My goal as been a minimum of one letter a month. Obviously August was a loss but there's still time for September.
2020 has been the worst of years and in so being, the best of years?
2020 has forced us all to come to terms with the fragility of our mortality, the racist oppressive systems built into our justice system, and the flaws of our democracy.
My brain has so many ways it could go here. So many thoughts to express.
You could spend your whole live taking care of your body just to have a microscopic virus bring you to your knees.
A virus that doesn't see title, wealth, status, and yet within a system that very much does.
George Floyd and Breonna Taylor are two more of the countless victims of this country's corrupt justice system. The system is not broken. It is functioning exactly as it was designed. I won't go too much into the system since I went down that rabbit hole on The Filibust back in June. But I will say as I listen to the Hamilton soundtrack nonstop and as I rewatch the John Adams miniseries I can't help but think about the words and ideals this country was built on juxtaposed with the reality of the country today.
At the country's start only allowing white landowning men to cast a vote fell short of their very words and ideals. The talk of freedom and self-evident truths about equality, endowed by God with unalienable rights while simultaneously viewing black humans as property, women as less, and the native nations of the land as intruders confirmed their shortcomings.
But I often think about that first episode of the John Adam series where he is asked to represent the British soldiers responsible for the Boston Massacre. No idea how accurate the portrayal actually is but the drama and tension of the episode paints the turmoil of a blind and fair trial in the context of a politically charged moment.
This scene can be viewed, when put in today's context, in poor taste. A founding father defending the police state for murdering unarmed citizens could be seen as a perfect allegory for how our fucked up system came to be and has always been.
But I want to step outside of my time, if that's even possible, and I want to look at this scene the way I believe John Adams viewed it even in his time. If we are to believe and hope for one day a truly unbiased and perfect justice system, one that isn't swayed by power, or money then we must constantly put ourselves outside of our time and thus context. And we have to believe that is possible.
James Traub has a great opinion piece from March of 2016 Call It What It Is: A Rabble Dan Carlin also posted an incredible new Common Sense episode Common Sense 320 – Steering Into the Iceberg Both talk about the difference between Jefferson and Adams. The difference between a Republic and a Democracy. "The people can be as tyrannical as any king." Adams' perspective and fear of the 'mob' was as vital and necessary as Jefferson's view of the individualism of the people.
It would have been the popular and politically smart thing to have those British officers hanged for opening fire on the unarmed colonists. And it's easy to draw a connecting line to today's police opening fire on unarmed Americans but as I said I'm going to stay outside of my own context. Adams did not listen to the mob, he did not listen to the motivations of the moment. Adams chose to step back and look at the facts and because of this and in finding the truth he upset the mob but in the name of justice.
Today on twitter I see such a mob mentality. I see the Republicans hypocritically pushing through a third Trump nomination to the Supreme Court. Then I see the Democrat mob talking about "packing the courts" This tit for tat sort of politics. Packing the courts in a corrupt system is a shortsighted solution. The solution should be making supreme court nominations require the super majority vote in the Senate and also needing approval from the House. Even if the three police officers who murdered Breonna Taylor were indicted it would give this country a false sense of trust in the system. Even a broken clock is right twice a day. So long as qualified immunity exists justice will not be possible. So long as we keep funding a police force who carry guns and enforce biased laws justice will not be possible.
The mob on the left speak of revolution, and I must agree the system is broken and corrupt, but to what end? We dismantle the American form of democracy only to put what in its place? The framework is all here. The more I think about our government the more I believe, I hope, in it. Our system is built in a way that we can amend the Constitution, and have for the better. Our system is built in a way that we can end qualified immunity, we can end voter suppression, we can pass universal healthcare. Our system is broken and corrupt and racist and in the same breath our system is built correctly it has the ability and potential to right the ship.
In Europe, after the French Revolution, he saw how fanatical leaders had provoked the blood lust of “the rabble.” “In the name of the People,” he wrote in a diplomatic dispatch, “the Guillotine has mowed its thousands and the grapeshot have swept off their tens of thousands.”
