#293 / Letter To A (Potential) Law Student

  

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Every once in a while, a young person, just getting ready to head off to law school, or maybe somebody studying to take the so-called LSAT, the "Law School Admission Test," asks me some questions about the law. Do you like being a lawyer? Do you have any tips on the LSAT? What do you think about this or that law school? Things like that. 

Recently, a young person who had just graduated from college, and was thinking of being a lawyer, and so was studying for the LSAT, asked me a question that was quite a bit more "philosophical" (or more "profound") than the kind of questions that I most typically get asked. Here was the question that this prospective law student posed to me:

Do you think that the worldly law creates freedom, or does it primarily create boundaries within which we are free?

As I say, this was not, really, the kind of question that I am normally asked, but I was happy to have been presented with that question. It's a pretty important one! Here was my reply: 

I think that the statement that “worldly law creates freedom” is pretty close to what I think. It might be more accurate to say that my view is that “worldly law” expresses our freedom, since our “freedom” is primary, in my view. 

I don’t know whether or not your idea of “worldly” law is the same as mine, but you seem clearly to think there are at least two kinds of law - the “worldly” kind and some other variety. I agree with the idea of TWO different kinds of law. The idea that there are two kinds of law came to me as a kind of revelation (it’s pretty hard, now, for me to remember exactly when that happened). I do think that there are two different kinds of law. 

My idea of “law,” prior to this “revelation,” as I have just called it, was that “law” was more or less the opposite of “freedom.” In other words, the “law” tells you what you have to do. While I don’t think I made this distinction at that time, our physical laws (which I am guessing are not the “worldly” laws you are thinking of) is what I was thinking of as the basic “law” by which we are governed. You, know, like the “law” of gravity. You can’t disobey the law of gravity (or other physical laws). 

That idea was my basic idea about “law.” The law says what must and will happen (and this is definitely true in the case of the laws that govern our physical world). While It is obviously true that we can disobey human laws, I thought that physical laws were really the only kind of law that is really “law,” so that when we came up with statements that said what should happen in our social and human-created world, we used the word “law” to indicate that you “had” to do something, or had not to do something. “Law," in other words, was always associated with “necessity,” not “freedom." 

Naturally, since human laws are obviously not like the law of gravity, I assumed that if someone “broke” the law, they should be punished. While we can violate our human laws, we aren’t supposed to, and if we do, we are, or should be, punished - and/or made to do what “the law” prescribes. I think this idea of “law” may be along the lines of “law” being a set of "boundaries within which we are free,” as you put it. This way of understanding human laws suggests that our human laws are intended to constrain what we do in a larger, overall view. 

At some point, I changed my idea about human law, and I ended up with what I decided to call my “Two Worlds Hypothesis.” My daily blog is really just a set of daily reflections on the implications of that “Two Worlds Hypothesis,” and the “Two Worlds” mentioned are (1) the "World of Nature" (in which the laws absolutely say what must and will happen - “gravity” being the go-to example) and (2) what I call the “Political World,” the world that we create by our own choices and our own actions. 

The actual title of my blog is, “We Live In A Political World.” I hope you'll read it! I have a new comment every day - and have made those daily comments for sixteen years. As for the title, we most certainly do, most “immediately,” "Live In A Political World." “Ultimately,” though, we live in the "World of Nature," where the laws are absolute and tell us what must and will happen. When we get these two “Worlds” mixed up, the problems can be severe. 

Global Warming, for instance, governed by the laws that prevail in the "World of Nature," may well kill us all off, and eliminate the “Human World” entirely. Our "Human World" depends on the "World of Nature," but since the “freedom” that we are provided in our "Political World" allows us to make choices that can conflict with the "World of Nature," we can choose to do something that might end up destroying the "Natural World," on which we ultimately depend. Global Warming could do it. So could Nuclear War.

My experience as a “politician” is what led me to the “Two Worlds” idea, and my claim is that in our “Political World,” anything is possible. The human world is created by our own choices and actions, and is a world in which our “freedom” determines what exists - and what doesn’t. The "Natural World" follows the laws of “necessity,” but our (political) world is governed by the reality of our “freedom,” and in “our” world, our “Political World," the “law” is the expression of our freedom. In our world, in other words, we, essentially, write down what we have chosen to make real, and then, by following the laws we have enacted, we bring that “world” into reality. 

I have ended up with a great enthusiasm for “the law,” because I do see the law as the realm in which we most clearly - and with great consequence - create the world in which we most immediately live. 

“Politics,” as you will see, is the realm in which we most directly express our freedom (at least our “collective” freedom). We are each free to act, individually, but we can (and do) act in concert, together, and we have the freedom (collectively) to create any world we want (at least if that world is consistent with the World of Nature, which is primary). I often call that primary world, the “World of Nature,” “The World that God created.” 

Much of what lawyers do, of course, is to work within the human world that we have collectively created, that “Political World,” in which the laws provide rules, and prohibitions, and outline opportunities for action, etc. Many lawyers, I believe, end up being more or less frustrated and/or resentful about the “law,” and of the rules that establish what is “legal,” and what is not, and which laws can end up seeming to constrain freedom, or to perpetuate injustice, and that may well impose constraints that are unreasonable, unfair, or even just plain “wrong.” 

