Catholic and SPLC lawyer talk:


Catholic: Surely, you can see the difference between holding a religious belief and threatening society.


SPLC: Not so sure what you mean.


Catholic: I’m referring to an unconfirmed and hopefully untrue report in the National Review online entitled “FBI Internal Memo Warns against ‘Radical Traditionalist Catholic Ideology.’" The report centers on a memo from the FBI’s Richmond field office. * Some whistleblower leaked the memo yesterday. I wasn’t really familiar with the term “radical traditionalist Catholic ideology,” but the leaked report brought it to my attention and made me wonder about the ever-increasing intrusive nature of a government influenced by people who suppress those whose ideas they don’t like. Aren’t people supposed to be allowed to believe as they wish without government interference?


SPLC: Yes. But why bring this up? End of story, really. Did the FBI act on this memo? Is it persecuting or spying on Catholics?


Catholic: I’m mentioning this to you because the report in the National Review says that the FBI office wrote the memo on the basis of information provided by the SPLC. Yeah, the very Southern Poverty Law Center for which you work. If it’s true, I have to ask, “Are you guys the new KKK? Is there some systemic anti-Catholicism running the SPLC amuck?


SPLC: No. I can assure you that I am not anti-spi, anti-Catholic.


Catholic: Okay. I’ll trust you on that. Was that an unconscious “anti-spic” that popped into the conversation? Just asking. I’ll go on.


SPLC: I was just talking too fast. It was a slip of the tongue. I’m DEFINITELY NOT anti-Catholic. I have friends who are Catholic, neighbors. I think John in our International Law Department is Catholic. But before you go about casting accusations, maybe you should look into the RTC people’s actions. Maybe there are Catholics in the RTC movement who want to do harm.


Catholic: By "harm" you mean “beliefs” you do not like, don’t you? I haven’t seen any actions to speak of. But I’ll give you the background that I just learned from reading the article. It says that RTC ideology is anti-immigrant, anti-semite, anti-alphabet, and white supremacist. It also says that a RTC differs from traditional traditionalist belief, which has no tendency to speak violent rhetoric.


SPLC: Well, you know just about every religion has its extremists. And we all know where extremism ends.


Catholic: Interesting comment. I’ll get around to “where extremism ends” in a sec. So, is it just a matter that the SPLC seems to place all conservative groups in the category of dangerous radical terrorists, as it did for the pro-Life Alliance Defending Freedom and the American College of Pediatricians, you know, those labeled as “hate groups” by the SPLC? I saw an online response by the American College of Pediatricians that labels the SPLC a hate group for “falsely” claiming that ACPeds is anti-LGBTQ. ** 


SPLC: Well, ACPeds is anti-LGBTQ.


Catholic: Not according to the response. I really am unfamiliar the motivation, but I believe that some doctors decided that they had research to support their position. Of course, nowadays, that really doesn't matter. We saw that with Twitter execs shutting down doctors over Covid treatments. Anyway, pediatric organization says that children of same-sex parents don’t generally fare as well in society as children of heterosexual couples. I will admit that they do not include references to specific studies in their response, but refer only to “facts,” such as “Science documents significant physical and psychological illness among youth and adults with gender incongruence, even among LGBT-affirming societies.” I would, to give the SPLC some leeway, have to check out that research before I accept it, but on the surface, it doesn’t seem to make ACPeds anti-LGBTQ. Can't doctors express concerns? Their response seems to imply a concern for the well being of children. And I’ll grant that gay-adoption is relatively new in American society, so it might even be too early for any such studies to hold much validity. In fact, there might be many instances of gay adoption that have worked out just fine for both parents and children. Not everyone responds the same way to social circumstances. But putting that aside, the ACPeds doesn’t seem to be advocating hate. And I have to say I don’t know that those adherents of RTC aren’t similarly mislabeled as members of “hate groups” because they want their Latin Mass back in the churches.


SPLC: No, no, it’s more than that. RTC fosters hate and extremism.


