renewable energy technologies to advanced military systems. This dependence poses a strategic vulnerability for Western nations, as disruptions to China’s supply—from trade disputes, export restrictions, or internal policy changes—could severely impact key industries. Even if Chinese companies wanted to negotiate business arrangements in good faith, the Chinese government controls all private businesses in China at its whim.

Greenland’s potential to become an alternative source of REEs represents an opportunity to mitigate this risk and secure a more stable and diversified supply chain for these critical materials.

However, rare earth elements are only part of Greenland’s strategic significance. Because of its strategic Arctic location, Greenland is a focal point for global competitors. 

Strategic Arctic Location

Because we tend to look at flat maps rather than globes, it’s easy to overlook that the Earth is round and the shortest path from America to Europe lies over the Arctic. For example, the distance from Los Angeles to Paris, France, is approximately 5,700 miles over the Arctic and 8,300 miles through the Panama Canal.

These Arctic routes follow what mathematicians even before the time of Columbus called the Great Circle Route. This Great Circle Route is the shortest path between two points on the Earth’s surface. From North America, it typically passes near or over regions like Greenland and the Arctic, depending on specific flight or shipping planning considerations.

Although the distance difference may not seem significant, even small reductions in distance can translate to significant savings in time, fuel, and emissions. Arctic routes offer the potential for more efficient transit between major markets in North America, Europe, and Asia, bypassing clogged routes through the Panama or Suez Canal. Greenland’s strategic location along these potential routes underscores its importance in shipping, aviation, trade, and defense logistics.

Of course, the Arctic has other transit challenges. It’s cold. Historically, extreme Arctic cold and thick ice made navigation treacherous. Shipping lanes like the Northwest Passage and Northern Sea Route were largely impassable for most of the year. But it’s less cold now, and previously unavailable shipping routes are opening.

This accessibility extends beyond shipping routes. The retreating ice uncovers untapped natural resources, including oil, gas, and rare earth element reserves. This new territory is fueling a modern scramble for control over the Arctic.

The US has long viewed the Arctic as a critical defense and economic security frontier. Military bases like Thule in Greenland and several in Alaska cement our commitment.

Meanwhile, China aggressively seeks influence. In 2018, It declared itself a “near-Arctic state” and incorporated Arctic development into its Belt and Road Initiative, the Polar Silk Road. China’s motives are clear. Shipping from China to Europe through the Suez Canal in Egypt takes 48 days and only 24 days by way of the Northeast Passage through the Arctic.

In response, US leaders drew firm lines. In 2019, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo stated, “There are only Arctic states and non-Arctic states…No third category exists — and claiming otherwise entitles China to exactly nothing.”

Ultimately, new shipping lanes and resource opportunities have turned the Arctic into a strategic chessboard. Control over Greenland and other key locations could shift the balance of global influence. America cannot yield its position in this great power competition. If we cede influence under the guise of fairness, rival nations will not return the favor. America must act alone and with partner nations to create favorable global conditions and ensure freedom of action and influence for the American people and our allies.

The strategic necessity of great power competition and the Constitution compels us to protect national interests.

Great Power Competition

Nations have no choice but to ensure their survival and protect their interests. If they do not, or cannot, protect their interests, their competitors will not cede them prosperity. The absence of a world government creates a globally competitive environment that compels states to prioritize their security, interests, and the stability of their strategic alliances.

In this anarchic international order, nations act in their own interest. They make choices that maximize their benefit and strength—even at the expense of others. We form coalitions and partnerships as strategic efforts to enhance our power, stability, and influence. Preserving our business interests requires denying competitors the same advantages we seek, which ensures a favorable position in the global hierarchy.

This competitive reality is on full display in the Arctic. The US, Russia, and China are vying for control of a region where melting ice has opened new shipping lanes and exposed previously buried resources. The Arctic is a critical arena for global rivalry. The security and prosperity of the American people and our allies require independent action and strategic partnerships to shape favorable conditions. These efforts are essential to maintaining freedom of action and influence in this rapidly evolving region.

From America’s perspective, this imperative aligns with Constitutional guiding principles. The Constitution does not explicitly state that maintaining favorable business conditions is a federal responsibility; however, specific provisions inherently support this objective.

The Commerce Clause (in Article I, Section 8, Clause 3) grants Congress the power to regulate trade with foreign nations, ensure economic stability, and facilitate commerce. However, the Clause does not grant Congress the power to regulate trade under conditions that do not benefit the American people. An implied mandate in regulating trade, ensuring economic stability, and facilitating commerce is to achieve these conditions under favorable terms.

Further, if the Commerce Clause isn’t sufficient to achieve commerce under favorable terms, the Constitution grants Congress the authority to raise and support armies (in Article I, Section 8, Clause 12). Nations that can establish favorable international conditions attract international investment, promote trade, and create new economic opportunities. Defense and the economy are interconnected. Economic power sustains defense, while defense safeguards markets and secures supply chains.

Now for our Question

Should America take economic control of Greenland?

Let’s rephrase the question to reframe the stakes.

Should China have access to rare earth elements in Greenland?

Let’s review some key points.

Greenland’s Arctic location makes it indispensable for trade, defense, and global influence.

The United States and Greenland have a longstanding and cooperative partnership.

China’s dominance in rare earth production presents a strategic vulnerability for America; Greenland’s resources offer a solution.

Climate change is unlocking Arctic shipping lanes and revealing untapped resources. Greenland’s strategic position along Arctic trade routes and the Great Circle Route solidifies its role as a vital hub for global shipping, aviation, and defense operations.

Safeguarding influence in Greenland is crucial for creating favorable conditions for the American people and our allies while preserving freedom of action and influence in the Arctic. This reflects the strategic necessity of great power competition and the Constitutional duty to protect national interests.

Securing our position under favorable terms requires denying our competitors those advantages. Therefore, we must actively prevent Chinese access to Greenland and other Arctic regions under the control of America and our allies.

Should the United States take control of Greenland by military force? Absolutely not. Denmark is a steadfast ally and a NATO member. Instead, we should pursue a collaborative arrangement that benefits Denmark and America, strengthening our partnership and mutual interests.

May God bless the United States of America.

H-1B visas have been an item of hot discussion lately. On New Year’s Day, Newsweek detailed, “At the end of December a bitter row broke out within Trump’s MAGA (Make America Great Again) movement over H-1B visas, pitting business figures such as Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy who believe they boost the U.S. economy against more nativist elements who think they harm American workers. And, speaking to The New York Post on December 28 Trump defended H-1B visas.”

This recent debate reveals a deeper question: Why are we still relying on this program after more than 30 years? Is the H-1B visa program solving America’s workforce challenges—or masking our failure to address them?

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An H-1B visa is a nonimmigrant visa issued by the United States. Nonimmigrant visas apply to individuals wishing to enter the US temporarily. Reasons for entry might include business, temporary work, study, or other reasons.

H-1Bs allow foreign workers to work in specialty occupations in the US for up to six years, with some opportunity to change that six years to permanent residence. Employers that sponsor H-1B holders need specialized knowledge and typically require a bachelor’s degree or equivalent in a relevant field. Common industries employing H-1B workers include technology, engineering, finance, healthcare, and education.

The US Department of Labor says H-1Bs “help employers who cannot otherwise obtain needed business skills and abilities from the U.S. workforce by authorizing the temporary employment of qualified individuals who are not otherwise authorized to work in the United States.”

Proponents and Opponents

Proponents argue that we should expand the number of visas and skilled immigrant workers. They argue that the program is essential to maintaining America’s competitive edge in a global economy, particularly in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. They highlight how skilled foreign workers contribute to innovation, job creation, and economic growth. They note that H-1B visa holders bring expertise in short supply domestically.

They cite studies that find more H-1B workers in an occupation correlate with lower unemployment. That stricter H-1B policies lead US multinational companies to cut domestic jobs while expanding foreign operations, especially in India, China, and Canada. That higher H-1B approval rates lead to more patents, increased patent citations, greater venture capital funding, and higher success rates for IPOs and acquisitions.

Opponents argue the program negatively impacts US workers by depressing wages and reducing job opportunities. They claim some employers exploit the system to hire foreign workers at lower wages, bypassing qualified domestic candidates. Critics point to instances of fraud and abuse, where companies misuse the program to outsource jobs or replace existing American employees.

Opponents further see the program as a failure to invest in the domestic workforce through training and education. They argue that we need to shift our main effort toward equipping US workers with the skills needed for high-demand fields rather than relying on foreign labor.

Now, for our question: So, why do we need more H-1B visas? Or do we?

Bipartisan Immigration Efforts in the 1990s

President George H.W. Bush (Republican) signed the Immigration Act of 1990 into law on November 29, 1990. The bill represented the most comprehensive reform of US immigration laws in 66 years. It aimed to adapt national immigration to the American economy’s changing needs. In particular, it addressed the increased demand for skilled professionals in technology, engineering, and other specialized fields.

In 1990, Democrats held a strong majority in the House and Senate. Both parties agreed to increase skilled immigration in support of American business.

One key provision of the 1990 Act was the creation of the H-1B visa category. This effort specifically supported businesses seeking immigrants in “specialty occupations” and required these immigrants to have at least a bachelor’s degree or equivalent in a specialized field of study. The bill intended to enable American businesses to fill critical skill gaps the domestic workforce could not meet.

The law established annual caps on the number of H-1B visas issued, initially set at 65,000. This cap intended to balance employer needs while protecting the domestic labor market. Further, employers seeking skilled immigrants had to attest that hiring foreign workers would not negatively impact US workers by certifying that H-1B workers would be paid at least the prevailing wage for their occupation and location.

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By 1998, the dot-com boom raged. Tech companies clamored for more skilled workers in STEM fields, and the nation revamped the H-1B program.

But the political tides had turned. The Republican Party held strong majorities in both the Senate and House. No matter. President Bill Clinton (Democrat) signed the American Competitiveness and Workforce Improvement Act (ACWIA) into law on October 21, 1998.

The ACWIA temporarily raised the H-1B cap from 65,000 to 115,000 for 1999 and 2000. It also introduced a training fee for employers sponsoring H-1B workers, initially set at $500 per worker. Congress intended that this fee would fund training and education programs for US workers and reduce reliance on foreign labor in the long term.

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Employers quickly absorbed skilled workers from the 1998 cap increase, and tech companies returned to Congress a few years later, again asking for more visas. Their request led to another temporary cap increase authorized by the American Competitiveness in the 21st Century Act (AC21) of 2000.

In 2000, Republicans controlled both the Senate and House. President Bill Clinton (Democrat) signed AC21 into law on October 17, 2000. It expanded the number of visas and opened the opportunity for H-1B visa holders to apply for permanent residency.

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In sum, the tech industry has long demonstrated the need for more skilled labor. Critics argue that this pattern of periodic cap raises reveals structural deficiencies in the training and education of American workers.

Saying this condition is a training and education problem dances around the problem. What we have is a failure to meet Constitutional obligations.

Constitutional Duty

The nation’s guiding document outlines a national purpose to achieve six highly aspirational goals: Union, Justice, Tranquility, Defense, Welfare, and Liberty. These six goals are why the nation exists. Advancing interests not linked to these six goals is meaningless at best and damaging at worst. Two goals—general welfare and justice—apply to our discussion of H-1B visas.

First, general welfare. Individuals can contribute to society when the nation sets conditions to achieve widespread education, healthcare, housing, and safety. Though not the only components of infrastructure, these conditions build the infrastructure that is individual capability. Collective individual capability generates national capability.

Said another way, empowering Americans to contribute to society is an investment in the nation’s infrastructure.

Second, justice. Justice presents the opportunity for Americans from any station of birth to access that infrastructure. Innovation, ideas, and contributions come from every corner of society and lift us all economically and culturally. When Americans from any station of birth can access the infrastructure that supports promoting the general welfare, we strengthen American individuals and businesses.

Expanding the H-1B visa program directly means we have either failed to build the infrastructure that generates individual capability, which then generates national capability, or built the system in such a way that denies Americans the opportunity from any station of birth to access that infrastructure, or both. Therefore, we have failed to achieve welfare and justice, two of our six national goals. Worse, rather than decisive efforts to fix this deficiency, and to meet the needs of tech businesses, we bring in skilled immigrant workers from nations who do a better job of achieving these goals than we have.

We should highlight this is not a fault of American businesses. A business’s primary responsibility is to increase profits, and corporate executives working within legal and ethical boundaries should concentrate solely on maximizing shareholder value. Corporate social responsibility blurs the line between the private and public sectors.

Any effort toward individual welfare or justice is outside a business’s fundamental responsibility unless it directly contributes to profitability. Instead, the public sector—or government—must fulfill these roles.

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A business’s primary responsibility is to generate profits, not solve national workforce issues. The public sector must address justice and general welfare—these are public responsibilities. After all, it is our Constitution, and we are “We the People.”

If we intend to reduce reliance on H-1B workers while meeting the demands of our tech economy, the solution isn’t curbing immigration. It’s building infrastructure and ensuring Americans from any station of birth have access to that infrastructure. To that end, here are three recommendations to set conditions enabling training and education for Americans in tech fields.

1. Change How We Measure Success

How do you know when you’ve achieved your goals? They have to be measurable, and you must actively measure them. For simple goals, the process is straightforward. For instance, if your goal is to solidify your family’s financial security, you might set a sub-goal of saving $500 each month. If your savings account grows by $500 this month compared to last, you’ve achieved your goal. Consistently meeting this sub-goal brings you closer to your broader objective of financial security.

When you lead large organizations, those goals become bigger, more complex, and more ambiguous. For example, how do you measure your organization’s innovation rate? Or…how would you measure the trust you have with your customers? You have to break your big goals down into smaller, measurable units. You have to pick the right areas to measure, and these areas need to directly correlate to your goals. If we choose a metric that is easy to measure but only loosely connected to a goal, the insights we gain about our progress become unclear and ambiguous.

Another note about picking areas to measure—whatever area we choose to measure and apply pressure to will improve. There may be unintended effects of this improvement we don’t foresee, but when there’s money or job performance associated with improving a particular measurable outcome, that direct outcome will improve.

So let’s ask: If we intend the H-1B visa program to become less necessary, how do we measure and assess the national infrastructure that is technical training and education?

Congress evaluates H-1B visas through a lens of economic metrics. Each H-1B generates revenue from employer fees. A significant portion of these fees goes to the National Science Foundation (NSF) and other entities to support workforce development and education. The NSF administers these funds by distributing grants and scholarships with the intent to improve STEM education and create opportunities for US workers to compete in a global economy.

This system introduces two layers of bureaucracy. Money flows from employers to Congress, then to the NSF, and finally to education and training programs, where we hope this money has its intended impact. As the old saying goes, hope is not a strategy.

Further, the nation has attempted to implement initiatives to enhance technology training programs, particularly for students in low-income areas. Recent attempts include the National Educational Technology Plan (NETP) of 2024. The US Department of Education intends NETP to close the digital gap and improve tech education for all students.

Funding and supporting training programs are commendable efforts. But, if the goal is to strengthen the national infrastructure for technical training and education to reduce reliance on the H-1B visa program, we must measure H-1B visa applications with a clear intent to decrease demand from businesses. That is something we do not do.

In sum, H-1B visa applications are a measure of the tech readiness of the workforce. So…

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Recommendation 1. We need a better metric: H-1B visa applications per capita.

We must move beyond tracking resources and programs to focus on outcomes. To that end, we need to measure and assess the technical training and education of American students by H-1B applications.

Tracking H-1B applications per capita directly measures how well the domestic workforce meets industry demands. A decline would show progress toward self-reliance, while persistent or rising applications would highlight where gaps remain.

Declines in H-1B applications per capita should signal reduced dependency on foreign talent and reflect improvements in the domestic workforce’s readiness to meet tech industry demand. This approach will directly measure how well we are closing skill gaps towards a more self-reliant workforce. Reduced H-1B applications would signal stronger domestic readiness, national innovation, and economic resilience.

Now for our second goal. We need to build technical training and education infrastructure.

2. Build Infrastructure

The best training and education programs are focused and iterative. They’re designed to meet specific needs, build on feedback, and improve over time.

We need infrastructure that bridges the divide between high school and high-level tech performance for working Americans. This infrastructure might look like a network of training and education innovation hubs. With support from local communities, we need to use the nation’s community college infrastructure as an initial base.

We need these programs to apply to all careers. Agriculture needs tech education. Theater needs technical training. Manufacturing needs tech education.

To build this infrastructure, we need to partner with academia to create pathways for students with no education beyond high school to acquire training and professional certifications in tech. Businesses must also play a critical role by participating in class exercises and presenting real-world challenges. This involvement ensures that programs remain relevant and aligned with workforce demands.

However, business participation cannot be optional. A business’s primary duty is to generate profits, and workforce development may not always align with that goal. The duty of the public realm is then to step in and set requirements. Businesses benefit from the stability and talent of American workers, and they have an obligation to support this development.

Therefore, businesses seeking to file H-1B applications must demonstrate active participation in local training programs. This participation could include participating in relevant coursework or exercises, hosting career days, or presenting industry-specific challenges for students to solve. Companies that fail to engage in these programs should not have the option to file H-1B visa applications. This requirement aligns public and private interests, ensuring businesses contribute to the development of the American workforce while still meeting their hiring needs.