Since I have never lost my “political” perspective, I have never become as jaundiced, and perhaps even as resentful, as some lawyers end up being. So, I do recommend not losing that larger perspective. The “laws” with which we most immediately deal are the laws that we establish ourselves (by "politics," by the way). What we “legislate,” in other words, will determine the realities which most directly affect us. "Law," in other words, is a realm of freedom, not a realm of penalty and constraint. 

That's my view at least. Keep me posted - and really good luck on the LSAT!

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#292 / Power Drill

 

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Despite the headline, I am not writing, today, about a useful tool for your home improvement projects. But maybe I am talking about improving our politics. 

The picture above adorns the online version of a column in the September 2026, edition of The Nation magazine. Written by Yotam Marom, the column is titled as follows in its online version: "How Occupy Wall Street Still Explains Politics Today." It's worth reading! Best I can tell, from reviewing the personal webpage linked above, Marom is a consultant you can hire if you and your group want to be more politically impactful than you'd likely be without some experienced advisor helping you along. 

For REALLY "old timer" Santa Cruz folks, you may remember "Operation Wilder." Operation Wilder was the very effective local political group that helped save Wilder Ranch. It was comprised of a bunch of dedicated but largely inexperienced local folks concerned about saving the North Coast, and stopping a proposed development that all by itself would have doubled the population of the City at that time, had that proposed development been approved. What did those in Operation Wilder know about politics when they got together? Well, I don't know, but they did make use of a paid political consultant to help them achieve their objectives. Shirley Zimmerman was her name - and thank you, Shirley! She did a pretty good job! I have no idea whatever happened to her, and an online search for her name turned up a lot of obituaries that don't seem to relate to the Shirley Zimmerman who had such a big impact on our local community. 

Back to the article in The Nation. As I say, I recommend reading the entire article, which I hope even non-subscribers will be able to do. Here, though, are some excerpts from that article that contain the statements that have prompted this blog posting (emphasis added): 

Fifteen years ago, Occupy Wall Street shook the world. Sparked by people’s anger at the banks that caused the Great Recession and their disappointment with President Obama’s response, and inspired by a wave of pro-democracy movements from Greece to Spain to Tahrir Square in Cairo, the occupation soon became a whole little world of its own, with hundreds of people camping out and many more spending their days there... 

The movement reintroduced class struggle into the mainstream narrative as the “99 percent versus the 1 percent," politicized and trained an entire generation of activists, and led to dozens of new organizations and campaigns... 

But Occupy itself was short-lived. Two months after it began, police in cities all over the country raided the occupations and arrested their inhabitants. This was, perhaps, the way it was always going to end: The power of the militarized state far outweighed the power of a burgeoning social movement. But ... Occupy’s collapse was also the product of avoidable mistakes, internal weaknesses, and unhealthy tendencies in the movement. Those stemmed in large part from what I have called the “politics of powerlessness,” a set of ideas and behaviors that fetishize being the righteous underdog, turning movements away from their public and the broader task and inward toward each other... 

Movements must actually want power. At Occupy, the politics of powerlessness took the form of tearing down leaders, refusing to articulate real-world demands or craft a strategy, and engaging in paranoia about being co-opted by liberals and unions. Many other movements and organizations suffer from similar dysfunctions: an insistence on being right over being effective; an obsession with maintaining the boundaries of the movement as though it were a club rather than a vehicle for mass change; an unwillingness to make hard choices that lead to good strategy. Movements must be willing to make sacrifices to get power and build the kinds of structures and processes needed to seize it and wield it. 

Movements must combat despair. It is understandable to feel that the world we deserve is out of reach. But despair keeps us home, closes doors, kills movements—and what’s more, it doesn’t reflect the truth: We actually don’t know what’s possible. Occupy itself is proof of this. Mere moments before Occupy began, many of us didn’t really expect it to work. And then it did, at least in some ways, and here we are, 15 years later, tracing the impacts that are still unfolding around us.

One way to think about the Occupy movement is to classify it as a "Power Drill," an effort to test out possible avenues for economic, social, and political change. 

One lesson should be clear from the Occupy effort, as outlined in Marom's telling in The Nation. "Movements must actually want power." That means, to recite what the patriots who brought our nation into being said, that we must be willing to devote to the effort "our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor."

You can check the veracity of that quotation, yourself, by clicking this link to the Declaration of Independence. It's still relevant after 250 years!

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https://www.thenation.com/article/activism/occupy-wall-street-anniversary-social-movements/

#291/ Trading Songs

 

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A friend of mine sent me off to watch a YouTube video of Pete Seeger, accompanied by children and older people as they sailed down the Hudson River, singing this song: "God's Counting On Me, God's Counting On You." Part of the crew was Lorre Wyatt, co-author of the song. I had never heard the song before - or, at least, I didn't remember it. I thought it was pretty good, so I'm sharing it, here, with anyone reading this blog posting. 

Wanting to give right back, I immediately sent my friend a copy of one of my own favorite Pete Seeger songs, "Sailing Down My Golden River." That, too, is a pretty wonderful song. Definitely a fair trade, I think. Here's that one: 

A couple of nice songs for a Sunday. I hope you agree!

