The month of March is not usually the time to think about witches, but with all the talk of eliminating the United States Department of Education, perhaps we are gravely pressed to revisit our history.
We all know that ignorance is the source of agony—that is, someone’s agony. And the agony is almost always placed upon the weaker by the stronger, by some application of definition. That’s the way power tends to work. [1] And stated somewhat inversely, it is sometimes by the ignorance of the people with the power by which they inflict the agony onto the people without the power enslaving them to endure it.
This is suggested by that little noted nor long to be remembered, The Fable of a Slave’s Bad Day. [2] Jesus’s stoned woman (almost) [3.1], Joan of Arc, Socrates, Jesus, Galileo, Martin Luther King, Jr., and similar persons—all condemned by the ignorant majority—make the point well enough. The horrific unjust judgments of the Inquisition make the point well enough, too.
Of course, time proves the knee-jerk injustice, folly, and foolishness, but, by then, it’s just too late, for someone, usually the weak. [4] The agony already has been perfected. That is, Horror, Enslavement, and Death, for someone, usually for the weak.
That’s the way power tends to work. [*1]
But, to be lucid, we see that it’s not all about the ignorance. Some of us have been duly educated in the Seven Deadly Sins. Such as it is, our knowledge of the Seven Deadly Sins self-evidently proves that the causation of agony is not only grounded in ignorance. Indeed, we “know” that Pride, Greed, Lust, Anger, Gluttony, Envy, and Sloth are wrong, being vices. Each of the Seven Deadly Sins finds its source from the failure of human personal harmony by self-injustice. Each is an “overreach“; that is, the failure of a human attribute to stay within its proper place. Each of the vices is an excess of sorts. [4b]
Therefore, this problem is not knowledge, per se, but this problem is rather a failure of discipline. Knowledge aside, we are just too weak and undisciplined to manage ourselves, and thusly, by self-injustice, we naturally tend to succumb to being slaves of ourselves or to enslaving others, or both. [3.2] That’s the way weakness works—weakness simply cannot get control of itself. And, often enough, even brilliant people are out of control by self-injustice. [5]
Intellectual brilliance and foolishness are related, but different. Intellect is elemental, wisdom is complex. [6] Failure of discipline and self-injustice—that is, weakness—is a different state of being than being intellectually brilliant. [*3.2, *5]
It might be said that any person who desires to make someone else a slave—one way or the other, in body or thought [7]—is already a slave to self. Usually an unwitting hypocritical mean and base slave of internal self, however nicely presented externally. This concept might be too sophisticated for some people, particularly false scholars.
Scholars can dress it up all they want—cherry-picking from the volumes of holy scriptures—but it’s not that complicated. The agony to ourselves and to others is by a failure of knowledge or a failure discipline, or both. [8] Love and duty, properly implemented, will invite, empower, and release. Non-conformity does not threaten what is perfectly secure in self.
We behold the light, notwithstanding that it will blind some people: The failure of knowledge and discipline are resultant functions of a failure in education.
Thomas Jefferson said it thusly—about slavery of mind and body: “This quality is the germ of all education in him.” [*6] Failure of education—or worse, improper education—is an ugly dirty disease, suggested Jefferson’s germ.
When the educators aren’t educated well enough to understand the systemic flaw in education, the “education problem” thereby exponentially feeds upon itself, with the blind leading the blind into the ditch of self-destruction, by application of a fool’s millstone. [3.2, 3.3]
It just takes time. [*4]
We should refresh the immortal words of the former slave, Frederick Douglass, “Knowledge unfits a man to be a slave.”
It is a proper education that unfits a person to be a slave. A proper education is freedom. A proper education adduces both the Wisdom to know what to do or not to do, and then develops the Discipline to do it or not to do it, as the case may be required. [*8]
Now, in the course of human events, we have learned of many horrific social atrocities, which have extracted agony from human beings throughout time.
A lot of events, and a lot of atrocities.
In today’s cultural, the “Gold Standard” of human atrocity is the Jewish Holocaust, being the systematic so-called “evacuation“—that is, killing—of 6 million Jews by the German Nazis. The Nazis—in menacing uniforms with Adolf Hitler as their chosen elected leader—desired to “purify” and to conform their social association based upon the human attribute of race. [9]
This “killing” did not work out well for the Jews.