This requirement shouldn’t be imposed on all businesses—only those seeking to file H-1B visa applications. Businesses choosing to hire skilled foreign workers must first demonstrate efforts to find and hire skilled American workers.

Courses within these hubs must be laser-focused on high-performance job skills. While valuable, humanities courses are not essential for many roles and should remain optional. Programs should bridge the gap between high school and professional careers, offering practical training that goes beyond surface-level knowledge. For example, statistics might be a subject skimmed over in high school but would require deeper exploration in a program designed for data analysis.

This isn’t about theory—it’s about measurable results: reducing reliance on H-1B visas, increasing workforce readiness, and securing meaningful employment for American workers. So…

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Recommendation 2. Create a network of focused and iterative training hubs.

This network would enable Americans to develop high-value skills, solve critical industry challenges, and secure employment in fields currently filled through H-1B applications. Investing in this infrastructure would build capability, enhance economic competitiveness, and create pathways for all Americans to succeed in the modern workforce.

Building this infrastructure would directly address our Constitutional duty to promote the general welfare of Americans.

Let’s move on to our final goal. Building a strong training infrastructure removes one barrier to workforce readiness. We must address another: the financial burden of student loan debt, which disproportionately affects low-income Americans. To fulfill our Constitutional mandate to establish justice, we need to eliminate student loan debt interest for the lower half of American students by income level.

3. Support justice by eliminating student loan debt interest for students with low-income levels

We need American students to build their individual capability through training and education. This collective individual capability drives national capability. Further, we have a Constitutional duty to establish justice for all Americans. We achieve justice when each individual has the opportunity to fulfill their role in society.

Student loan debt presents a significant barrier to this goal. For students from low-income backgrounds, this burden can become insurmountable. Due to predatory or poorly structured terms, some student loan debt grows even when borrowers consistently make their payments. A 2021 Wall Street Journal article, Why Student Debt Keeps Growing—Even When Borrowers Keep Paying, highlights how total balances can increase over time despite regular payments, trapping borrowers in a cycle of debt.

This violates the principle of justice. If students from the lowest income brackets cannot repay their loans and gain access to training and education, they are effectively barred from achieving the qualifications necessary to contribute meaningfully to society. Without this access, they cannot fulfill their potential or aid in building national capability.

Let’s consider a straightforward question: Why does the government charge interest on federal student loans? The government isn’t a for-profit institution, and the nation benefits when its citizens improve their individual capability. Charging interest on these loans neither strengthens national finances nor aids individual students—it simply prolongs repayment periods and exacerbates financial stress.

Eliminating interest on federal student loans for low-income students would provide these individuals with a fair opportunity to repay their debt within a reasonable time frame. This would enable them to focus on building their skills and fulfilling their role in society rather than being trapped in a cycle of debt.

So…

Recommendation 3. Eliminate student loan debt interest for students with low-income levels.

This change would remove a significant barrier to education for millions of Americans, ensuring that low-income students can contribute to the nation’s collective capability without being penalized by debt that grows faster than they can repay it. By supporting these students, we uphold our Constitutional duty to establish justice and strengthen both individual and national prosperity.

In Sum

America’s guiding document exists to achieve six goals.

One of these is to promote the general welfare. In part, promoting the general welfare means building national infrastructure that enables individual and national capability.

A second goal is to establish justice. We achieve justice when Americans from any station of birth have access to that infrastructure so they can take the initiative to build their capability and fulfill their role in society.

Our continued reliance on H-1B visas means we have either failed to build the infrastructure that generates individual capability or built the system in a way that denies Americans from any station of birth the opportunity to access that infrastructure, or both.

To achieve our Constitutional aims, we must set and progress towards three goals.

We must move beyond tracking resources and programs instead of focusing on outcomes. To that end, we need to measure and assess the technical training and education of American students by H-1B applications.

We need to create a network of focused and iterative training hubs. These hubs will reduce reliance on H-1B visas, increase workforce readiness, and secure meaningful employment for American workers.

And we need to eliminate student loan debt interest for students with low-income levels in order to remove barriers to tech training and education for millions of Americans.

Some will say these aims are too lofty, even unachievable.

To that, I say there are six reasons America exists, and these goals tie directly to two of those reasons. If we don’t make our decisive effort to align with America’s purpose, why are we here?

May God bless the United States of America.

I Am and the Burning Bush

This is not a religious piece. But stick with me for a minute.

I grew up attending small country churches. As a young boy, I asked my mother, “Who made God?”

She had the answers. No one made God. God has always been and always will be—the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. Of course, this answer was not satisfactory to me. As a boy and now, my limited human capacity to understand infinity, quantum physics, and whether all time and space can exist simultaneously demonstrates I will never really be able to comprehend the nature of God. But I still try and understand.

The story that sticks with me most about the existence of God is the story of Moses and the burning bush. If you’re unfamiliar, here’s a quick version.

Moses was tending a flock of sheep near the mountain of God when he noticed a strange sight. A bush was on fire, but the fire wasn’t destroying it. He was curious and approached the bush to investigate.

As he approached the bush, God called out to him. God told Moses that He had seen the suffering of His people in Egypt and would deliver them from slavery.

God gave Moses a mission: He was to go to Pharaoh, convince him to release the slaves, and lead them out of Egypt. Moses pushed back. He doubted. Still trying to shirk his duty, Moses asked what name he should give when others questioned who sent him.

God answered, “I AM WHO I AM.” And, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘I Am has sent me to you.’”

The story isn’t compelling to me because God spoke to Moses. It’s not compelling because the bush didn’t burn up. It’s not compelling because of the subsequent exodus and lack of faith demonstrated by humanity that doomed a generation. It’s compelling because only once in the Judeo-Christian tradition did a human ask God His name. Moses is the only one to explicitly ask God His name and receive a direct answer. And God didn’t answer the Almighty, the Creator, or the Ancient of Days. God answered, my name is ‘I Am.’

No human making up a name for God would have thought to call the Almighty ‘I Am.’ … Names signify identity but always depend on something external to the individual. No one names themselves. However, God has no ‘other’ to provide a name. God exists outside the framework of creation and human conventions. So, when asked for a name, the only possible response is “I Am.”

Of course, the 3,500-year-old story doesn’t erase the questions about the existence of God. Because tomorrow is Christmas Day, I’d like to approach national belief from another angle. The source of love for others is God. Whether you believe God exists or not, the question of how we live and treat each other remains.

God commanded us to love each other. But even if God doesn’t exist, should we not love our countrymen?

Loving one another isn’t just for the good of others. It’s for our own good. Said another way, loving each other brings us more benefits than it gives to others. And nowhere is this love better demonstrated than in the national goals enshrined in the Preamble to the Constitution.

Love and the Constitution

The Preamble to the Constitution outlines the document’s purpose. Without the Preamble, the rest of the Constitution loses all meaning. The Preamble provides the foundation, outlining the reason the Constitution exists. Its aspirational and nearly unattainable goals are the greatest expression of brotherly love ever written by mankind outside a spiritual text. It outlines…

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Let’s look at it piece by piece. The nation’s guiding document outlines a national purpose to achieve six highly aspirational goals: Union, Justice, Tranquility, Defense, Welfare, and Liberty. America strives to achieve these six goals to secure the benefits for ourselves and others. The nation’s first goal…

Union

Our first national goal is to preserve the union. Our union is a union of states and individuals who live in those states. Like any marriage, partnership, or community, there is no lasting union without love.

In the context of union, love isn’t about affection. It’s commitment, sacrifice, and a willingness to work through differences. A union can’t thrive without the shared understanding that we are stronger together than apart. Without love and commitment for each other, the cracks in the union fracture and lead to collapse.

The closing line of the Declaration of Independence states, “And for the support of this Declaration…we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.” This line underscores the essence of union later found in the Constitution—a bond forged by shared goals and sacrifice. The signatories committed themselves to one another and to the union of states. They understood that achieving something greater than themselves required sacrifice and a willingness to stand together, even at the cost of losing the war and everything they had.

Union isn’t the absence of conflict or failure. It’s the shared responsibility of both. It doesn’t mean agreement; it means shared ownership of the outcomes, good or bad. We are a union, united in success and united in failure.

This is the heart of any lasting union. No matter success or failure, states and individuals pledge themselves to one another, not out of convenience but out of love, honor, and shared purpose. Without this kind of commitment, no union can endure.

The nation’s second goal is…

Justice

Our second goal is to establish justice. Loving each other enables justice for ourselves and others. It’s not just for the good of others. It’s for the good of ourselves.

Justice is the foundation for a society where individuals can fulfill their roles and contribute to the nation’s well-being. The founders outlined justice as a collective responsibility because it depends on the systems we build as a nation, not just individual action. It requires institutions that ensure fairness while empowering individuals to pursue their potential.

Justice means that people should be treated fairly and equally under the law. It also means that society strives toward individual opportunity and the equitable distribution of resources like education, healthcare, and housing. It encompasses fair opportunities in criminal justice, voting rights, and workplaces.

Justice is not a handout program. While it’s a national responsibility to establish conditions for justice, it’s an individual responsibility to rise to greatness. No one American can tell another what’s important to them, and our opinions change as we age and have different life experiences. Further, the American dream isn’t about material possessions. It’s about having the opportunity to pursue your dreams and live a fulfilling life.

These dreams have shared themes. An environment of justice enables people from humble beginnings to buy a house in a safe neighborhood with a good school for their children. Justice enabled self-educated President Lincoln to ascend from nothing to the nation’s highest office in arguably our greatest time of need. He remarked, “I am a living witness that any one of your children may look to come here as my father’s child has.” Justice makes the American Dream possible for anyone willing to strive for it.

Justice ensures stability and opportunity. These conditions benefit everyone, including those who feel far removed from the injustice others face. Justice encourages progress. When we empower others to succeed, society becomes more prosperous. Innovation, ideas, and contributions come from every corner of society and lift us all economically and culturally.

Justice isn’t charity—it’s opportunity. Justice isn’t favoritism—it’s fairness. Justice isn’t abstract—it’s the foundation of progress. Loving each other enables justice for ourselves and others. It’s not just for the good of others. It’s for the good of ourselves.

Our nation’s third goal is…

Tranquility

Our third national goal is to ensure domestic tranquility. Tranquility means a society built on order, stability, and mutual respect.

Loving each other supports order and stability. Respect for one another makes compromise possible and conflict resolvable. Without it, rebellions, riots, and civil unrest rise, undermining national unity and success.

Tranquility requires effort from every individual and institution. … When we succeed, we resolve our differences with grace and dignity and are stronger together.

Tranquility was not assured in the years between the Articles of Confederation (1781–1789) and the Constitution.

Take Shays’ Rebellion (1786–1787) as an example. It began as an uprising of farmers in western Massachusetts, many of whom were Revolutionary War veterans. These farmers faced land foreclosure and imprisonment for unpaid debts. They felt betrayed by a system they had fought to defend. Led by Daniel Shays, they took up arms, closed courts, and attempted to disrupt government operations.

The rebellion revealed a dangerous flaw in the Articles of Confederation: individual states didn’t have the capacity to maintain order, and a weak federal government offered no support. The national government lacked the power to raise an army or enforce laws. This left states like Massachusetts to handle conflicts alone. The rebellion exposed the risks of a fragile union and demonstrated that the nation itself was at risk without tranquility.

Shays’ Rebellion directly influenced the drafting of the Constitution. The framers understood that tranquility had to be actively ensured through a stronger federal government capable of addressing domestic challenges while respecting state and individual sovereignty. That’s why “insure domestic Tranquility” became one of the six core national goals outlined in the Preamble.

Tranquility is a deliberate national choice to maintain collective peace, stability, and order. Peace comes from respect. Respect comes from love. Loving each other benefits us individually because it maintains stability and order.

Tranquility alone isn’t enough. We have to safeguard it, which leads us to our next goal. Our fourth national goal is…

Defense

Our fourth national goal is defense or mutual protection. If tranquility ensures domestic order, defense preserves that order and extends it to support America and her interests inside and beyond our borders. Defense is a deliberate choice to create conditions where freedom and stability thrive.

Loving each other supports protection because a united people are better equipped to ensure their survival and power. When a nation defends its interests, it does so out of love for its citizens and a commitment to the opportunities they seek to secure.

Nations have no choice but to ensure their survival and protect their interests. To guard the safety and security of the American people and our allies, we act alone and with partner nations to create favorable global conditions. These efforts protect freedom of action and influence.

Coalitions and international partnerships enhance security and contribute to global stability. These partnerships are strategic efforts that strengthen stability and set conditions for individuals to pursue their interests. By pooling resources, sharing intelligence, and projecting power, nations achieve together what none could achieve alone. When we protect our allies, we strengthen ourselves. A stable global environment ultimately contributes to the prosperity and safety of individual Americans.

A strong defense fuels economic growth. Stability provides the foundation for businesses to innovate and thrive and for investments to grow. Nations with robust defense and stable alliances attract global investment, foster trade, and expand economic opportunities. Defense and economics are inseparable. Economic strength fuels defense, and defense ensures the safety of markets and supply chains.

Economic strength underpins global influence, sustains technological leadership, and allows the nation to respond effectively to challenges. Protecting business interests and fostering growth are as much a part of defense as any military strategy.

Defense is a collective effort and a shared responsibility. Loving each other benefits us all because mutual protection creates stability and opportunity for individuals, businesses, and communities to succeed.

Our fifth national goal is…

Welfare

Our fifth national goal is to promote the general welfare. This goal identifies our collective duty to ensure the well-being of all Americans. The general welfare has nothing to do with social welfare programs. When the states ratified the Constitution to make it effective, social welfare programs did not exist.

Loving each other means recognizing that our success as individuals is tied to the success of others. People can contribute to society when the nation sets conditions to achieve widespread education, healthcare, housing, and safety. Empowering Americans to contribute to society is an investment in the nation's infrastructure.

This national infrastructure is human capital — the knowledge, skills, and abilities of individual Americans. Human capital is foundational infrastructure similar to bridges, roads, and dams. Collective individual capability generates national capability. Said another way, the skills and knowledge of individuals build the strength of the nation as a whole.

Promoting general welfare requires balancing individual freedom with collective progress. This balance means providing opportunities while preserving personal responsibility.

Investing in human capital—like education and healthcare—strengthens our collective ability to thrive and innovate. Consider education. It’s a cornerstone of promoting the general welfare. Education supports individuals, regardless of background, in gaining the knowledge, skills, and training necessary to function in and improve society. Or consider healthcare. It protects individuals and communities from preventable crises. Promoting the general welfare means supporting national infrastructure that demonstrates commitment to the idea that every American deserves the chance to pursue happiness and live a meaningful life. This effective governance demonstrates love for others.

Americans don’t need handouts to connect to the infrastructure. Big infrastructure programs demonstrate that Americans will connect themselves to infrastructure when given the opportunity. When allowed to move goods across states, American businesses jump at the chance. When we need flood control for agriculture and resources for national security, Americans are ready. When electricity is available, rural Americans connect themselves to electricity.

Loving each other means promoting the general welfare. Promoting the general welfare means building national infrastructure. National infrastructure includes expanding the infrastructure that is individual capability.

And our final national goal…

Liberty

Our sixth and final national goal is to secure the blessings of liberty for ourselves and those who follow.

Liberty is the promise that every American has the right to live freely, to pursue their dreams, and to choose their path. It is the ultimate expression of love and respect for the individual. Liberty is the right to choose. These choices have consequences. Personal choice enables us to grow through personal responsibility. Without liberty, there is no responsibility.

Liberty empowers us to learn from the consequences of our choices, fostering resilience, innovation, and a deeper sense of responsibility.

Individual liberty is the hallmark of America. It’s a foundational concept that represents several rights. The freedom to practice a religion of your choosing, or none at all, is a right of liberty. Freedom of speech and expression is liberty. Freedom to vote is liberty. The list is long.

When we allow some to take liberty from others, we risk losing our own. To preserve our individual liberty, we must protect and fight for the rights of others.

Therefore, it’s the right of Americans to express their liberty and the responsibility of Americans to tolerate others who would express their liberty in a manner we may find objectionable.

Liberty allows for diversity of thought, belief, and action. These are the hallmarks of a thriving society. Liberty is not an excuse for selfishness. It is an opportunity to grow through personal responsibility, to learn from our choices, and to help secure the freedom of others. Loving each other means fighting for liberty—not just for ourselves, but for each other.

The Ties That Bind

These six goals tie together.

There is no union without demonstrated commitment, sacrifice, and willingness to work through differences.

There is no general welfare without the willingness to build infrastructure to expand individual and national capability.

There is no justice without stability and opportunity for Americans from any station of birth to access that infrastructure.

We can’t preserve what individuals and communities can achieve without the tranquility built on order, stability, and mutual respect.

We must protect the union and interests beyond our borders through partnership, engagement, and defense.

These conditions enable a society where Americans can choose their path, note the consequences of their choices, and develop the personal responsibility that leads to individual and community growth. This is liberty.

So…

To Love Your Country, Love Your Countrymen

We are commanded to love each other not for the good of others but for the good of ourselves. Loving others helps us individually. Loving each other isn’t an unachievable ideal. Love is a practice. It brings us union, justice, tranquility, protection, welfare, and liberty.