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Image Credit:

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/pete-seeger-in-beacon

#290 / I'm Voting "Yes" On Proposition 40

 

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Joseph C. Sternberg, writing in yesterday's Wall Street Journal, seems to think that California State Proposition 40, which appears on California's November 3rd ballot, is actually "French" in its origins. Frankly, I don't really get that alleged "French Connection," but I do understand that Sternberg thinks that Proposition 40 is a "dog," to quote him on the subject. Here's a link to Sternberg's opinion piece. 

Despite what Sternberg has to say, I am planning to vote "Yes" on Proposition 40 (and since I believe in "voting early," I am actually planning to turn in my ballot later today, as part of a "NO KINGS" rally being held at 10:00 o'clock this morning, down at the Santa Cruz County Governmental Center, 701 Ocean Street in Santa Cruz. I am pretty familiar with the location, since I worked there for twenty years, from 1975 to 1995. 

Here is why Sternberg thinks that Proposition 40 is a "dog" (emphasis added):

Proposition 40 has a good claim to be the most significant item on the ballot anywhere in America this cycle. That’s only partly due to the fiscal math and the economics of the proposed 5% tax on those with assets above $1 billion. On the merits, the policy is a dog. 

As dangerous is the attitude Proposition 40 embodies. Its premise is that any and all private wealth constitutes an illegitimate diversion of resources away from the state. Despite the initial application to fortunes only above $1 billion, one discerns in the academic literature behind Proposition 40 no limiting principle. 

This is foreign to America’s political tradition, in which property rights are a foundation of our liberty. The tax is entirely redistributive and punitive, and in this regard its philosophical radicalness is underappreciated. Probably because the danger it poses to the economy is so distracting.

I do not think that the premise underlying Proposition 40's proposed one-time tax on billionaires is that "all private wealth constitutes an illegitimate diversion of resources away from the state." I think that the premise is that "we're all in this together," and that everyone in our society helps create both individual and societal wealth, and that it's both appropriate and fair - not to mention necessary - to make sure, when we face very difficult challenges, that those at the very highest income levels contribute fairly to our ability to deal with our rather daunting problems.

If you think that Proposition 40 treats billionaires unfairly, please consider the following, from The National Bureau of Economic Research (emphasis added):

We estimate income and taxes for the wealthiest group of US households by matching Forbes 400 data to the individual, business, estate, and gift tax returns of the corresponding group in 2010–2020. In our benchmark estimate, the total effective tax rate—all taxes paid relative to economic income—of the top 0.0002% (approximately the “top 400”) averaged 24% in 2018–2020 compared with 30% for the full population and 45% for top labor income earners. This lower total effective tax rate on the wealthiest is substantially driven by low taxable individual income relative to economic income. First, the C-corporations owned by the wealthiest distributed relatively little in dividends, limiting their individual income tax unless they sell their stocks. Second, top-owned passthrough businesses reported negative taxable income on average in spite of positive book income, further limiting their individual income tax. The top-400 effective tax rate fell from 30% in 2010–2017 to 24% in 2018–2020, explained both by a smaller share of business income being taxed and by that income being subject to lower tax rates. Estate and gift taxes contributed relatively little to their effective tax rate. Top-400 decedents paid 0.8% of their wealth in estate tax when married and 7% when single. Annual charitable contributions equalled 0.6% of wealth and 11% of economic income in 2018–20.

 

Do you remember that Sherlock Holmes story about "The Dog That Did Not Bark"? Sternberg calls Proposition 40 a "dog." But,  in this case, it turns out that the dog isn't barking because there really isn't much to bark about. There isn't anything too unfair about trying to have the billionaires pay something, by way of taxes, that might come close to what the typical labor income earner is paying. You know, someone like me or you!

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https://www.wsj.com/opinion/the-california-wealth-tax-french-connection-86d1fb82

#289 / A Tit For Tat

 

Ukraine

Russia

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You have probably heard that saying, "An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind." If you click that link, you'll see an earlier blog posting of mine, discussing the implications of that phrase, and citing to Mahatma Gandhi. 

I remembered that earlier blog posting when I read a New York Times article about the war in Ukraine. In the hardcopy version of the article, the headline read "A Tit For Tat!" Same message as my earlier blog posting, I think. And some wise advice, too. 

In terms of whichever phrase you'd like to use, in thinking about what's happening in our world today, let me suggest that a number of observers have come to the conclusion that the next "Tat" that counters the next "Tit," is going to take us into World War III. 

Believe me, when we all, all around the world, are looking into the light provided by exchanges of nuclear weapons, the whole world is going to be blind, indeed!

This Time It's All Of Us, Or None!

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(1) and (2) - https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/03/world/europe/russia-ukraine-escalation.html

(3) - https://www.sciencephoto.com/media/667756/view/hydrogen-bomb-explosion

#288 / The Sidelines Are Closed

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Stephen Edward Schmidt (click that link for a photo) was born on September 28, 1970, and had a successful career as a Republican campaign consultant, working for President George W. Bush, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Arizona Senator John McCain during McCain's 2008 presidential campaign. 

