In the end, we will all have to come to the realization that none of any of this will come to anything if we as individuals do not become the change we want to see.  Most people do not need laws, religious texts or moral guidance to know the difference between right and wrong. There is a reason that often morality and decency aligns with and is called “Natural Law.” Most often the legal and spiritual resources are only needed to give decent people a kick in the pants when what is right is hard, requires some effort, or comes at a cost. Sadly, increasingly these resources are employed for the less virtuous purpose of gauging how far from what we know is right and just we can stray before society will exact from us a price or, even worse, as justification for unearned advantage and even discriminatory mistreatment of our neighbors. This fact becomes obvious when we review a recent controversial case from the Supreme Court, Citizens United v FEC.  In that case, a bare majority of Justices expertly assembled all of the pertinent facts, assiduously researched all of the potentially applicable law, expertly, with great care and monumental legal acumen applied the law to the facts at hand, and carefully considered all those factors using their most astute reason and still totally missed why the actions of Citizens United were repugnant.  Contrary to how it has been portrayed in some treatments, they did not find that this organization had legal rights by attaching genitalia, inferring critical reasoning and the power of speech to the a stack of papers making up the articles of incorporation giving that legal fiction person the rights of any other person.  Rather, in a tidy little argument, they found that an individual does not give up his right  to any exercise of free speech that he might choose (face it this was a bunch of guys) because he chose to deliver his message from the platform of a legal organization.  On its face this finding seems perfectly reasonable and fundamentally supportable.   The actual result of the finding, however, is to deny equal treatment before the law.  Functionally, as was borne out by the ensuing Tsunami of dark money untraceable political activity, it was likely that the death nell for federal election regulation has been rung.  Consistent with this finding one man, alone or together with an infinite number of others, with access to legal, technical and untraceable unlimited financial resources is free to go and buy the largest bullhorn ever developed and then the decision grants him absolute license to uncontrolled access into the public square to shout down any other message that might be present.  Meanwhile, the man one house over, without access to those resources, has no way to avoid the message however noxious, and is limited to stroking a $2500 check and holding a candidate’s campaign sign down on the street corner.  In the end, the stink of this decision while foul provides a valuable lesson for all of us.  Some problems might be beyond the power of government to solve.   If people come to recognize that there are problems beyond the power of government, perhaps with that knowledge we can start electing people who don’t use political force as a cudgel to beat down all voices not in unison with theirs, but exercise legislative power in a way designed for civilized cooperation and compromise and to set limits beyond which decent people do not go.  If we can do that the law can return to its noble purpose of exacting a price from people and organizations who cause damage through their misbehavior and marking the agreed boarder between competing virtuous positions.

The Supreme Court has now been polluted by the most recently appointed three consecutive Justices who, if they were being honest with themselves, know why they are not suitable to serve on that bench and should resign.  They are not unfit, as far as I know, due to any private personal characteristics. They are not unfit due to their lack of legal acumen, youthful indiscretions, religious leanings or general positions on how to perform the role of judge.   It is not relevant that they might even believe that they would come to the same decisions they are being installed to render, honestly, legally or legitimately or that some of their decisions have been objectively correct. It is inconceivable that these talented, educated, experienced individuals, thoroughly schooled in law and political process were unaware of the process which led to their installation to the bench. They each knew that their nominations and appointments, in an increasingly brazen fashion, were the product of a corrupt, dark money,  political process that seeks to enact or eradicate specific laws from the bench that these same dark forces’ wholly owned politicians were not able to enact or eradicate through what has become the norm of political bribery and political theft.    