Catholic: Remember that you just said we all know where extremism ends? You mean the way the SPLC labeled the pro-Life Family Research Council a “hate group” that subsequently motivated someone to attack its headquarters, resulting in injury? Remember? You guys labeled the pro-Life group as a hate group, and then it was attacked. Shouldn’t you be labeled a member of a hate group, one that hates all conservative causes and one whose product is extremist action? Hey, that guy who attacked the Family Research Council headquarters said he did so because he saw that SPLC labeled it as a hate group. And didn’t you have to pay a $3,375 million settlement in a defamation lawsuit because you labeled a group as anti-Muslim? Look, here’s the SPLC statement: “The Southern Poverty Law Center was wrong to include Maajid Nawaz and the Quilliam Foundation in our Field Guide to Anti-Muslim Extremists.” Don’t you guys jump to conclusions based on your own extreme ideology that sees conservatism and traditionalism as inherently evil?


SPLC: Well, those two instances were a mistake.


Catholic: Mistake? You’re lawyers; yet, you go about making accusations without substantiation? And one of those accusations, the one about RTC, ended up being the basis of an FBI memo. What is this, a manifestation of the “Russian Collusion” syndrome? Didn’t you also attack Ben Carson? Ben Carson! Your labeling led to your acknowledgement of his contributions to the medical field! But only after the attack. Was there something in his saving children's lives that infuriated you, or was it his political affiliation with the Trump Administration? 
    Maybe there are extremists in RTC. I don’t know. Maybe there are extremists in ACPeds. I just know that your organization jumps to unsubstantiated conclusions, and now the government has used your opinions in authorizing a document. That makes you a rather powerful influence on the Feds. This all reminds me of the letter from the school board association that got the AG to write a memo to field offices, labeling parents “terrorists” when they express their concerns at school board meetings. It reminds me of your newsletter in which your editor called a guy who ran a plane into an IRS building a conservative when he was, in fact, not one.


SPLC: All that shouting! Anyone could see the extremists at the school board meetings. And they were against non-binary people.


Catholic: Really. Or were they against an agenda of indoctrination that had biological boys peeing in girls' restrooms? Tough to express an opinion when a school board refuses to listen or to hear complaints. Really tough to be a father whose daughter was sexually assaulted in a girls’ bathroom when a biological male claiming to be “female” was given permission to use that restroom by an administration and school board. Tell me, was he an extremist or a guy whose family was terribly wronged? Was his motivation anti-trans or pro common sense? So, do you male SPLC lawyers use urinals in the ladies’ room to show how liberated you are? Tell me that your women lawyers are comfortable with that. And if they aren’t, do you label them as anti-trans? Do you sue them? Fire them? Ostracize them?


SPLC: Maybe we made a few mistakes, but generally we do good work representing the poor.