More recently, Schmidt co-founded the Lincoln Project in 2019, in opposition to Donald Trump and his leadership of the Republican Party. Schmidt left the project in 2021 and has co-founded the Save America Movement, a Political Action Committee organized to oppose the actions of the Republican Party under our current president. Schmidt authors a podcast on Substack entitled, "The Warning."

As you can see from the image at the top of this blog posting, which came from a recent edition of "The Warning," Schmidt also sells various kinds of political apparel. Lots of online "influencers" do sell things, and Schmidt, it turns out, is no exception. 

The blog posting in which I found the advertisement reproduced above was published on October 10, 2026, and was headlined this way: "The Sidelines Are Closed: Democracy Is A Participation Sport. Introducing The Warning's New SHOW UP Collection."

I am all for "participation" in politics, and I absolutely agree that politics is a "participation sport," using that sports metaphor, though "sport" might undersell the priority I put on "politics." 

Let me suggest, however, that while I think it's great for people to "wear their heart on their sleeve," or on their "chest," as they engage in political activity, donning a pro-democracy tee-shirt is not the kind of participation that is going to change our political world. 

Politics is not only a "participatory" sport, it's a "team" sport, too. Let me just reiterate for you the "Seven Step" program that I believe should guide our serious efforts to make politics "count," and that can change the world:

1. Find Some Friends
2. Create A Group (Or Join An Existing One)
3. Make Certain That Group Regularly Meets In Person
4. Have The Group Decide What It Wants To Make Happen
5. Figure Out A Strategy To Accomplish The Changes Desired
6. Implement The Strategy Developed
7. Modify As Needed; Rinse And Repeat

Wear whatever you like!

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https://steveschmidt.substack.com/p/the-sidelines-are-closed

 

#287 / Our Atomization Age

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Here is another opportunity to read the full text of an article from the September 3, 2026, edition of The New York Times - even if you are not a subscriber. 

The article that I am inviting you to read is a "political" article, even though it was printed in the "Styles" section of the newspaper. It's worth your review. The author is Jesse McKinley, and the online title of McKinley's article is: "America Is Atomizing." The hardcopy version of the headline is different from the online version (that "different headline phenomenon" happens pretty frequently, in fact). The hardcopy version of the title to McKinley's article is this: "One Nation, Under Atomization." 

I was noting the "atomization" of our society (and in fact the "atomization" of the world entire) as early as November, 2012. Quite recently, I have bemoaned the atomization and polarization of our national politics, reducing the complexities of our national life to a choice between "red" and "blue." 

McKinley's contribution reminds us that "totalitarian movements...are mass organizations of atomized, isolated individuals," and he documents how pernicious the "atomization" and "polarization" of our nation has become. McKinley also notes that "atomization" is a term that describes multiple groups, all opposed to one another, so it's not just "red" and "blue" that are in opposition in our society and politics today. 

McKinley does not argue that our situation is hopeless. Citing to Robert Putnam, the author of Bowling Alone, he tells us that "what most matters is face-to-face communication," which Putnam says "has almost certainly never been as low in American history as it is right now." That doesn't mean it's "game over," however:

There is a precedent for our current moment — and a comeback, Putnam said. The last Gilded Age, in the late 1800s, also had enormous concentrations of wealth, technological advancements and a self-centered sense of social Darwinism. 

But he argued that those Americans found their way back to a more unified country, in part by solving issues at a local level, where citizens have more trust in their leaders. And they relied on younger people to find solutions. 

Americans led their country to “an upswing,” as he described it in a 2020 book. 

“They,” he said, “fixed it.”

Well, I want to emphasize how strongly I agree that it's not "game over." In one of my earlier blog postings, titled, "No Savior Should Be Expected," I provided the following suggested plan of action for those who would like to bring "face-to-face" communication into our politics: 

1. Find Some Friends
2. Create A Group (Or Join An Existing One)
3. Make Certain That Group Regularly Meets In Person
4. Have The Group Decide What It Wants To Make Happen
5. Figure Out A Strategy To Accomplish The Changes Desired
6. Implement The Strategy Developed
7. Modify As Needed; Rinse And Repeat

If we want to eliminate the atomization and the polarization of our politics, that's a formula I believe will make a big difference!

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https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/10/style/america-is-atomizing.html?unlocked_article_code=1.-VA.Iods.3sXU-6eX--AN&smid=url-share

#286 / Talking To Each Other Less

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If you click the following link, I am told by The Wall Street Journal that you will be able to read the entirety of a column by Julie Jargon. The column I am talking about is entitled, "We’re All Talking to Each Other Less Than We Did a Decade Ago." I am recommending that you read Jargon's column. It's not that long. Here are the beginning paragraphs:

When was the last time you engaged in friendly banter with your barista, chatted with your neighbor or called your mother? 

Chances are, you placed your latte order on an app and ignored your neighbor when you pulled into your driveway. Your mom? She likely had to settle for a text. 

Digital interactions are replacing face-to-face interactions with loved ones and strangers. And the rise of AirPods means we’re all tuned into our own little worlds, appearing unapproachable for conversation. 

The result: We’re speaking much less than we did a decade ago. Yes, someone counted our daily words.

