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On the front page of the December 3, 2018 Washington Post there appeared an article entitled “GOP falling in line with skeptics on climate.” The article cites Congresswoman and Senator-elect Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee falsely asserting that the earth has started to cool and also stating equally dishonestly that scientists have not reached a consensus on climate change.

Rick Scott, the Governor of Florida and Senator-elect, has admitted that the seas are warmer and rising and will be harmful to his state but will not admit that human activity has anything to do with it. And John Neely Kennedy who may announce for Governor of Louisiana in the near future recently said he agreed that the earth is getting hotter but asserted that “I’ve seen many persuasive arguments that it’s just a continuation of warming up from the Little Ice Age.”

On December 6, 2018 the Post published a further article on this subject.  It noted that global carbon emissions are at a record high of 37.1 billion of tons of carbon per year.  No nation is even close to meeting its voluntary carbon emission reduction level under the 2015 Paris Agreement.  The United Nations Secretary General said “We are in trouble.  We are in deep trouble with climate change.”  And of course the President has announced U.S. withdrawal from the Paris Agreement—for personal political reasons—thereby perhaps dooming any effective response to climate change.

So as President Trump becomes more and more isolated internationally and more and more irresponsible for denying that climate change is real, he has presided over a fundamental change of the U.S. Republican Party, pushing it to place climate change denial as one of the principal assertions of its ideological mainstream. But all these politicians know better, they know that climate change in real and they know it is an existential threat to the survival of human civilization. The Trump administration even admits this in arguing for a relaxation of the automobile efficiency rules instituted by the Obama administration which were designed to prevent billions of tons of carbon from being ejected into the atmosphere.  The Trump administration has argued publicly that by the end of this century the average temperature of the earth will reach four degrees Celsius above preindustrial norms.  At this level global warming will cause enormously catastrophic effects on earth and likely could not be stopped before reaching plus six Celsius—the geologically historic  extinction level—so what difference would a few billion tons of carbon make.  It has been argued that if the world average temperature reaches plus 3.7 Celsius there is not enough wealth in the world to stop it.  It will just keep going until the world is too hot for human habitation.

Perhaps President Trump doesn’t care what happens to children in the future but many Republican members of Congress do have children and grandchildren about which they do care. And they understand that such a policy amounts to allowing the current generation to drive in big fast cars and risk their grandchildren burning. These members can’t want that, but that is the policy they are adopting.

The children and grandchildren of these members will curse them for leaving them with such a world at the end of the century—a world that is difficult to live in for humans as is and is also perhaps highly vulnerable to increases in warming not too many years in their future that will lead to a heat level that will not support human habitation. “Old grandpa Joe and/or grandma Jean when they served in the US Congress some 80 years ago, they made the pact with the devil making life difficult if not impossible for their children and children. Didn’t they care about us.”  Why is this how Republicans in Congress want to risk being remembered? It is immorality on the highest scale.

“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

John Adams—1798

“It is substantially true that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government.”

George Washington—1796

“It is too early for politicians to presume on our forgetting that the public good, the real welfare of the great body of the people, is the supreme object to be pursued; and that no form of government whatever has any other value than as it may be fitted for the attainment of this object.

James Madison—1788

John Jay

My good friend, Abigail Adams, showed me some of her letters recently. In a 1776 letter she reminds her husband, John, to “Remember the Ladies” as he and others embark on the great task of forming a new government and its “Code of Laws.”

Donald Trump remembers the ladies, all right, although they are called women now. He calls them “Horseface,” “loser,” “an extraordinarily low IQ person,” “unattractive both inside and out.” He has said, “I love her…upper body,” “You never get to the face because the body’s so good,” and “I moved on her actually and I failed…I did try and f-ck her.” Our President evidently looks upon a woman as a face and a body. Character and intellect are beside the point. Memory loss would be an improvement for this man.

Take note of Trump’s recent Supreme Court pick. The evidence of Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s abuse of women when he was young was simply overwhelming. In the October 20, 2018 Daily Hampshire Gazette, in an op-ed piece The Reverend Dr. Andrea Ayvazian wrote, “During the atrocity that was the Kavanaugh hearing, I found myself wishing that those questioning Dr. Blasey Ford could actually listen to her and believe her. Instead, the majority of [male] senators partially listened, rewrote the story and dismissed the truth…..Listen and believe is a tall order for white men.” Instead, Trump mocked Dr. Ford.

Abigail noted, “That your Sex are Naturally Tyrannical is a Truth so thoroughly established as to admit of no dispute, but such of you as wish to be happy willingly give up the hard title of Master for the more tender and endearing one of Friend. Why then, not put it out of the power of the vicious and the Lawless to use us with cruelty and indignity with impunity. Men of Sense in all Ages abhor those customs which treat us only as the vassals of your Sex.”