Therefore, we can’t love our country without loving our countrymen.

My best wishes are with you and yours this Christmas. I’m not a priest and have no right to bless you, but I’ll do it anyway.

May God bless you and keep you;May God smile on you and be gracious to you;May God look on you with favor and give you peace.

May God bless the United States of America.

Can we raise wages to fully fund Social Security?

Social Security is societal insurance, not an individual retirement plan. Its purpose is to protect society by ensuring a basic level of income security, particularly for the elderly, disabled, and survivors of deceased workers. It is a safety net to prevent poverty and economic distress in vulnerable populations. This fosters societal stability. Unlike a private retirement plan, Social Security pools contributions from the workforce to provide collective support, shielding America from the dire effects of widespread poverty that harm the economy as a whole. However, stagnant wages undermine this system. They limit revenue growth and increase dependency on government programs. Addressing stagnant wages is vital to ensuring the sustainability of Social Security and fostering financial independence.

Now that the election is over, the conversation about fixing Social Security has gained momentum. On the December 8th NBC News Meet the Press, President-elect Trump said he didn’t plan to cut Social Security. 

At the same time, Social Security is underfunded, and the program’s failure to provide full benefits is imminent.

We can’t bury our heads in the sand and pretend the problem will resolve itself. According to the Social Security Administration Annual Trust Fund report, “in 2023, the (Old-Age and Survivors Insurance) Trust Fund’s cost of $1,237.3 billion exceeded income by $70.4 billion.” At the same time, the “(Disability Insurance) Trust Fund’s income of $183.8 billion exceeded cost by $29.0 billion.” For those of us trying to do public math, the total shortfall was $41 billion. Let’s remember that figure for later.

The timeframe of 2034 to 2037 coincides with the time when all the Boomers reach retirement age. The size of the Boomer generation significantly exceeded the Gen X generation, and Social Security funding can’t keep up. Because Social Security revenue is lower than needed during this timeframe, the first Americans who could lose part of their Social Security benefits are the Boomers. Social Security benefits wouldn’t have to be eliminated; they could be reduced to distribute the available funds accordingly. The Social Security Administration estimates it could pay about 79% of benefits to retirees in 2034.

In principle, there are three approaches to addressing the deficiency, each with its trade-offs. First, we can increase revenue. Second, we can cut benefits. Third, we can increase the size of the working population.

You can rename these approaches any way you’d like. As an example, instead of saying we need to increase revenue, you can say we should raise or eliminate the Social Security tax cap. For 2024, the tax cap is $168,600. Employees and employers each contribute 6.2% of wages toward Social Security up to this income cap, totaling 12.4%. Any earnings beyond $168,600 are exempt. Advocates for this approach claim if higher earners pay Social Security taxes on earnings above $168,600, it could boost the funds available for the program. Critics say raising or eliminating the tax cap illegitimately increases taxes on a population that won’t see a proportional increase in their benefits. This creates tension between the goals of funding Social Security and maintaining a balance in tax equity.

As another example, instead of saying we need to cut benefits, you can say we should increase the retirement age. This approach means individuals would need to work longer before becoming eligible for benefits. By raising the age threshold, the proposal would reduce the total amount paid to beneficiaries over their lifetimes, as they would have fewer years to draw benefits. Advocates of this idea argue that it reflects increased life expectancy, aligning the system with modern demographics. Critics highlight that the life expectancy for the bottom half of earners has not risen since 1983, and they are the individuals who need Social Security the most.

Of course, fully funding Social Security is a systemic problem with no silver bullet solution. We need to compromise on both ends of the spectrum. But we should still consider new ideas.

I propose we consider something other than the proposals we commonly hear. Instead of focusing on cuts or caps, we should address the root cause of the issue: stagnant wages.

Higher wages directly increase Social Security revenue through larger payroll tax contributions.

Higher wages reduce the need for Social Security and other social programs. They make individual workers more financially resilient if we do have to cut benefits. Further, fewer taxpayer dollars are funneled through the bureaucracy, which means less waste.

Higher wages empower individuals to achieve greater financial independence. This fosters long-term economic stability for workers.

First, let’s look at how we can increase revenue by raising wages.

Higher Wages Increase Social Security Revenue

Raising wages directly increases Social Security revenue by increasing payroll tax contributions. Employers match worker wages dollar for dollar. These funds are the primary source of Social Security revenue.

Social Security taxes represent a percentage of earnings. When workers earn more, they contribute more to the program.

Let’s consider the non-starter idea of raising the minimum wage across the board. An Economic Policy Institute fact sheet from 2021, titled “Why the U.S. needs a $15 minimum wage,” identified raising the minimum wage would “lift pay for 32 million workers—21% of the U.S. workforce.” We can address why this idea is a non-starter in a minute, but let’s consider the financial impact on Social Security.

If 21% of the workforce earned higher wages, an immediate effect would be a significant boost to Social Security payroll tax contributions. The Institute estimated that a $15 minimum wage would generate $107 billion in higher wages.

12.4% of worker wages goes to Social Security, 6.2% from worker wages, and 6.2% from employer contributions. 12.4% of $107 billion is $13.26 billion.

Social Security’s shortfall was $41 billion this year. Raising worker wages to $15 an hour would reduce the shortfall to $28 billion.

However, raising the minimum wage is a non-starter because businesses can’t raise wages without increasing revenue. Taking broad action, such as raising the minimum wage to a federal standard for all areas, threatens business vigor and viability nationally, making this approach politically untenable.

For example, a $15 federal minimum wage might be too low in high-cost-of-living areas, viable in some areas, and overwhelm small businesses in lower-cost rural areas. Businesses must generate sufficient revenue to support higher wages, and a one-size-fits-all mandate doesn’t account for regional differences. Even if it’s a potential solution, it’s not achievable if we can’t gain consensus.

Instead of mandating raising the minimum wage, we need to increase small business revenue and incentivize businesses to pay higher wages. We could reduce the tax burden for small businesses that prove they pay wages above social program levels. This approach would help businesses generate the revenue to pay higher wages, reduce the national need for poverty programs, and increase funding to shore up Social Security.

Beyond increasing Social Security revenue, raising wages has a compounding effect on the broader economic system. When workers earn more, their reliance on government assistance programs like the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) decreases. This reduces the financial strain on taxpayers and minimizes the inefficiency of funneling the American people’s money through the bureaucracy. Let’s look at how higher wages decrease the need for social programs and drive efficient use of public resources.

Higher Wages: Financial Resilience and Reduced Government Waste

Let’s establish a fundamental truth: the government owns no assets. It has no money of its own. Every dollar spent by elected representatives or government workers is an asset of the American people. When government officials spend money, they allocate resources that belong to the citizens they serve.

Social programs, then, pass money from one individual to another through layers of bureaucracy that waste at least 30 to 40 percent of those resources. We should inherently oppose a system where half of American families rely on this inefficiency to survive. Even though we can’t love our country and not our countrymen, this system reflects a failure to achieve financial resilience across society.

Workers who earn livable wages achieve financial resilience and don’t need government assistance programs such as the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) or Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). One immediate benefit is that more financially resilient workers can better absorb cuts if they are necessary. Financial resilience means workers have the capacity to adapt to unexpected costs.

Further, raising wages reduces reliance on social programs, which means less of the American people’s money is funneled through the bureaucracy. Less taxpayer money eaten by the government means less waste and more efficient use of public funds.

For example, EITC is designed to supplement the incomes of low-wage workers, effectively subsidizing employers who pay below livable wages. By increasing wages, fewer workers qualify for EITC, reducing government payouts while businesses pay true labor value.

The money not spent on social programs could then be redirected to fiscally responsible efforts, such as balancing the budget, paying off the national debt, and strengthening social security.

Let’s consider the drastic impact this proposal could have on national finances. In 2023, on just these two programs, the nation spent $57 billion supplementing worker wages through EITC and $112 billion supplementing low wages through SNAP. $169 billion combined.

If higher wages led to only a 20% reduction in reliance on these programs, $34 billion of American taxpayer funds would be available to help balance the budget. This figure exceeds the necessary funds to eliminate the Social Security shortage for the year, albeit in a different money bucket. If we could reduce social program expenditures by half, we could save $85 billion annually.

Opponents of this approach argue that workers need to justify their higher wages with more productivity. This is a valid point. Some jobs and employees generate higher revenue for their employers and inherently command higher wages.

But we should consider—even if it’s true that some jobs pay low wages, does that mean it’s the taxpayer’s responsibility to pick up the tab? There’s no valid argument to justify any employer offloading labor costs onto the taxpayer. Use any example you would like—dishwasher, janitor, burger maker. Even if a business thinks it’s a low-wage job, under no circumstance should it be a taxpayer-funded one. If a business doesn’t think a janitor is an important job, they should go a month without one and see if they change their mind. When businesses pay wages below social program thresholds, those jobs become taxpayer-funded.

Beyond saving taxpayer dollars, higher wages allow Americans to escape the cycle of government dependence and build financial resilience. When individuals can rely on their earnings to meet basic needs and save for the future, they gain stability and resilience in their personal lives and can contribute to the broader economy.

Higher Wages Foster Financial Independence

Higher wages enable workers to build greater financial security and resilience. Workers can save more for emergencies, invest in their future, and rely less on safety nets.

How would we reduce the reliance on programs like Social Security without paying workers livable wages that enable them to put food on their tables, heat their houses, and save for the future?

When they don’t make livable wages, workers go to the lower-cost grocery store to put food on their tables. Except there isn’t one. They go to the same grocery store as everyone else and use SNAP benefits.

To find a house to heat, workers might move their family into a cheaper apartment. Except those don’t exist, either. Those are government housing units.

If workers can’t put food on their tables and heat their houses without government assistance, how would we reduce their dependence on Social Security and other safety nets?

If we don’t address the root cause—low wages—programs like Social Security will remain essential as a retirement benefit and a lifeline for daily survival. Reducing reliance on Social Security means ensuring workers can build financial security through livable wages, personal savings, and access to private retirement options.

We need to set conditions enabling workers to be independent from government programs to meet basic needs. Workers must be able to afford food, housing, and utilities without inefficient taxpayer-funded government assistance. Livable wages create the foundation for financial independence. With higher wages, workers can save more for emergencies and strengthen their retirement options on their own.

Some doubt higher worker wages would achieve these goals, but Universal Basic Income pilot studies prove them wrong. Americans aren’t irresponsible with money, lazy, or stupid. They use extra money to gain skills and get better jobs, move into safer neighborhoods, buy shoes and coats for their kids, and heat their houses. They go back to school and get degrees and certifications. They work MORE with the extra funds, not less, and the work they do is more meaningful.

Americans with enough money live stable, productive lives and can save money for their futures. They are less dependent on Social Security and all other social programs.

In Sum

We need to shore up Social Security funding. We have few choices: increase revenue, cut benefits, or expand the working population.

I propose we consider something other than the proposals we commonly hear. Instead of focusing on cuts or caps, we should address the root cause of the issue: stagnant wages.

Higher wages directly increase Social Security revenue.

Higher wages reduce the need for Social Security and other social programs. They make individual workers more financially resilient if we do have to cut benefits. Further, fewer taxpayer dollars are funneled through the bureaucracy, which means less waste.

Higher wages empower individuals to achieve greater financial independence. This fosters long-term economic stability for workers.

Fixing Social Security is achievable, and higher wages directly address the root cause of the issue.

May God bless the United States of America.

Last week, I analyzed Air Force Captain Lacie Hester’s Silver Star to highlight a contradiction. We can’t claim to value the military’s ability to achieve decisive effects while categorically excluding women from combat roles. I concluded that if we intend to value results over diversity, we should be ready to welcome any capable individual—male or female—who can help achieve efficient violence in support of national objectives.

This week, I’m pushing that logic a step further. If women belong in combat roles, do they also belong on the most elite and demanding ground combat teams? Let’s test our commitment to results-based standards and challenge ourselves to rethink how we select, train, and deploy our nation’s most specialized warfighters.

If the central premise is that results matter more than diversity, then the standards driving ground combat roles must be no exception. If a woman can meet those standards and enhance mission success, excluding her would weaken, not strengthen, our ability to achieve decisive effects. At the same time, forcing either men or women into ground combat positions without the qualifications to succeed directly threatens our ability to achieve national objectives.

Let’s explore.

Captain Marsh and a Cup of Coffee

In 2008, I was an Air Force Captain attached to 1st and 2nd US Marine Expeditionary Force (I MEF and II MEF) under the Multi-National Forces West command structure in Iraq.

My role in Iraq was to enhance combat capability with special technical tools. My bosses were Marines, and my customers were primarily the Marines and Special Operations Forces (SOF) Task Forces. I developed strong relationships with my customers, identified technical tools they needed to support their missions, and integrated them into their operations. We developed some tools in-house and integrated others with support from national agencies like the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and National Security Agency (NSA).

My work area was tucked away behind some armed Marines who kept watch day and night over the area, and it was right next to the SOF Task Force coordinator. The Task Force coordinator was a US Navy Sea, Air, and Land Captain (commonly known as a Navy SEAL). For those unfamiliar with different service ranks, an Air Force Captain is a relatively junior officer rank, while a Navy Captain ranks just below Admiral, a senior officer rank. No matter, though, he and I had a good relationship. Let’s call him Captain Marsh.

Captain Marsh had an attraction rarely found in the area—he had acquired a coffee maker and had some supply of ground coffee. I didn’t want to overstay my welcome, but I did need to determine when the Task Force might need support. So, every so often, I would tell my small team that I was “going to talk to the SEALs.” Captain Marsh would fill me in on relevant upcoming operations, and I might have a cup of coffee.

Captain Marsh’s coffee pot attracted more than just me. Other senior officers would visit, and I would hear snippets of their conversations. On one of these visits, a Marine Corps Colonel and Captain Marsh shared insight that challenged my assumptions.

Their conversation centered around the role of women in ground combat. Captain Marsh mentioned that Muslim women couldn’t freely talk with men. In many traditional Muslim societies, culture and religion restrict interactions between unrelated men and women. These norms dictate that women avoid direct communication or physical proximity with men who are not family members. For women in conservative communities, speaking with male strangers is inappropriate and brings social repercussions.

These cultural differences posed significant challenges during military operations, particularly when teams needed to gather intelligence or conduct searches. Without female team members to bridge the gap, mission-essential information from local women was inaccessible.

If a team needed to question a woman, they needed a woman to do so, which drove a requirement for women on ground combat teams. Later I learned that as a result of this requirement, the Marines established Task Force Lioness, which attached women to ground combat teams to provide support.

Five years later, at a training event in San Diego, I heard more to the story. The Navy SEAL commanding officer at Naval Amphibious Base Coronado also brought up the value of women in ground combat roles in Iraq.

This second story was that when women were attached to SOF teams, they couldn’t be decorations just because they were necessary for intelligence gathering—they had to be active team members. Female team members provided perimeter security during operations. The women were armed and applied lethal force when necessary. They also played a crucial role in stopping runners, going so far as to crash their vehicles into escaping vehicles to ensure mission success.

Both commanding officers emphasized the extraordinary bravery the women demonstrated. The women often put their lives and health at immediate risk, sometimes more than the men, to achieve objectives. In critical moments, their decisive action proved integral to mission success. The respect the officers had gained for the women was evident.

If asked, in the context of the environment we operated in at that time, whether women should be on SOF teams, I know the answer they would give. Both senior leaders shared the same opinion.

Still, regardless of operational needs or cultural advantages, inclusion in ground combat teams hinges on meeting the grueling physical and mental standards required of every member. The first and most fundamental of these is the individual physical requirement.

Individual Physical Requirements

There are domains of society in which there are absolutely no gender barriers. Only results matter. In these areas, individuals succeed or fail based solely on their ability to achieve results.

Due to the physical requirements, the National Football League (NFL) is a prime example that is not so dissimilar to Special Operations Forces (SOF). In the NFL, winning and money are the only outcomes that matter.

Women are not barred from playing in the NFL, but there are no female players. If a woman could compete and win at the necessary level, an NFL team would sign her to a contract. While women are not prohibited from playing, the competitive nature ensures that only those capable of performing at the highest level make the cut—regardless of gender.

The same principle applies to ground combat SOF teams. The stakes are higher than a football game, but the premise remains: meeting the standard matters more than who is meeting it. If a woman can perform to the required level—carry the same load, endure the same physical stress, and contribute to mission success—there is no logical reason to exclude her.

At the same time, just as there is no reason to add a player to an NFL team who doesn’t contribute to winning games, there is no reason to force the integration of women into specialized ground combat roles. Books like Kill Bin Laden: A Delta Force Commander's Account of the Hunt for the World's Most Wanted Man vividly depict the grueling conditions SOF operators endure in war. Very few men can survive and operate in these conditions; the vast majority cannot. It’s possible that some women could likewise survive and operate. But forcing either men or women into these positions without the qualifications to succeed directly threatens our ability to achieve national objectives.