"Real" life is "in-person" life. When I tell those who follow my blog postings to "Find Some Friends," I am not talking about the Mark Zuckerberg/Meta/Facebook variety. I'm not talking about striking up a conversation on Zoom.

Democratic self-government (which is something I absolutely do know about) cannot take place "online." It CAN'T. It's that simple! Not only is the "online" world completely owned and controlled by massive corporations, it severs the human connections that make a genuine politics possible. 

I've said this before (many times). It's TRUE!

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https://www.wsj.com/health/wellness/speaking-study-words-per-day-decline-6f549d5a

#285 / The Paxton Policy

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That's Ken Paxton, above. Paxton is currently the Attorney General for the state of Texas. He is running for election this November, hoping to become a United States Senator for Texas. Paxton's opponent is James Talarico, a Bible-toting nice guy. Paxton is anything but a nice guy. You probably know all that, if you are keeping up with the news. 

My blog posting, today, is not, really, intended to focus on Ken Paxton. I want to comment on a policy announced by Paxton's wife, Angela Paxton, who is also a Texas politician. Her comments in a recent article in The New York Times struck me as significant. The article was titled, "Politics In Mind, Estranged Wife Sticks By Paxton." That is, of course, the "hardcopy" title. Online, the headline will be a bit different, but the article is the same. Click the link to read it as a "gift article," available to you even if you don't subscribe to The New York Times. 

Angela is currently divorcing Ken, "on Biblical grounds." That means that Angela is divorcing her Attorney General husband because he has committed adultery. Nonetheless, Angela is actively urging that the voters in Texas elect her husband to the United States Senate. Here's her explanation, as presented in the article in The Times:

As the race tightened, Ms. Paxton, who declined a request for an interview, began quietly making the case for her husband in private conversations and small party gatherings. In remarks to a women’s club in September, which she pointedly titled “The Elephant in the Room,” she announced her plans to back the entire Republican ticket. 

“It’s not the people — it’s the seat,” Ms. Paxton said in the speech, which she later posted on YouTube. “Because we have more control over that seat and the future when we control the seat — when it’s still in the family, even if we’re mad at them.”

Ms. Paxton, in other words, subscribes to the idea that voters have two choices (and only two). You're either "Red" or "Blue." If a decent person who otherwise appeals to you (as Talarico does) happens to be in the "Blue" party, you're supposed to reject that "person" because "party" is everything. I note that Ms. Paxton does not apply this rule to her own life (she is divorcing that guy whom she has found to be a dishonest liar).

Unfortunately, Angela Paxton's understanding of how politics should be practiced is not unique to her. As anyone who regularly reads my blog postings knows, I think that the "Paxton Policy," as articulated by Angela Paxton, is 100% dead wrong - at least, it's wrong if you would like our politics to be based on what our Constitution calls for. 

The Constitution, let me reiterate, does not recognize "parties" as a key category. It recognizes "persons," and it suggests that we, as a society, should make decisions about what our nation should do by having voters elect people in whom they have personal confidence, with the implicit corollary being that we should boot them out of office if they do not properly or worthily represent us. It is pretty clear that virtually the entire Republican Party (with only a few exceptions) has bought into the "Paxton Policy" on how we should operate our politics. The majority of the House of Representatives, and the majority of the United States Senate, are currently members of the Republican Party. They have stood by and watched our current president turn the government into a mechanism for his personal aggrandizement, and have ceded their Constitutional duty to determine whether or not the nation should go to war to that same person. Why? Clearly, it's the party tag that counts, not what the person does, or what kind of a person she or he is.

The correct response to the "Paxton Policy" is not to "vote Blue." That's just the same policy with a different coloration.

We need to choose our representatives because of their personal qualities, by by our evaluation of whether or not they will do a good job for us - not by the color by which they identify their party allegiance. 

That approach to politics is what we need to resuscitate if we want to maintain self-government in the United States of America. So, if you happen to live in Texas, check out the guy below, James Talarico, and don't be fooled by the bad advice being handed out by Ken Paxton's wife: 

James Talarico

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Image Credits:

(1) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Paxton

(2) - https://jamestalarico.com/meet-james-talarico/

#284 / Quantum Superposition

  

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The picture above has been lifted out of a New York Times article titled, "How Scientific Is The Sci-Fi Of 'Dark Matter'"? If you click the link I have just provided, you should be able to read the entire article, which was published in The Times on Sunday, August 30, 2026. Even non-subscribers should be able to read the article, by Connie Chang, since The Times has assured me that this is a "gift article." 

The black box in the photo is not actually "operrational," but is part of a movie set. In the movie, based on the novel, Dark Matter, by Blake Crouch, a person entering into that box can be "put into a state of quantum superposition: an idea rooted in real science, based on the nonintuitive concept that subatomic particles like electrons can, on some level, exist in two places at once." 

Oddly enough, I find myself having to admit that I am a little bit bedazzled by "physics," though I hardly understand anything about it. In fact, one of my earliest blog postings, from July 12, 2014, was titled, "I Wish I Understood Physics." If you click this link, right here, you should get a listing of all of my blog postings discussing "physics," starting back with a posting about Einstein. I think there about sixty more, after that one!