Among my own 18th century writings are the following: “The love of domination and an uncontrolled lust of arbitrary power have prevailed among all nations and perhaps in proportion to the degrees of civilization.” And, “Democratic principles are the result of equality of condition.”

President Trump, however, believes some of us are more equal than others.

Mercy Warren

Three years ago when world leaders met to negotiate an international agreement on confronting climate change one of the most difficult points upon which to reach agreement was what some have suggested calling the Doomsday Thermometer Reading. After much political jousting the number was set at 2 degrees Celsius above the level that existed prior to the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, about 1800. Beyond this level it was concluded potential catastrophe lay. But small island states such as the Maldives and Mauritius as well as some developing countries such as Ethiopia and Columbia pushed back saying that their countries would be devastated—and some would be under water—well before 2 degrees of additional warming was reached. They wanted a lower level, 1.5 degrees Celsius. The compromise reached was to endorse both numbers. The Paris Agreement calls for “holding” warming below two degrees while “pursuing” efforts to limit it to 1.5 degrees.

Last week, the United Nations scientific advisory board (referred to as the I.P.C.C., the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) delivered an assessment of these numbers. It found that the effect of even 1.5 degrees worth of warming will probably be disastrous—as reported by an article in the New Yorker of October 22, 2018—with consequences including but not limited to: “the loss of most of the world’s coral reefs, the displacement of millions of people by sea- level rise, and a decline in global crop yields.” And which is now widely understood as the barest beginnings of the calamitous, disastrous, overpowering, crushing existential threat that uncontrolled climate change represents to humanity. But of course the Trump administration is going in the opposite direction thereby directly threatening this country, the world community and the future of humanity on this planet.

As the article continues: “Though the Administration often seems incapable of systematic action, it has spent the past eighteen months systematically targeting rules aimed at curbing greenhouse gas-emissions. One of these rules, which required greater fuel efficiency for cars and trucks, would have reduced CO₂ emissions by an estimated six billion tons over the lifetime of the affected vehicles. In a recent finding intended to justify the rollback, the Administration predicted that, by the end of this century, global temperatures will have risen by almost four degrees Celsius (nearly seven degrees Fahrenheit). In this context, the Administration argued, why would anyone care about a mere six billion tons? Come the apocalypse, it seems, we all want to be driving S.U.V.s.” This level, plus 4 degrees, is nearing possible extinction levels. This is not fiddling while Rome is burning; this is setting fire to your own fiddle and starting the fires yourself. It constitutes the Administration giving up and abandoning any hope of saving humanity. It is like saying let the grandchildren burn if they can’t save themselves—which by the end of the century would not be possible—let’s enjoy ourselves while we can and drive around in big S.U.V.s spewing even more poisonous carbon into the air.

Any Administration that truly thinks like this should not be allowed to hold office. If in office, they should be removed and they certainly under no circumstance should be continued in office.

Here follows a few thoughts from our Founders:

“Government is nothing more than the combined force of Society, or the united power of the multitude for peace, order, safety, good and happiness of the people.”

John Adams, 1772

“The essence of Government is power and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse.”

James Madison, 1829

“Tyranny can scarcely be practiced upon a virtuous and wise people.”

John Adams, 1796

“I feel anxious for the fate of our monarchy, or democracy, or whatever is to take place. I soon get lost in a labyrinth of perplexities; but, whatever occurs, may justice and righteousness be the stability of our times, and order arise out of confusion. Great difficulties may be surmounted by patience and perseverance.”

Abigail Adams, 1775

John Jay

“To abandon facts is to abandon freedom. If nothing is true, then no one can criticize power, because there is no basis on which to do so. If nothing is true, then all is spectacle. The biggest wallet pays for the most blinding lights.” Timothy Snyder, On Tyranny, 2011

“…upon his appointment as chancellor, Hitler immediately created a new Ministry of People’s Enlightenment and propaganda under Joseph Goebbels, who remained one of his closest political advisors. In Trump’s presidency, those functions have effectively been privatized in the form of Fox News and Sean Hannity. Fox faithfully trumpets the “alternative facts” of the Trump version of events, and in turn Trump frequently finds inspiration for his tweets and fantasy-filled statements from his daily monitoring of Fox commentators and his late night calls with Hannity. The result is the creation of a ‘Trump bubble’ for his base to inhabit that is unrecognizable to viewers of PBS, CNN, and MSNBC and readers of the Washington Post and the New York Times. The highly critical free media not only provide no effective check on Trump’s ability to be a serial liar without political penalty; on the contrary they provide yet another enemy around which to mobilize the grievances and resentments of his base. A free press does not have to be repressed when it can be rendered irrelevant and even exploited for political gain.” Christopher R. Browning, The Suffocation of Democracy, The New York Review of Books, October 25, 2018, p. 16.

