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In 1985 Mikhail Gorbachev was promoting glasnost (“openness”) and perestroika (“restructuring”) in an attempt to overcome the Soviet Union’s economic stagnation and stunted growth. These initiatives promised the “utmost respect for the individual citizen and favorable consideration for protecting one’s personal dignity.” By creating a dependable and effective mechanism for accelerating economic and social progress, Gorbachev hoped to encourage initiative and creative endeavor.

As General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1985 until 1991 and as that country’s de-facto head of state from 1988 until 1991, Gorbachov gained authority to create joint-stock companies out of state enterprises. The shares became available on stock exchanges. Gorbachev was instrumental in diminishing the role of the Communist Party in governing the state. The party’s official role was ultimately removed from the constitution, in a way that enraged some and inadvertently led to crisis-level political instability with a surge of regional nationalist and anti-communist activism. A failed coup attempt in August of 1991 was followed by an acute food shortage. On December 26, the Soviet Union was dissolved.

There were then fifteen new countries, of which the Russian Federation was only one. Roughly 45,000 state enterprises had been controlled by the Soviet Union. Upon its dissolution the planned economy was displaced by a market economy. The large scale privatization of state owned assets flowed primarily to form the financial, energy, and industrial sectors.

Opposing forces insured that Perestroika had more than one unintended consequence. As Russia’s planned economy transitioned from one in which the means of production was held by the state, to one in which work collectives gained a greater role in running enterprises, the country stumbled. It experienced what The Guardian newspaper described, on August 16th 2001, as “the most cataclysmic peacetime economic collapse of an industrial country in history.

Gorbachov’s benevolent vision for the country had been thwarted at almost every turn as the country became divided by winners and losers. The well positioned were able to leverage conditions that were not readily understood by the rank and file. Although Russia’s citizens were generally well educated, most were overly specialized. The university system, while rigorous, provided certifications that were not all that portable as most regions within the USSR were dominated by a single industry or employer, the equivalent of company towns. No national provision was made for basic social services and few employees or front-line managers had any firsthand experience with decision making in a market economy.

Self-centered forces wasted no time in turning Mikhail Gorbachev’s, and Boris Yeltsin’s shared vision into a variety of schemes to exploit the poor. What was intended as an equal distribution of national wealth became concentrated within the ranks of upper management as the starving masses were caught between the proverbial rock and a hard place. Cash strapped workers relinquished whatever they may have held of any value, including personal shares, settling for fire-sale prices just so they could buy foodstuffs. When they did scrape up a little cash, they faced the bleak reality of purchasing power that was dramatically reduced.

In 1995 a Loans for Shares program was adopted by the government of Boris Yeltsin to address a severe fiscal deficit. The auctions were largely controlled by favored insiders and were, therefore, devoid of competition. The same banks that were retained by the government to conduct the auctions ended up winning them and the assets were leased at prices just slightly over the minimum starting bid. Voters in Russia described the process using a term that translates to what our urban dictionaries have coined as grabification.

From Vladimir Putin’s perspective, Russia had lost its national wealth and 2 million square miles of territory under humiliating circumstances. Although thoroughly pissed, he was perceived by Yeltsin as loyal. He commanded the FSB, a successor to the KGB, as Director. He was later appointed as Prime Minister with Yeltsin declaring “There will be no vacuum.” Vladimir Putin was uniquely positioned, early on, to benefit personally from the rise of the oligarchs.

As the gamesmanship over vouchers and loans for shares played out, one such grabber, an oil oligarch, ran afoul of Putin and was put on trial. Putin had then arranged for the oily Defendant to be seated in a cage at the center of the courtroom. According to the prevailing legend, one by one the other oligarchs came to Putin and asked: “How do we stay out of cages?” Putin’s answer: “Fifty percent.”

With all the ink in the water, no one, except Vladimir Putin, knows exactly how he acquired his vast wealth or whether he is, in fact, the richest person in the world. We do know that between 1993 and 1997, as Deputy Chief of the Presidential Property Management Division, Putin organized a transfer of the assets of the former Soviet Union and Communist Party to the Russian Federation. Accordingly, he knew where all the real value was and, as a former Lieutenant Colonel of the KGB, he also knew where the bodies were buried. Consider that in light of the way he works the levers today.