Now, if you are astute or sensitive to the topic, you noticed that I did not say the “murder” of 6 million Jews. “Killing” is a fact, “murder” is a social characterization. The Nazis in power at the time did not necessarily characterize the killing of 6 million Jews as “murder.” The term of “murder” was the resultant social (legal) characterization attributed to the killing by the victors of WWII.
This “characterization” did not work out well for the German Nazis.
It might have turned out differently, but a few very bad undisciplined decisions by the Nazis turned “killing” into “murder.” Thusly, such as it is, the Nazis murdered 6 million Jews. The victor’s power gets the privilege to impose its own characterized terminology upon the once strong, now weak. Abraham Lincoln was hopefully ascendant to say that “right should make might,” but it took 360,000 mighty dead Americans to make it right. Lincoln was a master: Hope has its place, but lucidity and discipline must keep it there. [10, 11, 12]
But let us not get carried away. Yes, it is abhorrent that an evolved civil society should want to associate and to purify itself based upon the human attribute of race. Aryan white supremacists may no longer have the power to kill or to murder en masse, but even the concept of an intention or goal of systemic racial superiority by such an attribute in a diverse, free and free-thinking society is offensive and abhorrent.
Indeed, social purity of any such human attribute is presumptively abhorrent in a diverse, free, and free-thinking culture that professes equality and justice for all. So let us not hypocritically pick and choose our attributes of “purity” and the “act of purification.”
Critically thinking as a matter of political science and political philosophy, it is abhorrent to purify such an evolved civil culture not only based upon the human attribute of race, but also abhorrent to purify the culture based upon the human attribute of, e.g., race, color or creed.
“Purification,” “conformity,” and “uniformity” are all euphemisms, more or less, for the same concept, just as the German Nazis were “evacuating” the Jews.
Purification on the attribute of religion is purification nonetheless. We can splice it and dice it rhetorically all we want, but purification—that is, conformity—is abhorrent to a diverse, free and free-thinking society that professes equality and justice for all.
Social purification is social purification.
On a philosophical basis, for any such a civil society, which purports diversity, freedom and free-thinking, with equality and justice for all, there is not much material difference between a resultant pure Aryan culture and a pure Christian culture. America is not a church, and its principles of association are not frameworked in systemic constitutional theism, but the inverse. [13]
Therefore, let us not be hypocrites, and let us admit the truth: Constraints to conformity and uniformity of thought—enslavements of mind—are acts of purification.
The issue is not what is between any woman and her god, if she should choose one, but the issue is in the intention of the majority in power to extract one way of thinking by socially cleansing, enslaving conformity, and constraining uniformity of thought, which contradict freedom. [14]
Intention comes first, and then the determination of the ways and means to accomplish it.
We know that the brilliant German Nazis were able to implement their intention by their engineering genius for mechanization and volume killing efficiency, but that is not any different in intention or principle, but rather only different in the capability afforded by cultural “industrial evolution.” That is, the German Nazis had better technologies to enslave and to kill, and to cleanse and to purify, but not better intentions.
The Jews still rally-cry “Remember the Holocaust” to their uniformed Judaist cause as much as Americans rally-cried “Remember the Alamo” to their own civil cause. Time and circumstances tend to fade such cries, but Prime Minister Netanyahu yet still continues to raise the horrors of the Holocaust with regard to Palestine, three generations later as if it still occurs as such, everything being the same, and there is no indication the Jews will let it fade anytime soon. The Jews are rightly entitled to continue to assert their branding. Alas, the horrors:
As we entered the place, a spectacle met our eyes that almost froze our blood with horror, and made our hearts fail within us. Before us were forms that had once been active and erect;—stalwart men, now nothing but mere walking skeletons, covered with filth and vermin. Many of our men, in the heat and intensity of their feeling, exclaimed with earnestness. “Can this be hell?”
