[Note (04NOV2019): Have you noticed a shift in the dynamics of the so-called impeachment inquiry? It’s not just that all Democrats minus two supported the resolution regarding procedure. More importantly, it’s that President Trump has retreated from a defensive strategy and taken an offensive strategy. In comments elsewhere, we’ve noted that, as in other crucial matters, Mr. Trump was accepting some bad advice.
Perhaps most telling is his manner of referring to his predecessor not as “Barack Obama” but as “Barack HUSSEIN Obama”. The fundamental issue underlying all the gambits from The Radical Left remains its goal of disestablishmentarianism — to have destroyed American individualism with liberty in a capitalistic, democratic republic and to have replaced it with collectivism under tyranny by a cabal of self-appointed elitists in a socialistic, republican pseudo-democracy.
For those citizens who still espouse traditional, American ideals and values, the horror is that the disestablishmentarians continue winning. Meanwhile, despite its growing pains, China is on the ascent; these United States of America are on the descent. China has adopted Biobehavioral Science; these United States continue to reject it.
There still may be time to depart this Path to Perdition and reroute ourselves onto the Road to Resurrection — resurrection of the Republic as envisioned by our Founding Fathers. The call-to-action novel, Retribution Fever, presents a detailed map.]
Impeachment. That which should be undertaken with only the greatest caution has become merely the political farce of the moment, whatever its outcome. Bluster and blather signifying what? Nothing? Were nothing only the case. Frighteningly, the something is a fragmenting, declining nation on fire — a nation committing suicide by a thousand cuts. This impeachment “inquiry” is another cut.
“An autopsy of history would show that all great nations commit suicide.” -Arnold Toynbee (1889-1975)
Unfortunately for the nation and for themselves, too many Americans have little interest in describing the context of events and recalling their history. Never mind that knowledge leads to understanding, and understanding leads to wisdom. Such Americans attend only to the immediacy of events presented briefly in entertaining style. That behavioral deficit deprives them of understanding the real nature of those events then acting wisely thereafter.
“Wisdom is before him that hath understanding; but the eyes of a fool are in the ends of the Earth.” -Proverbs 17:24
This posting and the related, semi-fictional novel, Retribution Fever (2018), are not directed to such types but to those who possess intellectual curiosity and seek knowledge leading to understanding from the perspective of Biobehavioral Science — specifically, the Science of Human Behavior and its associated technology.
Truth & Political Speech
From a Biobehavioral perspective, describing context is crucial to analyzing behavior topographically (How a behavior appears.) and functionally (What factors control the behavior.). In politics, verbal behavior is the predominant behavior. So, let’s examine the relationship between political speech and truth.
“Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.” -from George Orwell (1903-1950)
Fact! Most politicians lie. Their words? Little more than oral flatus. Example? Congressman Adam Schiff’s bellowing about having irrefutable evidence that Trump colluded with the Russians in the election of 2016.
“The world wants to be deceived, so let it be deceived.” -Petronius (1st-century A.D.)
Fact! One known for many centuries. The public prefers politicians to lie. A politician who tells the public unpleasant truths puts his tenure in office at risk. Science has demonstrated that people prefer to hear pleasant lies that they know are lies rather than unpleasant truths that they know are truths, especially if those pleasant lies are entertaining. The ancient Romans understood. Never underestimate the value of entertainment!
Excerpt from the semi-fictional novel, Inescapable Consequences:
Uncle persisted. “I seek only to hear the truth. As you may know, the Gospel according to John 8:32 states that ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. That statement raises several questions addressed by theologians, philosophers, and scientists for generations. Is there a truth? If so, can we humans know it? If we can know it, will it set us free? If so, free from what … and into what?”
“We live in one world — the world of Physics.” -attributed to B.F. Skinner (1904-1990)
Philosophically, can we ever know Truth completely? Unlikely. Dark matter and dark energy comprise 96% of our universe. We have yet to identify their compositions, let alone analyze them.*
*Although we know nothing about the composition of dark matter, we can estimate its mass in a given galaxy using the Virial Theorem.