“Jeff Flake, who is retiring at the end of the year, … made a telling comment … a few days earlier. Scott Kelley, of ’60 Minutes’ asked him if he would have been willing to call for the postponement of the vote [on Judge Kavanaugh] if he was running for reelection. ‘No, not a chance,’ he said. ‘There’s no value to reaching across the aisle. There is no currency for that anymore.’” Amy Davidson Sorkin, The New Yorker, October 15, 2018.
“Why did people think that a voting system was protection against totalitarianism?” Souad Mekhennet, I Was Told to Come Alone: My Journey Behind the Lines of Jihad, 2018, p. 189.

As our Founders wrote below, democracy is fragile, and as is noted above if facts are abandoned freedom is lost. A free press, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly and of movement are the core of a democratic society. And they all rest on truth which itself rests on an agreed set of facts. As John Adams once said “facts are stubborn things” but they can be suppressed as in Nazi Germany or they can be swamped by lies and distortion as is the case in the Trump administration. In saying this the famous lines by George Orwell in 1984 comes to mind: “War is peace, ignorance is strength, freedom is slavery.” But war is not peace and freedom is not slavery and even Fox News and Donald Trump cannot make it so. Some comments of our Founders on these issues follow.

“A lie stands on 1 leg, truth on 2.”
Benjamin Franklin, 1735

“Facts are stubborn things and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.”
John Adams, 1770

“Let us neglect all party alliance and advert to facts. Let us believe no man to be infallible or impeccable in government, any more than in religion. Take no man’s word against evidence…”
John Adams, 1783

“But none of the means of information are more sacred, or have been cherished with more tenderness or care by the settlers of America than the press.”
John Adams, 1765

“The first of qualities for a great statesman is to be honest.”
John Adams, 1809
“I hate deception, even where the imagination only is concerned…”
George Washington, 1779

A lady asked Dr. Franklin, “Well Doctor, what have we got a republic or a monarchy?” “A republic replied the Doctor if you can keep it.”
John Jay

The Right Stuff

Alexander Hamilton arguing in 1788 in Federalist Paper Number 78 for lifetime appointments for judges on good behavior said the following:

“To avoid an arbitrary discretion in the courts, it is indispensable that they should be bound down by strict rules and precedents, which serve to define and point out their duty in every particular case that comes before them….the records of those precedents [which will reach] a very considerable bulk…must demand long and laborious study to acquire a competent knowledge of them. Hence it is, that there can be but few men in the society who will have sufficient skill in the laws to qualify them for the stations of judges. And making the proper deductions for the ordinary depravity of human nature, the number must be still smaller of those who unite the requisite integrity with the requisite knowledge. These considerations apprise us, that the government can have no great option between fit characters….”

And John Adams noted in a commentary in 1776:

“Judges Should always be Men of learning and Experience in the Laws, of exemplary Morals, great Patience, Calmness, Coolness and Attention. Should not have their Minds distracted with complicated jarring Interests, or be Subservient to any Man or Body of Men, or more complaisant to one than another.”

It is clear from this, the type of men to serve as judges in the Federal Judiciary our Founders anticipated—and especially judges or rather justices of the Supreme Court.  Temperament and character were all important; “integrity” says Hamilton, “exemplary morals, great patience, calmness, coolness,” says Adams.  There is little doubt of the type of person they would have in mind for a seat on the Supreme Court.  Judge Kavanaugh would not appear to meet this standard.  He does not seem to have enough of the “right stuff” to make a Supreme Court Justice.

Dana Milbank in his article on September 30, 2018 in the Washington Post has noted that Judge Kavanaugh has proved himself “unfit to serve on the Supreme Court.  It has little to do with his treatment of women.”  In his statement to the Committee following the testimony of Christine Blasey Ford in which she castigated his alleged sexual assault on her decades ago, Judge Kavanaugh cast aside all pretense of objectivity, judicial restraint and even rational argument, succumbing to partisan fury, relying on ridicule and fantasy.  As Milbank reports, Kavanaugh denounced the entire proceeding before the Committee as a “national disgrace, “a circus,” “a grotesque and coordinated character assassination” and “a search and destroy mission.”  He attacked the Democratic Party for threats against his family with the intent “to blow me up and take me down.”

He went on to say that the entire confirmation process has been “a calculated political hit” motivated by anger over President Trump’s election in 2016 and “…revenge on behalf of the Clintons and millions of dollars in money from outside left-wing opposition groups.”  And he mocked two Senators on the Committee who asked questions about his history of drinking, thereby impugning the entire US Senate.