This was the statement of Robert H. Kellogg, sergeant major in the 16th Regiment Connecticut Volunteers, May 2, 1864. [15] No, that is not a typo on the date, but correctly stated as the year, 1864. This statement of horror reflects the soldiers’ entry into America’s own concentration camp of sorts, Andersonville. But, here, we have only ourselves to blame, both sides reading the same bible, as Abraham Lincoln said—such as Germans and Jews, at least in part. [16]
The Jews may have a right to claim the horrors of the Holocaust, but that right does not carry any exclusivity of horror imposed upon mankind. The Jews have no privilege or exclusivity of atrocity and agony, they are but one of many. “Remember Wounded Knee,” or “Remember Andersonville,” or “Remember Rwanda.” History is replete with social horror and genocide. [*2]
We do not mean to minimize the Jewish horrors, but rather to maximize the focus of other horrors. It might be said that horror upon an individual is not meted by relativity. [*2]
To be critically-thinking and politically-scientifically candid, and perhaps contrary to a well-stated narrative, the Jews are not special in horrific social agony, but rather only in time proximity, industrial efficiency yielding numerical volume, and unitary media message pervasion by focused social influence and power. [17] It would be arrogant for the Jews to assert some unique form of preference in suffering or horror. The Jews may have the discrete focus of numbers, but not the injurious intention or principle. [*2]
Indeed, we know that implementations of “purity goals” are not unique to the German Nazis, and, at some level of purity goals, there are Jewish religious purity goals, and Christian religious purity goals, and many cultures today and throughout time continue to seek to associate on the framework of purity of color, race or religion, and other human attributes. If the term “purity” is too strong for non-political scientists, children, or non-critical-thinkers, we might consider using reductive euphemistic terms, such as socially “uniform” or “conformed,” which sugar-coat the distasteful acidic horror for those who require it. [17b]
Alas, a human being burning at the stake or in an oven here, or burning by an incendiary missile there. Human nature—and Facebook—prove that human beings want tribal validation by uniformity to appease human insecurity. [*12] The Jews themselves, such as Christians and Muslims, are certainly not without killing, or murder as the case may be, in implementing their own goals of quasi-theocratic religious social purity or conformity, or the protection of it, at some level, with innocent death as a consequence. Each casting their own stones or missiles, as the case may be, temporally judged only by the accident of resultant power, which is the way power tends to work. And the judgment of the horror, agony, death and destruction swings over time, which is the way power tends to work.
We can stop here as critically-thinking political scientists and hypothesize in the manner that duty of the task requires:
We can ponder whether the Catholic Inquisition would have used more racks, disembowelments, gallows, and body burning mechanics, if the technology was available to implement their own purification “killings” more efficiently. The Catholics burned a lot of people (about 2 million), and so did the Nazis, to “purify” (or to create uniformity and conformity) which, if “innocent,” only the gods know; of course, which gods is a harder question.
We can ponder, by necessary political scientific hypothesis, if the Catholic Inquisition or Bloody Mary Tudor would have used mechanized gas chambers—just like the Nazis, for social purification purposes—to kill heretical non-conforming Protestants, if the technology was available to do so. We can consider this question in light of the “purification fury” of the Catholic Pope himself over the “heretical” conduct of John Wycliffe, among other things, for translating the Christian Bible into vernacular English, just so that common people could read it without church instruction; to wit:
So frantically angry was Pope Martin V and the Council of Constance that they declared Wycliffe a heretic, banned and burned his books, posthumously, exhumed his dead body, burned his remains, and, for good measure, threw his ashes into the Swift River, all in the name of God.
[18 19] [Some may say that this quasi-theocratic purification fury of the politically active church does not occur today in such a manner, but that fact may be more a constraint by loss of evolved relative civil political power today by agnostic constitutional framework, than a loss of natural potential for recurrence if that power constraint devolved and revolved. The quasi-theocratic purification fury potential yet remains, which is the way power tends to work.] [26]
Such as it is, to the innocent woman, condemned by male clergy, burning at the stake with her skin melting off as she screams in writhing agony, there is no convincing story to her that someone else’s suffering, or some macro-cultural suffering, is any worse than her own. [*2] She only knows that she is innocent and burning. The mechanism or volume of others is immaterial, to her.
Thusly, the Nazis, Bloody Mary, and others throughout time, purifying “by all means possible.” No difference in political philosophy, but only in practical technology.
