Politics
Cambridge Dictionary: the activities of the government, members of law-making organizations, or people who try to influence the way a country is governed.
Britannica Dictionary: the opinions that someone has about what should be done by governments.
Britannica Dictionary: the opinions that someone has about what should be done by governments.
policies congress should implement
Require states to adopt a method of selection of a state delegation of House members that represents the various characteristics of the people of the stateCounter the current 6-3 Republican-Democratic decision alignment of the Supreme Court to have its decisions more closely align with the peopleReverse the concentration of extraordinary personal wealth through changes in tax, monopoly, business regulation, and other lawReduce the current control over government by the use of wealth by providing openings for participation to other interest groups Reverse the continuing concentration of press outlets into the hands of only a few individualsReduce opportunities for government decisions to be made by individuals with a conflict of interest Change immigration law to focus on the individual rather than on the family relationship or the country of residenceEnhance the role of Congress and reduce the roles of the executive and of the Supreme CourtReduce the role of the separate states and enhance the role of the people as a wholeImplement universal health care as a right and implement universal education through two college years as a rightImplement a federal budget setting process that aims to match projected periodic revenue to the projected periodic spending
religion is politics
Southern Baptists and Catholics, the two largest religious groups in the United States, together with the non-religious people, have succeeded in merging religion and politics in this country. That status must in my view be recognized in our laws (national, state, and local) and those laws must be consistent with the First Amendment. It is my conclusion that is not really the present situation, as many, many laws favor religious groups and favor an individual's religious inclinations, in conflict with the First Amendment. I suggest the religious rights under the First Amendment and race rights under the Fifteenth Amendment ought legally to be viewed with the same lens. Yet, the current powers-that-be, including firstly the current iteration of the Supreme Court, do not implement those disparate rights under examination through the same lens: being labeled as religious enhances certain tax and other positions, apparently contrary to the First, whereas being labeled as Black apparently adds nothing to voting rights, contrary to the Fifteenth. (For the latter, simply read Louisiana v. Callais, as I do, that the Fourteenth Amendment rights to representation in Congress by the controlling white people trumps the specific rights awarded to minority Black people by the Fifteenth. This reading of Callais is fixed by the Court's order in Allen v Caster refusing to implement a lower court decision that, by a finding of intentional discrimination, clearly implicated the Fifteenth.)
I grew up the son of an ordained Methodist minister and the grandson of a Methodist minister on my mother's side. I was in church leadership as a member of the Council on Ministries (programming) or Administrative Board (administration) of all the several United Methodist churches I was in during 1969 through 1997, and after I joined an Episcopal church in 1998 I have been a member of many committees at both the congregation and dioecian levels. Thus, I have spent my life as an establishment figure in two main-line Protestant churches. I have read and studied the Bible in its Protestant Christian configuration essentially cover-to-cover (I skipped some Old Testament books), and I have studied the Bible over decades in the familiar format of examining selected verses in depth (exegesis). The cover-to-cover approach now seems to me a necessary process in order to be educated in the Bible rather than being indoctrinated by some specific leader through selected passages. My father's principal lifetime work was as a writer and editor with the Methodist Publishing House in Nashville, at the same time being a minor theologian, a sermon presenter to Methodist and Presbyterian congregations, and a Methodist graduate school instructor. While an undergraduate, at the urging of a Jesuit professor, I gave serious consideration to following his suggestion of applying for a grant to attend one year of divinity school solely as an intellectual (not ordination) goal. So, I have substantial education in Christianity. (I, also, have more than a little formal education in Islam and Buddhism, and some informal education in Judaism.) I have a rather deeper and wider experience in religion and previous thoughts about religion than the average, normal Christian American has. My current words do carry that experience and thought.
