Fake Logic

    Statement 1: I could shoot somebody in the middle of the street and not lose any votes.

   Conclusion: Probably true, since one part of the sentence has little to do with the other.

   Statement 2: I could shoot somebody in the middle of the street and not be prosecuted.

   Conclusion: Not true, because shooting someone is against the law, whether privately or in the middle of the street. 

   Statement 3: I'm the boss, so everything in the building belongs to me.

   Conclusion: Not true, unless you have personally paid for, manufactured or produced everything in the building, as well as owning the building itself. Otherwise, you are just a tenant, and your lease has run out so you have to leave and not take anything with you.

  Otherwise, it's tantamount to theft, and for that you can be prosecuted, because theft is against the law.

   Like the man said, "No one is above the law."

Book Report

    Sales of my book, "Pelagius Was Right" are leading the pack, with more copies sold worldwide than any of my other works.

   That's especially satisfying, since so few people know who Pelagius was.

   As background, he was a theologian in the Fourth Century who taught that people have a free will, and do bad things because they choose to do so. That's in contrast to his contemporary Augustine, bishop of Hippo, who maintained that people are sinners at root, and do bad things because they are heavily influenced by the spirit of evil.

   Augustine was supported by his friends at the Vatican, who threatened to label Pelagius a heretic. Even today, the church endorses Augustine, and few practitioners even know who Pelagius was. Nonetheless, his teaching of free will gained support by the people, and remains popular today.

   By definition, a heretic is someone who disagrees with established wisdom. But sometimes, the alleged heretic is right.

   Another example: Galileo taught that the sun was the center of the universe and the earth revolved around the sun. This brought allegations of heresy from Vatican leaders, who pointed to the proof that the sun could be seen rising and setting as it crossed the skies. In addition, the earth was God's greatest creation. Therefore, the earth was the center.

   Galileo was threatened with heresy for teaching otherwise, and since he did not have absolute proof, he recanted under pressure.

   Nevertheless, he was right. Copies of my work are available through Amazon, or they can be ordered through your local bookstore.

Legal Tangle

   There are increasing signs that total Trumpian loyalty to whatever the man has ever said or done is being questioned and even doubted by his loyalist supporters.
   This is brought on by events before, during and after the raid on the ex-president's Mar-a-Lago residence to retrieve top secret documents that he should not have kept and brought with him when he left the White House and refused to hand them over despite repeated requests by government officials. These requests were either denied, ignored or only partially answered over a period of more than a year, according to published reports and court appearances.
   Many of his more devoted followers attack the critics (verbally, for now) alleging that he is in fact entitled to keep anything and everything that was brought to him when he was president.
   This despite a federal law specifying that documents, especially those marked secret, remain government property. But the ex-president seems to believe that whatever was presented to him while he was in office became his personal stuff.
   Numerous court rulings have denied that, and told him to give it back. But after several requests, followed by court orders telling him to return the documents, it became clear that he had not handed over everything.
   Therefore, after a year of requesting, demanding, and court decisions endorsing that position, government officials, including the FBI and the CIA as well as library officials, sought a search warrant. This was duly executed, after the officials notified the Secret Service that they were coming to the Mar-a-Lago estate to collect the stuff that did not belong there.
   However, the ex-president is still challenging the efforts to retrieve the stuff. His continued and rising opposition to these efforts is eroding his support from many of his supporters, even those within Congress and the Republican Party.
   Separately, there is increasing discussion as to whether the ex-president can be prosecuted for any of his actions that would prove to be illegal. Or as some senior government and legal officials have said, "No one is above the law."