And, on this note, let us review “witches” and more on these heretical burnings.
The “Gold Standard” for the American Experience with witches, heresy, and other such things, within the political American framework, might be initiated with quoting the magnificent Thomas Jefferson, who wrote in Notes on the State of Virginia:
At the common law, heresy was punishable by burning at the stake…
[I]f a person brought up in the christian religion denies the being of a God, or the trinity, or asserts there are more Gods than one, or denies the christian religion to be true, or the scriptures to be of divine authority, he is punishable on the first offense by incapacity to hold any office or employment ecclesiastical, civil, or military; on the second by disability to sue, to take any gift or legacy, to be guardian, executor or administrator, and by three years imprisonment, without bail…
A father’s right to the custody of his own children may of course be severed from him and put, by the authority of a court.
[*6, 20] And, we can also review what Founding Father, Benjamin Franklin, wrote in his Autobiography:
This obscure family of ours was early in the Reformation, and continued Protestants through the reign of [Catholic] Queen [Bloody] Mary, when they were sometimes in danger of trouble on account of their zeal against [Catholic] popery.
They had got an English [Protestant] Bible, and to conceal and secure it, it was fastened open with tapes under and within the cover of a joint-stool. When my great-great-grandfather read it to his family, he turned up the joint-stool upon his knees, turning over the leaves then under the tapes. One of the children stood at the door to give notice if he saw the apparitor coming, who was an officer of the spiritual court. In that case the stool was turned down again upon its feet, when the [Protestant] Bible remained concealed under it as before.
Behold it, “the spiritual court…,” with the new reign of Catholic [Bloody] Queen Mary. That horrific quasi-theocratical political system from which Americans escaped, revolted, and reformed, being committed to the experiment of an orderly administration of a group of diverse people, separating religion from temporal secular government. The Founding Fathers wanted none of that flip-flopping evil civil quasi-theocratical governance: this year bloody protestant rule and the next year bloody catholic rule. This year the “meaning of life” being imposed thusly, and the next year other-thusly. [*13]
The important point of political science that is often overlooked is that theists can, with discipline, distinguish between the personal theism of individual conscience and the socialized imposition by social civil framework. One is personal and private, and the other is social and public. [20b]
The U.S. Constitution is the civil agnostic framework of United States governance of a diverse, free and free-thinking people, with equality and justice for all. The Declaration of Independence is a rhetorical document of professed rebellion. The two documents are not the same thing, nor are they for the same purpose. [21] The framework, and the accoutrements that rest upon the framework, are not the same thing. The former is for existential survival, and the latter is for existential comfort.
The frameworked brand of the United States of America is emulsion, not purity. [*9] The United States of America is supposed to be ascendant, evolved, and just for all, which is a type of framework of social civil diversity integration, forgiveness, and mercy, which is its strength and power, which is where freedom rings. [21b]
According to Steven Waldman, in his wonderfully prepared work, Founding Faith: Providence, Politics, and the Birth of Religious Freedom in America:
Though Virginia and Massachusetts were especially important, every colony experimented with a different relationship between church and state. With the exception of Rhode Island, all colonies had official or semi-official churches that promoted the glory of Jesus Christ.
Most defined Christianity as being Protestantism, and most discriminated blatantly against Catholics and Jews. Beyond that, there were important differences. The New England colonies—Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Hampshire—were dominated by Puritans and their Congregational churches. They disliked the Anglicans. Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia were at one point or another dominated by the Church of England. They disliked Puritans. Four colonies followed more distinctive paths. Rhode Island, led by Roger Williams, established something close to the modern American approach to tolerance (though even there, Jews didn’t have full rights).
[*20] In 1697, around the time that Benjamin Franklin was born, America experienced the Salem Witch Trials, as stated by The Encyclopedia Britannica:
The accused were forced to defend themselves without aid of counsel. Most damning for them was the admission of “spectral evidence”—that is, claims by the victims that they had seen and been attacked (pinched, bitten, contorted) by spectres of the accused, whose forms Satan allegedly had assumed to work his evil. Even as the accused testified on the witness stand, the girls and young women who had accused them writhed, whimpered, and babbled in the gallery, seemingly providing evidence of the spectre’s demonic presence.