Catholic: Look, when a well-funded organization labels people as haters without substantiation in a society interconnected by social media, that labeling is a wildfire that boils the blood of actual extremists like the guy who attacked the FRC headquarters because of your accusation. And that makes me think that if supposedly educated lawyers can foster hate under the guise of being anti-hate, that there’s little hope for humanity. There isn’t any progress. Every generation undergoes the same battle between those who would preserve the traditions of the previous generation and those who would throw those same traditions out the window. Every generation struggles to balance the desire to change and the desire to remain the same.
    Am I in favor of Catholics returning to the Latin Mass? Not really. I had Latin in school, and I find it difficult to follow; I’m constantly trying to translate. But do I understand the movement to preserve tradition? Yes. Catholicism is basically a ritual. A person can go to a Mass on any continent to find the ritual to be the same though now veiled in a country's vernacular. When the Church decided to go to the vernacular, it overturned about 2,000 years of language tradition in that ritual. I remember being in the Dominican Republic and going to a Spanish-language Mass a few years ago. It’s the same Mass, the same ritual, of course, just not in Latin as it would have been before Vatican II. Did I care? Not really. The Mass was the same though the language was different. Did I have trouble following the language. Yes. But if I were a Spanish-speaking Catholic, I would find that Mass to be immediately intelligible. Is it abnormal for RTC people to want a return to a moral and liturgical order they see as part of their religion? 
    We humans say we like change, but often do not want it because it makes us insecure. We wear tradition the way we wear old comfortable T-shirts, sweatpants, or jeans. Anything new is like getting used to stiff clothing or new stiff shoes.
    I don’t think there will be much “human progress.” I think that because your organization, which seemed to have originated in the spirit of helping actually ended up being an organization with an agenda that does at least occasional harm.
    Human progress is a myth. I want all people to enjoy their freedoms as long as those freedoms cause no mental or physical injury to others. I realize that that desire is somewhat unattainable. Even like-minded people sometimes bump heads. Certainly, I want a less intrusive government, a government that substantiates a wrongdoing before it labels an action thus or a group as wrongdoers. And I certainly don’t want groups with either an anti-conservative or an anti-liberal agenda making accusations without substantiation when those accusations alone make the government target the innocent.
    You want to know why I don’t think there’ll be much human progress? It’s because a group like the SPLC will go about trying to remove the speck in others’ eyes without removing the timber in their own eyes. Yes, I’m pessimistic in that regard. I don’t want extremism from any group, but I also don’t want to see the hypocrisy that occurs when groups that claim to be  against extremism inspire extremism in others or are extremists themselves.


SPLC: Yes, but…


Catholic: “Yes, but?” Doesn’t that response in itself support my argument? What is the “but”?


*https://www.nationalreview.com/news/fbi-internal-memo-warns-against-radical-traditionalist-catholic-ideology/


**https://acpeds.org/about/faq/acpeds-responds-to-splc-criticisms

Name-calling? Regardless of the child's "Sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will never hurt me," at least one American university faculty believes that "words" will hurt them, and because of that belief, they have used name-calling to hurt those with whom they disagree. Case in point: 

Apparently, it’s okay to call people whatever name you want to call them as long as you are Left-leaning. And it’s apparently okay to censor the speech of any Right-leaning speaker. At least, that seems to be the attitude at Arizona State University, where 37 of 47 members of Barrett, the Honors College at ASU, wrote to the university’s Lewis Center for Personal Development because it invited certain conservative speakers to the campus.


Calling the speakers “purveyors of hate,” the faculty included in their letter of protest two prominent conservatives, Turning Point’s Charlie Kirk and Prager University’s Dennis Prager. In response to news services about the letter condemning the two speakers, an ASU spokesperson reportedly told Breitbart News that “As a public university, ASU is committed to free, robust and uninhibited sharing of ideas….”


Except for ideas that the 37 members of Barrett dislike.


It seems that the human brain can be as fixed as any conditioned animal brain. There’s little difference between Pavlov’s dog and almost any of us when it comes to conditioned thoughts. Couple that stubborn refusal to hear different points of view with any ideological movement, and one gets what we have today: University faculty trying to shut down the free exchange of ideas while claiming to be open to “robust and uninhibited sharing of ideas.”


And the undeveloped brains that the faculty members teach are little more than Pavlov’s dog. A single stimulus is all it takes for them to respond in the most predictable ways.


Although I have serious doubts about the claims of the Barrett faculty and about my own ability to tolerate some “robust” discussions about ideologies I have reasoned to be injurious when put into practice (such as socialism), I think I can do what the Left-leaning faculty of Barrett do, a little name calling.


I think the Honors faculty at ASU Barrett are purveyors of hypocrisy and that their hypocrisy with regard to intellectual exchanges can only lead underdeveloped minds into positions of hate and closed-mindedness. Those faculty members and students of Barrett don’t have to listen to the speakers they have pre-condemned; don’t have to agree with ideas rationally spoken; but surely they have some intellectual obligation to offer a rational response instead of childish ad hominem attacks. But they cannot respond rationally in open discussion if the University doesn’t even allow the exchange of ideas through censorship by banning.