Happening Here

   The events of Jan. 6, 2021  did not show the first attempt to overthrow a president of the United States, but the second.
   The first was in 1933, led by Wall Street executives. It was foiled, however, by Smedley D. Butler of Pennsylvania, a retired Marine Corps major general.
   The story was documented in a book by Jules Archer, titled "The Plot to Seize the White House," published in 1973.  It explained in detail the efforts by Republican executives to block Franklin Roosevelt from performing his duties as president.
   Butler was a native of Chester County, and returned there between assignments in many parts of the world. He achieved the rank of major general, and rose to become commandant of the Marine Corps.
   However, his outspoken honesty often led to disputes with civilian political leaders. But his high position as a government advisor led other  potentials leaders, some of them in league with business executives, to try to induce him to change government policy so it would benefit the wealthy.
   Butler himself was member of a wealthy family. His father was an elected Republican member of the House of Representatives for some 30 years. Butler's sympathies, however, lay with ordinary folk, a product of his upbringing in a Quaker region of Pennsylvania. He grew up in his family home near West Chester, and he retired to Newtown Square.
   Butler's long career in the military and as a high-level government advisor made him a target for those who wanted favorable official action to benefit their business agenda. However, he resisted them all.
   Nevertheless, he routinely listened to all the appeals, and when it came to an attempt to recruit him to help oust Franklin D. Roosevelt as president, he let the plotters talk, and he quietly passed the information on to other government officials.
   Eventually, when others were found to corroborate his testimony, Rep. John McCormack (D-Mass) and Rep. Samuel Dickstein (D-NY), co-chairmen of the committee investigating the issue, heard Butler's comments in detail. The story was soon broken by journalists Paul French and Phil Record.
   However, it was General Butler's tip and his testimony to the congressional committee that revealed the plot and resulted in its failure. At the time, the story did not get big play in newspapers, largely because most major publications were owned by wealthy conservative Republicans intent on spoiling FDR's reputation. It was only with the advent of television that news media became more neutral and independent. Government licensing of broadcast operations required them to provide all sides of any news story.
   The advent of television, with its ability to show in real time events as they happen, without being filtered or slanted to the right or left of the political spectrum by print media, has made a clear change in journalistic coverage.
   Now, print media are more neutral than they were in those years, while television journalism programs range from neutral to conservative and liberal. Cable television operations are more likely to focus on more radical viewpoints, both liberal and conservative.
   Even so, there are still attempts to control government regardless of voter desires.
   Just as American voters preferred FDR in the election of 1932, they also preferred Joe Biden in the election of 2020. However, in each case, wealthy business leaders tried to overturn the public's choice.
   The first challenge was blocked largely by the efforts of Maj. Gen. Smedley Darlington Butler of Chester County, Pennsylvania, and the second by mass exposure on national television of the attempt.

Law School Tenet

   When you have the facts on your side, argue the facts.
   When you have the law on your side, argue the law.
   When you have neither, pound the table.
   
   Donald Trump apparently believed all government documents provided to him as President became his personal property, and therefore he could take them home and keep them even after he left office.
   But courts have ruled that, according to law, government documents are not a president's personal property. Therefore he must return them, because he has neither the facts nor the law on his side.
   As a result, he is now pounding the table.

Extremism

    Some people are so averse to disagreement that they will suppress others -- sometimes violently.
   That may seem extreme, but severe extremists are those who will not tolerate questions or disagreement.
   America was founded by extremists. That is, by people who disagreed with British government policy. However, they soon established similar policies here, and sought to banish those who disagreed. In fact, many in the colonies who favored staying with Britain fled to Canada.
   "Go back to where you came from," became the cry against those who disagree.
   "If you don't like it here, go away," is echoed now.
   "We were here first, so you have to follow our rules," is another chant.
   These echo the identical opposition early Americans encountered, and equaled the reasons they came to the new world in the first place. That, and the need to live their lives as they choose.
   It could be said that America was founded by extremists; those who wanted to live their own lives regardless of government policies that insisted on a single, specified way. Example: A state religion.
   These same founders acknowledged that others had the same right, and that's why they formalized it in the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.
   "We hold these truths to be self evident," the document says, that everyone has the inalienable right to pursue happiness their own way. In addition, the founders prohibited Congress from making any law infringing on these rights, and this was written in the First Amendment to the Constitution.
   Yet today, and at other times since these rights were declared, government has cut off these same rights from minority groups -- people who did not look like others in America. To these bigots, a being that did not look like them was not a person, and therefore could be treated like any other "lesser animal."
   These days, however, many people maintain that there are no "lesser animals." They may be different, but they remain valued creatures in the view of their Creator, as the founders phrased it, with certain inalienable rights.
   Time catches up to the most careful villain. Sometimes a careless villain gains time when villagers delay enforcing the rules that society agreed all must follow.
   We now face a time when extremists want to impose their rules on all others, insisting that anyone who disagrees is un-American.

Fake Logic

    Premise A: Right Wingers say elections are fake.
   Premise B: Right Wingers win elections
   Therefore: Right Wingers are fake

   Premise A: The real estate salesman with no experience in government warned that the election will be fake.
   Premise B: The real estate salesman became president.
   Therefore: He did the faking.

   Elections are fake, say those on the right.
   Therefore, when they win, that proves them wrong.