It seems to me that the political messages of the 1960s supporting the expansion of civil rights for Blacks were properly delivered by religious leaders in the religious context. Those messages to change United States civil law were clearly in alignment with the second of the two the core messages of Jesus Christ, to love God and to love your neighbor. See, the Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes. (The third, but subordinate, message of Jesus is, do not concern yourself so much with observing the specifics of Jewish Law, as the two subsume the whole of Law.) The second of the two principles is a repeat of older Buddhist and Confucian religious principles, and the later repeat of it in Islam. (With its principle of the Caste system, Hinduism, however, would seem to be in conflict with the principle to love your neighbor as yourself.) In the 1970s, both the Southern Baptists (along with other evangelicals) and Catholics rejected their longstanding prior positions on abortion and began preaching for a change in the civil law to prohibit it. This radical change in doctrine was based not on any message in the New Testament, but on the Jewish commandment to not kill. The idea to use the religious context to seek change in civil law was nothing new for Catholics but was a complete reversal for the Southern Baptists, who had been principal backers of the twentieth century push for separation of Church and State. Being now satisfied with using the pulpit to push for change in the civil law about abortion, Catholics and Southern Baptists (together with other evangelicals) started using the pulpit to rid society of homosexuals, for which they found doctrinal support in especially three passages in the Bible, this time by preaching against changes in the civil law that were sought by homosexuals and their rights' supporters, along with the changing of social attitudes. Whatever arguments there might be for or against, it is a fact that Southern Baptists (and other evangelicals) joined the Catholic Church in using the political forum to push for the spread of their religious doctrine through civil law applicable to all Americans. The 1970s Southern Baptist leadership was in sympathy with almost all political doctrine of the Republican Party (limited government, control of the economy by the winners, control of social life by whites, control of the world by defeat of Communists), and so the two groups became one during the 1980s (with the Republican Party in turn adopting the religious doctrines of the Southern Baptists). That status has not yet changed since the 1980s. There should be consequences arising from the adoption by an identifiable religious group of the concomitant status as a political group or as a business. That is, its religious characteristics should not totally shield the group from treatment also as a political group or business group. For example, current law treats revenue of a religious group as tax deductible by the revenue providers, but treats revenue of a political group as non-deductible by the revenue providers. For further example, current law, as set out by the Supreme Court, shields an entrepreneur in a religious context from applicability of the civil law that is applicable to non-religious businesses. Among a variety of other rights as well, the First Amendment sets out separate rights concerning religious matters, press matters, association matters, speech matters, petitioning-the-government matters. Currently, the listed rights seem overly conflated to me. This especially shows up in the context of rights of a group or entity versus rights of an individual. In addition, the First Amendment no where in its text purports to deal with rights in the context of property or of commerce. While groups and entities should be able to sue and be sued concerning the First Amendment, that should be limited to enforcing the rights held under it by only natural persons. The Supreme Court's twenty first century extension of free speech from natural persons to entities should be changed back to natural persons only. Likewise, the religious and press rights can, and should be deemed granted only to natural persons, which rights are also enforceable for individuals by groups and entities.
I grew up the son of an ordained Methodist minister and the grandson of a Methodist minister on my mother's side. I was in church leadership as a member of the Council on Ministries (programming) or Administrative Board (administration) of all the several United Methodist churches I was in during 1969 through 1997, and after I joined an Episcopal church in 1998 I have been a member of many committees at both the congregation and dioecian levels. Thus, I have spent my life as an establishment figure in two main-line Protestant churches. I have read and studied the Bible in its Protestant Christian configuration essentially cover-to-cover (I skipped some Old Testament books), and I have studied the Bible over decades in the familiar format of examining selected verses in depth (exegesis). The cover-to-cover approach now seems to me a necessary process in order to be educated in the Bible rather than being indoctrinated by some specific leader through selected passages. My father's principal lifetime work was as a writer and editor with the Methodist Publishing House in Nashville, at the same time being a minor theologian, a sermon presenter to Methodist and Presbyterian congregations, and a Methodist graduate school instructor. While an undergraduate, at the urging of a Jesuit professor, I gave serious consideration to following his suggestion of applying for a grant to attend one year of divinity school solely as an intellectual (not ordination) goal. So, I have substantial education in Christianity. (I, also, have more than a little formal education in Islam and Buddhism, and some informal education in Judaism.) I have a rather deeper and wider experience in religion and previous thoughts about religion than the average, normal Christian American has. My current words do carry that experience and thought.
It seems to me that the political messages of the 1960s supporting the expansion of civil rights for Blacks were properly delivered by religious leaders in the religious context. Those messages to change United States civil law were clearly in alignment with the second of the two the core messages of Jesus Christ, to love God and to love your neighbor. See, the Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes. (The third, but subordinate, message of Jesus is, do not concern yourself so much with observing the specifics of Jewish Law, as the two subsume the whole of Law.) The second of the two principles is a repeat of older Buddhist and Confucian religious principles, and the later repeat of it in Islam. (With its principle of the Caste system, Hinduism, however, would seem to be in conflict with the principle to love your neighbor as yourself.) In the 1970s, both the Southern Baptists (along with other evangelicals) and Catholics rejected their longstanding prior positions on abortion and began preaching for a change in the civil law to prohibit it. This radical change in doctrine was based not on any message in the New Testament, but on the Jewish commandment to not kill. The idea to use the religious context to seek change in civil law was nothing new for Catholics but was a complete reversal for the Southern Baptists, who had been principal backers of the twentieth century push for separation of Church and State. Being now satisfied with using the pulpit to push for change in the civil law about abortion, Catholics and Southern Baptists (together with other evangelicals) started using the pulpit to rid society of homosexuals, for which they found doctrinal support in especially three passages in the Bible, this time by preaching against changes in the civil law that were sought by homosexuals and their rights' supporters, along with the changing of social attitudes. Whatever arguments there might be for or against, it is a fact that Southern Baptists (and other evangelicals) joined the Catholic Church in using the political forum to push for the spread of their religious doctrine through civil law applicable to all Americans. The 1970s Southern Baptist leadership was in sympathy with almost all political doctrine of the Republican Party (limited government, control of the economy by the winners, control of social life by whites, control of the world by defeat of Communists), and so the two groups became one during the 1980s (with the Republican Party in turn adopting the religious doctrines of the Southern Baptists). That status has not yet changed since the 1980s. There should be consequences arising from the adoption by an identifiable religious group of the concomitant status as a political group or as a business. That is, its religious characteristics should not totally shield the group from treatment also as a political group or business group. For example, current law treats revenue of a religious group as tax deductible by the revenue providers, but treats revenue of a political group as non-deductible by the revenue providers. For further example, current law, as set out by the Supreme Court, shields an entrepreneur in a religious context from applicability of the civil law that is applicable to non-religious businesses. Among a variety of other rights as well, the First Amendment sets out separate rights concerning religious matters, press matters, association matters, speech matters, petitioning-the-government matters. Currently, the listed rights seem overly conflated to me. This especially shows up in the context of rights of a group or entity versus rights of an individual. In addition, the First Amendment no where in its text purports to deal with rights in the context of property or of commerce. While groups and entities should be able to sue and be sued concerning the First Amendment, that should be limited to enforcing the rights held under it by only natural persons. The Supreme Court's twenty first century extension of free speech from natural persons to entities should be changed back to natural persons only. Likewise, the religious and press rights can, and should be deemed granted only to natural persons, which rights are also enforceable for individuals by groups and entities.