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Computers are mathematical processors. And, because information in almost all forms can be reduced to a binary form, computers can handle far more than math. Through the Internet of Things, we’ve come to rely on a variety of small devices to exercise control over our environment. These devices are generally referred to as microcontrollers and microprocessors.

While definitions within an evolving language are in constant flux, there is also the evolution of the devices themselves that insures we are always trying to somehow focus on a moving target. Those of us that have been working within the industry since the advent of desktop computers would, on occasion, lament “Took a short nap; woke up a dinosaur.”

Despite the fuzzy line between the definitions, the functionality, and the utility of microcontrollers and microprocessors, the basic difference is nuanced. The microprocessor typically refers to a Central Processing Unit or CPU that is an essential component within any computer system. The CPU has the computational capabilities built in. Microprocessors typically require support hardware and a specialized layer of software, an intermediary known as an operating system. Your iPhone uses one called iOS whereas your Android phone uses, well, Android.

Everything a computer does is in accordance with a set of instructions called computer programs. Microprocessors carry out many millions or billions and soon, perhaps, trillions of instructions per second. When integrated with an almost limitless variety of high end sub-systems such as memory, displays, and other peripherals they can evolve into really big enterprise class computers. Such complexity and performance may, or may not, be desirable depending upon your intended use. A microcontroller typically refers to a somewhat de-featured computer system on a single chip. It contains an integrated processor, a small amount of memory, and programmable input/output ports. Tese are used to interact with things, like sensors and actuators. Many of the instructions are embedded into the chip while the chip itself may be embedded into larger control systems.

If you were running a greenhouse operation that required inventory management and cost analysis, you would likely opt for something expandable that could run a spreadsheet or display complex graphics, you might want to consider a full fledged laptop or desktop computer. If you still need such capabilities, without dedicating your trusty go-to workstation for specialized tasks, you might want to dedicate a modestly priced microprocessor system like the Raspberry Pi.

If your tasking is more focused upon simple operations, such as monitoring the amount of sunlight coming through the greenhouse windows, then you could use a simple microcontroller like the Arduino Nano or Uno as a data logger. Microcontrollers can also be used for simple decision making. Suppose the sunlight coming through the windows is insufficient for your seedlings. This condition could trigger some action by the microcontroller such as running your artificial lighting just enough to compensate for the shortfall.

If you really wanted to get fancy, you could also monitor the color of the light coming through the windows and run the compensatory lighting at the precise color and amount of time your plants need for rooting, stemming, branching, and flowering. You could also use the microcontroller to monitor and mix nutrient solutions. You could control the gas envelope while also regulating atmospheric pressure. Microcontrollers can do a lot more than function as smart thermostats.

Whether or not you can get away with using a controller type device as opposed to an enhanced processing device, depends upon the extent to which you can break down your tasks. For example; If you wanted to separately monitor the light coming from the East, West, North, South, and overhead windows, you could use separate sensors and microcontrollers at those locations to log the data. Then you could poll those microcontrollers with a more capable system while bringing historical data into your decision package. 

So, the questions that arise concerning controller versus processor based systems, and about which of those systems is best, has one easy answer; both. They are each ideally adapted to different sets of tasks. Microcontrollers don’t require operating system software for simple decisions. And yet they are able to execute specific instructions when certain conditions are met. The instructions used to program such devices are, in the case of the Arduino, called sketches, a term used to convey the simplicity of programming them.

Microprocessor systems are especially useful when much of the problem solving is unanticipated or more complex. The operating system would likely prove to be more flexible while things are still being worked out. Of course, evolution marches on and development platforms are available for microcontrollers. The controllers are still usually programmed by full fledged handheld, laptop, or desktop systems. But once those instructions are effectively downloaded to the microcontroller or embedded device, you can be off and running with an inexpensive, standalone system to make your world more enjoyable and manageable.