One of the things I keep thinking about, as I try to grapple with physics, is the fact that "reality," the nature of the world we inhabit, is really beyond the limits of our current comprehension. Strange things, like "quantum superposition," provide evidence of that. I am not the only one who doesn't "understand" physics. Even those who have devoted their lives to the study of physics don't, really, know what their discoveries actually mean about the ultimate nature of reality and the universe. 

Since it's a Sunday, today, I can link back to a more recent blog posting that makes this same point, citing to the ruminations of a Catholic Bishop. All the "religious" things we hear about, and read about in the Bible, might actually be "scientifically" consistent with what "physics" is discovering - all those strange things!

Like I say, I really wish I understood physics.

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https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/27/arts/television/dark-matter-science-quantum-mechanics.html

#283 / Suspicion Of Outsiders Is Rising

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Pictured is Yoko Kubota. Click the link to find out something about her. Kubota is a National Security reporter for The Wall Street Journal, and she is of Japanese descent. Until recently, Kubota was based in Beijing, China, but after eight years there, Kubota felt it necessary to leave China, and she has now moved to the United States. 

Why did Kubota feel it necessary to leave China? Well, in an article in The Journal, Kubota tells us that "suspicion of outsiders is rising" in China. She documents in the article the longstanding hatred of the Japanese, by Chinese citizens, based on Japan's conduct during World War II. As an aside, it is obvious that "suspicion of outsiders" is rising in the United States of America, too. The icy, anti-immigrant hatred that is flourishing among many in our nation is well known.

Anyone who regularly reads my blog postings may recall the comments I published on April 22nd, "Student Exchange." Suspicion of others cannot be a secure foundation for a world that will be able to cooperate to meet the challenges ahead. Make no mistake, global challenges are not only "coming," they're here. Here's a short list, to remind you of what we're facing: (1) the real threat of a worldwide nuclear holocaust; (2) death of the oceans; (3) massive food scarcity; (4) worldwide pandemics; (5) Other impacts produced by global warming. 

This is, clearly, only a "partial list." 

A new program of "student exchange" isn't going to protect us from our problems. What will? What can help us with our problems is an understanding that one of my favorite phrases applies not only here in the United States, but applies on a worldwide basis. 

We're in this together! That is really true, and that means we need to find ways to get beyond suspicion. I'm with Milly Zhu, a young Chinese woman featured in one of my recent blog postings. We need to "get along well." And we can, you know. We can!

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https://www.wsj.com/world/china/im-leaving-china-after-8-years-suspicion-of-outsiders-is-rising-5b70d7a2

#282 / The Rise And Fall Of The Artificial State

 

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The Rise And Fall Of The Artificial State [RECOMMENDED] is the title of a recent book written by my favorite living historian, Jill Lepore. That is Jill Lepore pictured above. The link I have provided to the title of Lepore's book will take you to a YouTube discussion with Lepore. To order the book, click right here. You can also, of course, visit your local library, or obtain the book wherever you normally do that kind of thing. You might want to read the book first, however, before using that online "bookshop" named after a vanishing rainforest.

Since I am mainly a "reader," and only infrequently a "viewer," I have not, personally, viewed the YouTube video to which I have just provided a link. Maybe viewing that video will be enough, but I am encouraging anyone reading this blog posting to READ Lepore's latest book. I consider it to be quite an important book. It documents the "Rise" of the "Artificial State," and then discusses how the "Artificial State" might "Fall." By the way, for any science fiction fans, a lot of the history that Lepore mobilizes in this book is the history of science fiction!

By the time they get to the final chapters, I think that most readers will be rooting for the "Fall," and I confess that I was a little disappointed when I found out that the "Fall" of the "Artificial State," as more or less "predicted" in the title of Lepore's book, is not, in fact, predicted - or even guaranteed - at all. 

The "Fall" of the "Artificial State" is a task yet to be accomplished. How to do it? 

(1) Find Some Friends 

(2) Set Up A Small Group Dedicated to The Task 

(3) Meet Frequently (I suggest weekly) 

(4) Collaborate with others doing the same 

(5) Start practicing "politics" [Note the posters!]

Below, I am providing a quote from Lepore's final chapter, "The Last Days Of The Artificial State." As you read this quotation from the book, you might note the emphasis on what we often call "the environment," and what religious types call "The Creation." The last words of the book, in fact, are a quotation from the Bible, specifically from The Book of Job.

The Artificial State in which a great many humans have begun to live has not promoted their safety and happiness; it is a prison whose walls are comprised of mirrors: glowing screens. In its cells there are no windows that open to the wider world, to sea and sky, forests and valleys, islands and cliffs. From inside, no sound can be heard, not the rustling of animals, not the snapping of branches, not the roar of waves. No tendrils of vines snake their way under the door. No cobwebs gather in the corners. Arendt glimpsed this prison. What is required is to imagine an escape - and then to forge the tools, and summon the resolve, to make that escape.... 

The democratic governance of technology, instead of technological governance of humanity: that  can still happen. The defense of the natural world: that began happening. "Grow tomatoes, not data centers" became a slogan as a backlash against data centers gained momentum in cities and towns and states all over the world, spurring a new environmental movement. 