The inherent tension arises from the Department of Defense's (DoD) integration of women into combat roles, which officially started in 2013 and has continued for the past 11 years. Last month, the new nominee for Secretary of Defense stated women have no place in combat. Critics worry that as we adjust to accommodate women, we chip away at the qualities that make America’s ground combat units extraordinary. They fear a loss of unit cohesion, a decline in physical performance, and a less capable fighting force. In their view, when we soften the edges to expand eligibility, we erode the team’s razor-sharp ability to operate under the harshest conditions.

They cite a 1992 Presidential Commission on the Assignment of Women in the Armed Forces, which concluded that putting women in combat risks the lives of entire units for the sake of career opportunities. It found, “Risking the lives of a military unit in combat to provide career opportunities or accommodate the personal desires or interests of an individual, or group of individuals, is more than bad military judgment. It is morally wrong.”

They further highlight a 2015 Marine Corps Force Integration Plan assessment that found all-male units conducted movements faster and were more lethal than mixed-gendered units. They further had healthier, more physically resilient Marines. That study found differences in individual performance. For example, “When negotiating the wall obstacle, male Marines threw their packs to the top of the wall, whereas female Marines required regular assistance in getting their packs to the top.”

They posit that since the DoD directive to integrate women into combat roles, senior officers have reduced individual standards to increase participation. This view is supported by a mass email titled “Careerism, Cronyism, and Malfeasance” in the US Army Special Warfare Center and School sent through Special Operations Command in 2017.

These findings and fears are real. Many of them are rooted in firsthand studies and historical assessments. Still, they don’t capture the entire picture. While effective operations demand brute strength and raw speed, they also hinge on capabilities like cultural insight, intelligence access, and specialized skills that women can bring to the fight. In complex irregular warfare environments, overlooking these advantages means missing critical opportunities to achieve decisive effects.

So There’s the Rub

Direct accounts from SOF operators confirm that decisive action by women has proven integral to mission success. In some environments, their participation is essential. Not every combat role demands the rare physical endurance required for months-long operations in remote mountains. Perimeter security, intelligence gathering, and other specialized tasks are equally vital.

Further, if some missions require female operators, women must consistently train and serve alongside men, developing the trust and cohesion that define effective teams. While women may not meet the grueling physical demands required of some ground combat roles, the same is true for most men. What matters is finding those who can excel—whether they pilot AC-130 gunships, crew CV-22 Ospreys, or secure a perimeter as part of a SEAL team. These are combat positions. Some of these are ground combat roles.

At the same time, if throwing a pack over a Marine Corps wall obstacle translates into faster, more lethal units, we should add that and other necessary requirements to the positions in question. After reassessing what matters for mission success, we should train and hold both men and women to that standard. Those who qualify earn their place.

Rather than making blanket rules that exclude women from ground combat roles, we need policies that prioritize lethal effects. That means defining standards based on actual mission needs, not arbitrary quotas, and applying those standards evenly. Anyone who meets them should be welcomed.

If we intend to value results over diversity, we must follow through. Our standards must reflect what it takes to achieve national objectives, and we must embrace those who can meet those standards—regardless of gender.

May God bless the United States of America.

This Week’s Theme: Unenforceable Ideals

This week, we explore three unenforceable ideals—situations where two conflicting truths can’t coexist.

First, we draw parallels between Prohibition and illegal immigration, highlighting the government’s struggle to control the demand for goods and services.

Second, we examine the logical inconsistency of supporting stricter climate change regulations while opposing overturning Chevron deference.

Last, we address the contradiction of prioritizing military effectiveness while excluding women from combat roles.

Let’s begin with the story of Mabel Walker Willebrandt and her fight to enforce Prohibition.

The First Lady of Law

In 1921, President Warren Harding appointed Mabel Walker Willebrandt to the office of Assistant Attorney General of the United States. The appointment made Mabel the highest-ranking woman in the US government in the 1920s. Among her other duties as Assistant Attorney General, Ms. Willebrandt was charged with enforcing the Volstead Act, or National Prohibition Act. Congress passed the Volstead Act to enforce the 18th Amendment to the Constitution, which attempted to ban the “manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors.”

Ms. Willebrandt recognized that enforcing Prohibition through raids on speakeasies and small-time bootleggers was ineffective. She described this as “like trying to dry up the Atlantic Ocean with a blotter.” Instead, she enforced the Volstead Act with a two-pronged effort: addressing tax evasion and targeting major criminal enterprises.

Her first effort, addressing tax evasion, was successful. During her service, Willebrandt argued more than 40 cases before the Supreme Court. One of the most decisive was United States vs. Sullivan (1927). In that case, Willebrandt argued, and the high court agreed, that illegal income was taxable. Because illegal income was taxable, failing to declare income from illegal operations was tax evasion and a felony offense.

Since illegal alcohol sales generated untaxed income, US vs. Sullivan gave the federal government the authority to investigate and prosecute these operations under tax laws. This effort weakened the finances of organized crime. Willebrandt used the precedent set by US vs. Sullivan to prosecute powerful gangsters such as Al Capone for federal tax crimes.

Her second effort, targeting major criminal enterprises, was less effective. It required coordination across multiple federal and state agencies, which often lacked resources and cooperation. Criminal networks adapted faster than enforcement efforts, developing new smuggling routes and distribution systems that outpaced government responses.

Willebrandt’s second effort failed because Prohibition lacked broad public support. In other words, Americans wanted to drink, and no effort by the federal government was going to reduce the demand for alcohol. Although the government found some success in raiding production facilities and intercepting smuggling operations, these initiatives amounted to a game of Whac-A-Mole. As soon as one network was dismantled, another rose in its place.

The failure of Prohibition enforcement is a story about human behavior and governance: government attempts to restrict supply without addressing demand fail. Banning alcohol supply didn’t stop demand; it fueled a thriving black market. Speakeasies became social hubs, and even law-abiding citizens began to view Prohibition as government overreach, fueling resentment toward enforcement.

If we can’t turn off the demand for an item, no government effort to restrict supply will stop it.

This concept also applies to undocumented immigration. Addressing illegal immigration is a complex challenge that, like Prohibition, requires coordination among federal, state, and local agencies, each with competing interests and limited resources.

The most significant hurdle is the strong demand for undocumented labor. Many immigrants risk their lives to come to the United States because they believe they can find employment opportunities. Some employers hire undocumented workers because they may accept lower wages and work under conditions that others refuse.

If businesses face real consequences for hiring undocumented workers, the incentive to cross the border illegally would diminish. By enforcing laws that require employers to verify legal residency, we address the demand side of the issue.

Attempting to control illegal immigration solely through border enforcement is like playing a game of Whac-A-Mole—without reducing the demand for undocumented labor, these efforts are unlikely to succeed.

We can’t advocate for removing undocumented immigrants while opposing requirements for employers to hire legal residents. Turning off the demand for undocumented labor is a critical first step toward resolving illegal immigration.

Alternatively, we have another option. We don't have to shut off the immigrant pipeline for businesses. By expanding immigrant work programs and accepting more legal immigrants, we can align immigration policies with the economy's labor needs. This approach addresses the demand for workers legally, supporting businesses while upholding the rule of law.

The second unenforceable ideal from this week is the inherent logic fallacy of supporting stricter rules for climate change while opposing overturning Chevron deference.

The Second Unenforceable Ideal: Climate Change and Overturning Chevron Deference

Let's consider the inherent contradiction of supporting stricter climate change regulations while opposing the overturning of Chevron deference.

On November 25, 2024, the New York Times “The Morning” email discussed climate change regulations. Advocates for robust environmental regulations push for limits on pollution from automobiles, power plants, and factories. They support expanding access to renewable energy and reducing reliance on fossil fuels. Opponents are concerned about the economic impact of stringent regulations and favor a more measured approach.

That morning’s email posited the new administration plans to repeal pollution limits on automobiles, power plants, and factories and expand access to federal oil and gas drilling land. Many of these regulations were established through federal agency interpretations of ambiguous statutes—a process enabled by Chevron deference.

This discussion isn’t about the merits of specific climate policies. It’s about governance and how laws are made and enforced.

The decisive juncture is not the potential repeal of these regulations. It’s Chevron deference, which the Supreme Court overturned on June 28 of this year. Established by the Supreme Court in the 1984 case Chevron USA vs. Natural Resources Defense Council, the Chevron doctrine held that courts should defer to a federal agency’s reasonable interpretation of an ambiguous statute that the agency administers.

Under Chevron deference, federal agencies had been empowered to interpret vague or broadly written laws, effectively creating law without direct congressional approval. The judiciary then deferred to these interpretations, limiting its role in checking executive overreach, alignment with congressional intent, or constitutional principles. While this allowed for faster policy implementation, especially in complex areas like environmental regulation, it also concentrated legislative power within executive branch agencies. The practice bypassed the legislative process, blurred the separation of powers, and weakened constitutional governance.

This violated the Constitution. Article I, Section 1 states that all legislative powers reside in Congress. Allowing agencies to legislate through regulation concentrated power in the executive branch. Chevron deference undermined the legislature’s responsibility to fulfill its constitutional duty.

Article III outlines the judiciary as the independent interpreter of the law. Further, in the precedent case Marbury vs. Madison (1803), Chief Justice John Marshall established, “It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is.” Chevron deference stripped the judiciary of its authority to conduct checks and balances.

America owes allegiance to no king, and this principle of divided power is fundamental to American liberty.

Overturning Chevron requires Congress to pass meaningful bipartisan legislation rather than the watered-down ambiguity that federal agencies use to create de facto laws.

Again, this isn’t about climate change regulations; this concept applies to all regulations. When the executive branch changes, the country shouldn’t drastically change directions. Federal agencies need to adhere to Congressional legislation, and overturning Chevron deference helps restore the nation to constitutional footing.

We can’t oppose overturning Chevron deference while resisting a new administration’s ability to change agency rules. When agencies have broad interpretive power, regulations change dramatically with each administration, leading to policy instability. Upholding the constitutional separation of powers ensures that laws remain consistent unless altered by Congress.

To achieve lasting and effective climate policies, we should support legislative action that clearly defines regulations and goals. This approach respects the Constitution and provides stability, regardless of changes in the executive branch.

Our final unenforceable ideal this week is the inherent contradiction in claiming to prioritize the military’s ability to achieve decisive effects while excluding women from combat roles.

Viper 72 is ‘Winchester’

On April 13 of this year, Iran launched a series of missile and suicide drone attacks against Israel. Iran’s attack was an operation designed to overwhelm Israel’s air defenses. The US condemned the attack and assisted Israel in shooting down the vast majority of missiles and drones.

The nation awarded Major Benjamin Coffey and Captain Lacie Hester the Silver Star for their actions as ‘Airborne Mission Commanders’ that evening. As the command team aboard their F-15E Strike Eagle, they led their squadron that evening to shoot down 70 Iranian drones and three ballistic missiles headed towards Israel. The award is especially significant for Captain Hester, who became the Air Force’s first woman and the tenth woman in the Department of Defense to win the Silver Star.

The Strike Eagle is a complex weapons platform that delivers precision firepower while operating in demanding combat environments. Its advanced systems integrate radar, electronic warfare capabilities, and air-to-ground or air-to-air munitions. The Strike Eagle is a cornerstone of modern air superiority and interdiction missions.

Captain Hester is a weapons system officer (WSO) on the platform. Aboard the Strike Eagle, the pilot and WSO have some interchangeable capabilities. The pilot’s primary duty is to fly the jet. The WSO primarily manages the complexity of coordinating with other assets, identifying targets, and selecting suitable munitions. A WSO’s role is critical to the platform’s mission success. They operate the advanced radar, sensor, and targeting systems that guide the aircraft’s weaponry, enabling precision engagement of air-to-air and air-to-ground threats. They are the tactical brains of the operation.

That’s just Captain Hester’s role on her own platform.

As Airborne Mission Commanders, Major Coffey and Captain Hester take on responsibilities beyond their platform. They are the squadron mission lead, coordinating an entire air mission in real-time. They oversee multiple aircraft, synchronize their actions, and ensure every asset is in the right place at the right time to achieve mission objectives.

Major Clayton Wicks was monitoring a command and signal frequency that evening. Of the event, he said, “A message comes across that just says … Viper 72 is ‘Winchester,’ which means they are out of missiles. They have no bullets left. … That was the first time I was like, ‘Oh my gosh. Command and control can’t keep up with the amount of missiles that are being shot and things that are happening. And that’s the only message they got across.”

In the middle of the chaos, Captain Hester was the tactical brains for the squadron to achieve national objectives.

In addition to the challenges, Coffey and Hester’s platform that evening expended all missiles, engaged suicide drones with their guns at “extremely low altitudes,” and landed with a live, still dangerous missile that had failed to launch.

Coffey and Hester demonstrated what the military values: decisive effects. Achieving efficient violence under extreme conditions is the essence of operational success. Captain Hester’s actions were groundbreaking not because of her gender but because they exemplified leadership in combat.

Some women, like some men, are not suited for combat roles. If we need to strengthen requirements for service members to serve in some units, we should do so. There are men who won’t meet those requirements either. But blanket rules stating that women are not suited for combat roles do a disservice to America. If the military’s mission is to achieve decisive effects, then disqualifying half the population from contributing at the highest levels undermines that mission.

We can’t claim to care about the military’s ability to achieve decisive effects while excluding women from combat roles. The contradiction subverts our claim that we value results over diversity. If we are to value results, we need to value results. We don’t need to make special rules to select women for decisive positions. When given the opportunity, they rise to the challenge. But if we make rules that exclude them, we weaken our ability to achieve decisive effects.

Unenforceable Ideals

Unenforceable ideals are contradictions in which two things cannot be true at the same time.

We can’t be ‘for’ taking action to remove undocumented immigrants while at the same time ‘against’ requirements for employers to hire legal residents. Turning off the demand for undocumented labor is the first step to resolving illegal immigration.

We need to support employers’ requirements to hire legal residents. Or we could approach the solution from another direction. We could help businesses, expand work programs for immigrants, and accept more legal immigrants.

We can’t oppose overturning Chevron deference while also opposing a new administration’s ability to change the rules. If we support limiting presidential power as outlined in the Constitution, Chevron deference is incompatible. When the executive branch can use Chevron deference to make laws, those laws will change with every new administration.

We need to support the premise that the people’s representatives make the law, not federal agencies.

We can’t claim to care about the military’s ability to achieve decisive effects while excluding women from combat roles. The contradiction subverts our claim that we value results over diversity. If we are to value results, we need to value results.

We need to value the ability for the military to achieve results. That means maintaining rules that enable women in combat roles.

May God bless the United States of America.

Should we deport illegal immigrants en masse? What options do we have?

Situation

On November 21, 2024, Dara Lind, a Senior Fellow at the American Immigration Council, wrote a fantastic piece published in the New York Times titled, What ‘Mass Deportation’ Actually Means. Ms. Lind superbly outlines the legal and logistical challenges of such a venture. She states:

“Deporting one million people a year would cost an annual average of $88 billion, and a one-time effort to deport the full unauthorized population of 11 million would cost many times that — and it’s difficult to imagine how long it would take.”

There are several severely complicating factors. There aren’t enough beds or departing flights to achieve mass deportation. Few other nations will accept deportation flights from the US. Past efforts to deport illegal immigrants have been good for political publicity but largely unsuccessful.

Further, all persons in the US, not just citizens, have rights. The Fifth Amendment to the US Constitution provides protections to all persons in America, not just American citizens. It states:

No person shall be…deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law

In addition to Constitutional protections, there are other additional legal considerations. The US is a signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention. This agreement obligates signatory members to provide asylum to individuals fleeing persecution based on race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion. The 1967 Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees, ratified by the US in 1968, strengthens these protections.

Last, section 208 of the Immigration and Nationality Act outlines that eligible persons physically present in the United States or at a port of entry may apply for asylum.

Illegal immigrants have the right to present their asylum argument to an immigration court. Nearly 4 million immigrants are waiting for the courts. These courts are insufficiently resourced.

In short, every state in the union agreed that immigrants have rights. Edmund Burke, the philosophical father of conservatism, asserted that a nation has a solemn duty to uphold its agreements, honoring them across generations. This commitment to personal and national responsibility is a cornerstone of America.

Edmund Burke and Honoring Our Agreements

Edmund Burke, Irish statesman and philosopher, was born on January 12, 1729. He is the father of conservative philosophy. His ideas and writings during the American and French Revolutions significantly influenced the development of conservative thought in both America and Europe.

Burke emphasized personal responsibility and respect for tradition and established institutions as cornerstones of his philosophy.

Burke believed traditions and institutions evolve naturally over time, carrying the collective wisdom of generations. These institutions are essential for stability and continuity and should be preserved and respected. This respect for tradition shaped his skepticism of abrupt, radical change and his belief in the importance of gradual reform. His ideas have had a lasting influence on conservative thought. They highlight the value of continuity, historical context, and careful, incremental progress in societal norms.

In American conservatism, principles like originalism in judicial interpretation demonstrate Burke's respect for tradition. Similarly, the focus on protecting Constitutional rights aligns with Burke’s commitment to preserve established freedoms and the institution that upholds them.

The Constitution’s choice of the word “person” and not “citizen” in the Fifth Amendment underscores the framer’s intent to extend protections to all individuals under US jurisdiction.