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I recall reading long ago that the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven are sincerity, more sincerity, and more sincerity. That really didn’t resonate with me at first because I believed then, as I do now, that we are justified by faith and faith alone. Of course, over the years, we each learn that faith is more about the perfection of purpose than it is about any certitude we may enjoy. In fact, our deliverance from the uncertainties of time is wholly dependent upon the loyalty aspects of faith.

I’ve since given much prayerful consideration to those early lessons on sincerity. I believe they refer, first and foremost, to the quality of our faith-submission. After all, even atheists often seem to value the things of God such as his goodness. They just don’t acknowledge or recognize the Originator, the First Source and Center of All. Jesus addressed that very point when he said: “Why do you call me good? There is no one good but God.” Indeed, all Truth, all Beauty, and all Goodness originate with the Author and Finisher of our faith.

It seems to me that people of faith have modes of perception that non-believers clearly lack. We see Our Father’s Truth, Beauty, and Goodness as scintillating pearls arrayed along a drawstring that pulls us nearer to the heart of God. So, if we are in agreement, that the first part of the sincerity test is the authenticity of our faith, the second would likely be in our responsiveness to Divine Leading. 

I’ve often heard it said that prayer is not about getting your way. It’s really about taking God’s way. In that light, many of us have struggled with the various concepts of destiny. Pre-destination and fore-ordination seem, at first glance to be at odds with any doctrine of free will. However, upon close examination, we begin to discern the fact that God knows us better than we know ourselves and, because of this, He’s our ultimate Thesis Advisor.

As we mature in our faith, we eventually realize that our inherent attributes appear to align with and support a higher calling, a first-best destiny. Now we are all free to interpret this as somehow in accordance with God’s plan. And we are certainly free to accept or reject any part, or all of it. The question before each of us is always one concerning whether or not we will choose to take full advantage of our God-given opportunities.

So the third sincerity test in my estimation would be centering on this last question. Many of yesterday’s Hell fire and brimstone preachers would have us believe that God would corral us into his camp by means of manipulation and by leveraging our fears. Such a base motivator is unworthy, and likely offensive to, Our Loving Father. His program is never one of coercion and it is best understood as one of attraction rather than promotion.

Affinity marketers push the notion that a shopper’s rewards card will help to insure customer loyalty. Think about that the next time you buy something from that store’s competitor simply because it’s a dollar cheaper. Such an experience could also serve as a constant reminder that, while there may be incentives for living, God is more focused upon your true motivations.

A person of good will can be instrumental in bringing others closer to God. Those possessing a thin vernier of religiosity, one that is more of a fashion statement than a witness, usually lack any deep abiding devotion to Our Father or his supreme values. The truly faithful are always the ones whose commitment is voluntary, wholehearted, and sophistry-proof.

When we pray in the light of scientific facts, philosophic wisdom, intellectual sincerity, and spiritual faith, we are not engaging in a process whereby we treat Our Father as if he’s just one big cosmic vending machine catering to our every indulgence. We are also not seeking some unfair advantage over our fellows. We are instead appealing to Our Universe Sovereign just as Jesus taught his disciples—honestly, unselfishly, with fairness, and without doubting.

Without sincerity, we are like cancer cells running amok within the Body of Christ. It is unlikely that, within such a state, we would advance anything of true value while we may be causing tremendous amounts of damage. Ask yourself, what is your opinion of someone you perceive as less than sincere. Would you vest any significant amount of trust in such a person?

A sincere person is the one we tend to rely upon, even when they are occasionally wrong. If they are well motivated, we can count on them to realize they’ve made a mistake and take corrective measures. We are all learning. Jesus promised the Spirit of Truth to help drive out all serious human error. The open question is whether we will be responsive to such Divine Leading.

In this way, sincerity can be seen as the master key. It unlocks the provisioning whereby God has granted all that we need to be increasingly more effective in our respective ministries. Such ministries serve to advance the will of God in the hearts and minds of human kind. And we know, based upon our experience, in just a closer walk with Thee, that this is the best way we can love others as Jesus loved and continues to love us.

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The fall of the Soviet Union was a vindication for the strategy of the first civilian Director of Central Intelligence, Allen Dulles. His plan to bankrupt the Russians through an arms race, a space race, and any other competition the adversary could not afford, eventually made it possible for Ronald Reagan to successfully challenge Mikhail Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin wall.