Coffee house performers seem not be as famous as pop and rock singers though there is, I see, a channel on Sirius-XM devoted to such music. In general, coffee house music is easy to listen to, good for relaxing with a cup of coffee and a friend, or browsing on a laptop in the midst of total strangers. In the coffee shop, anonymity can prevail though the barista calls out your name. “Don, venti cafe mocha, no whip, nonfat, shot of espresso.” [Should I be embarrassed? Or does the espresso shot represent my virility—a kind of Marlboro Man without the tobacco, cowboy hat, and horse? Aside: Would I show my inner Marlboro Man if I left the coffee shop to drive off in a car with a horse’s name, such as Mustang? A Ford Bronco? Or would a coffee house guy drive off in a Ford Pinto, Mitsubishi/Dodge Colt, Hyundai Pony or Equus, or antique Pegasso? Asides beside, the subject began with a focus on coffee house music]


What if there were a coffee house beneath Ayers Rock, maybe one called the Uluru Coffee Cafe, where the local musician played a didgeridoo? isn’t that a millennial scene? No, I can’t imagine it either. First, such a coffee cafe is out in the middle of nowhere looking at a rock that dates back to the Cambrian Explosion (of lifeforms). Second, it really is in the middle of nowhere, but like the Starbucks on every block in Manhattan, it is also a gathering place of strangers, those in Australia being intrepid tourists who brave the aridity and heat to see a big red rock. Third, it’s too hot to drink coffee under an average annual temperature of 86 degrees Fahrenheit. And fifth, whereas didgeridoo music might be okay for someone in a trance, it grates the nerves after a bit—though some use it for “meditation.” * With no melody discernible to the western ear, the music is very much like the sound one could make with a piece of PVC pipe shaped as a thongophone positioned to vibrate in a wind storm or played by one of Yanni’s international musicians.


Suum quique. To each his own, of course. So, if you are a didgeridoo musician or fan of its sound, you have my “okay” to listen to the low vibrations in your favorite coffee house. Just don’t expect a big crowd on didgeridoo night with at least one exception.What if the US Senate and House met in a coffee house in Washington?


And why do I make these comments on this day in early February, 2023? Why, it’s State of the Union night in D.C. Those who don’t like the sounds they will hear during the address will sit quietly, the vibrations of the didgeridoo pulsing through their bodies and amygdalae. And those who don’t like the sounds they hear but realize that peer pressure demands they look both attentive and entertained, will stand frequently, giving ovations and cheers. But trust me, many of the cheering will have had their shot of espresso to maintain their expressions of pleasure.


Coffee shop music is generally relaxing. It serves as a pleasant background. But in the room on State of the Union Night, there will be those who will squirm as though the sounds emanating from a thongophone have bunched up their thongs in a place where decorum demands all listen even if they don’t like the music, are uncomfortable listening to it, or wish the performer could sing a different tune and play a different instrument. Very few people have didgeridoo music on their smart phones; they prefer hummable tunes and words that seem relevant to their lives.


But the didgeridoo is an ancient and primitive instrument, and, though younger than Uluru, has been the instrument of choice in almost, if not all, State of the Union addresses. I’m not going to the coffee shop tonight, not listening to the sounds of the ancient didgeridoo. I want a hummable melody and words that are germane to my life.



*https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nN-542IYoE0 

Those who can influence the politically powerful fall into one or all of five categories, the First through the Fifth Estates: 1) Clergy, 2) Nobility, 3) Commoners, 4) Press, and 5) Pundits, Bloggers, Podcasters, Entertainers, and University Faculty. Okay, I played a bit with the definition of the Fifth Estate. But consider these estates and political influence in the twenty-first century…


Begin with a list of the countries with Second Estate members:


Andorra
Antigua and Barbuda
Australia
The Bahamas
Bahrain
Belgium
Belize
Bhutan
Brunei (Negara Brunei, Darussalam)
Cambodia (Kampuchea)
Canada (Yep! King Charles III)
Denmark (Danmark, Faroes, Greenland)
Eswatini
Grenada
Jamaica
Japan
Jordan’Kuwait
Lesotho
Liechtenstein
Luxembourg (Grand-Duché)
Malaysia
Monaco
Morocco
Netherlands
New Zealand and Aotearoa (i.e., Maori)
Norway
Oman
Papua New Guinea
Qatar
Saint Kitts and Nevis
Saint Lucia
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
Saudi Arabia
Solomon Islands
Spain
Sweden
Thailand
Tonga
Tuvalu
United Arab Emirates
United Kingdom (England and the other 14 countries in the realm of King Charles III)
Vatican City (whose “king,” the elected Pope, has traditionally been an elected ruler though some popes have had biological descendants who might have had influence over the Vatican: Alexander VI and two of his famous children immediately come to mind, and Sergius III apparently fathered John XI).


The list could be shorter if one consolidates the kingdom ruled by King Charles III, who is the titular head of 15 countries, such as Saint Lucia, The Bahamas, and Tuvalu. The list could be longer if one considers the indefinite control exerted by Xi in China, Putin in Russia, Kim in N. Korea, Khamenei in Iran, and any other dictator with long-standing control. Generally, the more extensive the “nobility,” the greater the number of entitled people who are basically born with Versailles in their eye, party-goers with little political influence but plenty of political grift. Then there’s the mix of estates to consider: Pope Francis and Khamenei head both the First and Second Estate, and thus have control of politics as well as religion. By the way, in a constitutional monarchy, even the king or queen becomes a political influencer. Note that the English PM meets regularly with the king.


After a few centuries of revolutions and reforms, the list of countries with members belonging to the Second Estate is still apparently long, and it tells the tale of countries in which people related to the hereditary rulers (except Vatican City’s) have influence by virtue of their blood relationship. Thus, there are today people who are almost guaranteed success or favor by birth and who by blood tie exert at least a modicum of influence.


Office holders also have influence. They include the elected and the appointed. They include bureaucrats who derive from the Third Estate and move into the realm of the sub-wealthy, where they contribute to the coffers of the ruling politicians who keep them in their offices. They are often behind-the-scenes policy-makers, and they also succeed through favoritism—though not if they run amuck of the Press or the people in power. You can probably think of many who were once in positions of influence only to be cast out of the political “palace” for sundry reasons. Nicolas Fouquet, Louis XIV’s finance minister, comes to mind. The day after Fouquet in his palace threw a lavish party for the king and aristocrats, the Louis, envious in those pre-Versailles days, threw Fouquet into prison. Surely, you can think of cabinet members and White House staff who have undergone similar falls from grace if not prison terms. Even nepotism, an avenue to influence over the politically powerful, is no guarantee of continued influence, as murdered relatives of North Korea’s Kim and England’s Richard III discovered. Yet, the ties of family often open doors of influence.


Into what estate should we list the inordinately wealthy, such as those who are popular entertainers: The Hollywood crowd, that is, the TV network darlings, and those well-known defenders of the power du jour. Many of them began as members of the Third Estate, commoners, but rose to the status of idols by virtue of singing, acting, or merely talking. Who among the Third Estate like the restless mob at the foot of Mount Sinai, we might ask, can ignore the golden idols that speak, especially in an age of 24/7 music, acting, and speaking? Certainly, not the members of the Third Estate who rose to political power; adulation by former peers opens one up to influence.


The Fourth Estate, which is the Press and TV pundits, now has to vie for influence with the Fifth Estate, the bloggers, podcasters, and independents who ferret out the stories behind the news. Think James O’Keefe among others, many of who are muckrakers for either Left or Right political organizations. Think also of university faculties that also exhibit influence sufficient enough to get into the treasury room, almost like Fouquet  whom Louis XIV accused of skimming money from the kingdom’s funds for his own use—including the building of that grand palace and gardens that made Louis envious. And then there are those like Bankman-Fried, who used money from FTX to support politicians or FaceBook’s Zuckerman whose support for politicians led to efforts in 30 states to ban such influence.   