And as Tom Friedman pointed out in his column in the New York Times on October 3, 2018, “…And nothing is sacred. Brett Kavanaugh defended himself the other day with the kind of nasty partisan attacks and ugly conspiracy theories that you’d expect only from a talk radio host—never from a would-be justice of the Supreme Court. Who can expect fairness from him now?”  We should have expected such behavior suggested sociologist Shamus Khan in his column in the Outlook section of the Washington Post on September 30, 2018 in which he asserted that Judge Kavanagh in his 2018 confirmation testimony told the Senate Judiciary Committee several important mistruths under oath and had done the same thing in confirmation proceedings for his current position in 2006.

Judge Kavanaugh may be a good lawyer and good family man but he publically demonstrated that he is not the kind of man that our Founders expected would be selected for service on the Supreme Court if we want our system of government to work properly.  His leader, the President, consistently makes clear that he has no regard for American principles and values—on October 3, 2018 he mocked Ms. Ford’s testimony in a rally—but that doesn’t mean it is acceptable for Supreme Court justices to behave the same way.  It most assuredly is not.

“Nothing is more important to the establishment of manners in a State than that all persons employed in places of power and trust be men of exceptional character.”

–Samuel Adams, 1775

“If ever the Time should come, when vain & aspiring Men shall possess the highest Seats in Government, our Country will stand in Need of its experienced Patriots to prevent its Ruin.”

–Samuel Adams, 1780

“The liberties of our country, the freedom of our civil constitution, are worth defending against all hazards: And it is our duty to defend them against all attacks.”

–Samuel Adams, 1771

Sam Adams, co-founder of the Sons of Liberty; leader of the Boston Tea Party; signer of the Declaration of Independence and later long-time Governor of Massachusetts says it well.  All citizens should take heed.

John Jay

On July 16, 2018 at the Helsinki Summit meeting President Trump and President Putin spent part of the time in a private meeting with only an interpreter present. In the subsequent press conference with respect to the question of whether or not Russia interfered with the 2016 U.S. Presidential election President trump suggested that he was more persuaded by President Putin’s denials than what is own intelligence community was telling him. Shortly afterward in a tweet the former Director of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, John Brennan, said: “Donald Trump’s press conference performance in Helsinki rises to & exceeds the threshold of ‘high crimes & misdemeanors.’ It was nothing short of treasonous. Not only were Trump’s comments imbecilic, he is wholly in the pocket of Putin. Republican Patriots: Where are you???”

The next day the New York Daily News had a banner headline in very large script which said: “Open Treason”.

A month later on August 15th President Trump revoked Mr. Brennan’s had security clearance because, as Mr. Trump informed the Wall Street Journal in an interview, Mr. Brennan participated in the creation of Special Counsel Muller’s investigation into possible Russian collusion with the Trump campaign in 2016. In other words, this action had nothing to do with national security but was purely a matter of personal vengeance.

On August 17th, Admiral William H. McRaven, one of the most distinguished military leaders in America’s history, former head of the U.S Joint Special Operations Command and the overall leader of the Navy Seal raid into Pakistan that killed Osama Bin Laden, published an op-ed in the Washington Post:

“Dear Mr. President:
Former CIA director John Brennan, whose security clearance you revoked on Wednesday, is one of the finest public servants I have ever known. Few Americans have done more to protect this country than John. He is a man of unparalleled integrity, whose honesty and character have never been in question, except by those who don’t know him.
Therefore, I would consider it an honor if you would revoke my security clearance as well, so I can add my name to the list of men and women who have spoken up against your presidency.
Like most Americans, I had hoped that when you became president, you would rise to the occasion and become the leader this great nation needs.
A good leader tries to embody the best qualities of his or her organization. A good leader sets the example for others to follow. A good leader always puts the welfare of others before himself or herself.
Your leadership, however, has shown little of these qualities. Through your actions, you have embarrassed us in the eyes of our children, humiliated us on the world stage and, worst of all, divided us as a nation.
If you think for a moment that your McCarthy-era tactics will suppress the voices of criticism, you are sadly mistaken. The criticism will continue until you become the leader we prayed you would be.”

What would this country’s Founders, the writers of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, the authors of our liberty have thought of all of this? To begin, they knew where the threat to our liberties would come from.