Pitting a deep economy against a shallow economy, while effective, had significant costs beyond the economic. There was no shortage of individual stake holders in the old Soviet order that were outraged, including one Vladimir Putin. They found ways to make themselves feel better by indulging in grudges as they worked to redirect certain new equities, intended for Russian citizens, while enriching themselves.

The United States still struggles to manage the monetary debts it incurred over the course of the cold war, we are also paying the high reputational cost for impetuous behavior such as the 1953 coup d’état in Iran together with the 1954 coup d’état in Guatemala. While these events typically go unacknowledged over the course of our high school history classes, many U.S. citizens are surprised when, while traveling abroad, they discover our country is not seen as an honest broker in those regions of the world.

The reputational cost is exacerbated by the least intelligent and most boisterous within the MAGAlomanic factions. People around the globe have come to believe that if you are Asian, African, or Central American you will never gain the approval of the most inbred SOBs occupying the North American continent. And they’re not just talking about genetics. As master propagandist of the Nazi regime and dictator of its cultural life for twelve years, the selective inbreeding and hate mongering of Joseph Goebbels, was achieved through an earlier manifestation of the big lie. He said:

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”

While MAGAlomania may be defined as Goebbelian twist on statecraft, the state of denial has now manifest on an epidemic scale within the USA. Of course, the big lie did not originate with Stephen Miller, Joseph Goebbels, or Adolf Hitler. They may have summoned it and embraced it, only to become subservient to it. It is the legacy woven throughout human history that was best encapsulated by the Rolling Stones with the lyric: “Just as every cop is a criminal and all the sinners saints; when heads is tails just call me Lucifer cause I’m in need of some restraint.”

Unbridled liberty is the legacy of Lucifer. It is, in effect, the license to rape, pillage, and plunder. It is always a matter of subjugating someone else. Liberty that is unintelligent, unconditioned, and uncontrolled invariably leads to the abject bondage of someone. To differentiate between true and false liberty, we must learn to balance freedom with self-control, to develop self-mastery.

At issue is truthfulness. Is it ever ok to mislead someone who may rely upon your word to their detriment? Those who participated in the racist riot of January 6, 2021 in Washington, are now using reliance on the alternative facts from faux news as an affirmative defense in courts of law. Pseudo-Christian pastors are actively deceiving the masses. When, in the Book of Job, God asked, “Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?,” one might reasonably conclude that he was talking about the anti-immigrant, anti-mask, anti-vaccine pretenders that are turning their congregations into death cults.

Now that Putin’s harem is out of the White House, he is protecting the big lie in his own country by, as Goebbels prescribed, repressing dissent. Anyone sympathetic to Alexi Navalny is now an outlaw within Putin’s domain. Here, in the United States, Liz Cheney or anyone else advocating for a more traditional conservatism or republicanism is similarly subject to attack by the hoards of Hell, absolute enemies of our constitutionally grounded democratic republic. When every cop is seen as criminal, they are bludgeoned on the capital steps with flagpoles. When all the sinners are saints, they corrupt the likes of Liberty University. When heads is tails, voter suppression is sold as voter integrity.

A scholar’s parrot may talk Greek and rehearsing those that have traded their Christian witness for a masquerade is simply a matter or rote learning. This phenomena, where the most ignorant are quite literally the most arrogant, is not unique to the United States. But the USA has no excuse. It has a public education system where critical thinking skills are increasingly moving front and center.

Whether we will actually use the intellectual disciplines, to build a more perfect union, remains to be seen. In the meantime we can avoid the contagion and those intent on spreading it through their reckless indifference to the truth.

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In this segment, we continue our discussion with Ramona Johnson. This time focusing on whether equal justice under law can become real.

Among the points raised within this segment are the racial profiling and poverty factors as they result in an unequal application of justice. These contentious issues are making some citizens to distrust the people occupying positions of honor and trust. And there are politicians whose statements have raised doubts as to whether “equal justice under law” is even an aspirational statement within the legislature, the judiciary, or the executive branch of government.