Those who confessed—or who confessed and named other witches—were spared the court’s vengeance, owing to the Puritan belief that they would receive their punishment from God. Those who insisted upon their innocence met harsher fates, becoming martyrs to their own sense of justice.
Many in the community who viewed the unfolding events as travesties remained mute, afraid that they would be punished for raising objections to the proceedings by being accused of witchcraft themselves.
Now, such as it is, the situation is horrific for the weak and accused “witches.” But, truth be told, it is even politically philosophically worse for the accused witch than for Christians torn to shreds in the Colosseum, or the Jews in Auschwitz, in the sense that, by any non-theocratic secular civil law, the witches were not even the thing of which they were accused. That is, there are unjust laws by civil horror, and there are unjust laws by non-temporal delusive irrational horror.
Rational judgment with irrational laws is not the same thing as irrational judgment with any laws.
It may be horrifically wrong to intend to purify the Aryan race by “evacuating” Jews from the civil society, and it may be wrong to purge Christians from the civil society of “pagan” Rome, beauty in the eye of the beholder, but, horrific laws notwithstanding, the accused were (generally) the thing at some level. But it is not the same for the witch, in some temporally misplaced “battle of the gods,” which is presuming to claim to be a supernatural, non-secular, non-temporal, divine instrument for judgment for a god (or the gods), which god is not as temporally defined and clear. Jesus was not so arrogant. [3.4, 3.5]
But here is what is worse than some form of injustice:
“Many in the community who viewed the unfolding events as travesties remained mute, afraid that they would be punished for raising objections to the proceedings by being accused of witchcraft themselves.” [Id.]
Conceding justice for fear and self-preservation. Commonly natural, not exceptionally noble. Fear of right by might, which adduces the millstone. [3.3]
President Trump has appointed Linda McMahon as the Secretary of Education. Secretary McMahon has been incredibly successful in commerce, by the World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc., with her husband, Vince McMahon.
“Education is the issue that determines our national success and prepares American workers to win the future. Every decision made at the Department will be driven by a commitment to support meaningful learning and empower our most important stakeholders: students, families, and teachers. The Department will be focused on advancing education freedom, not building up government-run systems. We will empower states and districts to have more say in what is working on the ground for students instead of bureaucratic edicts from Washington, D.C.”
Now, standing alone, we might applaud the “world-is-round” common sense that must be restored to the educational system. And, we must be much smarter at instituting a practical skill-set for life, based upon temporal science, without hopeful emotions and a failure of systemic order. Whether Secretary McMahon’s credential set is suitable for the role remains to be seen.
But, President Trump has indicated that the U.S. Department of Education may be eliminated. Perhaps that is a negotiation threat [22], but the last sentence by Ms. McMahon should be read with caution:
“We will empower states and districts to have more say in what is working on the ground for students instead of bureaucratic edicts from Washington, D.C.”
This is a “states rights” policy that increases localization of educational policy. This intentional causation has two effects.
The first effect is that localization is a mechanism that will significantly concentrate the impact of local camps, often concomitant with the inclination of ancient religiously-grounded or religiously-influenced education. History teaches that minorities in body or thought will tend to be ostracized by application of a concentrated localized policy determined by the local majority in power, perhaps rural or Bible Belt, without national uniform or consistent redress.