“A dangerous ambition more often lurks behind the specious mask of zeal for the rights of the people than under the forbidding appearance of zeal for the firmness and efficiency of government. History will teach us . . . those men who have overturned the liberties of the Republics, the greatest number have begun their career by paying an obsequious court to the people, commencing demagogues and ending tyrants.”
—Alexander Hamilton, 1788

“These most deadly adversaries of republican government might naturally have been expected to make their approaches from more than one quarter, but chiefly from the desire in foreign powers to gain an improper ascendant in our councils. How could they better gratify this, than by raising a creature of their own to the chief magistracy of the Union?”
—Alexander Hamilton, 1788

“Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.”
—Benjamin Franklin (proposed for the Great Seal of the United States)

“I have sworn upon the altar of god eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.”
—Thomas Jefferson, 1800

“He . . . therefore is the truest friend to the liberty of his country who tries most to promote its virtue, and who, so far as his power and influence extend, will not suffer a man to be chosen into any office of power and trust who is not a wise and virtuous man. We must not conclude merely upon a man’s haranguing upon liberty, and using the charming sound, that he is fit to be trusted with the liberties of his country. It is not unfrequent to hear men declaim loudly upon liberty, who, if we may judge by the whole tenor of their actions, mean nothing else by it but their own liberty.”
—Samuel Adams, 1748

“If ever the Time should come, when vain & aspiring Men shall possess the highest Seats in Government, our Country will stand in Need of its experienced Patriots to prevent its Ruin.”
—Samuel Adams, 1780

“But none of the means of information are more sacred, or have been cherished with more tenderness and care by the settlers of America, than the Press.”
—John Adams, 1768

“The freedom of the Press is one of the greatest bulwarks of liberty, and can never be restrained but by despotic Governments.”
—George Mason, 1776

“the freedom of Speech may be taken away, and, dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep, to the Slaughter.”
George Washington 1783

“Without freedom of thought, there can be no such thing as wisdom – and no such thing as public liberty without freedom of speech.”
—Benjamin Franklin, 1722

“Freedom of speech is a principal pillar of a free government; when this support is taken away, the constitution of a free society is dissolved, and tyranny is erected on its ruins.”
—Benjamin Franklin, 1737

“The liberties of our country, the freedom of our civil constitution, are worth defending against all hazards: And it is our duty to defend them against all attacks.”
—Samuel Adams, 1771

John Jay

There have been complaints from liberals about the disruptive nature and alleged incivility of the anti-Trump resistance. Speaking for many, David Gergen recently on CNN unfavorably compared the present day resistance to the Vietnam War protesters and the civil rights movement asserting “The anti-war movement in Vietnam, the civil rights movement in the ‘60s and early ’70s, both of those were more civil in tone…” This viewpoint is widely shared; Senator Charles Schumer has denounced “harassment of political opponents” as “not American”; Senator Cory Booker has expressed similar concerns.

But this represents a profound misunderstanding of civil discourse, protest and disobedience. The Antiwar Movement was anything but civil, marked by the closing down of businesses and universities and a highly uncivil chant: “Hey, Hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?” Civil rights leaders, while committed to nonviolence, understood that their success depended as much on “disruption and coercion…as on dialogue and persuasion” writes Thomas J. Sugrue  in “A Misguided Obsession with Civility” in the New York Times on July 2, 2018. Mr. Sugrue goes on to say:  “…history is a reminder that civility is in the eye of the beholder.  And when the beholder want to maintain an unequal status quo, it’s easy to accuse picketers, protesters and preachers alike of incivility, as much because of their message as their methods. For those upset by disruptive protests, the history of civil rights offers an unsettling reminder that the path to change is seldom polite.”

Our Founders, those who wrote the Constitution, understood this well.

“We are not to expect to be translated from despotism to liberty in a feather bed.”     Thomas Jefferson, 1790

“Be not intimidated…..by any pretense of delicacy, politeness or decency. These as they are often used are but three different names, for hypocrisy, chicanery and cowardice.”   John Adams, 1765

“Timid men…prefer the calm of despotism to the boisterous sea of liberty”  Thomas Jefferson, 1796

“The liberties of our country, the freedom of our civil constitution are worth defending and all hazards; and it is our duty to defend them against all attacks…”  Samuel Adams, 1771

John Jay

 

 

George Will in his column published on June 24th, 2018 in the Washington Post refers to the President as a ” Vesuvius of mendacity” a well-chosen phrase. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand in an interview with Politico on June 19th asserts that President Trump’s policies “come from the darkness” and are “evil…in the biblical sense.” In another part of the interview she refers to the Trump administration as pursuing “the devil’s schemes.” Among the many policies of President Trump and his administration that deserve to be characterized as corrupt, evil, misguided and catastrophically damaging to America and the world community is the current “zero tolerance” policy of processing migrants and refugees at our southern border. These immigrants, many of whom are fleeing violent persecution and death threats at this time and therefore properly called refugees, not migrants, are coming to our border—just as our founding President, George Washington, anticipated when in 1783 he welcomed to America “the oppressed and persecuted of all Nations and religions.” But instead of at least receiving permission for their application for asylum to be seriously considered by the appropriate US authority, they are kept away from the legal entryway, summarily thrown into jail and their children—some of them toddlers—taken from them, in many case literally ripped from their mother’s arms, and scattered into holding pens all over the United States with few records kept as to who went where. And some of these children are too young to even know the names of their parents. This is a policy which might have occurred to Adolph Hitler. Trump’s executive order that parents and children can be detained together, thus far, has done little to reunite parents with their children that have been separated from them.