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Trinities, triunities, and triodities are visible throughout the observable universes. In the disciplinary practices of all sentient beings; facts, meanings, and values come to mind in ways that cause us to ask ourselves: “What is it?” – “What does that mean?” – “Is it, somehow worth something?”

Everyone understands that any country, charity, business, or religious institution needs to somehow differentiate itself in a world of competing ideas. But some religionists have chosen the question concerning a threefold truth, of whether or not the Trinity exists, as the hill they’re willing to die on.

Of course, much of the division is directly traceable to the paucity of human language together with conflicting interpretations of fragmentary records. How we define such terms as God, Divinity, and Deity plays a big part on just how we see the big picture. Much of the controversy also stems from our concept of unity. Before It was thought of as having personality, ancient adherents to Hinduism once referred to Deity with the couplet “It is.”

Because Deity is omnipotent (all powerful), omniscient (all knowing) and omnipresent (occupying everything), It and in some cases He, indwells and envelopes the physical, mindal, and spiritual – as well as the personal. Deity is commonly defined as the First Source of all that is Divine. Divinity is defined as the characteristic unifying and coordinating quality of Deity.

Now ask yourself: If you, as the one and only, wanted to have relationships with persons equal to yourself, how would you go about making that happen? If you knew everything there is to know, how would you share that knowledge together with some of the responsibilities that come with it? And, if you occupied all things, how would you go about creating elbow room? While it may be hard for us to imagine how the Original Person might somehow be constrained, The Deity-Father saw fit to liberate himself from the limitations of Infinity and managed to escape absolutism through the technique of trinitization. In this way Our Loving Creator differentiated and qualified himself through the process of delegation, co-ordination, and unification.

Because there is only one First Source and Center, Deity is characterized by absolute unity. Once others come into existence, so does the phenomena of three part harmony and unification while each original person retains unique personal capacities. They can each act personally and collectively. This gives rise to Unity relationships, Duality relationships, and Trinity relationships. Consider the mathematical triod. It is defined as three intervals with one shared point, a boundary point of each interval.

A round table top might represent unity. The relationship between the function of the table top and the function of its legs could be seen as a form of duality. Whereas the tripod intervals formed by the three legs function within what may be considered a perfectly balanced trinity relationship. In the final analysis, the table is no less of a table just because it has legs. Divine creativity is characterized by unity, this unity is the outward reflection of the absolute oneness of the duality of the Father-Son and the Trinity of the Father-Son-Spirit.

The unity remains while creation continues through co-ordinate performances in various groupings. These are characterized by the process of coordination and unification. While there is one Deity, there are three Divine personalizations of Deity. This is the original pattern, it is the nuclear family in a universe where the one inescapable and highly desirable inevitability is relationships.

Deity personalization is, in essence, bestowal. Jesus, as the bestowal Son said: “He who has seen me has seen the Father”. Divine personality is not self-centered. We all crave association. Parents share a wide variety of attributes and we are more than willing to share or give away anything and everything to our offspring, our posterity, our children.

How can Our Heavenly Father even be a father without children? Mothers and Fathers are characterized by the process of procreation. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit are each unique persons, none is duplicate, each is original, all are united. While Deity is characterized by unity, the personalizations of Deity are unified first by nature and then by choice. The loving associations and personal relationships within one vast family of God is our true inspiration. 

Of course the table metaphor hardly seems complete without some idea of what might be situated on its circular top. Jesus spoke of something special that could be put on a stand so that it “gives light to all in the house”. It is the physical light, the intellectual insight, and the Spirit Luminosity that refreshes our souls. It is the candle power that is fueled by the love that indwells and envelopes us. That light and love is what motivates the First Source and the Center of all that is Divine.

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Way back in 2005, The New York Times used the expression “gesture politics” to describe the substitution of symbols and empty promises for policy. Today, gestures towards bipartisanship and voting integrity together with a feigned respect for the United States constitution ring hollow. The will of the electorate really hasn’t mattered to some politicians for a very long time. Sure, we occasionally witness a certain genuflection as an election draws near. But, the real focus for politics, and its practitioners, is always on the big, oftentimes dark, money.