Burke would view this amendment as part of the collective wisdom of our founders. Due process protections embodied in the Fifth Amendment align with his belief that laws and institutions are shaped over time to reflect enduring principles of justice and fairness.

Conservatives and progressives alike have offered immigrants the opportunity to move to or stay in America legally. At the same time, no Congress and President has supported open borders. There is no national agreement to support open borders because undocumented immigration leads to abuse of immigrants and strains community resources, including healthcare, education, and law enforcement.

Interim Summary

Mass deportation of illegal immigrants has been largely unsuccessful. These efforts are hugely expensive. We have a Constitutional obligation to honor immigrant rights to due process of law. However, there is a political desire by politicians and voters alike to deport illegal immigrants en masse.

So, what can we do? Let’s think through some options.

Option 1: Do Nothing

Our first option is to maintain the status quo. We could allow undocumented immigrants to remain in the United States without significant changes to current policies. Before we write this option off as untenable, we need to think about it.

This approach would rely on existing immigration laws and enforcement to address undocumented immigration on a case-by-case basis. It has some positive aspects. Proponents advocate that it avoids the massive costs of mass deportation and saves billions in taxpayer dollars. It prevents overburdening already overwhelmed immigration courts. It supports human rights, aligns with the Constitutional protections of due process, and reflects our commitment to international treaties. It maintains economic stability as immigrants contribute to various sectors of the economy, particularly agriculture, construction, and service industries.

Critics argue that failing to address illegal immigration undermines the rule of law and sows distrust in the government’s ability to enforce immigration laws. Undocumented immigration strains communities that continue to face challenges related to healthcare, education, and law enforcement. And this option fails to enable comprehensive immigration reform, leaving millions in legal limbo without a clear path to citizenship.

Let’s be clear—this option has strong advocates. The American Immigration Council outlines that instead of spending $88 billion every year on mass deportation efforts, we could “Build over 40,450 new elementary schools…and construct over 2.9 million new homes in communities around the nation.”

However, this argument is a fallacy. The comparison misleads us by framing deportation costs as a trade-off with other priorities. It implies that federal funds are interchangeable. But federal spending doesn’t work like a household budget. Money from one category can’t be redirected to another. This oversimplification ignores how government spending and resource allocation work.

Frankly, the biggest problem with pursuing this option is the perception that voters told their representatives to do something, and the representatives didn’t. It would look like the name of the option—doing nothing. It would leave a foul taste in the mouths of many Americans.

In sum, this option risks destabilizing institutions and eroding public trust. Doing nothing fails to address the underlying causes of undocumented immigration, perpetuating current challenges indefinitely. It kicks the can down the road for future generations, leading to longer-term challenges. It widens political extremes, creates gridlock, and polarizes public opinion.

All considered it may not be the best choice. Let’s move on to another.

Option 2: Efficient Enforcement and Employer Accountability

Our second option is efficient, targeted immigration enforcement to safeguard the nation while addressing the root causes of undocumented immigration. This approach would combine targeted enforcement of threats, streamlined immigration processes, and stronger accountability for employers who exploit undocumented labor.

The keynote of this approach is efficient enforcement. There are 330 million people in America and an estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants. That means undocumented immigrants make up around three percent of the total population in America. These immigrants are not all in the same place.

So, finding undocumented immigrants by searching for them is inefficient and costly. We will not achieve efficient enforcement by looking for undocumented immigrants.

Rather than spending huge resources looking for all undocumented immigrants, this option would focus resources on removing individuals who pose security threats or commit serious crimes. The biggest difference between this approach and the “Do Nothing” option is what we won’t do.

We won’t sweep employers to search for illegal immigrants. We won’t bog down the legal system with immigrants who don’t commit violent crimes and don’t pose security threats. We will avoid broad, indiscriminate methods of searching for undocumented immigrants who don’t pose problems to the nation.

Instead, we will emphasize removal of individuals who pose security threats or commit serious crimes. We need to rush these individuals to the front of the legal line, conduct their hearings to meet our Fifth Amendment obligations, and deport them. Focusing on genuine security threats and due process demonstrates accountability, restoring public confidence in immigration enforcement.

This approach allocates resources more effectively. It avoids the immense costs and logistical challenges of simultaneously searching for and deporting millions of individuals.

At the same time, we need to address the root causes of undocumented immigration. Immigration courts need more funding and staffing to handle the nearly four million pending cases. Tools like remote hearings and other digital solutions could help expedite case processing while ensuring due process to honor our obligation outlined in the Fifth Amendment. Expanding immigration court capacity could help streamline the process.

And we need to toughen enforcement on employers who hire illegal immigrants. If immigrants can’t find work, this will reduce the demand for many to come to America. To achieve this goal, we need steeper fines and criminal charges for repeat offenders. We should conduct public awareness campaigns to remind businesses of their legal obligations and the consequences of ignoring them. Finally, we need whistleblower protections with robust enforcement to encourage employees to report illegal hiring practices without fear of retaliation. To address potential labor shortages, industries could work with policymakers to create or expand visa programs that legally fill gaps in sectors like agriculture and construction.

This option has downsides. Some political factions may view targeted deportations as too lenient, pushing for broader, more visible enforcement actions. Strict employer enforcement of hiring undocumented immigrants could lead to labor shortages in agriculture, construction, and hospitality. Business interests and lobbying groups may oppose stricter accountability. Increasing funding for immigration courts and conducting workplace audits would require substantial investment.

But overall, it’s a tenable option. Let’s consider another.

Option 3: Conduct Mass Deportation of Undocumented Immigrants

Our third option is to pursue mass deportation of all undocumented immigrants in the United States.

This approach would require an unprecedented scale of enforcement to locate, detain, and deport the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants across the country. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and other agencies would need to significantly expand to conduct large-scale raids, workplace inspections, and community sweeps. We would need massive investments to house individuals awaiting deportation.

We would have to pay for transporting millions of individuals to detention centers, court hearings, and eventually to their home countries. We would need to dramatically expand immigration courts to process cases quickly. This would likely require thousands of additional judges, attorneys, and support staff.

All told, these requirements drive the reason for the $88 billion annual price tag.

Proponents advocate that this option demonstrates a firm commitment to enforcing immigration laws and addresses illegal entry. If successful, it could reduce demand for public services like healthcare and education in some communities. Proponents support this option because it’s visible. The sight of raids, detentions, and removals implies a perception of strong leadership and accountability. It signals to voters that the institution is upholding immigration laws.

Opponents cite the staggering annual costs. This option also faces the logistical impossibilities of beds, transportation, and cooperation from other nations. These factors make deporting 11 million people impractical, even with expanded resources.

The biggest downside of this option is simple: the government just isn’t good at getting things done on this scale. Even if the most efficient military subset had all the legal protections and resources to fight a known enemy hiding in the population, they couldn’t do it. We tried in Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq for 48 years combined and couldn’t achieve it. What makes us think we can achieve it here?

Mass deportation would require unprecedented coordination across federal agencies, state and local governments, and international partners. The sheer logistical complexity—finding, detaining, processing, and deporting 11 million people—is far beyond what the government has successfully managed in the past.

Immigration courts are already overwhelmed with nearly four million pending cases, and detention facilities are stretched thin. Adding this burden would lead to drastic inefficiency, mismanagement, and massive delays.

In short, expecting the government to execute this option effectively is unrealistic.

Those who say that we should deport as many undocumented immigrants as possible are missing a huge point—the immigrants we can find at their workplace and home aren’t the problem. The threats are hiding elsewhere. And if we tie up our resources with the immigrants trying to make an honest living, we are going to miss the dangerous criminals and security threats. This option is dangerous for America.

All told, this doesn’t seem like a good option. Let’s move on.

Option 4: Expand Asylum Opportunities

Our fourth option is to focus on asylum as a legal pathway for law-abiding, non-threatening undocumented immigrants. This option emphasizes the humane and lawful treatment of individuals seeking protection.

This approach involves strengthening the asylum system to address legitimate claims while simultaneously reducing the strain on immigration courts and other resources.

This option may seem like a throwaway, but it is not. The last president to offer undocumented immigrants asylum while toughening requirements for employers was President Ronald Reagan.

Reagan and the 99th Congress of 1986 offered legalization to undocumented immigrants who had entered the country illegally. Of that event, Wyoming Senator Alan K. Simpson noted that President Reagan “knew that it was not right for people to be abused,” and “anybody who’s here illegally is going to be abused in some way, either financially [or] physically. They have no rights.”

We could increase funding and staffing for asylum officers to handle cases more efficiently. We would need dedicated asylum courts to address claims separately from other immigration cases, reducing the overall backlog. We could strengthen initial screening processes at the border to ensure that we identify individuals with valid asylum claims early.

The biggest downside of this option is that many voters would perceive it as a betrayal. Expanding asylum would be viewed as prioritizing undocumented immigrants over enforcing immigration laws. Voters who demanded stricter enforcement would feel ignored or even deceived. Voters who expect visible actions to reduce undocumented immigration would see this option as leniency disguised as reform. It would fuel distrust in government promises and policies.

For this reason, this viable option is likely untenable.

What’s Our Best Option?

None of our choices is perfect. Option 2: Efficient Enforcement and Employer Accountability, seems to be the most suitable.

It’s politically acceptable, as voters could hear the stories of the US deporting criminals and security threats. It’s the most achievable. It doesn’t represent a huge financial expenditure to achieve our goals.

Of course, any option needs to be combined with efforts to strengthen border security and reduce the demand for undocumented immigrants to come to America while at the same time supporting legal immigration.

We’ve already spent considerable effort discussing improving border security. First, we need to set conditions allowing for the legal and orderly movement of goods and people across the border. This will create unambiguous indications that other movement across the border is illegal. There’s a high likelihood these illegal movements are human traffickers, weapons smugglers, and drug runners.

We need enhanced security measures, political will, and continual commitment on the border itself.

Further, we’ve already considered how to reduce the demand for undocumented immigrants to leave South America. We need a Plan Colombia approach that strengthens economic partnerships while avoiding excessive militarization or human rights concerns. This adapted Plan Colombia approach must include regional cooperation among Latin American countries, not just bilateral partnerships with the US. Initiatives that foster collaboration on cross-border issues can address trafficking, migration, and economic integration.

In Sum

Should we deport illegal immigrants en masse? What options do we have?

We covered four distinct options.

Doing nothing risks destabilizing institutions and eroding public trust. It fails to address the underlying causes of undocumented immigration, perpetuating current challenges indefinitely.

Conducting mass deportation of all undocumented immigrants is prohibitively expensive and unachievable. Further, if we tie up our resources with this group, we will miss the dangerous criminals and security threats. This option is dangerous for America.

Offering expanded asylum, as President Reagan did, would alienate voters who expect visible actions to reduce undocumented immigration. They would see this option as leniency disguised as reform. It would fuel distrust in government promises and policies.

All told, our best option is efficient enforcement and employer accountability.

It safeguards America by focusing on reducing criminal activity and security threats. It’s politically acceptable, as voters could hear the stories of the US deporting criminals and security threats. It’s the most achievable. It doesn’t represent a huge financial expenditure to achieve our goals.

It’s the option we should pursue.

May God bless the United States of America.

If we are going to have meaningful discussions, we need to realize that there are legitimate points on both sides of issues.

I advocate for dissenting points of view in operational and leadership matters. Dissent drives innovation. Even when we disagree with a position, failing to present it drives groupthink. Groupthink stifles growth.

Discussions about military governance and leadership have to balance civilian oversight with the military’s singular purpose: to protect the nation by achieving national objectives through precise and purposeful application of force.

Should the President dismiss senior military officers who have served honorably?

A “Warrior Board” to Recommend Removal of Unfit Officers

On November 12, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) published an exclusive article titled, Trump Draft Executive Order Would Create Board to Purge Generals. The Journal received an advance copy of the draft order from an undeclared source. If signed, the order intends to focus military brass “on leadership capability, strategic readiness, and commitment to military excellence.”

The proposed executive order would create a board of retired senior military personnel to review three—and four-star officers and recommend the removal of any deemed unfit for leadership.

On November 13, the WSJ Editorial Board wrote an opinion piece titled Why Trump Wants Hegseth at Defense. The piece rightly identified the nation’s legitimate security issues and stated that military brass needs to be able to focus on their responsibilities and not their political allegiance. The Editorial Board flatly stated the order “would be a mistake that smacks of politicizing the officer corps.”

Critics worry that the order could lead to uncertainty among high-ranking officers. They are concerned that political or ideological alignment would overshadow merit as the criterion for leadership. The same day as the editorial, military.com quoted an unnamed 3-star Army General, who stated, “It could be very hard to do our job if we have to constantly be making sure we're appeasing someone on a political or partisan level.”

This concept of a board to identify and remove unfit leaders isn’t without precedent. Supporters of the draft order point to General George C. Marshall’s plucking boards in 1940. Those boards aimed to streamline leadership and prepare the Army for the high demands of World War II.

Marshall’s approach was driven by his conviction that effective leadership could make or break the Army’s ability to face a global conflict. It was controversial but ultimately successful.

General George C. Marshall and the US Army 1940 Plucking Boards

The great General George C. Marshall became Chief of Staff of the US Army in September 1939. On his first day in office, Germany invaded Poland to kick off World War II.

Twenty years earlier, during World War I, Marshall had observed professionally unfit officers command units with poor results. Military historian Forrest Pogue wrote that Marshall was “haunted by recollections of the droves of unfit commanders” (George C. Marshall, Memoirs of My Services in the World War, 1917-1918 (Boston, 1976), 175-76). Pogue further wrote that Marshall believed he was preparing the Army for war and that it was his duty to the nation to select the right officers for the job. He needed to reform the leadership cadre and ensure the Army was ready for World War II.

Marshall’s plucking boards consisted of six retired officers. They were intended to eliminate officers unfit for command and high rank. He believed swift action was necessary to promote a dynamic set of leaders that would innovate and handle the scale and technology of modern warfare. He recognized that the quality of commanders was crucial as the Army grew and faced more complex missions.

Marshall’s controversial approach prioritized capability over tenure. It aimed to instill a merit-based system that could better adapt to the urgency and unpredictability of wartime demands.

The newly promoted officers played crucial roles in World War II and contributed to American success. The “plucking board” initiative created a more lethal fighting force. Marshall’s boards promoted officers who would go on to shape history. Among them were Dwight D. Eisenhower, the future Supreme Allied Commander Europe and 34th President of the United States; Joseph W. Stillwell, who later commanded all US forces in China, Burma, and India; Omar N. Bradley, the commander of US ground forces during the D-Day invasion at Normandy; and Carl A. Spaatz, the future commander of Strategic Air Forces in the Pacific and the first Chief of Staff of the Air Force.

As Army Chief of Staff, General Marshall conducted his boards using authority delegated by Congressional legislation and existing military regulations. The Selective Training and Service Act of 1940 included provisions that allowed for the rapid expansion and restructuring of the Army as the nation prepared for involvement in World War II.

Advocates for a modern plucking board note the success of Marshall’s approach. Marshall’s review boards retired some senior officers early and selected junior officers with great potential to lead their units to achieve national objectives.

The success of Marshall’s boards highlights how effective civilian oversight, exercised through delegated authority, can transform military leadership. This authority is enshrined in the Constitution, which mandates a framework for civilian control over the military.

The Constitution and Civilian Oversight of the Military

The Constitution establishes civilian control over the military through multiple provisions. These ensure that the armed forces remain accountable to elected leaders rather than independent military authority.

Article II, Section 2 designates the President, a civilian official elected by the people, as the “Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States.” This gives a civilian elected official the highest military authority and ensures that the military is subordinate to the civilian government rather than acting independently.

At the same time, the Constitution seeks checks and balances. Article I, Section 8 grants Congress the power to raise and support armies, declare war, regulate military forces, and “to make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces.”

Congress exercises this power through its legislative authority by enacting nearly all laws now codified in United States Code Title 10. These laws serve as the framework for organizing the Department of Defense and each branch of the Armed Forces—the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force, and Space Force. Additionally, Congress oversees the Coast Guard, which operates under the Department of Homeland Security during peacetime and can be transferred to the Department of the Navy during wartime or by presidential direction. These laws cover a comprehensive range of military operations, including pay grades, enlistments, commissions, promotions, retirements, training, education, recruitment, and honors. This legal structure underscores the essential role of civilian oversight in guiding military standards, ensuring accountability, and keeping the Armed Forces aligned with the nation’s democratic principles and strategic goals.

This framework supports a democratic republic by placing military authority under civilian oversight, preventing military dominance over the government, and protecting against potential abuses of military power.

As Commander in Chief, the President certainly has the authority to direct or conduct boards to review senior officer promotions. The President further has the authority to delegate the conduct of these boards to the service chiefs.

At the same time, Congress has the Constitutional responsibility to control the environment in which officers are raised to senior positions.

Through its structure, the military serves the people as an instrument of national capability directed by civilian leaders. This alignment preserves our democratic republic by ensuring military influence is a part of the elected government and our principles.

With this understanding, the military’s ultimate purpose is to protect and defend the United States, our Constitution, and its people while supporting national interests. The Constitution demands a lethal military under civilian control.