We only can try to describe truths as best we can. Those best efforts rely upon Science not personal opinion reflecting arrogant ignorance or upon abstract ideology divorced from known reality. To begin, there is a Cosmic Truth described by the most fundamental of all sciences, Physical Science and its language of Mathematics.
Excerpt from the semi-fictional novel, Retribution Fever:
Our describing, nevertheless, suggests that there exist Cosmic Truths. That most fundamental of these Truths began the moment a tiny speck of small mass, only a few kilograms, grew slowly then suddenly inflated faster than the speed of light, to create 1053 Kg. of matter, a number beyond human comprehension.
Cosmic Truth may seem remote from everyday living. It is not. In fact, it can serve as the foundation for all that we do. As presented in the novel, it can give scientific purpose to humanity and meaning to individual human lives. We ignore it at our peril — peril to our existence as a species.
“I the Lord search the heart,
I try the reins,
Even to give every man according to his ways,
According to the fruit of his doings.” -Jeremiah 17:10
The fruit of his doings. The consequence of behavior.
Yes, behavior, including verbal behavior, has its consequences. The closer those consequences are to Cosmic Truth, the closer we are to Good. The further, the closer we are to Evil. Do the current impeachment proceedings against President Trump run counter to Cosmic Truth? If so, the proceedings are evil — not in the theological sense necessarily but in the scientific sense. Power-hungry, self-aggrandizing, deceitful politicians who would pursue such a dangerous farce expose the nation to vengeful retribution. Accordingly, these miscreants, too, would be evil — evil in a scientific sense. Their supporters become the handmaidens of evil.
PART TWO: HISTORICAL CONTEXT
“The only thing we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history.” -Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831)
“Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.” -President John Adams (1725-1826)
In the late 18th-century, as described in Retribution Fever and as contrary to popular opinion, these United States were founded as a democratic republic — neither a pure democracy nor a republican democracy. There are profound differences. In a democratic republic unlike the other two, citizens automatically do not have the right to vote; only some are entitled to vote. In these United States, that limited entitlement — now a distant memory, was pursuant to a written constitution designed to protect the minority from the majority.
In the early 19th-century, its enemies began attacking in earnest that republican concept. Then, immediately after the War Between the States, the amorphous Amendments XIV and XV were ratified largely out of post-war pique in order to punish the rebellious South, lofty statements to the contrary notwithstanding. In that context came the first impeachment, that of President Andrew Johnson (1868). It was political in nature. It came as a consequence of his lenient approach towards the former Confederate States of America. He was not convicted.
Early in the 20th-century came a major assault with the election of President Woodrow Wilson (1913-1921). No friend to the Constitution, his oath of office be damned, Wilson believed that a technocratic cabal of elitists better should govern without interference from the citizenry. His assault has lasted until the present. With the typical mentality of an indoctrinated mob, Wilson is revered.
“Where the people fear the government, you have tyranny. Where the government fears the people, you have liberty.” -Barnhill, John Basil (1914).
In 1913, a disputed ratification of Amendment XVI created the dreaded income-tax and with it tyranny imposed by the agency to enforce collection — tyranny, whereby, the investigated are guilty until proving themselves innocent. In violation of Amendment IV of the Bill of Rights, governmental search and seizure without warrant became routine.
These assaults accelerated with the presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1933-1945), also no friend to the Constitution. He even tried to “pack” the U.S. Supreme Court by enlarging its membership in order to impose his autocratic, unconstitutional programs. Politically, his programs succeeded. Economically, his programs failed; Imperial Japan (07DEC1941) then Nazi-Germany (11DEC1941) saved him economically by declaring war. They lost. Never start a war that you don’t win — a lesson that these United States were to forget. Remember Korea?
“We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before, and it does not work.” -Henry Morgenthau, Secretary of the Treasury (1934-1945)
The 1960s proved the beginning of the end, however, for this nation as it initially had been conceived. The beginning of the end for all of Western Civilization had begun in 1914 with the outbreak of the Great War (1914-1918). Incompetent British politicians failed to make clear to the adventuresome Kaiser seeking his “place in the Sun” that Britain would retaliate if Germany went to war. Germany went to war. Germany lost. Never start a war that you don’t win — a lesson that these United States were to forget. Remember Vietnam?