I might throw myself into the mix of people who belong to both the Third and Fifth Estates. Definitely not born with the proverbial silver spoon in my mouth, I think I can count myself as a commoner, but then I taught in a university, took grant money from both state and federal agencies, and I now write this blog. Maybe I influenced no one along that path to now, but there’s that possibility. Have I influenced you and by extension influenced those in your political sphere? I think that according to my definition and as a result of my having a number of government-funded research projects, that I might have worn the habit habillé and the justeaucorps like Fouquet. I’ll claim innocence since the agencies sought me out for their pet projects. But I believe that university faculties have reached new heights of grifting. The treasuries are full when it comes to grant funding, so the temptations are great. And I say that in light of the University of Michigan’s Office of the VP for Research granting an engineering professor $50,000 “to help U-M increase its competitiveness to secure a $160 million National Science Foundation Regional Innovation Engines grant.” * Want to talk about influence? That $50,000 probably came from previous government grants, so the Michigan “Fouquets” are using the public treasury to gain more from the public treasury. What, pray tell, will the professor do to entice the NSF to give out $160,000,000? Will it involve discussions with political leaders? Obviously, he’ll make a concerted effort to influence the grant granters.


Influencing government officials is nothing new. The scale has changed, of course, because of affluence. But so has the group of influencers. Well, if not changed, at least added onto. And now, this new group of influencers has found a way to get the government to pay for the influence. Why should I mention Fouquet in this context? It seems that Louis had him skim some funds for the king’s use and was upset that Fouquet’s hand got a bit sticky.


Not that that kind of sticky hand is new. Payment has generally been reciprocated in votes, you know, the way teacher unions support one party to the exclusion of the other and receive in return seemingly unlimited funding for running down any avenue of pedagogy that fancies their minds but that seems to make little difference in test scores or student achievement, and that now funds programs that seem more like indoctrination than education.


So, the type of government doesn’t seem to matter when it comes to influencing rulers: Monarchies influenced by the Second Estate or democratic republics influenced by the Third, Fourth, and Fifth Estates. At the heart of all this influence lies the central two questions for the leaders: Do you trust the motives of the influencers? Does the influence serve the people in general or the chosen elite?


Coupled with today’s attempts by almost all countries to influence the destiny of other countries, both friend and foe, domestic attempts to influence leaders make this a world headed down a path to… Okay, you finish the sentence. I could make it a multiple choice question if you like. Headed down a path to A) the dissolution of trustworthy organization, B) the creation of a new kind of society, one split by goals determined by competing influencers, C) the death of individual freedom in the Third Estate whose members live without recourse according to the whims of the influencers, or D) a future dystopian society so fractured that chaos makes it a twenty-first century Wild West, a borderless entity like a cell without a membrane, or a NY Fifth Avenue with sidewalks strewn with the homeless and disenfranchised.




*Keeves, Kelsey. OVPR awards large-scale planning grants to three teams. The University Record, 6 Feb 2023. Online at https://record.umich.edu/articles/ovpr-awards-large-scale-planning-grants-to-three-teams/  Access February 5, 2023.

Francois Pilatrê de Rozier and Francois Laurent, Marquis of Arlanders talk.


Francois P.:    You’re tellin’ me that there’s a balloon museum? That what we started way back in 1783 with that first manned flight is now memorialized in a museum? Where is this museum? I’d like to see it, but, please, don’t tell me it’s in China.


Francois L.: Indianola, Iowa, I think. Not too far from where Americans began seeing a large balloon sent from China, a “gift” from their army, I suppose.


Francois P.:    Really?


Francois L.: No, I think they call it a “spy balloon.”


Francois P.:     I did learn that long after we made that first flight balloons served a military purpose, and spying was that initial purpose. Get up high, see the enemy’s positions.


Francois L.:     Oui. Later, balloons were even used as defensive barriers when people used heavier-than-air ships, planes, I think they called them.


Francois P.:    But when you said there is a balloon museum, I thought you meant party balloons, multicolored, filled with helium, the gas that was unavailable to us when we used fire to make a hot air balloon we had built from paper and silk.