A Continuation of Policy With Other Means

In On War, Carl von Clausewitz famously described war as “a continuation of policy with other means.” Clausewitz was Prussian, and wrote ‘mit anderen Mitteln’ in the original German. He elaborated that we conduct war to compel the enemy to submit to our will. War combines military force simultaneously with other influences, such as diplomacy, to attempt to achieve political objectives.

In short, wartime operations are diplomacy combined with violence.

Military units do not conduct diplomacy.

Therefore, military officers and the units they command aim to achieve efficient violence in service to national objectives.

Since military officers and their units are tasked with achieving efficient violence in service to national objectives, any review of an officer’s conduct must prioritize their capability to fulfill this mission. Other considerations, such as schools attended, advanced academic degrees, and administrative marks, should be secondary. Military leadership should be assessed based on alignment with the Constitution’s mandate to achieve effects supporting national security goals under civilian direction. Military leaders must ensure their units apply force with precision and purpose.

1940 and President Franklin D. Roosevelt

There’s one more question we should ask regarding the proposed boards: Why did President Franklin D. Roosevelt choose to stand aside and not participate in General Marshall’s plucking boards?

FDR didn’t write about the boards, but he trusted General Marshall explicitly.

Roosevelt recognized that diplomacy was not the military component of influence, and he needed to focus on diplomacy. Separating diplomatic and military responsibilities avoids politicizing military decisions while maintaining strategic focus.

FDR focused on diplomatic efforts worldwide, leaving the Army in Marshall's competent hands. Roosevelt engaged in navigating the US response to the growing threat of World War II. He prioritized diplomatic efforts to support the Allies (such as the Lend-Lease program) and prepare the nation for possible involvement in the war.

Roosevelt trusted Marshall to manage the Army's internal restructuring. FDR respected Marshall’s expertise and gave him considerable autonomy to prepare the military for the growing global conflict. Marshall convened the plucking boards under existing Army regulations and legislation, making them a professional and administrative matter rather than a political one.

By allowing Marshall and his boards to operate independently, Roosevelt ensured the process focused on military effectiveness rather than politics.

In Sum

General Marshall’s plucking boards were controversial but successful. They were instrumental in preparing Army leaders for World War II.

The Constitution establishes civilian control over the military. As Commander in Chief, the President has the authority to review and dismiss officers for poor performance. At the same time, Congress is responsible for passing legislation supporting an environment that raises officers to be who the nation needs.

Military officers and their units have a mandate to support and defend the Constitution by achieving efficient violence in service to national objectives.

The military’s strength lies in its unity of purpose, where everyone focuses on the mission. Political affiliation, race, sexual orientation, or any other characteristic should never distract from the ultimate goal: to apply force with precision and purpose in service to our nation.

Senior officer review boards could make sense if they focus on enhancing military effectiveness, ensuring leaders are equipped to support national objectives through precision, readiness, and lethality in the profession of arms. To best achieve this goal, the President should delegate the authority and responsibility of conducting the boards to the service chiefs and leave the task of diplomacy for themselves.

May God bless the United States of America.

I believe in America— Conceived in liberty, Born at war, Founded on the promise that we are all created equal. Endowed by our Creator with the gifts of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. We pledged to each other Our lives, Our fortunes, Our honor. From the beginning, the Almighty declared, “In the sweat of your face, you shall eat bread.” By the work of our hands, we shape the means To warm our homes, To fill our tables, To keep the promise of plenty. And though— If we were angels, We’d need no government, We are not angels. We need governance that holds justice close, That shields the weak, And serves the people it protects. Joel K. Douglas

What an emotional week for the country—and not just because of the election. This week, I talked with some fired-up cattle producers who believe federal agencies overstepped their authority. May we all be gracious in our interactions.

Many Americans fear for their ability to forge the means to achieve heat in the house and food on the table. There’s no quick fix for this systemic problem. Systemic problems require systemic solutions. Over the last year, we spent almost half of our effort thinking about how to improve the economy for families across America. This was the decisive effort of the year. We need governance to serve the people and set conditions that enable individual Americans to work and succeed.

Some fear for the security of our borders. At the same time, we recognize the benefit and talents legal immigrants bring to America. Even if we disagree with the premise that drastic changes are necessary to secure our borders, the perception of doing nothing leaves a foul taste in the mouths of Americans. We spent an entire month posing a multi-pronged approach to address border security in an efficient and respectful manner.

Some fear for their liberty or the liberty of others. If we give the government the power to take individual liberty away from any group, we give the government the power to take away our liberty. Inherent in the inalienable right to life is the right to make decisions about ourselves. We may have opinions and personally disagree with others’ choices, but government interference with individual choice violates liberty. No legislative body can support liberty better than stating that men and women of able mind have the right to make their own healthcare decisions. We must protect each other’s rights to ensure our own.

Some fear for the integrity of the institution that is our democratic republic. Few attain the privilege of swearing an oath to the Constitution, and we need to hold those who violate their oath for personal gain accountable. Government exists to serve the people. Any leader who serves themselves is a disgrace to the nation. Too many serve proudly and take this oath as almost a condition of their lives to allow us to water down the commitment of others.

If we were angels, we would need no government

These challenges are not new. Principal framer of the Constitution and later President James Madison outlined the inherent difficulties of governance in Federalist 51.

He addressed setting conditions for governance to secure liberty and justice for Americans.

He helped establish a system of separated powers, ensuring each branch holds the others accountable. The premise is that individual Americans must have the liberty and justice to succeed on their own merits. Government has two aims: securing liberty and justice for individuals and then controlling itself.

Liberty is the freedom to choose how you will live and act, within a framework that respects the same rights for others.

Justice is fairness, ensuring that social and economic structures benefit everyone, even the least advantaged, while correcting wrongs under the law.

Madison famously wrote, ‘If men were angels, no government would be necessary.’ He emphasized our duty to prevent one group from oppressing another. Stated another way, we need to set conditions enabling individuals from disadvantaged backgrounds to have the same opportunity to achieve prosperity as those from privileged ones. This is the essence of justice. Madison verbatim states we must “guard one part of the society against the injustice of the other.”

Our fears today reflect the same fundamental concern: how to preserve liberty and justice when human nature is flawed.

The fundamental bedrock of America is that we are conceived in liberty. No matter our group, we must protect each other’s rights to ensure our own. America demonstrates she will go to war for liberty.

The ambitious promise of America is justice for all. No matter our upbringing or whether we live in urban or rural America, we need to have heat in the house and food on the table. Individuals need to be able to achieve these necessities through the effort of their work.

In sum, the government exists to ensure liberty and justice for all.

I believe in America. Some are worried about our future, but I am not.

The “Father of the Constitution,” James Madison, expressly stated the primary purpose of the document was first individual liberty and justice, and then control of the government. America bows to no king.

The system Madison and others put in place is resilient.

America will continue to strive for liberty and justice. Just as America was born at war, fighting for liberty, Americans will rise against any group that threatens their inherent rights.

Our challenges today are of liberty and justice, but again, I don’t fear for our future—I know we will overcome them.

May God bless the United States of America.

Did the American Founding Fathers support the Electoral College?

Days at elk camp are long. We rise in the wee hours of the morning and hike with headlamps through the mountains in the dark to be where we think elk will be at first light. At the end of the day, we wait where we think the elk will be at last light and hike out with headlamps. We meet at camp at night to share our experiences, food, and drink. Success in the field probably means your group is the last to return to camp, but no one sleeps until everyone returns.

Over food and drink, we catch up. Several camp veterans won’t have seen each other in a year or more. We share pictures of kids and talk about life changes.

We chat generally about anything. We rarely talk about religion, but we talk about God and existence. And we talk about politics.

We don’t all agree on every topic, and there are some strong disagreements. But we accept each other's views, communing over beer and food. We know that the next day, the person you share your disagreement with will help you carry out a heavy load, and they’ll wait for you to return to camp to go to sleep.

A topic at camp this year was representative government. One of the hunters lives in a rural area in a populous eastern state dominated by city politics. He expressed frustration because the city negates the state's interest in the rural area.

The issue at hand is a critique of “winner-take-all” state election systems. In a winner-take-all system, the candidate who receives the majority of the popular vote in a state wins all of that state's Electoral College votes. If cities vote differently than rural areas, the city still dominates the state’s electoral choice. States prefer this approach as it gives their preferred candidate the maximum advantage. In 1800, only two states had a winner-take-all system. By 1836, all states except for South Carolina used a winner-take-all system. Today, all states except for Maine and Nebraska use a winner-take-all system.

For all the critique of the Electoral College, a winner-take-all system equally undermines the democratic principle of one person, one vote. It distorts the national popular will. Those who argue that “land doesn’t vote, people do” often still support a state winner-take-all system, negating the rural influence in their own state. The result of both winner-take-all and the Electoral College is to amplify the power of swing states.

Because there’s nothing new under the sun, this issue has been hotly debated since America was born at war and by none other than the brilliant primary framer of the Constitution and later President James Madison.

August 23, 1823. A letter from James Madison to US District Judge George Hay

James Madison was the primary framer of the US Constitution and a driving force behind the 1787 Constitutional Convention, which created the structure of the American government. His detailed notes from the convention are the most complete of any delegate.

Following the convention, Madison wrote 29 of the 85 Federalist Papers to explain the Constitution and convince states to ratify it. When the states refused to ratify the Constitution without explicit protections for American individual liberty, Madison was the primary author of the Bill of Rights. These amendments protect the liberty of citizens and states.

In short, Madison was central to the creation and ratification of the Constitution. He served the nation as a Congressman, Secretary of State, and was later the fourth President of the United States, serving in that capacity from 1809 to 1817. He was a staunch advocate for states' rights and a rational pragmatist. He recognized that while a states’ rights approach has strong merits, there are practical limits that sometimes necessitate federal intervention.

At the Constitutional Convention, Madison recommended using the national popular vote to decide the office of President. He stated that "the people at large was…the fittest" to choose the executive. But his perspective changed over a lifetime of national service.

In an 1823 letter to George Hay, Madison discussed a potential Constitutional amendment: district-based voting to select Presidential Electors instead of the current Electoral College system. He reflected on the 1787 Constitutional Convention's difficulty in determining a method to elect the President. He acknowledged the compromise that led to the Electoral College system, which was influenced by the need to balance the interests of small and large states and strongly influenced by slave states. He mentioned that the compromise agreement became necessary due to time pressure and the long deliberative process.

Madison suggested that the Electoral College was an imperfect solution.

Towards the end of the letter, Madison outlined his proposal:

Electors should be chosen by districts… If no candidate achieves a majority… the President should be chosen by a joint ballot of both Houses of Congress

Madison’s proposal identifies that each voting district should cast its own vote for the president. Instead of the winner-take-all system or the current Electoral College system, voting districts should each have their vote counted.

In the letter, Madison also doesn’t explicitly discuss the concept of a direct national popular vote for electing the President. Instead, he focuses on the mechanics of the Electoral College and the potential benefits of district-based voting. Madison critiques the current Electoral College system, particularly emphasizing the shortcomings of the winner-take-all approach and the disproportionate influence it can grant to smaller states or individual electors.

Madison’s discussion is more about improving the representational fairness of the Electoral College rather than advocating for a shift to using the national popular vote directly for electing the President. He suggests reforms that would make the Electoral College better reflect the diverse preferences across different regions of the states, aligning Electoral College outcomes more closely with popular vote distributions within those states. His proposal aims to balance the representation of smaller and larger states and address the issues that arise when a few electors or a small number of densely populated areas can determine the majority of electoral votes for an entire state.

As a strong supporter and advocate of a democratic republic and states’ rights, Madison grew to recommend not abandoning the flawed Electoral College but making the system more closely represent the vote of the populace.

So, Why do we have the Electoral College?

Slavery shaped the structure of the Electoral College during the Constitutional Convention of 1787 due to the significant political and economic divisions between slave-holding and free states.

Slave-holding states were concerned about their political influence under a direct national popular vote system. The South had large populations, but a significant portion of those populations were enslaved individuals who had no voting rights. In a popular vote system, these states would have less voting power than the more populous free states if the president were elected purely by the popular vote of free citizens.

To reach a compromise, convention delegates agreed on the Three-Fifths Compromise, which counted three out of every five slaves as people for congressional representation and taxation. The Electoral College agreement gave Southern states more electoral power than they would have had if slaves were not counted at all.

The Electoral College was also a means for Southern states to influence presidential candidates. Under the compromise agreement, these states could push candidates to consider Southern interests, particularly the preservation of slavery, to seek support from Southern electors.

Right or wrong, the Electoral College helped maintain the union of the states by giving each state—regardless of North or South, large or small—a proportionate influence in the electoral process. It also perpetuated slavery.

Did the American Founding Fathers support the Electoral College?

The American Founding Fathers supported a democratic republic and representative government.

At the Constitutional Convention, James Madison himself recommended using the popular vote to determine the president. But the Founding Fathers could reach no such agreement. The Electoral College was a compromise that became necessary for slave-holding states to agree to the method of selecting a President.

Madison had a different recommendation after serving as Congressman, Secretary of State, and President.

We should keep the Electoral College districts, but instead of a winner-take-all system that disregards the one-person, one-vote principle, we should tally each voting district’s vote individually.

It's a compelling idea from one of America’s greatest leaders, who dedicated his lifetime in service to the nation.

May God bless the United States of America.

What does it mean to vote?

You voted for me to go to war in Iraq

A little more than ten years ago, I had a conversation with a woman who strongly opposed the war in Iraq. By then, the war was hugely unpopular. Iraq wasn’t a threat to American sovereignty. They didn’t have weapons of mass destruction ready to rain down on our allies. They maybe didn’t need a new form of government and certainly didn’t want America to help them get there.

Since I had carried a rifle in Iraq, I thought she could cut her lecture short. After some more minutes of lecture, I got frustrated. I should have kept quiet, but I made the situation worse by saying, “You voted for me to go to war in Iraq.”

Of course, that got her going again. Not everyone appreciates that I’m a truth-teller. But it was absolutely true.

Voting in our democratic republic is a willful act to transfer our personal autonomy to a representative.

At the individual level, voting on Election Day is our attempt to choose representatives to whom we delegate further choices. We may or may not vote for our chosen candidate, but a candidate will win. At the end of the vote tally, we know our elected representatives.

That elected representative will then assemble and cast further votes on our behalf.

Because we delegate our vote to an elected representative, their vote becomes ours.

You voted for me to go to war in Iraq because our delegated representatives in the House and Senate passed the Authorization of the Use of Military Force for Iraq in October 2002. Even if your preferred candidate didn’t win, you still have an elected representative. Even if your elected representative voted against using military force in Iraq, the House and Senate still passed the measure.

The choices our elected representatives make become our choices. Since we are accountable for the outcomes of our choices, it is our duty to hold our leaders and power structures accountable for their character and decisions. We may delegate our authority, but we can’t delegate our responsibility.

Representation and voting are a central premise to our democratic republic. They are so crucial that America was born at war, fighting for the right to representation.

Thomas Paine and the American Revolutionary War

The Revolutionary War wasn’t just a fight for independence from British tyranny. It was a fight for representation. In the Declaration of Independence, American founders identified several disputes with British rule related to representation. These included…

King George III refused to approve laws in the public's best interest. He refused to pass laws that would give more people representation in government, even though we were willing to give up other rights in exchange. He suspended colonial legislatures and declared he had the power to make laws for them. He dissolved representative assemblies that opposed his policies. He refused to call new elections after dissolving assemblies, leaving the people without representation.

In short, we fought for our right to decide our future through elected representatives.

In 1776, at the dawn of the seven-year war that we fought for independence and representation, British-born philosopher, writer, and revolutionary figure Thomas Paine wrote Common Sense. Paine had moved to the American colonies in 1774 and penned ideas central to the debates surrounding independence from Britain.

Common Sense advocated giving people the power to elect their representatives. Paine saw voting as the core of a new social contract—an idea that resonated with the American colonists who were denied representation in British governance.

This new social contract included a government that derived its authority from the consent of the governed rather than from hereditary monarchy or divine right. His social contract redefined the relationship between the people and their government. It advocated for government based on the people's will, established through free and fair elections. It required representation, wherein elected officials act on behalf of the citizens.

Unlike monarchies, where rulers are not accountable to the people, Paine’s social contract promoted the idea that all citizens are politically equal and government officials are accountable to the electorate. It rejected hereditary rule and argued that no one has a natural right to rule over others simply by birth. He called for breaking these systems and establishing a republic where people chose leaders based on merit and public trust.

Last, he viewed government as a safeguard for liberty and believed the role of government should be to protect the liberty of its citizens. He viewed the government’s role as safeguarding individual freedom rather than imposing control or oppressing the populace.

When we vote, we exercise a fundamental right to shape our government based on our choices. Voting is our opportunity to hold our government accountable. Today, voting is a modern form of delegating decision-making to a representative—a concept that aligns with the principles Paine advocated for in Common Sense.

Paine would remind us that just because a system has been in place for a long time doesn’t make it right. He would challenge us to hold our leaders and power structures accountable and urge us to vote to prevent abuse, ensure accountability, and secure the freedom and security he believed were the ultimate purpose of government.

Paine and the American Revolution laid the foundation for our right to representation, but the story of personal freedom doesn't end there. Let’s fast forward to the 20th century and Jean-Paul Sartre, who logically joined individual liberty and personal responsibility.