By the 1920s, the UK was descending as the global power; whereas, these United States were ascending. The 19th-century had been the British century. The 20th-century was to be the American century, increasingly dominated governmentally by an expanding, arrogant, powerful Administrative State. Today, federal employees number 2.0-million, occupying 1.9-billion square feet of office-space and being paid $1-million per minute per business-day. Their highest priority? As the currently besieged President Trump learned early on, protection, promotion, and expansion of the bureaucracy — the nation be damned.
1920 witnessed the ratification of Amendment XIX with men entitling women to vote. Given that women outnumber men, the “feminine mystique” eventually was destined to permeate the land. As evidenced by the fate of “Whites” in erstwhile Southern Rhodesia now known as Zimbabwe, demographics determine destiny. Here in these United States, patriarchy was to yield to matriarchy. Of note, there never having been a successful matriarchal society of importance in human history.
“If civilization had been left in female hands, we would still be living in grass huts.” -Camille Paglia (b. 1947)
Matriarchy harbors a biologically-based affinity for the protection promised by collectivism and socialism — the opposite of the ethos that built this nation. These seductive sirens of national suicide might promise to provide protection and security but really provide only punishment and persecution. Socialism intoxicates many a female brain. Some men, too, find its allure attractive, especially men under the progressive influence of women.
See “Matriarchy in America“.
The 1960s brought Enovid, the birth-control pill. A pill a day keeps babies away. Introducing it freed women to engage in illicit sex with abandon. Consequence? The rise of venereal diseases and the collapse of the American family. Behavior has its consequences.
The 1960s also brought disestablishment-oriented Marxists like Bill Ayers (b. 1944) — later an advisor to Barack Hussein Obama II, whose own background was both Marxist and Mohammedan. Violence was the Marxists’ vehicle for “hope and change”. Their goal? To have destroyed individualism in this once-capitalistic, democratic republic reflecting traditional American ideals and values. Their violence failed, but they eventually succeeded towards fulfilling their goal.
How? Firstly, patience.
Patience is said to be the foremost virtue. Violence having failed, over subsequent decades the disestablishmentarians adopted patience; which allowed for gradually infiltrating various American agencies, especially Big Education and Big Media. In the early 1970s, the despair and disillusionment of Americans elicited by our ignominious defeat in Vietnam by a third-rate power provided a combustible context in which to light the nation on fire. Never start a war that you don’t win — a lesson that these United States still have not learned. Witness Afghanistan.
“Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity; and I’m not sure about the former.” -Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
Politically, in 1964 a landslide, electoral victory had allowed President Lyndon B. Johnson (1963-1969) and his fellow Democrats to complete the striking of two, lethal blows to the nation. Historically, a patriarchal, Christian nation populated by a substantial majority of European Caucasians half of whom were blue-eyed, in the 1960s most of them willingly — even gladly — allowed themselves to begin to be dispossessed of their territory, resources, and blue eyes.
Biologically, since the beginning of time, life on Earth has been characterized only by survival and reproduction, both dependent upon territory and resources. Any population unable or unwilling to defend and maintain its territory and resources is doomed to perish. Humans are no exception. Nature cares not one whit about opinion or ideology. Remember, 99% of all species that ever existed now are extinct. We ourselves are on the verge.
The first of the two, lethal blows had been passage of the so-called Civil Rights Act of 1964; one man’s civil rights are another’s civil wrongs — wrongs such as destroying the right not to associate. The second? The Hart-Celler Act of 1965, opening the floodgates to an unbridled, unarmed invasion of non-European-Caucasians legally and illegally; thereby, undermining the Anglo-Protestant ethic that had prevailed since the first English settlers.
The consequences all had been downhill thereafter — deepening debt, serial military defeats, and indescribable depravity once cause for reviling now cause for reveling. These United States today have become a fragmenting, declining nation on fire, President Trump’s assurances to the contrary notwithstanding.
PART THREE: TRUMP’S IMPEACHMENT
The Constitution of the United States of America
Article I (Legislative)
section 2
The House of Representatives shall chuse their Speaker and other Officers; and shall have the sole Power of Impeachment.
section 3
The Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeachments. When sitting for that Purpose, they shall be on Oath or Affirmation. When the President of the United States is tried the Chief Justice shall preside: And no Person shall be convicted without the Concurrence of two thirds of the Members present.