Attorney General Sessions has in part justified this policy on the basis of Saint Paul’s letter to the Romans, Chapter 13, in which the Apostle urges everyone to be “subject to the governing authorities”—the same passage used by the Nazis to justify their actions. Elsewhere, in Matthew 19:14, Jesus urges that people Suffer little children … to come unto me” and also elsewhere in the New Testament [Matthew 18:6], as Michael Gerson notes in his column of June 19th, Jesus is quoted as saying “Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me; but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to stumble, it would be better for him to have a heavy millstone hung around his neck, and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.”

Gerson points out that the Bible, like a gun, is a dangerous thing in the hands of a bigot. Joe Scarborough in his column of June 21st says that the “president is a brutish political boss who has cheapened conservatism, sullied the office of the presidency, and called into question the very character of a country once seen as the envy of the world. That so many Republicans still support this depraved man and his malignant movement could be the most damning element of this tragic American tale.” Senator Gillibrand declares that what we have with the Trump presidency is an issue of right versus wrong. It is wrong for us to stand by silently. It is wrong for us to do nothing. “This is what the darkness looks like. We have to stand up against it.” George Will urges that we vote against the GOP in November. “…to vote against his [the president’s] party’s cowering congressional caucuses is to affirm the nation’ honor while quarantining him.”

John Hancock foresaw part of the problem currently facing America. In his Boston Massacre Oration in 1774 he said: “That people who pay a greater respect to a wealthy villain than to an honest, upright man in poverty, almost deserve to be enslaved, they plainly show that wealth, however it may be acquired, is, in their esteem, to be preferred to virtue….Surely you never will suffer this country to become a den of thieves.” Surely we never will. But the American people today face a more complicated problem that that. Yes this president has made this White House and some of the other government agencies, such as the Commerce Department and the Environmental Protection Agency, a den of thieves. But, beyond that, he seems conflicted between: wishing to destroy this country pursuant to the desires of his boss Vladimir Putin—his G-7 performance is an example of this type of thinking—and converting this country into a modern version of Nazi Germany (perhaps his predilection—it has been widely reported that his first wife has said that he kept a copy of Hitler’s speeches by his bedside) the “zero tolerance” on the border is an example of that type of thinking.

The only truly effective answer to this sad and dangerous situation is action by the people:

“In a free and Republican government, you cannot restrain the voice of the multitude” George Washington, 1778;

“Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves therefore are its only safe depositories.” Thomas Jefferson, 1784;

“The people are the only legitimate fountain of power, and it is from them that the constitutional charter, under which the several branches of government hold their power, is derived.” James Madison, 1788;

“There is but one element of government, and that is THE PEOPLE. From this element springs all governments.” John Adams, 1814.

So the American people would do well to heed the advice of George Will!

John Jay

The post of 6/17/18 entitled Tyranny and Diplomacy is the second commentary on the threat of tyranny today in America in a month—different facts but similar arguments and largely the same Founders comments are included. In the author’s view tyranny is at this time the central threat of the Trump presidency to the Republic. If it should succeed all else would be lost. It cannot be mentioned enough and the message that the Founders regarded tyranny as the greatest danger for the new Republic needs to repeated frequently. The words of Sam Adams in 1780 are relevant here. “If ever the time should come, when vain and aspiring men shall possess the highest seats in Government, our Country will stand in need of its experienced patriots to prevent its ruin.” Early, determined and permanent resistance when tyranny threatens is the best, likely the only way of defeating it. And as Sam Adams said in 1771, “The liberties of our country, the freedoms of our civil Constitution are worth defending at all hazards and it is our duty to defend them against all attacks.” These are dangerous times and eternal vigilance should be the rule. Sam Adams, as the leader of the Boston Tea Party, Co-founder of the Sons of Liberty and signer of the Declaration of Independence, also faced difficult times but he knew what he was talking about; we should listen to him. And in terms of one man rule, very relevant to today is Samuel Adams’ comment in 1748, long before the Revolution: “It is a very great mistake to imagine that the object of loyalty is the authority and interest of one individual man, however dignified by the applause or enriched by the success of popular actions.”

Our great Senator, John McCain, sounded the warning in February, 2017. In a speech in Munich he warned against a turning away from universal values in favor of sectarianism and nationalism; he cautioned against a “hardening resentment” toward minority groups; he denounced what seems to be an expanding post truth society reflected in “the growing inability, and even unwillingness to separate truth from lies”; he rejected what he saw as the growing romanticism of authoritarianism as “our moral equivalent” and expressed alarm over what appeared to be a “giving up” on Western values. Senator McCain has established a role model for us all in the evolving struggle. Not to heed his advice would greatly increase the risk of tyranny succeeding in this country. It is the duty of all who believe in American principles to resist, now and permanently.