In 1870, James Freeman Clarke said: “A politician thinks of the next election. A statesman, of the next generation.” The Clark quote is especially striking in the midst of our country’s hyper-partisan election cycles, as so many politicians seem willing to betray many of the ideals they once touted, just to win re-election. Beyond politics, there is a higher plane where true statesmanship thrives. Within such an environment the cultivation of that entrepreneurial spirit, that can take our country from one level of attainment to the next, is encouraged and nurtured in accordance with the laws of fruitfulness. 

Some politicians have decided that, being in the game is just not worth it. They’ve asked themselves what their grandchildren will think of them once the kids have blown through the money gained through their forebear’s complicity in moving the country and the planet towards a dystopian future. Today, many Independent’s believe we have way too many politicians that are seemingly unable to even come down solidly in favor of democracy as opposed to autocracy.

Currently, principled compromise is rare as the modus-operandi of politics appears to have mutually assured destruction as its aim. This vengeful culture strikes at the heart of – and in many ways is calculated to cause damage to – the ideals of truth, beauty, and goodness that Americans have long sought to cultivate. The stark contrast between those patriots who would lay down their lives for their fellows, and those pretenders who have selfishly placed their own political ambitions above the welfare of the country and future generations is, at this juncture, hard for people of goodwill to ignore.

Fledgling democracies look on as principle has been sacrificed for political expediency by the most self-serving, It’s time for each of us to engage in some real soul searching. As groups inclined towards democracy, and once considered allies, were abandoned and uprooted to appease dictators, moral cowardice took center stage. As the politics of destruction is finally understood to be, first and foremost, about the tactics of distraction, it has dawned upon some of us that this may really be, for the USA at least, the last call for democracy.

We have been conditioned to think of ourselves as either liberal or conservative, left or right, Democrat or Republican, progressive or traditional, and socialist or capitalist. To those possessing a balanced intellect, it is clearly understood that, in actuality, we have all been hybridized to some extent. And, that the coercive labeling imposed upon us is simply the window dressing that obscures our view of the real battle that is raging outside.

The choice before us is between a democracy that will serve the highest and best interests of our children’s children or the featherbedded oligarchy that has, throughout history, sought to consign our progeny to conditions of peonage. In the United States, the first constitutional imperative is to advance the highest and best interests of “We the people” as we labor to “build a more perfect union.” To those holding some personal sense of superiority, democracy is instead seen as the domination of mediocrity. Such an ego-centric world view creates a definite preference for anything that will advantage they the few or they the rich. By this impetus it disadvantages everyone else and divides us accordingly, even on consensus issues.

The Us versus Them tribalism is directly attributable to divisions sown through the unmitigated and oft litigated selfishness of those placing their interests far above those of us they perceive as “the great unwashed.” Such a well advertised dysfunction is brought to us by malign actors intent on corroding the democratic underpinnings of our constitutional republic. Make no mistake, the oligarchy is the enemy of democracy. It always aims to wrest control from the demos, “we the people,” and instead vest it with the rich, “they the few.”

This gravamen is obscured by the dark money. It is evidenced by the suspect maps and moving polling places farther away from those that can least afford to travel or lose a day of work. It includes the politically motivated purging of voter rolls, and all the other forms of voter suppression and election subversion that seem to be in vogue. It finances the siloing and polarization of the press while it also impairs the First Amendment through its persistent attacks on the doctrine of net-neutrality.

From the tainted food supply to the high cost of disease care domestically; from the unrelenting attacks on education to the ritualized insanity of unwinnable wars abroad; each malady is directly attributable to the most self-serving of the few. This megalomanic oligarchy has been waging a deadly class warfare throughout history while, at the same time, they simultaneously accuse their targets of all things inexcusable, especially class warfare.

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Continuing our discussion with Ramona Johnson we focus on some practical considerations with respect to police reform.

Our takeaways from this segment underscore the fact that more creativity, research, and real world experience must be brought to bear before we will know precisely how best to dovetail the mental health practitioner’s response with the police response as they are required within any given public health and safety situation.