The second effect is that the localization will tend to divide the country in a manner that existed before the American Civil War and before the majestic authority of the 14th Amendment. [*20]
To endure as one unified culture, the educational system in the United States of America not only requires a national standard for practical skills, but it must also adduce the agnostic philosophical critical thinking that formulaically does not rest on faith, but rather thoughtfully challenges and evaluates competing ideas. Thusly, the properly educated student learns to be rational, rather than to rationalize. [*18] History teaches that the systemic socialization of rationalization is not a best practice. If this sounds strange to us, we re-read our genius Founding Father, Thomas Jefferson. [*7, *18]
[For those who might suggest that publicly funded education should include faith-based “teaching,” we might respond that the timing placement is undisciplined; indeed, there is plenty of time and space to get drunk with family and friends, after work, and natural inclinations and social influence will take their place accordingly. Public education is the time to adduce the critical-thinking skills and the discipline to challenge indoctrinated presuppositions, which is the seat of wisdom, which is the seat of a virtuous democratic (not theocratic) civil electorate.] [22b]
The credential set of Secretary McMahon suggests the former but not necessarily the latter. A political philosophy and a human educational philosophy are not the same thing. A democracy does not survive without knowledge, discipline, and virtue in the electorate. We should beware of hidden hypocrisy. [23]
All human history proves the tendency of humanity, by undisciplined weakness, to yield to tribal validation on uniform principles, and then to accomplish the intention of preserving and purifying that tribe by any and all means possible. [*12]
The focus of exclusion will be exponentially magnified in a local tribal setting, and the standards will become nationally contradicting. Sooner or later, an otherwise unified nation will break down on divergent principles, because the premise is foolish: A nation with the professed principle of national freedom, inclusion, and diversity, with equality and justice for all—on a national basis—will ironically grow into silos of concentrated camps of local incalcitrant tribal structures that will war with each other, a broken miserable unhappy family. [24] Cultures take generations to condition, and separatist philosophies will germinate separateness. Under the guise of uniting by a tribal political principle that is convenient by the power of today’s voting statistics, the nation tomorrow will be divided. [25] The nation will then be conquered in its divided state, if not from within, then from without.
It just takes time. [*4]
Each state will become stronger and the nation will become weaker. What should be united as a nation will become increasingly divided into parts that selfishly serve their own separate standards and interests, by local tribal concentrated camps of philosophy, which is the way power conjoined with weakness tends to work. In the end, some will say that it was god who did it. Which god is hard to say. Foolish undisciplined irony. [*26, 27, 28, 29]
Therefore, we should “Remember the Witches.” History educates us, if we are willing to learn from it. And, yes, witches are scary to different people, for different reasons. Some reasons are more rational than others. [30]
[1] Absolute Power Resolves to Self-Interest – No. 53. The Lion’s Share – Back to Basics Abridgment Series [GRZ98_53] [LinkedIn #GRZ_98_53]
[2] The Fable of a Slave’s Bad Day [GRZ127] [LinkedIn #GRZ_127]
[3] The ONE LinkedIn Reference Set [GRZ183] [LinkedIn #GRZ_183] 3.1 ONE: 1407 [J8:1] (“Cast First Stone“); 3.2 ONE: 2615 [T26:41; R14:38 L22:40;L22:46] (“Flesh Weak“); 3.3 ONE: 1661 [T18:6, R9:42, L17:2] (“Millstone); 3.4 ONE: 1325 [T15:14] (“Blind Lead Blind-Ditch“); 3.4 ONE: 1790 [R10:18; L18:19] (“Call Good“); 3.5 ONE: 2121 [T22:20, R12:16, L20:24] (“Caesar Coin Tax”)
[4] The Three Noble Cardinal Rules of Wisdom [GRZ189] [LinkedIn #GRZ_189]
[5] Attachment, Greed. Or, Just Let It Go. – No. 79. The Miser and His Gold – The Essential Aesop™ – Back to Basics Abridgment Series [GRZ98_79] [LinkedIn #GRZ_98_79]