John Jay

Donald Trump has always loved tyrants. He has been an admirer of Vladimir Putin, the Russian president to the point of being seemingly desirous to carry out his every wish concerning US -Russian relations. Some view this as suspicious given Putin’s intervention in the US presidential election of 2016 to help ensure the election of Trump. Robert Mueller, the former long-time FBI Director has been conducting an investigation into possible “collusion” between the Trump Campaign and the Russian government for over a year on behalf of the Department of Justice. But President Trump’s admiration of tyrants doesn’t stop there. He has also bestowed lavish praise on Victor Orban who appears to be turning Hungary into a fascist state, Recep Erdogan who is well on his way to the destruction of Turkey’s democracy, Abdul Fattah el-Sisi, who is on his way to establishing a military dictatorship in civilian garb in Egypt and in the process, ordered the massacre of thousands of peaceful protesters and Rodrigo Duterte, President of the Philippines, who has caused to be executed hundreds perhaps thousands of people allegedly involved with drugs, both users and providers, without any sort of trial whatsoever. Both Putin and Duterte have been invited to the White House by Trump but both have declined for now.

Just this week in Singapore, on June 12th he met with one of the most brutal tyrants of all, Kim Jong Un of North Korea, covering him with unstinting praise. Trump pronounced that he had forged an “excellent relationship “with Kim and proclaimed him to be a “very talented man” who “loves his country very much.” He then proceeded to sign a wholly one-sided agreement with Kim in which he appeared to accept North Korea as a nuclear equal to the United States and in the process announced the suspension of the joint US-South Korean annual military exercises seen as a major deterrent to North Korean aggression using the North Korean term “war games” to refer to them, and indicated that the United States would withdraw its 30,000 troops stationed in South Korea. All three of these US concessions have been major objectives of the North Korean government for the last 30 years. In return Trump received astonishingly little from North Korea—the simple reaffirming of the same commitment to denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula that North Korea has repeated regularly but never even begun to carry out since 1992. President Trump announced at the subsequent press conference that “They were willing to de-nuke” without a shred of public commitment to support this-and of course tyrants will say anything to advance their objectives. There was no mention of the long stated bedrock position of the United States that North Korea must agree to the complete, verifiable and irreversible elimination of its nuclear stockpile, something they are virtually certain never to do. Some say that the meeting was valuable because war is now further off than it was a year age. But is it? The War Scare was entirely of Trump’s own making. The bottom line is that Kim Jong UN got all he could have ever wanted and Trump achieved his PR moment, nothing more. That is the sum total of what was accomplished.

Roger Cohen in his articled dated June 15th in the Washington Post said that what Singapore really demonstrated is that, “The President is envious of Kim who has the absolute authority to execute his uncle with antiaircraft machine guns, consign tens of thousands of people to the gulag, and rule through a personality cult based on ruthless indoctrination.” He went on to assert that, “the evidence is now overwhelming that Trump cannot resist a dictator. Kim is ‘funny’…Rodrigo Duterte, the Philippine President, is doing ‘an unbelievable job on the drug problem’ through mass arrests and extra judicial killings, Xi Jimping, is just ‘great’. Vladimir Putin’s human rights violations are not worth a mention because, ‘What do you think, our country’s so innocent?’”

On June 16th, 2018 one of the lead articles in The Washington Post was entitled, “With Praise of Kim, Trump widens totalitarian embrace” by Phillip Rucker. In the article Rucker notes the following, “reflecting on his impressions of Kim following their Singapore summit, Trump told Fox News: ‘He’s the head of a country, and I mean he’s the strong head. Don’t let anyone think anything different. He speaks and his people sit up at attention. I want my people to do the same.’” Rucker added hastily that it was unclear whether President Trump was referring to the American people generally or only to his staff. Later when pressed by a CNN reporter Trump “claimed it had been a joke”.

But almost worse, on his way to Singapore Trump savaged his six democratic partners in the G-7 organization a group essential to the peace and financial stability of the world community. But they are democracies, not tyrannies, and therefore perhaps he thought they were fair game. President Trump has ordered major tariffs placed on the import of goods from the six countries: Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Italy, Japan and Canada. The tariffs were imposed for reasons of national security. This was done not because these countries actually are a national security threat to the United States but rather in order to get around the Congressional control of tariffs. Nevertheless they were on the receiving end. All of them are outraged that they, the best friends and supporters that the US has, are subject to such treatment. Likely this will be one more seriously deleterious blow to NATO. One wonders how much more of this our European and Asian allies can absorb. And with no warning, on Friday, June 9th, President Trump proposed that Russia be readmitted to the G-7, having been suspended because of its seizure of Crimea and the commencement of de facto hostilities against the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine. This proposal was unanimously rejected by the other six. It now almost seems that we have a G-6 plus one.