They each knew that stripping the court of its full complement by the refusal of the Senate Chair of the Judiciary Committee and the Senate Speaker to allow the sitting president to have his nominee considered, was for the purpose of injecting a partisan agenda into the Court to legislate through the judiciary what the legislature had failed to accomplish. They each knew that the subsequent stacking at all levels of the judiciary with appointees who would demonstrated a willingness to rule in line with the Republican party agenda was also inimical to separation of powers. The last fig leaf disguising the Republican plan to change the judiciary into an unelected legislative arm of government beholden to political party was revealed when the Republican Senate rejected their own arguments for making the Court responsive to the will of the people just four years earlier. It is inconceivable that just bright and talented jurists such as these could not have known that they knowingly accepted the positions awarded in direct conflict of the most precious political safeguard, separation of powers. This is the concept that is the central pillar to our constitutional Democracy. Knowing this they violated their oath, “to bear true faith and allegiance to the same”, the moment they uttered those words.  How can you violate an oath such as that and still expect to be suitable to the highest unelected office, for which integrity is arguably the only qualification that matters? That is why they are not worthy of their positions.   In 18 USC 1918, individuals who willfully lie while they are repeating an oath of office are guilty of a misdemeanor. Each or these three Justices committed that crime. One might wonder how conviction of a misdemeanor offense would be useful in this situation given the unlikely event of an impeachment. The usefulness is hidden in its simplicity. If a person repeats a false oath as a perquisite to entering an office, once that oath is proven false, the person has not entered the office and their position is a nullity. unless they can truthfully take the oath, they can’t assume the office. All of the last three justices knew they were selected to make specific findings, so they all knew that they were selected as political actors, in direct conflict with our constitutional framework. Once their false oath is proven, they are removed abinitio. It is unlikely that they are the kind of true patriots who will relinquish their ill-gotten hold on the power of the bench.  The solution, this doesn’t work, is for individuals to shun and shame those who stoop to using these dirty money tactics, legislating through the court and for the people who might be tempted, be it through expedience or greed, to voluntarily refuse to exercise the excesses or limitations that the court has permitted.   If the court is given nothing to decide, they cannot exercise power.  Recently, the new justice, in concert with one or two “originalist” charlatans have shown their true colors in longing for Theocracy. For some reason they decided that being a “Juris Doctor” gives them some special insight into epidemiology to the extent that they can tell that “the business” of religion (Interesting choice of words. As a child I was taught that religion was a framework for an individual to develop and learn to live by individual moral principles with the guidance of an omnipresent, all knowing and loving supreme being and to gain strength from the knowledge that others shared that view. If the religion these great minds on The Court say the Constitution is designed to protect is the commercial and fundraising vehicle access points of the organized religious groups, even at the cost of human life, I would commend to them Matthew 21:12) is being treated unfairly, in relation to other businesses, based on their scientific review of of the available evidence. They then ruled from the bench (very originalist) that their doctorly opinion contradicted and was more valuable than that of the scientists and the authorities who have the actual responsibility to protect public safety, shameful. Not surprising, however, these are the same people that rank asking people not to breathe viral death on their neighbors, create petri dishes of community infection or wash their hands is a greater affront to liberty than slavery, indentured servitude, Jim Crow, segregation, lynching, Japanese interment camps, the school to prison pipeline, the eradication of a generation of minority youth through extended prison terms for nonviolent offenses like possession of recreational drugs and the legal sanction of unjustifiable killing, first by law enforcement and now even by self-appointed vigilantes. Remarkable minds but we are not dealing with individuals who have significant empathy. Similarly, when the legislature expands what is “legal” beyond what is decent, patriots will not take advantage and legitimate media needs to shame those who do.  In the end, however, dirty money politics is only likely to actually vanish when something like “The No Party Movement” makes the endeavor no longer profitable or effective.

So, at the end of the day, the best way to keep the ill effects of government out of our lives is, in the words of that great philosopher and Man in Black “J” “why ya gotta come down here bringin’ all this ruckus … my attitude is, don’t start nuttin’ won’t be nuttin’.” 

• If you don’t want politicians with the power to make laws that can reach into your wallet and take your money and your property, dont make them beholden to be pawns of dark money forces, that pay their entrance fees for the office to survive. Only support Non Party Affiliated  candidates because then those forces need to buy 70 not 3 senators, 250 not 4 representatives, 40 not 5 electoral collage important states.  If they are buying that much, you might see some of the lucre.  If they are buying a handful of people, the likelihood you will see a return mirrors the odds of your lottery ticket.