Paine advocated for our right to choose our government. Sartre challenged us to embrace the weight of those choices in an indifferent universe. Though separated by time and context, both thinkers converged on a sobering idea: our actions—or inactions—define ourselves and our society.

Jean-Paul Sartre, Radical Freedom, and Personal Responsibility

The existential philosophy of radical freedom by Jean-Paul Sartre reverberates with the act of voting.

Sartre believed in radical freedom—the idea that individuals are free to make their own choices in an indifferent universe without a predetermined purpose. He famously said we are "condemned to be free" because our freedom comes with heavy personal responsibility.

Every person defines themselves through their actions. We can’t blame external forces for our choices and outcomes—we are entirely responsible.

Tied to this notion of personal responsibility, voting in our democratic republic directly means we are accountable for the outcomes of choices our representatives make on our behalf. We delegate our authority to elected officials, but we can’t delegate the responsibility for the consequences of their decisions.

This philosophy is starkly relevant in the context of modern voting. Let’s consider some examples. First, a disillusioned voter who decides not to vote. They might think their single ballot won't make a difference. Sartre would argue that the choice to withhold their vote is still one for which they're entirely responsible. By choosing to refuse to vote, they accept any outcome as their choice because they gave up their voice and power to influence change.

Then there’s the individual who votes strictly along party lines without holding their own party accountable. Defaulting to the status quo is still a choice we make. Elected officials swear an oath to the Constitution; some violate their oath. We're responsible for the consequences of electing leaders who subvert their oath to the Constitution or don’t align with American values.

Individuals create meaning through their actions, and we shape the future of our society through the choices we make at the ballot box. We are responsible for those choices.

Voting, then, is more than just a right—it’s an exercise in radical freedom. We are condemned to it and responsible for the leaders we elect and their policies. While heavy, the burden of that responsibility is essential to the functioning of a free society.

In sum

Representation is so essential America was born at war over it. At imminent peril, we pledged to each other our Lives, Fortunes, and sacred Honor for the right to vote.

I don’t believe in political parties. I believe in America.

Individual liberty and personal responsibility are the foundation of the nation.

Liberty is the right to participate in choosing our representatives. The choices our elected representatives make become our choices.

With liberty comes responsibility. Since we are accountable for the outcomes of our choices, it is our duty to hold our leaders and power structures accountable for their character and decisions.

You are accountable for the choices of your elected representatives.

I am accountable for the choices of my elected representatives.

As an American who swore my oath to support and defend the Constitution for nearly my entire adult life, including days carrying a rifle on foreign soil, I will vote for the Constitution.

As a daughter's father, I will vote for her future to have the individual liberty and personal responsibility that comes with making her own healthcare decisions.

I believe in individual liberty. I will vote for the right of states to protect their interests. I will vote for the right of states to have their votes counted. I will vote against any measure that threatens the individual liberty of any American.

I believe in personal responsibility. I will vote for leaders who uphold the rule of law and against any leader who does not.

May God bless the United States of America.

Here we are, celebrating our second anniversary. One hundred and four weeks in a row. Hooray for us!

I believe in the institution of the American democratic republic and its foundational ideals of individual liberty and personal responsibility. I aim to strengthen the American philosophy that the Almighty grants us all freedom of choice. Freedom of choice is the opportunity to struggle and overcome. President and Chief Justice William Howard Taft said, “We must dare to be great, and we must realize that greatness is the fruit of toil and sacrifice and high courage.”

I also know we have problems to overcome. And we need to address them. We can’t love our country and not our countrymen.

Our biggest challenge is Americans from all classes having food on the table and heat in the house. You can’t put food on the table without the money you get from your work to buy food. And you can’t heat your house unless you have one.

Fighting for food on the table and heat in the house means fighting against a moving bureaucratic machine with rules set to benefit the economic system and corporations. Those rules might benefit the elite, but they exclude individuals. Politicians from both parties feign like they want to address the problem. They take the advice of economists, who recommend funneling taxpayer money through the bureaucratic machine to fund “temporary” social welfare programs. The economists claim that once the system is working, we won’t need social programs anymore. Those temporary programs become permanent. The system perpetuates itself, and today, half of American families depend on social programs.

I can’t think of a worse design. Instead of setting conditions to enable Americans to succeed, we set conditions to benefit the elite and the bureaucratic machine.

Over the last two years, we’ve considered many ideas to enable Americans to succeed. Many of those pieces present ideas to address wages for all classes of American workers and problems in the housing market.

Addressing these two challenges will improve Americans’ lives more than anything else. There are no silver-bullet solutions. It’s a complex system that requires a systemic approach to address several areas.

Let’s get started with our first step: restoring institutional legitimacy.

Restore Institutional Legitimacy

The American people award money to companies through grants and contracts.

A simple overview of this process is the government collects taxes and allocates that money to federal agencies to spend—this is the federal budget. Those agencies purchase goods and services by requesting companies compete to win contracts. If a company wins a contract, the government purchases its goods or services. The companies win awards by being the lowest acceptable bidder.

In some cases, those companies are competitive to win an award because they pay wages less than the social program threshold. But the American people don’t know that.

Then, the American people give those same workers taxpayer money through social programs, even though they already gave the company the funds to pay their workers.

If we asked the American people whether a company should receive precious taxpayer money and then pay poverty wages, I’m confident the answer would be ‘no.’

We would say ‘no’ because it’s an illegitimate use of taxpayer funds.

So, the first step in enabling Americans to succeed is to restore the legitimacy of taxpayer spending. A company either needs to be on board with the American people, or the American people should leave that company behind. In other words, if a company wants to enjoy the benefit of federal contracts, it needs to commit to paying every individual in the company a wage above the poverty level. 

We need to codify this standard first by Executive Order and then in law:

No agency shall award any federal dollars to any entity (including any company, subsidiary, or company that operates on property supported by federal dollars or any entity that sells a product to the people of the United States) that pays workers wages below the poverty level plus 50%, assuming the worker and three dependents, for that locality.

You can read more about the idea in Double Taxation.

The Executive Order isn’t just about wages. It would make businesses that pay good wages more competitive for awards and enable the government to award legitimate winners. It would represent a legitimate use of taxpayer dollars.

Next, we need to pull wages up by investing in the infrastructure of human capital—the knowledge, skills, and abilities of American workers.

Revitalize Talent to Pull Wages Up

Human capital is foundational infrastructure similar to bridges, roads, and dams. This infrastructure supports the national capability that underpins and enhances the nation’s overall capability.

Human capital represents a key piece of the market. It’s the training and preparation of individuals. We can’t say there’s a market failure in job training but no market failure in wages. A failure in one area leads to a failure in the other. If low wages indicate a problem in human capital, then a problem in human capital means a problem in wages.

Our lack of relevant training for the working class degrades our ability to drive world markets. Our high schools (and many university programs) don’t teach students lessons directly applicable to the job market. This lack of relevant education further undermines our economic competitiveness and social cohesion. Companies need knowledgeable and experienced professionals to help them innovate.

The need for more relevant worker training is an infrastructure deficiency. We build roads and bridges to enable citizens and businesses to move goods and provide services. Businesses have a vested interest in the infrastructure that is a skilled workforce. Government should invest in education and infrastructure to create higher-quality jobs, making work more valuable.

To increase the capability of American workers and pull wages up, we need to ensure that education and training systems are responsive to the market’s needs. When there’s a surplus of some skills and a shortage of others, wages reflect that imbalance. Addressing this requires improving our educational institutions and reducing barriers that prevent workers from acquiring new skills, without needing a college degree.

By allowing students to learn about real-world problems and develop potential solutions, we can help them develop the skills they need to innovate and succeed in the workforce.

To achieve this goal, we need to:

Create a network of training and education innovation hubs. With support from local communities, we need to use the nation’s community college infrastructure as an initial base.

Partner with academia to enable students with no education beyond high school to acquire training and professional certifications upon completing the programs.

Partner with businesses to create relevant and engaging educational materials.

You can read more about the idea in Reskilling America: A New Plan for the 21st Century Economy.

In addition to pulling wages up, we need to help small businesses generate revenue so they can pay higher wages.

Generate Small Business Revenue to Increase Wages

If businesses don't increase revenue, they can't raise wages.

Businesses generate revenue through the sale of goods or services. Business leaders use part of this revenue to pay wages, but wages aren’t the only expenditure. Businesses have to build and maintain infrastructure, including physical facilities and technological systems they use to operate. They have to pay taxes. They need to make their product and expend revenue to generate raw materials, manufacturing, and logistics. They have to conduct research and development to improve their offerings.

A business’s ability to maintain healthy wage levels depends on revenue being high enough to support its other costs. In lean years, wages that are too high threaten financial stability. This can lead to a business failing to invest in infrastructure to modernize and compete with new businesses. It could cause a loss of talent due to wage freezes, reductions, or layoffs. It could reduce the ability to move into new markets, slowing growth and strangling the business. Every time a business fails to achieve one of these marks, one of its competitors does. If it misses too many, it dies.

Due to the constraint that high wages threaten business growth and survival in lean years, one principle business leaders consider is their payroll-to-revenue ratio. For many businesses, a good guideline is 15-30% of revenue. In fat years, wages may only be 15% of revenue. In lean years, wages could be 30% or more.

In the long run, businesses can only afford to raise wages if they can increase their revenue. If the business needs to raise wages by 10%, it needs to grow revenue so the payroll-to-revenue ratio is healthy.

In addition to the reality of wages and revenue, small businesses face steep challenges. They are less able to generate revenue than large corporations. They operate on a smaller scale. They have less access to capital, market power, and regulatory influence. They use less infrastructure than large corporations and put less stress on that infrastructure. They have a smaller physical footprint, require fewer resources, and generate less strain on public services like roads, utilities, and waste management. Many are owner-operated and can't pay themselves poverty wages.

To enable small businesses to pay higher wages, we need to help them generate revenue. So we need to give them tax incentives to raise wages. At the same time, we have a public responsibility to make sure those dollars get to the workers. Giving small businesses a tax incentive to pay higher wages will only keep Americans off social programs if those small businesses actually pay livable wages. To receive the tax incentives, small businesses need to prove they paid their workers livable wages.

To achieve this goal, we need a tax incentive for small businesses:

We will reduce the tax burden for small businesses that pay livable wages by 10% across the board and target specific industries, such as retail and food service, with even more significant tax breaks.

You can read or listen to this idea in If Businesses Don’t Increase Revenue, They Can’t Raise Wages

And Earned Income Tax Credit and Small Business Taxes.

Whereas small businesses need more revenue to raise wages, large corporations have access to greater revenue sources. Because they have different capabilities, they should have different requirements.

Achieve Livable Wages

We need to encourage businesses to strive for profits and ensure they pay their workers a wage that lifts them above the poverty level. We also need to keep business taxes low, as low business taxes spur investment in America. We need to make sure workers benefit from America’s great business environment. We need strong corporations to strive for profits.

As with small businesses, we have a public responsibility to ensure individuals can survive without social programs. Americans can earn money from two sources: their work or the government.

Choosing to allow corporations to pay low wages means choosing to support social programs.

We need to legislate a fair corporate minimum wage that adjusts automatically over time and takes the cost of living in different areas into account:

Publicly traded corporations shall pay full-time wages representing a rate no less than the poverty level plus 50%, assuming the worker and three dependents, for that locality.

From a business competition perspective, this levels the playing field in urban and rural America. The above requirement is locality-based. A federal poverty threshold benefits businesses in more expensive urban areas by requiring companies in low-cost rural areas to pay the same wages as businesses in more costly areas. This federal approach would hurt business activity in less expensive rural America.

From a states-rights perspective, it allows states to influence the cost of living in their state through appropriate locality pay. Different areas have different costs of living. For instance, the cost of living in Manhattan, New York, is very different from that in Manhattan, Kansas.

From a legislative perspective, it is more feasible than taxing the rich but still provides income to American workers. It doesn’t require legislative updates as living costs across the nation rise.

It saves the American taxpayer by reducing the need for social programs. It is not a tax proposal and does not impose a tax burden on the American people.

You can read more about the idea in Horses and Sparrows.

So far, we’ve addressed restoring the legitimacy of the government spending taxpayer dollars, improving the infrastructure of American human capital, and two initiatives to improve Americans’ ability to put food on the table. Now they need a house to put that table in.

Increase the Supply of Homes

John Locke’s great philosophy became the foundation of the US Constitution. He identified people agree to be governed to preserve their property; that is the chief role of the institution. Everyone owns property, even if that property is owning yourself.

To preserve property, we need to create conditions enabling citizens to secure property. Securing basic needs allows individuals to pursue prosperity and stability. You can’t put food on the table without a home to put the table in.

The economic principle of supply and demand strongly influences the housing market. In simple economic terms, as the supply of an item rises relative to the demand for that item, prices in the market will decrease. But the housing market has become untenable. Housing per capita has decreased since 1970, and the supply of first-time homebuyer houses is especially low.

The government needs to set conditions to reverse this trend, but it can’t do so by building government housing. If the government were the lead agent to provide housing for Americans, would everyone get a trailer to live in? That would be ridiculous. The government must work through the market. Building homes must be profitable. If it’s not, builders will find other work.

We need to work through the market to increase the supply of homes for low- and middle-income families.

Working through the market to increase supply means improving the profitability of builders who build small homes.

The Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program is the best government mechanism to incentivize small businesses. SBIR programs are federal grant programs that encourage small businesses to bring desired products to market. SBIR is competitive and provides the incentive to profit from innovation through commercialization.

There is already an SBIR grant program that, with minor changes, could be used to build small, affordable homes in rural America. The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) sponsors an SBIR grant program for Rural and Community Development.

Rural and Community Development aims to improve the quality of life in rural America by creating and commercializing technologies that address critical economic and social development issues or challenges. The applications need not be centered on agriculture but may be focused on any area that has the potential to significantly benefit rural Americans.

The Executive Branch must direct USDA to expand its scope and earmark some of this SBIR money specifically for small, affordable homes in rural America.

In urban areas, America could convert empty lots and warehouses, no-longer-used parking lots, and dilapidated housing into small, affordable housing. The US Department of Housing and Urban Development can lead the way. Unfortunately, the US Department of Housing and Urban Development does not sponsor an SBIR program.

We need legislative action to establish an SBIR program under the US Department of Housing and Urban Development that earmarks funds for small, affordable housing in urban areas.

We must implement rules to ensure these homes are sold to owner-occupiers, particularly first-time homebuyers, to prevent them from being snapped up by investors.

You can read or listen to this idea in Small, Affordable Homes.

And in Has Capitalism Failed the Housing Market?.

Increasing the supply of affordable housing will help with housing in the long term, but young Americans still living at home don’t need help with housing eventually. They need help now.

Set Young Americans on the Path to Financial Success

Young Americans don’t just need more housing. To strengthen financial security for young Americans, we need to start by addressing home ownership.

Young Americans need to be able to secure their financial future early in adulthood. This means our young generations need to be able to qualify to purchase their first home at a low interest rate.

We need a first-time-homebuyer incentive of a 3% interest rate, and we need to combine this low interest rate with a US Department of Housing and Urban Development loan, which requires a 3.5% down payment.

After their one-time use, if a family wants to purchase a more expensive home, that’s their decision. If they want to own the asset, they own the risk and higher interest rate that comes with the asset. This plan further needs to disqualify any private equity money or investment firms from receiving these terms. We need to specify single-family homes, single-unit duplexes, apartments, etc.

The initiative’s point isn’t for someone to purchase a commercial building and rent out all but one apartment. That’s an investment.

The initiative aims to improve the financial stability of young Americans. To achieve that goal, all young Americans must be able to take advantage of it.

This proposal benefits young Americans who attend college and those who take up trades. It benefits young Americans who grew up in trailers and suburbs, as well as young Americans in rural and urban America.

You can read more about the idea in Financial Security for Young Americans.

In sum, we need a systemic approach to addressing our biggest challenge: Americans having food on the table and heat in the house. You can’t put food on the table without the money you get from your work to buy food. And you can’t heat your house unless you have a house.

There are no silver-bullet solutions. It’s a complex system. Over the past two years, we’ve considered many ideas. Some were eliminated after more thought, and some weren’t possible. Six big ideas have survived.

We need to restore institutional legitimacy when spending taxpayer dollars.

We need to invest in the infrastructure of human capital to pull wages up.

We need to help small businesses generate revenue so they can pay higher wages.

We need to ensure workers benefit from America’s great business environment and achieve livable wages.

We need to work through the market and increase the supply of homes for low- and middle-income families.

We need to strengthen financial security for young Americans, starting with addressing home ownership.

Addressing our challenges with these ideas will make life better for Americans.

May God bless the United States of America.

Postscript.

Fall in the mountains is a beautiful time. I’m going elk hunting. I’ll see you in a couple of weeks. Maybe three.

A one-size-fits-all approach to both small businesses and large corporations isn’t appropriate.

We need to legislate livable wage requirements for large corporations and give small businesses that pay livable wages tax incentives.

The Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits

In September 1970, the New York Times published an article by Nobel laureate economist Milton Friedman titled The Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits.