Francois L.:    Nature of humanity, I guess. Whatever we invent seems inevitably to have a military use. Knives to bayonets. Fireworks to rockets with warheads. Lanterns to flashlights to lasers. Helicopters to toy drones to drone bombs or drones with rockets. Elements to atomic bombs. And hot air balloons carrying two French guys to giant spy balloons gathering data over sensitive military sites. Nature of humanity. What’s next? Cures into pandemics?


Francois P.:    Been there; done that. It’s called biological warfare.


Francois L.:    I suppose that the next invention will end up as a military weapon, but who way back in the eighteenth century would have thought that something as simple and as joyous as a balloon, would have become a weapon?


Francois P.:    Not I. I thought we had made a theme park ride that would make us a few francs and get us invited to one of Louis XVI’s parties at Versailles.

How much good do do-gooders do?


Two people come to mind: Bill Gates and John Kerry.


Before I start, I’ll tell you that I don’t know either man, so I have no way of knowing whether or not either is the most altruistic human since Mother Teresa. Each might be. And yet…


Gates has a nonprofit called Gates AgOne. Its upfront purpose is helping farmers in developing countries access Agri-Tech to improve farming tools, maximize yields, and adapt their farming to changes in climate. Gates also owns farmland in 19 states, the largest of his holdings covering 69,963 acres in Louisiana. Not a bad idea to own farms because, believe it or not, humans eat. Now, I’m not suggesting that Gates’s reason for buying farmland is control over the masses—though that is a possibility if he isn’t Mother Teresa incarnate (sorry, vegans, for the carnivore cognate—but I will suggest that a good way to make money in a world of growing populations is to control food—and actually, control not just the amount of food available, but also the kind of food people eat. That latest push to have more people eat bugs is an example (with no offense to South Asians who savor a rice bug now and then).


I have no doubt that Gates, one of the world’s richest, sees an economic gain in Agri-Tech. New seeds. New farming practices. Greater yields, the goal of farmers for 10,000 years. More money in a world with more mouths. And, of course, a planet saved from that wasteful human species that is “destroying the climate” and poisoning all life with agri-chemicals. Noble enterprises all! Bill Gates is an example of the do-gooder on steroids. Nevertheless, some poor farmers will benefit from the work of Gates AgOne while he diversifies his income.


Forgive my suspicious character, please, but his foundation’s title gives me pause. One, as in AgOne? Does that imply “first,” “inclusive,” or both? If you know me by my writings, you’ll know that I have concerns about unity. And those concerns go way back to my reading about Heraclitus’ Pyr Aeizoon, the Eternal Fire, and to other such “Ones” perceived by the early philosophers struggling with diversity and unity. I’m more a chaos guy at heart. Rather than impose a unity—or equity in today’s fashionable vernacular—I favor enterprise and creativity, both of which die in Oneness (or Unity) and often lead to failures. Unlike Heraclitus’ Eternal Fire into which we all go and from which we all emerge, I prefer some randomness, because it gives me the power, if I choose, to make my own world, my own cosmos, my own Order. Or, it allows me room to discover natural order hidden in the apparent randomness that is life on Earth or to add onto that which has already been discovered. I keep in mind that Newton spoke of standing on the shoulders of those who went before. So, farming? * Yes, it has been subject to improvements imposed from a centralized organization and acquired knowledge and practice, but in undergoing such improvements subject to the Central Guide farmers are also subject to failures on the largest scales and also to sameness that dismisses ethnic diversity. What if, for example, a central authority bans a crop favored by indigenous people?   


What if Bill acquires all the farmland in America, and what if, just what if, Bill decides to impose a diet of his choosing and to his liking on the rest of us? Does that Oneness not frighten you? Those who eat grains are already locked into limited genetic varieties of corn, wheat, oats, and barley. Just what if, in the name of unity, farmers plant a single variety of any of those crops in the service of Unity? We all know what the potato bug did to the Irish. We all know what the Mediterranean fruit fly did to California farms. We’ve all seen the swarms of locusts darken the skies in African countries as they consume the crops of the poor.