Judgment in Cases of Impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States: but the Party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment and Punishment, according to Law.
Article II (Executive)
section 4
The President, Vice President and all Civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.
Article III (Judiciary)
(No mention of impeachment of federal officeholders; therefore, in proceedings of impeachment and trial, constitutionally the Judiciary has no part except of the Chief Justice’s presiding over the trial in the Senate post-impeachment. For Mr. Trump to seek relief from the Court is a grave mistake in strategy. The conflict is a constitutional matter between the executive and legislative branches exclusively.)
Discussion
Context counts. Science tells us that behavior is a function of its consequences in a given context.
Having indoctrinated American youth, damaged the foundation and framework of the Republic, denied basic truths such as differences among races and between sexes, undermined the familial structure, legitimized depravity, weakened the military, and brought us to the edge of national bankruptcy, The Left is making an overt, frontal assault to destroy completely any remnant of capitalistic, democratic republicanism and individual liberty. In and of itself, it represents a form of prolonged, unarmed rebellion against the principles of the Founding Fathers and the provisions by the Framers of the Constitution. Its goal is to have replaced American capitalism and individual liberty with a Marxist-oriented nightmare of socialism and bureaucratic-inflicted tyranny.
How? By continuing to push the nation towards economic, political, and social mayhem no matter how ludicrous the pretext. The historical context of yesteryear described above has allowed the farcical set of secret hearings to begin to investigate the possibility of impeachment of President Trump, never mind that the members of the House neglected to vote on impeachment or even to investigate. Without such a historical context, the farce never would have begun.
The extent to which its miscreants have succeeded testifies to the sorry state of the Union. This farcical “official impeachment inquiry” is just another example of the strategy of the disestablishmentarians of The Left to commit mayhem in order to destroy this fragmenting, declining nation on fire.
Even so, President Trump has fallen into their trap. If he accepts advice at all, President Trump has accepted some really bad — defense instead of offense.
In reality, the President had nothing about which to be defensive regarding Ukraine, long known for entrenched corruption. Before handing them $400-million of taxpayers’ money, he should have investigated that corruption, as he did. That it included Vice-President Biden made no difference. That Biden announced his candidacy made no difference. That there may have been a quid pro quo made no difference. Only corruption is relevant, and Ukraine reeks of it.
Instead, the President adopted an irrelevant, defensive strategy about a quid pro quo. Mistake!
Given the President’s mistakes in the context of current trends, the likelihood is that traitors to the fundamental principles on which this nation was founded may succeed. What then?
The call-to-action novel, Retribution Fever, describes such a scenario and offers a detailed map away from the Path to Perdition and towards the Road to Resurrection — resurrection of traditional, American ideals and values characterized by moderation, prudence, and charity. Ah, but the vehicle by which to put such movement into play?
Rebellion?
“I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical.” -Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)
Public comments on mainstream websites increasingly reference rebellion by The Right against the entrenched tyranny of The Left. Armed and violent rebellion is implied, if not stated explicitly. Should such rebellion come — say, the antecedent being confiscation of firearms despite Amendment II,* what would be its goals, let alone its means?
*Do not believe that Amendment II will stop such confiscation. Many legal scholars agree that Big Government already has murdered Amendment IV.
Admittedly, the Republic was born in the blood of rebellion; however, should not violent rebellion be a last resort? Even so, are we approaching that point, given elected characters such as Blumenthal, Nadler, Sanders, Schiff, and Schumer as well as the four members of “The Squad” setting the national agenda?
Alarmingly, these miscreants and their supporters have undermined severely the foundation and framework of the nation, provoking the divisiveness that usually is the inescapable consequence of the diversity that they themselves represent. This divisiveness has reached the point that rebellion seems increasingly appealing to some traditionalists, whatever their stripes. Perhaps all that is missing is a charismatic leader to guide those who would rebel.
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” -Margaret Mead (1901-1978)
For those who find rebellion appealing, consider carefully the consequences of such drastic action. What would be the stated goals? What would be the plan? How would success be measured and by whom?
-The End-