Friedman wrote the article responding to the growing public and academic interest in corporate responsibility regarding environmental issues, civil rights struggles, and consumer protection. His controversial perspective dismissed social, ethical, or environmental concerns unless they directly contributed to profit. Others argued that businesses should consider broader stakeholder interests, including employees, communities, and the environment.

Friedman's premise was that the business of business is business. He emphasized that diverting from pursuing profit is equivalent to spending someone else’s money—shareholders, employees, or customers—for purposes that hadn’t been mutually agreed upon. He likened this spending of other people’s money to taxation without representation.

Friedman argued that a business's primary responsibility is to increase profits, and corporate executives should focus solely on maximizing shareholder value within legal and ethical boundaries. He posited that corporate social responsibility blurs the lines between the private and public sectors.

Let me repeat that.

Friedman believed businesses, particularly corporations, should maximize shareholder value and profits. Any deviation toward social justice or environmental concerns is outside a business’s fundamental responsibility unless it directly contributes to profitability. Instead, he asserted that the public sector—or government—should fulfill these societal roles. Addressing and managing social justice and general welfare issues falls under the umbrella of public responsibility.

Friedman posited that we should not blur the lines between corporate and public responsibility. Famous economists tell it like it is: there’s corporate responsibility and public responsibility.

If the business of business is business, and the responsibility of corporations is to increase profits, then what is public responsibility?

Government of the People, By the People, For the People

On November 19, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln gave a short speech to dedicate the battlefield cemetery at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. The Gettysburg Address became the most quoted speech in history. It ends with the words, “that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

The concept of government for the people binds our public responsibility. Lincoln conveyed that governance derives legitimacy from its ability to represent and serve the people, an idea rooted in the US Constitution. The Constitution is the agreement the American people and the states in the Union made to form a government.

Let me emphasize again that the people and states willingly chose to form a government, and they further chose that elected representatives would use the ratified Constitution as its governing document.

The Preamble states the purpose and intent of the document. It includes the words:

We the People of the United States, in Order to…establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility… (and) promote the general Welfare…do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Let's expand on the verbiage in the Preamble just a bit.

We've already touched on the first words, "We the People." Lincoln referred to this as government of the people, by the people, for the people. The purpose of government is to serve the people. Friedman later referred to this purpose as the responsibility of the public sector.

So we could rephrase that portion of the Preamble to “It is the responsibility of the public sector and our elected representatives to…”

Next, we address “establish justice and insure domestic tranquility.” Last week, we discussed the concept of justice in the context of Plato. Justice is fair and equal treatment under the law, individual liberty, and the equitable distribution of resources that enable individual opportunity.

Justice creates a society where individuals fulfill their roles and contribute to the state's overall well-being. Addressing inequality reduces societal tension, maintains social order, and fosters a peaceful society.

Justice enables people to work and command a livable wage. It’s the equitable distribution of resources like education, healthcare, and housing that allows people to work and earn a good living. Access to resources gives everyone a fair chance at economic success. Achieving justice ensures domestic tranquility.

Justice isn’t a handout. Government shouldn't continuously redistribute wealth. Instead, we need to create a fair system where opportunities for housing, fair pay, health, education, and economic advancement are accessible to all. Justice is the government setting conditions and rules that enable individuals to achieve success.

With a shared understanding of justice, let’s build on our statement. We can expand it and say: “It is the responsibility of the public sector and our elected representatives to…create a society that strives toward individual opportunity and equitable distribution of resources…”

Now, we can move on to “promote the general welfare.”

The general welfare is the well-being of citizens. This requirement identifies a responsibility to create conditions that improve the quality of life for all Americans.

Our final expanded statement can be: “It is the responsibility of the public sector and our elected representatives to…create a society that strives toward individual opportunity and equitable distribution of resources… to enhance the well-being of Americans, and to achieve these goals we establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

This language juxtaposes Friedman’s view of corporate and public responsibility. The business of business is business, and corporate responsibility is to increase profits. The business of the public realm is to set conditions and rules that ensure individual success through legislative and regulatory means.

Corporate profit is essential for economic growth. The goal of corporations is to earn profits.

Public responsibility counterbalances the corporate drive for profits. It ensures economic progress contributes to the well-being of citizens and not just corporations. The institution is to maintain a balance between the corporate market and individual justice.

How would this institution of public responsibility achieve this balance?

Why do we treat small businesses like publicly traded corporations?

Like much of economic theory, Friedman’s argument focuses on the role of large corporations in maximizing profits. But there's an apparent disconnect when we apply this framework to small businesses.

Small businesses operate on a smaller scale than corporations. They have less access to capital, market power, and regulatory influence. Despite these differences, policies and expectations often treat them as equal players in the same market.

This leads us to our question: Why do we treat small businesses like publicly traded corporations?

Shouldn't small businesses with fewer resources have more support and different requirements than large corporations? Let's consider two obvious ways small businesses differ from corporations and why they should have different requirements.

First, small businesses use less infrastructure than large corporations and put less stress on that infrastructure, so they shouldn't have the same infrastructure tax requirements. They have a smaller physical footprint, require fewer resources, and generate less strain on public services like roads, utilities, and waste management. While corporations provide goods and services to the public, they also heavily utilize infrastructure—which is a business cost, not a socialized public fund. Businesses are responsible for their operating costs.

Second, many small businesses are owner-operated and can't pay themselves poverty wages. They face the reality of needing a house to heat and food to put on the table. They should get tax cuts to incentivize higher wages, whereas we should have a livable minimum wage standard for corporations. Large corporations have more resources and greater financial capacity; a minimum wage standard for corporations ensures workers are compensated fairly and can contribute to the economy. Tax incentives for small businesses and wage standards for corporations seek a competitive balance.

However, public responsibility still needs to achieve a goal. All Americans need justice, which means food on the table and heat in the house. Furthermore, a second intended outcome is to reduce reliance on social programs by ensuring sufficient wages. Giving small businesses a tax incentive to pay higher wages will only keep Americans off social programs if those small businesses actually pay livable wages. To receive the tax incentives, small businesses need to prove they paid their workers livable wages.

The business of business is to maximize profits. The business of the public realm is justice and the welfare of America. We need to encourage businesses to strive for profits, and we need to ensure corporations pay their workers a wage that lifts them above the poverty level.

We don't need a complex law. We need to legislate a fair corporate minimum wage that adjusts automatically over time and takes the cost of living in different areas into account:

Publicly traded corporations shall pay full-time wages representing a rate no less than the poverty level plus 50%, assuming the worker and three dependents, for that locality.

And for small businesses, we need a tax incentive:

We will reduce the tax burden for small businesses that pay livable wages by 10% across the board and target specific industries, such as retail and food service, with even more significant tax breaks.

Another benefit of treating small businesses differently than corporations is that it makes them more competitive. A visit to downtowns across America tells a common story about how big-box stores drove small retailers out of business. Large corporations leverage economies of scale to offer lower prices that small businesses can’t match, leading to a decline in local economic diversity. This phenomenon has reshaped downtown areas, resulting in economic blight and decreased community cohesion. We’re not going to put publicly traded corporations out of business, but we need to make small businesses more competitive.

A one-size-fits-all approach to both small businesses and large corporations isn’t appropriate.

The business of business is to maximize profits.

The business of the public realm is justice and the welfare of America. Justice is food on the table and heat in the house.

We need to legislate livable wage requirements for large corporations and give small businesses that pay livable wages tax incentives.

May God bless the United States of America.

This didn’t push to the podcast hosts; reaccomplishing.

—

I am against socialism.

If we oppose socialism, we must champion individualism.

Supporting individualism means we have a duty to enable every individual to succeed.

Milton Friedman (our subject of the last two weeks) wasn’t the only renowned economist of the 20th century whose ideas continue to influence US economic policy. Friedman was influential, no doubt. From the 1980s to the early 2000s, his emphasis on monetary policy, central banks controlling inflation, and the belief in free markets became the mainstream approach to economic management in many parts of the world.

But John Maynard Keynes is the father of macroeconomics. Each economist’s prominence fluctuates with the economic conditions of the time.

Since we considered our questions using Friedman’s ideas as a guide last week, we’ll start with Keynes this week.

To appreciate Keynes ideas, we need to explore the foundational concept of justice articulated by the ancient philosopher Plato. Plato’s justice provides a foundational understanding of societal roles and responsibilities.

Plato and Justice

Plato (427 to 347 BC) was a Greek philosopher and one of the most influential figures in Western philosophy and culture. He was a student of Socrates and taught Aristotle. The three form the foundational trio of ancient Greek philosophers whose ideas have shaped much of Western thought.

Plato founded the Academy, one of the world’s first universities. Many of his writings come from his time teaching there. He wrote in dialogue style, using stories to convey ideas.

His still-influential The Republic explores the “soul of a nation and an individual.” Its central theme is justice—how to create a society where individuals fulfill their roles and contribute to the overall well-being of the state. Plato divided society into three classes: rulers (philosopher-kings), warriors (auxiliaries), and producers (farmers, artisans, etc.). Each class has its specific role, and society achieves justice when each class fulfills its responsibilities.

It’s worth repeating: we achieve justice when each individual fills their role. Justice means individuals should be treated fairly and equally under the law, but it also means society upholds individual liberty for all. Justice for all means society strives toward individual opportunity and equitable distribution of resources like education, healthcare, and housing. While Plato didn't discuss modern concepts like public education or healthcare, we can extend his emphasis on each person fulfilling their role in today's context. Ensuring access to education and housing allows individuals to develop their abilities and contribute to society, aligning with Plato's vision of justice.

Justice includes education and housing. Justice enables people to work. Let’s consider an example from today’s America with a question:

Can you work and command a good living from society if you can’t access proper education and suitable housing? No.

Do the American people, acting through our elected representatives, sponsor and fund education and training, and control the conditions to shepherd the housing market? Yes.

Are we really saying it's the individual's fault if they can't secure a good job due to a lack of education and training or afford a home in our absurdly inflated market?

It’s a challenging question that John Maynard Keynes thought about a lot. Plato envisioned a just society where each individual fulfills their role for the common good. Similarly, Keynes argued that when the market fails to provide opportunities for individuals to contribute, it becomes the government's responsibility to step in. Both perspectives highlight that a society thrives when members are empowered to reach their potential.

John Maynard Keynes and Government Spending

John Maynard Keynes (1883 to 1946) was a British economist and the father of macroeconomics. More than any other economist, his ideas profoundly influenced modern macroeconomic theory. He is best known for developing Keynesian economics, a school of thought that advocates for active government intervention in the economy, particularly during recessions, to manage aggregate demand and maintain full employment.

In simple terms, this idea suggests that the government should help the economy during tough times, like recessions, by boosting spending to keep people working and ensure there's enough demand for goods and services.

Recent real-world examples of Keynesian economics are the government responses to the 2008 financial crisis and COVID-19. The economy was in trouble. The government injected stimulus funds by increasing spending, offering financial aid, and giving money to businesses and individuals. The goal was to boost demand to get people to buy things and keep people employed, helping the economy recover faster.

Keynes believed governments should actively manage economic cycles. He argued for deficit spending during depressions and recessions—borrowing money to finance public projects, infrastructure, and social programs. And he argued for government austerity during healthy periods. He claimed deficit spending would jump-start the economy, and once the economy recovered, the government could reduce spending and pay down the debt. During World War II, Keynes argued for funding the British war effort and that it was better to prioritize winning the war and maintaining the economy than to worry about balancing the budget.

Keynes understood that markets don’t always self-correct. People can’t just "work harder" to succeed. His solution was clear: when the private sector can’t provide enough jobs or income, the government has a responsibility to step in and keep the economy running by spending on public projects, infrastructure, and social programs.

He argued that when the market isn’t working, people need support. This support helps the individual and stabilizes society as a whole.

And he argued for government intervention as a temporary measure for use during periods of economic crisis. His central idea was that government should stimulate demand and create jobs when the private sector couldn’t. His goal was to jump-start the economy so that individuals could find employment and earn a good living once conditions improved.

In The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money (1936) he wrote: The boom, not the slump, is the right time for austerity at the Treasury.

Keynes argued that work should be the primary source of income for individuals. He believed the government should correct the market failures of too few good jobs. He argued the government should invest in education and infrastructure to create higher-quality jobs, making work more valuable. He supported a livable minimum wage as a means to distribute wealth fairly.

He wrote: The outstanding faults of the economic society in which we live are its failure to provide for full employment and its arbitrary and inequitable distribution of wealth and incomes.

Keynes did not advocate for permanent dependency on social programs. He argued for government intervention when the market failed to provide full employment and fair wages. His writings emphasized temporary government support, focusing on creating the conditions for self-sufficiency by addressing market failures.

In short, Keynes believed in setting rules that supported individual success. He advocated for government intervention in challenging times and for governments to pay off their debts in good times.

Though a couple thousand years apart, Plato’s philosophy and Keynesian economics agree on many points.

Plato and Keynes Intersect

Let’s break down Plato’s philosophy.

We achieve justice when every individual fulfills their role in society.

Society suffers if individuals cannot fulfill their roles due to a lack of opportunity, education, or resources.

Every individual must be able to contribute according to their abilities.

But what happens if you can't work to your potential due to a lack of education and training?

If you can’t access these resources, you can’t fulfill your role in society.

You’re stuck trying to survive, worrying only about basic needs like heat in the house and food on the table.

This condition is injustice because individuals are denied the opportunity to contribute and thrive.

And we examine Keynesian economics.

Work is the primary source of income for individuals.

Government must invest in education and infrastructure to create higher-quality jobs and make work more valuable. Plato argues that these are the same tools individuals need to fulfill their roles in society.

If the market doesn't provide adequate employment opportunities or wages, the government has to set rules for livable wages.

The intent is to create conditions for self-sufficiency, which reduces dependency on social programs and aligns with Plato's idea of enabling individuals to fulfill their societal role.

To lighten the mood and offer a fresh perspective, let’s introduce Jessica, insightful comedian, to share her thoughts on the state of our economic policies.

Jessica: Hey folks! Let's dive headfirst into the circus we call life, shall we? You ever notice how everyone has the ultimate fix for all our problems? It’s like being at a potluck where everyone brings their “world-famous” casserole. You've got the kale enthusiasts over here, chanting, “Kale will save us all!” Sure, Brenda, because nothing says “solution” like bitter leaves that taste like freshly mowed lawn.

Then Aunt Karen rolls in with her legendary tofu surprise. Surprise! It still tastes like disappointment. Listen, Karen, tofu wasn’t on anyone’s wish list unless that list is titled “Things That Pretend to Be Food but Aren’t.”

And speaking of solutions, let's talk about Uncle Sam’s idea of help these days. Handing out cash without any real support is like giving someone a spoon when they’re drowning. “Here, maybe you can paddle your way out!” It’s like tossing a life jacket to someone in a desert—thanks, but that's not really addressing the problem, is it?

Now, let’s chat about paychecks. You ever open yours and think, “Is this a typo or a cruel joke?” You work like a dog all week, and your bank account’s like, “Better luck next time!” It’s like ordering a steak dinner and getting served a single crouton and a side of air. “Enjoy your meal!” Oh, I will, once I find it.

We’re setting the bar so low, it's a tripping hazard. People celebrating that they can afford rent this month like they've won the lottery. “Yes! I get to live indoors for another 30 days!” Congratulations, you've achieved the bare minimum required for survival. Next up: dreaming about affording that extra guacamole at the burrito place.

Life shouldn’t be about just scraping by. It should be about thriving, reaching for the stars, and maybe snagging a moon rock or two. And let's be honest, who doesn't want a slice of cake to celebrate the little victories? Cake is essential, people! It's the edible high-five.

At the end of the day, we need to stop serving the same bland policy porridge and start whipping up a recipe that actually tastes good. Can we please retire the economic microwave dinners? I'm tired of peeling back the plastic to find half-cooked ideas and freezer-burned promises.

So let’s roll up our sleeves and cook up a feast where everyone’s invited, the portions are fair, and nobody leaves hungry—or hangry, for that matter. Because success isn’t about handing out snacks to keep people quiet; it's about giving them the ingredients to bake their own gourmet creations.

Thanks for tuning in, everybody! Remember, individualism isn't just about surviving—it's about giving people the tools to thrive and maybe, just maybe, a chance to have their cake and eat it too. Who’s up for dessert?

The Reality of Economics

The reality of economics is people don’t run on hope.

Jessica's witty observations highlight how quick fixes and handouts fail to address the root causes of economic hardship. Systemic solutions empower individuals.

People need a house to heat and money to put food on the table. This benefits the individual and society writ large. The proof of this statement is that liberal and conservative economists alike recommend social programs to alleviate poverty. They know if people don’t have enough money to survive from their work, the other source is the government.

But instead of thinking about how to make social programs work better, we need to think about how to eliminate the need for social programs.

We can make the rules work for individuals without hurting small businesses. We can pay for things like improving education to enable individuals to succeed.

If we refuse to do those things, we choose to pay for social programs.

Some argue that social programs lead to socialism. But socialism emerges when individualism fails.

I am against socialism.

If we oppose socialism, we must champion individualism.

Supporting individualism means we have a duty to enable every individual to succeed.

May God bless the United States of America.