Trump arrived late to the G-7 meeting and left early generally showing his contempt for the organization. While for the public the leaders appeared positive, the meetings were tense and fractious. The various national staffs worked late on Friday night attempting to draft a document that all countries could sign. At a fraught meeting on Saturday the leaders eventually agreed on a joint communiqué which it was understood all supported and which was released Saturday night. At a press conference Saturday night Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, when asked about the tariffs on steel and aluminum that Trump had announced he planned to impose on Canada, replied that Trump’s use of a national security provision to impose the tariffs was “kind of insulting” given that Canadians had fought side by side with Americans in a number of wars. He said it was a difficult decision but that he had informed Trump that Canada would retaliate with its own tariffs although they do not relish doing it, “But it is something we absolutely will do. Because Canadians, we’re polite, we’re reasonable, but we also will not be pushed around.” Trump responded to this from Air Force One by twitter disavowing the communique, calling Prime Minister Trudeau “weak and dishonest” and accusing him of making false statements.

Sunday morning Trudeau publicly ignored the dispute but his Foreign Minister said “The national security pretext is absurd and frankly insulting to Canadians, the closest and strongest ally the United States has had. That is where the insult lies”. Roland Paris, a former foreign affairs advisor to Trudeau went further: “Big Tough guy once back on the airplane. Can’t do it in person and knows it, which makes him feel weak. So he projects these feelings onto Trudeau and then lashes out at him. You don’t need to be Freud. He’s a pathetic little man-child”. The other G-7 leaders supported Trudeau: President Macron said that International cooperation can’t depend on small words.”; Prime Minister May said she was “fully supportive of Justin Trudeau;” The German Foreign Minister noted that “Its actually not a real surprise”, indicating that this was something that has been seen before and urged European nations to stick together. And late Saturday Senator John McCain rebutted Trump’s position by tweeting: “To our Allies; bipartisan majorities of Americans remain pro-free trade, pro-globalization &  support our allies based on 70 years of shared values. Americans stand with you even if our president doesn’t”.

On June 4th President Ronald Reagan’s daughter, Patti Davis, published an article in the Washington Post the day before the anniversary of his death. She commented that people often ask what her father would say if he were here now. Among many other things he would say she thought would be to remind us that we began “as a dream in the minds of men who dared to envision a land that was free of tyranny with a government designed and structured so that no one branch could dominate the others.” “Our government because it is founded on the authority of ‘We the people’ puts the burden of vigilance on all American citizens.” “Countries can be splintered from within” he would say. “It’s a sinister form of destruction that can happen gradually if people don’t realize that our Constitution can protect us only if the principles of that document are adhered to and defended.” “He would be appalled and heartbroken at a Congress that refuses to stand up to a president who not only seems ignorant of the Constitution but who also attempts at every turn to dismantle and mock our system of checks and balances.” He in all humility would ask us to reflect on his own words in his famous speech delivered in 1964: ” You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We’ll preserve for our children this, the last best hope on earth, or we’ll sentence them to take the last step into a thousand years of darkness.” With tyranny and those years of darkness threatening and our world of friends and principles being pulled apart it is important to reflect on those words of Ronald Reagan.

Now some thoughts on tyranny by our Founders.

Alexander Hamilton wrote in Federalist Number 1 (1788) a passage most relevant to our present day.

“A dangerous ambition more often lurks behind the specious mask of zeal for the rights of the people than under the forbidding appearance of zeal for the firmness and efficiency of government. History will teach us that the former has been found a much more certain road to the introduction of despotism than the latter, and of those men who have overturned the liberties of the Republics, the greatest number have begun their career by paying an obsequious court to the people, commencing demagogues and ending tyrants.”

Thomas Jefferson-1810

“A strict observance of the written laws is doubtless one of the highest duties of a good citizen but it is not the highest. The laws of necessity, of self-preservation, of saving our country when in danger are of higher obligation. To lose our country by a scrupulous adherence to written law would be to lose the law itself, and life, liberty property, and all those who are enjoying them with us; thus absurdly sacrificing the end to the means.”

John Hancock-1774

“Some boast of being friends to government, I am a friend to righteous government founded on the principles of reason and justice; but I glory in publicly avowing my eternal enmity to tyranny.

Alexander Hamilton-1774

“No man in his senses can hesitate in choosing to be free, rather than a slave.”

Benjamin Franklin-language he proposed for the motto on the Great Seal of the United States.

“Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God”

Thomas Jefferson in expressing a fundamental American principle in 1800 (the year he was elected the third President of the United States):

“I have sworn upon the altar of god eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.”

John Jay