Plans
I urge a vote in 2026 for essentially every Democratic candidate for the House and for the Senate. It is imperative for our country to blunt President Donald Trump's actions. That blunting requires a Congress that will not allow him to take the personal actions he wants. Republicans in Congress have demonstrated they will not do that for the country. The people must do that by their votes. That is the American way, and tradition.
A Proposed Statute: Drawing by the States of House of Representatives Districts The methodology of this proposed statute is based not on individual rights but on interest groups as those groups are naturally found at the state level. This results in the State’s districts being populated with individuals aligned with some interest groups more in one district than in its other districts, but all districts taken together expressing the most important interest groups of the whole State. Each state, commonwealth, or territory (“State”) that is allocated two or more members of the United States House of Representatives shall by no earlier than April 15, 2031 and no later than April 15, 2032, and once at each ten year period thereafter, by law establish geographical boundaries for the domicile of the individual residents for the election of such members. Each such geographical area shall be known as a District. For purposes of this provision, a resident means each human being who has a domicile under state law in the State. The applicable characteristics of all the residents domiciled in the State viewed in the aggregate shall control the division of the State into Districts. The State shall allocate residents among its Districts in a way that reflects the statewide proportion of its total eligible voters having each of the following characteristics, each of the characteristics bearing weight of an equal percentage: Political Party. [statewide proportions among two or at most three groups] Ancestry, as predominately White (European, including Spanish), Black (African), Brown (American prior to 1500), East Asian, or Other. [five groups] Urban (including suburban) or Rural (including small town). [two groups] Level of Wealth by groups of twenty percent of the entire state. [five groups] Occupation among Dependent (including student, disabled, unemployed), Worker (current or retired, and including homemakers), or Business Owner [three groups] A resident who does not supply the information necessary for the State to allocate the resident to the named characteristic groups may not vote in an election for national office and shall face no other detriment. The State may not assign to Districts residents who are not entitled to vote (e.g. children, felons, non-citizens, etc.) in a way that has the effect of diminishing by two percent or more the numbers of eligible voters constituting any named characteristic group in a District.
A Proposed Statute: Drawing by the States of House of Representatives Districts The methodology of this proposed statute is based not on individual rights but on interest groups as those groups are naturally found at the state level. This results in the State’s districts being populated with individuals aligned with some interest groups more in one district than in its other districts, but all districts taken together expressing the most important interest groups of the whole State. Each state, commonwealth, or territory (“State”) that is allocated two or more members of the United States House of Representatives shall by no earlier than April 15, 2031 and no later than April 15, 2032, and once at each ten year period thereafter, by law establish geographical boundaries for the domicile of the individual residents for the election of such members. Each such geographical area shall be known as a District. For purposes of this provision, a resident means each human being who has a domicile under state law in the State. The applicable characteristics of all the residents domiciled in the State viewed in the aggregate shall control the division of the State into Districts. The State shall allocate residents among its Districts in a way that reflects the statewide proportion of its total eligible voters having each of the following characteristics, each of the characteristics bearing weight of an equal percentage: Political Party. [statewide proportions among two or at most three groups] Ancestry, as predominately White (European, including Spanish), Black (African), Brown (American prior to 1500), East Asian, or Other. [five groups] Urban (including suburban) or Rural (including small town). [two groups] Level of Wealth by groups of twenty percent of the entire state. [five groups] Occupation among Dependent (including student, disabled, unemployed), Worker (current or retired, and including homemakers), or Business Owner [three groups] A resident who does not supply the information necessary for the State to allocate the resident to the named characteristic groups may not vote in an election for national office and shall face no other detriment. The State may not assign to Districts residents who are not entitled to vote (e.g. children, felons, non-citizens, etc.) in a way that has the effect of diminishing by two percent or more the numbers of eligible voters constituting any named characteristic group in a District.