Escaping the Artificial State requires imaging a different future. That can still happen. The defeat of the Artificial State will require the inspection of facts, the exercise of reason, the search for meaning, the reading and study of philosophy and art and history and literature, and even learning the lessons of ancient parables and of modern science fiction.... Don't tether yourself to a computer. Unplug. If you cut down all the trees and all the animals you will die. Using robots to wage wars will always backfire: one day, they will wage war on you.... Never build a wall between yourself and the natural world, but if someone else does, clamber over it.... 

"Ask now the beasts, and they shall teach thee; and the fowls of the air, and they shall tell thee: Or speak to the earth, and it shall teach thee: and the fishes of the sea shall declare unto thee." Job 12:7-9

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(2) - https://wwnorton.com/books/9781324098423

#281 / Let's Keep Ourselves Employed

 

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Bill Gates (you know who he is, right?) is pictured above. He's the guy right in the center of the photo. Gates has written a twelve-page essay warning the world about the impacts of Artificial Intelligence. Gates' basic message is the following: "There Is No Plan." 

Here's a link to The Wall Street Journal article that let me know about Gates' essay. The following link will take you directly to the essay itself, as published on Gates' personal website: "The turbulent AI era is here. The choices we make now are critical." Online, headlines differ. 

Gates is concerned that "companies are barreling ahead with the technology with no larger plan for the upheaval it would cause." In his essay, Gates promises to talk to lawmakers in Washington, and to tell them that "you have a chance to act now, before unemployment rises sharply, communities are hurt, and public trust has eroded."

As if to confirm the premise underlying Gates' essay, The Journal ran another article, by Kate Clark, immediately adjacent to its article about the Gates' essay. The Clark article had the following headline: "AI Assistant Instinct Wows Silicon Valley." Clicking that link (and/or the link to the article on Gates) should let you read those articles, even if you are not a subscriber to The Wall Street Journal. The Clark article pretty much says that huge unemployment is a likely outcome, based on what is happening with AI. The competence of AI agents is going to put people (lots of people) out of work. That is what I am gathering from the two articles I am referencing. So, what do we do? If Gates is right (and he probably is), unemployment will, sometime soon, "rise sharply," and the government won't have thought through what our response should be. 

I am going to suggest that we become "self-employed," but thinking "collectively," not "individually." There are many things we need to do, and to have done for us (collectively). What if we started recognizing that one major governmental function ought to be to function as an "employment agency," working for all of us, for "we, the people"? If people can find jobs individually - jobs they like, and that support them, that's great. But what if they can't?

I am suggesting that our government, working for all of us - for "we, the people" - should gear up to be able to provide work opportunities for anyone who is not able to find such an opportunity individually. During the "New Deal" years under President Roosevelt, something like that was actually happening, through the Works Progress Administration - the WPA. Even artists and musicians got employed - and photographers. Let's pick up the ball, and make that work again. Do we need people to provide childcare, health care, housing, and maintenance of our public infrastructure at the local, state, and national level? Well, yep. We do. So, let's make sure that our government, working for all of us, provides jobs in those categories, and in other categories where things need to get done, to benefit the public, but where the private market isn't doing the job, and where public agencies are currently underperforming. 

If AI turns out to be such a great economic windfall for the corporate and other entities that will employ it, and save money them that would otherwise go to individuals currently employed, then those "profits" can be taxed to be used by the public, for the public. 

If that sounds like "self-government," with "self-government" meaning a government that is "of the people, by the people, and for the people," then that's because that is exactly what it is. That's what a genuine "self-government" is all about. 

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https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/three-takeaways-from-bill-gatess-5-784-word-warning-on-ai-there-is-no-plan-aa0c3441

#280 / More On The Filibuster

 

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Pictured is John Curtis, a United States Senator from Utah. His recent opinion column in The Wall Street Journal is reproduced below, in its entirety. I am told that even non-subscribers should be able to click this link, and then read Curtis' commentary online, but if that doesn't work, what I provide below does give you Curtis' argument, in full (emphasis added). 

This is my second recent blog posting on the topic of the filibuster. A month or so ago, I featured the comments of a former Senator, Ben Sasse.

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I Won’t Change the Filibuster
It protects the rights of the minority in the Senate—even when it’s a minority of one.

By John Curtis
July 30, 2026

The debate over the filibuster is often misunderstood. Most people think it is about a rule. It isn’t. It is about the absence of a rule. When the Senate was established, the Constitution gave it the authority to create its own rules. The Senate chose not to give itself a mechanism to end debate. Unlimited debate wasn’t an accident or a loophole. It was simply how the Senate operated. 

This original design assumed a very different environment from today’s. There were no established political parties as we now know them. No modern leadership structure. Very little media. No mass communication. It was a small group of people sitting in a room, working through issues, knowing that if they wanted to act, they had to reach agreement. 

In that setting, if no one could force the end of debate, the only way forward was to work it out. Cloture, which is what we usually mean when we talk about the filibuster today, came much later in the Senate’s history. Eventually the chamber grew, and unlimited debate threatened to bring all business to a permanent halt. While cloture was adopted in 1917 to limit debate, its current 60-vote threshold protects the Senate’s original design in the face of today’s realities by requiring a broad number of members to “work through issues” before passing bills. 