-John Quincy Adams from the Traub piece
We can guillotine Bezos, impeach Trump, convict Breonna's murderers, and pack the Supreme Court all we want but unless we change the corrupt laws (which we can do thanks to our framework) it will all be for nothing.
I see the mobs online talk of how imperfect of a candidate Biden is but to what end? This election will happen and either Trump or Biden will be the next president. Again the system is broken because of this duopoly but we can change it and those changes must be done through the system. Stepping outside of the system to write in a candidate to only appease your conscience is selfish and privileged. It's taken me a long time to see this view.
When nothing is owed or deserved or expected
And your life doesn't change by the man that's elected
If you're loved by someone, you're never rejected
Decide what to be and go be it
I think about that second line of lyrics a lot lately. "Your life doesn't change by the man that's elected" If your life doesn't change by the man that's elected that doesn't mean you are truly free...It means you are privileged (which I suppose is a sort of self centered freedom).
A third party vote is a vote that says I demand purity from a system built on compromise run by fallible people. The system works best when we force Jefferson and Adams to the table to make a deal.
You wanna pull yourself together?
I'm sorry, these Virginians are birds of a feather
Young man, I'm from Virginia, so watch your mouth
So we let Congress get held hostage by the South?
You need the votes
No, we need bold strokes, we need this plan
no, you need to convince more folks
James Madison won't talk to me, that's a nonstarter
Ah, winning was easy, young man, governing's harder
They're being intransigent
You have to find a compromise
But they don't have a plan, they just hate mine
convince them otherwise
And what happens if I don't get congressional approval?
I imagine they'll call for your removal
Sir
Figure it out, Alexander, that's an order from your commander
I love this exchange from the musical Hamilton. Alexander tells Washington "we need bold strokes" and Washington's reply is "you need to convince more folks" This is how our system is built. The temptation for the bold stroke of an executive order restrained by working to earn more votes.
In the John Adams miniseries the continental congress earns the majority of the votes for independence but Adams isn't satisfied he says it must be unanimous. The vote was eventually unanimous, with only New York abstaining. That is when the declaration of independence was drafted. If we build a new nation with only 51% approval it will fail. The same is true for Supreme Court nominations, and many other things in our government.
"No taxation without representation" is a political slogan originating during the 1700's that summarized one of 27 colonial grievances of the American colonists in the Thirteen Colonies, which was one of the major causes of the American Revolution. In short, many in those colonies believed that, as they were not directly represented in the distant British Parliament, any laws it passed affecting the colonists (such as the Sugar Act and the Stamp Act) were illegal under the Bill of Rights 1689, and were a denial of their rights as Englishmen.
Many Americans today believe the founding fathers didn't want to be ruled by a king so they broke off to start an independent republic. But the truth is the colonies simply wanted representation in British Parliament (that's an oversimplification but if they had been given a seat in Parliament to argue for their rights I wonder where we would be today.)
How is representation doing in modern America? Well for instance California accounts for 12% of the population but only gets two votes when it comes to a supreme court justice. The solution of course would be forcing a super majority vote and putting the nomination through the House also where California has 53 seats. The other issue is the electoral college, sure. But it's also the "winner take all" design of the electoral college. For instance Ohio has 18 votes in the electoral college. If a candidate wins 51% of the votes in Ohio they win all 18. So the 49% of voters who wanted the other candidate are erased. Instead, the EC could potentially stay in existence but have the votes be split to represent the voters of the state giving only 10 to the winning candidate and 8 to the other. Winning by 1 point should not be rewarded the same as winning by 100%. Also Five colonists were killed in the Boston Massacre. 1,010 people have been shot and killed by police in 2019. How far were the colonists pushed before their revolution and I wonder how far we have been pushed by our own government today.
God I know I'm getting older by how intrigued I am by politics, especially how much I find that to be a good thing.
One Last Time - HAMILTON