[6] The Recipe to Make Bud Wiser [Branding, Part I] [GRZ142] [LinkedIn #GRZ_142]
[7] Freedom of Religion, by Thomas Jefferson (Notes on the State of Virginia) – Abridgment Series [GRZ61] [LinkedIn #GRZ_61]
[8] The Two “Master Virtues” – The Executive Summary [GRZ209] [LinkedIn #GRZ_209]
[9] The American Emulsion: Order, Equality, and Freedom; Or, The Virtue of a Nation-State Not Made by Purity of Religion, Race, Heritage,.. [GRZ168] [LinkedIn #GRZ_168]
[10] The Reason Why Political and Economic Systems Fail; The Executive Summary [GRZ145] [LinkedIn #GRZ_145]
[11] The Tarpeian Rock; Or, America’s Hard Decisions [GRZ205] [LinkedIn #GRZ_205]
[12] The Insecure Human Being – The Business of Aesop™ No. 51 – A Fox Without a Tail [GRZ36X] [LinkedIn #GRZ_36]
[13] The Orderly Administration Of A Diverse People. America Is Not A Church. [GRZ170] [LinkedIn #GRZ_170]
[14] “Forgive Them, Founding Father; They Know Not What They Do.” Or, the Folly of Trying to Socialize the Meaning of Life [GRZ219] [LinkedIn #GRZ_219]
[15] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andersonville_Prison
[16] Good v. Evil; Or, Thoughtlessness by Simplistic Vilification [GRZ126] [LinkedIn #GRZ_126]
[17] Hate Speech v. Bad Speech v. Free Speech; Or, The Meta-Argument Part I [GRZ194] [LinkedIn #GRZ_194]
[17b] The Truth. Hard to Handle, Even Harder to Swallow. [GRZ178] [LinkedIn #GRZ_178]
[18] Seven Key American Principles; Or, a Culture of Breaking Culture [GRZ197] [LinkedIn #GRZ_197]
[19] I Am Not Brainwashed, And Neither Are You. Maybe. But I Might be Wrong. [GRZ165] [LinkedIn #GRZ_165]
[20] Trump’s Achilles Heel, Stepping on the 14th Amendment with States’ Rights; Or, United We Stand – The Tie that Binds a Bundle of States [GRZ225] [LinkedIn #GRZ_225]
[20b] The Woman Wins. Now. It’s About Time. [GRZUID199] [LinkedIn #GRZ_199]
[21] All Men Are Not Created Equal, or Why Thomas Jefferson Got it Wrong – Stand for America® [GRZ78] [LinkedIn #GRZ_78]
[21b] A Tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. [GRZ221] [LinkedIn #GRZ_221]
[22] Love or Fear to Motivate: Which is Better? [GRZ216] [LinkedIn #GRZ_216]
[22b] A Fool and His Country are Soon Parted; Or, The Late American Lifeboat Debate [GRZUID171] [LinkedIn #GRZ_171]
[23] Reflections on Thoughts of a Philosophical Fighter Pilot – On Leadership – Abridgment Series [GRZUIX27X] [LinkedIn #GRZ_27]
[24] Team Sticks Together – No. 12. The Bundle of Sticks – The Essential Aesop™ – Back to Basics Abridgment Series [GRZ98_12] [LinkedIn #GRZ_98_12]
[25] The Price for Deception; Or, What Goes Around. – No. 98. The Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing – The Essential Aesop™ – Back to Basics Abridgment Series [GRZ98_98] [LinkedIn #GRZ_98_98]
[26] The Evolution of Revolution; Or Stopping the Revolution at 180°, And Not Going Full Circle [GRZ172] [LinkedIn #GRZ_172]
[27] The History of the Decline and Fall of the American Hegemony; Or, Seven Cardinal Deadlies—The Executive Summary [GRZUID174] [LinkedIn #GRZ_174]
[28] The History of the Decline and Fall of the American Hegemony—Chapter 4 Excerpt—Education [GRZUID182] [LinkedIn #GRZ_182]
[29] The History of the Decline and Fall of the American Hegemony—Chapter 5 Excerpt—God [#GRZ_187] [LinkedIn #GRZ_187]
[30] Persuasion and Force – Business of Aesop™ No. 1 – The North Wind and Sun. [GRZUID1X] [LinkedIn #GRZ_1]
“‘Occidere’ factum est, ‘homicidium’ est indoles socialis.” (“‘Killing’ is a fact, ‘murder’ is a social characterization.”); “Horror individui non metiri socialis horror in alios.” (“Horror upon an individual is not meted by relativity.”); “Ludicium rationale cum legibus irrationalibus non est idem quod irrationale iudicium cum quibuscumque legibus.” (“Rational judgment with irrational laws is not the same thing as irrational judgment with any laws.”); “Systema socializationis rationalisation optimum non est praxis.” (“Systemic socialization of rationalization is not a best practice.”); ;”Viribus optime ostensum est in sua continentia.” (“Power is best shown in its own restraint.”); “Prima lex potentiae est quomodo impedita.” (“The first law of power is how it is to be controlled.”) ~ grz
Copyright © 2025 by Gregg Zegarelli. All rights reserved.
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