So, though Gates might have the noblest intentions, that he can control so much should give us all pause by that Oneness. And the same might be said of John Kerry’s efforts to eliminate emissions of carbon from world energy production.


Am I just upset that I have to pay for flights to Disney World’s Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow while Kerry uses my tax dollar to fly to conferences whose sole purpose is to prevent me from traveling extensively, warming and cooling my house, and lighting my way in the darkness? No and yes. No because that would suggest envy: Why does this guy who married into the Heinz fortune have to use my money? And yes, because this guy who married into the Heinz fortune gets to use my money to travel to places like Davos.


Like Gates, Kerry appears to aim for unity. Unlike Gates, Kerry, who is also, but not quite as, rich as the Microsoft guy, is seeking unity on the public’s dime. And Kerry, whose lifestyle seems to have been supported by rich relatives during his childhood and by both his wives’ fortunes, has never produced to my knowledge any product that would require energy—including Ketchup or those other 56 varieties. Instead, he has been paid a politician’s salary. Of course, I have no right to criticize him for “serving the public” and for serving in the military during a conflict. Those definitely seem to be noble regardless of the Swift-boating claims when he ran for President. I am certainly willing to credit him for serving the nation in a time of war and for serving the nation as a senator—though his politics and senate accomplishments seem a bit too Leftist for my taste.


Kerry’s apparent adherence to the climate-change/global-warming agenda gives me pause. When I think of the most recent COP conference attended by thousands of “scientists” and advocates, I see hypocrisy in action, and I see people who want to control the lives of individuals over a rather dubious threat. Oh! I know. I know. That speaks of “denial,” to use the common ad hominem rebuttal. Yet, the claims of those who would impose third-world economies on affluent societies that acquired their affluence because of cheap energy, all seem foolish in light of their failed predictions of disaster. The world has been warmer—much warmer—in times past, and it has been colder—much colder—in times past. Sea level has been both lower and higher and has been rising for thousands of years post glacial period and during this probable interglacial epoch. But actual measurements of sea level over the very last century or so have shown the rise to be on the order of a few millimeters per year. And that rise doesn’t affect people beyond those who choose to live along coastlines—where, by the way, sea level does not rise uniformly because of tectonic activity or because of bathymetry or topography. **


As Kerry the do-gooder flies about ranting with Al Gore about the coming doom, he convinces governments to take an all-or-nothing unified approach that trades everyone else’s individualism for unity of lifestyle while he—and Al Gore—continue to live their jet-setting lives. Kerry isn’t leading by example. He seeks to impose his brand of altruism and environmentalism on the masses, but those masses are composed of individuals, many of who cherish their individualism and rebuke attempts to make them into One.


Do do-gooders do good? Yes, many of them do, and some of what Bill Gates and John Kerry do lies in the noblest of human traditions. But do-gooders can also do bad, especially when their goal is an amalgamation of humanity in causes that quash freedom both to err in stubborn ineffectiveness and to succeed in entrepreneurial creativity.


*That third-world farmers could use some centralized education was evident to me during a visit to a coffee plantation in the volcanic hills outside Antigua Guatemala, where I saw crops on the side of the neighboring mountain in rows running vertically up and not horizontally across the land. Contour farming doesn’t seem to be as widespread a practice as I had been taught in a middle-school geography class or as widespread as I have seen from flights across hilly landscapes in the United States. I just assumed farmers everywhere knew how to prevent erosion until I saw those Guatemalan farms.


**Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution makes this online statement: “As with land, the global height of the sea is uneven; levels vary around the world due to physical factors such as massive ocean currents and prevailing wind directions. The rate of current sea level rise is driven by these two factors, in addition to human and climate-driven changes like thermal expansion, coastal erosion, and whether the land is sinking or rebounding.” https://www.whoi.edu/know-your-ocean/ocean-topics/climate-weather/sea-level-rise/