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The territory of northern Oklahoma had been established for the resettlement of Native Americans that had been subjected to a forced march along the Trail of Tears from the southeastern United States. Once admitted as a state in 1907, the newly created state legislature passed racial segregation laws as its first order of business. In 1916, Tulsa passed an ordinance that mandated residential segregation by forbidding Black or White people from residing on any block where three-fourths or more of the residents were members of the other race.

On May 31^st and June 1^st in 1921, mobs of White residents attacked African American residents and their businesses within the Greenwood District. Widely considered the worst incident of racial violence in American history, the attack destroyed more than 35 square blocks of the wealthy district known as “Black Wall Street”. The Tulsa-Greenwood race massacre claimed the lives of somewhere between 75 and 300 black Americans, hospitalized over 800, interned 6,000, and left about 10,000 homeless.

In the mid 1950s a variety of civil rights demonstrations made the news, Rosa Parks had refused to surrender her seat on a Montgomery Alabama bus so that a white passenger could sit down. By the early 60s, the racial atmosphere in the USA was still highly charged although that decade would see the passage of The Civil Rights Act of 1964, The Voting Rights Act of 1965, The Immigration and Nationality Services Act of 1965, and The Fair Housing Act of 1968.

It was in this context that I, at the ripe old age of eleven and while firmly in possession of all the wisdom that implies, submitted the results of my sixth grade science experiment. I had injected permanent dyes into the eggs of several chickens that were just days away from hatching. When the colorful chicks finally emerged, there were blue ones and yellow ones and pink ones, and orange and purple ones. The birds began to huddle and, after a few hours had elapsed, they segregated themselves into distinct groups according to the color of their fur.

And so it was, with great pride that I showed off the chicks to my class while handing the paper, which described the methodology and the results of the “scientific finding,” to my teacher. To say that my teacher was displeased would be a gross understatement. And she never gave me the reasons for her somewhat muted reaction to my work.

In the decades since, I learned lessons of far greater importance than that concerning the arbitrariness of grading. First and foremost, to those who have offered, as some sort of justification for a variety of attitudes, the argument that segregation is only natural, I would respond by making it clear that, as conscientious beings, we should aspire to something higher.

We have all beheld the beauty of nature, but we have also witnessed its brutality. Randomized weather patterns, viscous animals, fiery volcanos, devastating earthquakes, and man’s inhumanity to man, all conspire to challenge us in ways that somehow foster spiritual growth. It may sometimes be hard to see the universe of universes as nurturing infrastructure, but that’s precisely what it is.

There is a reason the petals of a plant’s flower are a different color than its leaves. Some plants such as the sunflower, primrose, and pansy have what are, in effect, nectar guides that can only be seen in ultra-violet light. A pollinator, such as the honeybee, sees such a scintillating lure as a target yielding great sugary rewards. The process of extracting nectar also results in small particles being left behind that serve to fertilize the flower.

Once we’ve developed an appreciation for such beauty as well as our challenges, understanding that is commensurate with the intellectual, societal, and spiritual potential that Our Creator has given us, we can overcome the limitations of nature. As we work to ascend, from the purely animalistic plane of existence to an affinity for high spiritual values, we can leave behind all of the inherent and retrogressive animalistic tendencies.

Wars, including race wars are an animalistic reaction and symptomatic of a failure to adapt within a creation that is time-space conditioned. Our universe of things, meanings, and values unfolds as an inspiring example of creativity over time. All things, this side of Paradise, are characterized by progressive evolution and augmented by revelation. Irritations, ignorance, and willful misunderstandings are retardant factors while peace can only be realized through the civilized solution of all such problems and difficulties.

Jesus loved all of humanity, the animalistic and spiritual, rich and poor, high and low, black and white, educated and uneducated, cultured and uncultured, religious and irreligious, moral and immoral. He was not so much concerned with walls of brick and stone; but rather the walls of prejudice, self-righteousness, and hate. His desire was to see such walls crumble as he preached about the Father’s love for all of human kind. The Creator Son, as the Son of Man, proclaimed the salvation of God for all men and all women. When he gave us the command, to love one another as he loves us, he gave us the mission statement for his Church.