• If you don’t want Government telling you the minimum you must pay your workers, don’t hide the fact that your product must not be economically sustainable because you want welfare from the National Tax Base and charities to supplement your bottom line by paying your workers indirectly through food stamps or support programs the amount required to be added to your payroll that a person needs to survive.  People who pay the workers, who empower their ideas, a living wage should be rewarded with a lower tax rate. People who want the rest of us to subsidize their business model by giving their employees the food stamps, housing assistance, child care and other things that are required to maintain a household should be treated like a deadbeat dad and taxed at a rate that contributes to the government solutions to the problems they create.
• If you don’t want to be taxed or required by the EPA to show that you have thought about the cost of cleanup of your toxic chemicals or other nuisance you create, plan your business to be responsible for the positive AND the negative output of your business.  We are tired of discovering that you have left your excrement in our living room and now are hiding behind bankruptcy to avoid responsibility.
• If you don’t want people to be angry with you for offshoring your business, arrange your business with an ethos of understanding that profit to shareholders might be nice, but the true value of the business is how it promotes the society that nurtures its existence not just for owners but also the labor necessary for its success right here where its owners and employees make their homes.
• If you don’t want your faith traditions required to recognize the thing you call marriage for people with lifestyles that you don’t agree with, don’t arrange society’s benefits to deny the basic rights, property ownership, family medical contacts, insurance benefits, taxation treatment to families that don’t look like yours. 
• If you don’t want someone to have a reason to take your gun, recognize that the few crazies among us that cause almost all the damage almost exclusively use high powered military style weapons or easily hidden handguns.  Freedom isn’t free, if you want the right to have the kind of guns that routinely kill innocent people, be willing to pay a sales tax and a use tax to pay for the exponentially more expensive it becomes for the rest of us to protect ourselves from these types of weapons when they are freely available to the bad actors as well as the good.  Don’t continue to lie to yourself that you do not support gun control.  You do not think crazies or irresponsible people should have guns.  You don’t think people with a history of violence, criminal or otherwise, should be armed. You do not believe your neighbor should be able to have a tank in his front yard or a nuclear weapon in his garage.  Have some intellectual honesty.
• For the “My body my choice” Anti-maskers/Anti vaccers, your rights end where your choices cause unnecessary harm. In terms you might understand, you do actually have a Second Amendment right to have a gun and based on your lack of caring for your fellow citizens, I guessing no one is going to stop you from pointing it at your own head. You do not have the right, however, to pull the trigger while you are in a crowded room unless everyone who will be subjected to the brain splatter and bullet or shrapnel leaving your head has expressly agreed to the risk. If there is risk because you won’t control your own behavior, that’s what makes it necessary for governments to protect us from you.
• It costs money to run a country. I don’t care what business you have, if you didn’t have the infrastructure, laws, courts to enforce claims and protect your physical and legal interests you wouldn’t have a job, company or whatever you do to survive.  Pay your fair share and do not do things that make government necessary to protect the rest of us from you.
• There are literally thousands of these types of sentiments, but until we get people that are interested in honestly, fairly, in a spirit of cooperation and compromise, do the hard work of making the few laws that would actually be necessary to decide the choices and balancing interests when individual’s wants and needs cannot be resolved there is no point in detailing them.  Until we rid ourselves of winner take all, tribal party, dark money fueled, political theft system we will be stuck in an ever-declining sinkhole. Until we can trust our representatives to represent us and not the elites of a political party and ultimately who ever controls them, we will be unhappy.

The most central sentiment to our nation’s and the planet’s survival is not tied to “love your neighbor,” Kumbaya,” or any other sentiment that requires forsaking the values that you have developed or embracing concepts you do not agree with or have not yet understood.  There are seven billion people in the world that you will never have any interaction with, will never directly affect your life, will never have meaningful impact on any part of the arc of your existence.  Dark forces want to trick you into energizing the political engine to create negative feelings or actions against these people, which are contrary to your individual success, for no reason other than their own selfish gain.  They want you busy with petty spats and imaginary entitlements so you will not notice that they are stealing you blind. All you need to do to not become a victim of these forces is to agree that we are all better off if we “Don’t Hate” and all understand that we all want all of us to succeed. The key to getting people to all pull in the same direction of National success is if we all participate and all understand that our ultimate goals are the same. None of us will succeed unless we keep as our core principle that we want to make all of us succeed. “Sow a little kindness, Make a little Love.” H.L.