This tradition contributed to the Senate’s reputation as the world’s greatest deliberative body. Not because senators speak longer, but because no one can be easily ignored. The structure forces engagement. It requires listening. It pushes ideas to be tested beyond a simple majority. Because of that, individual senators hold real power. This is an important distinction between the Senate and the House. 

In the House, power is centralized. Leadership controls the flow of legislation, the terms of debate and often the outcome. Even senior members can have limited influence. I served there and saw how difficult it is for an individual member to shape major legislation. 

The Senate operates differently. Because debate isn’t easily cut off, individual senators can’t be dismissed in the same way. A freshman senator can have more practical influence than a long-serving representative. Not because of personality or seniority, but because of how the system is built. 

People often picture the filibuster as one senator standing and speaking for hours. That image is incomplete. Senate rules allow senators many opportunities to speak, and debate can continue through a rotation of speakers. It is less about endurance and more about the inability to force a conclusion without broad agreement. 

The 60-vote threshold is usually described as protecting the minority party. That framing misses the bigger picture. The minority isn’t just a party. It can be any senator, on any issue, at any time, whose view doesn’t align with the majority. That happens more often than people might think. A senator in the majority may disagree with his own leadership. Under the current structure, that senator can’t easily be overruled and pushed aside. 

It protects independence, not just party position. The Senate’s practice of holds is a good example. Any senator can place a hold on legislation. Overcoming that objection often requires 60 votes, which can be difficult to assemble. That gives individual senators the ability to stop or slow a bill—a significant amount of influence for one person. 

If the threshold moves to 50 votes from 60, that balance changes. The Senate begins to function more like the House. Individual members lose their ability to stop a bill. Leadership gains the ability to move legislation with a simple majority. 

It wouldn’t stop there. If leadership only needs 51 votes, it will organize the Senate accordingly. A rules structure similar to the House would likely follow. That means more control for leaders over what comes to the floor, how it is debated and whether amendments are allowed. 

I saw this repeatedly in the House. Committees were bypassed. Debate was limited. Bills were brought forward quickly based on leadership decisions rather than member input. In seven years in the House, I didn’t have a single meaningful opportunity to influence major legislation. In the Senate, and as a freshman, I found myself in the thick of every major piece of legislation. 

The 60-vote threshold also plays a role beyond day-to-day legislation. It acts as a check on structural and institutional changes. Decisions on matters such as District of Columbia statehood, federal election law and internal Senate rules aren’t routine policy questions. They shape the system itself. Requiring broader agreement before making those changes adds stability. Without that threshold, those decisions can be made by a simple majority and just as easily reversed by the next. At that point, the Senate would become unrecognizable to our Founders. It would move from a body that requires agreement to one that runs on majority control. 

So, the question isn’t simply whether more legislation would pass. It is whether prudence would still be required in lawmaking, whether legislation passed in one Congress would remain law in the next. 

Under no circumstance will I support any effort to end or alter the filibuster, as any party that does so wouldn’t be guaranteed survival. Their agenda would be guaranteed death come the next majority.

oooOOOooo

What I would like to highlight, in Curtis' commentary, is his observation that both our House and Senate are ever more subservient (in terms of decision-making) to the "leadership" of the two political parties that now seem to be the only political realities that have any meaning for many Americans.

This situation is profoundly contrary to the system envisioned in our Constitution. In its original design, our government was clearly composed of elected "representatives," who each, individually, took direction from (and whose jobs were subject to control by) a discrete number of citizens who lived in a specific geographic "district." The complexity and variegated nature of the nation was recognized in this system of political accountability, and as both Sasse and Curtis note, this emphasized the need for "compromise," for discussion and then decisions, those decisions representing "deals" between the many different representatives, coming from all over the nation. 

The nation was not, then, considered to be either "Red" or "Blue," and citizens in California did not receive massive numbers of fundraising appeals from those representing completely different communities in different states, where the political issues of most importance were absolutely different from the kind of issues that preoccupied those in California. Most of Utah has little in common with Santa Cruz, but if we really only have two choices, politically speaking, then it certainly does make sense for a Senator from Utah to appeal to those "Republicans" who live here, who would, presumably, think that the Utah Republican's political fortunes were of importance to all Republicans, everywhere. Same on the "Democratic Party" side, too, of course. 

Our political parties are subservient to corporations and wealthy individuals, and our individual "representatives," whether Democrat or Republican, currently have to conform to what "the Party" says. Same thing is true in state government, too - at least in a place like California. I'm not sure about places like Alaska and Utah. 

Are we really prepared to go along with the current system, and to cast aside, in perpetuity, the system contemplated in the Constitution? I'm not a fan of our "party-based" politics, and considering the issue of the filibuster is just one (and a pretty minor) way to begin understanding what has actually happened to us, politically. 

I, personally, continue to think that the system laid out in the Constitution is a better bet than what we've got now. When the current president is no longer around, we are all going to have an opportunity either to continue the current "party-based" system of governance, or to figure out how we can restore what I continue to call "democratic (small-d) self-government."

A government that works according to what the Constitution provides is not going to happen without what amounts to a kind of political "revolution." But, hey, we are not allergic to "revolutions," are we, here in the United States of America, 250 years after July 4, 1776?

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