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Edmond Burke is best known for the quote: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” He was also the first and, some would say, the best advocate of conservatism. He held that rulers are only “trustees for the people” and, in describing the character of an effective leader he said: “the temper of the people amongst whom he presides ought therefore to be the first study of a Statesman.”

It may be useful to contrast and compare the way conservatism was defined, at the time of our nation’s founding, against what is sold as conservatism today. True conservatives understand the difference between that pride that comes before a fall and the kind exhibited by the person of true integrity, the one that puts the content of their character and the quality of their work above all else. Somewhere in the array of definitions for the term pride is the difference between motivating and incentivizing someone. 

Conservatives have long held that there is something to be admired and exhilarating about a forthright demeanor, a job well done. Much that is foundational to true conservatism is embodied in Burke’s portrayal of the “gentleman of fortune:” Burke said: “he did not take the ordinary Method of establishing Horse races and Assemblies, which do but encourage Drinking and Idleness but at a much smaller expense he introduced a Manufacture which, though not very considerable, employed the whole town, and in time made it opulent.”

Burke’s assessment of constitutional legitimacy was predicated, first and foremost, on its ability to resist tyranny. He believed claims of necessity and of new powers were an indication of tyranny. Many of today’s employees, that have to work long swing shifted hours for compensation that fails to keep pace with the cost of living, would likely agree.

The imperative, to resist slavery and tyranny, was underscored in his belief that a nation must guard against the tyranny of the majority. While today that may be defined as three wolves and a sheep deciding on dinner, in Burke’s day it was articulated as follows: “Aristotle observes that a democracy has many striking points of resemblance with a tyranny. Of this I am certain, that in a democracy the majority of the citizens is capable of exercising the most cruel oppression upon the minority whenever strong divisions prevail in that kind of policy, as they often must . . .”

Burke also warned about excessive reliance on markets with the statement: “Your legislators, in everything new, are the very first who have founded a commonwealth on gaming . . .” Indeed, we have witnessed the folly of some, who have characterized themselves as “Constitutional Conservatives,” as they have prostituted their offices and systematically betrayed just about every aspect of such supposed reverence for constitutional principle.

Such tyrants resist any form of means testing for Social Security as they also try to kill it for future generations. They engage in coercive labeling, calling anyone advocating for any form of public assistance or government service, a “socialist.” They conflate socialism, marxism, and communism as if anyone in this entrepreneurial society is advancing the notion that the government should put the grabs on the means of production. For a nation supposedly dominated by Christian ideals, a pseudo-religious hucksterism has imposed a circumscribed world view that is self-serving, first and foremost.

An array of social programs, often designed to compensate for the absence of good corporate conduct, represents the least we can do in light of our failure to evolve in accordance with the true conservatism exemplified by Burke’s gentlemen of fortune. The faux conservative of today decries class warfare while thrusting it upon the masses. The ideological fault lines of days gone by have been blurred as the counterfeit, contorted conservatism of privilege looks down unsympathetically upon the struggling strata that rolls pennies to buy gas so they can work multiple jobs for poverty wages. The most selfish among us rise to occupy the commanding heights of the economy and object to any social program that might compensate workers for the parasitic behaviors of those employers that tamp down wages and benefits while simultaneously refusing to make any meaningful contribution to the public treasury.

In some European countries, monopolies have become nationalized companies in an effort to protect the population from unbridled monopoly power. In this respect, an emergent monopoly largely immune from anti-trust scrutiny may represent the most sure-footed path to a command economy. In our country, since the 1980s, Anti-Trust regulations are seldom enforced by politicians wholly owned and operated by monopolies.

Against a backdrop of morphing definitions for capitalism, and socialism, even the most casual conversations have become tedious. Other Western nations tend to define socialism not so much in economic terms, but in accordance with a given level of direct democracy operating within the context of what constitutes the greatest good for the general population. In his last ditch effort to dissuade the British Empire from going to war with the colonists, Burke argued: “To prove that the Americans ought not to be free, we are obliged to depreciate the value of freedom itself . . .” In short, Burke was a fervent advocate for the greatest good.