“Love your enemies?” Seriously?

Some worthy re-reading, spurred by our accelerating, metastasizing discord. 

    

Republicans and Democrats today suffer from a level of motive attribution asymmetry that is comparable to that of Palestinians and Israelis. In both cases, the two sides think that they are driven by benevolence, while the other side is evil and motivated by hate. Therefore neither side is willing to negotiate or compromise. As a result, the authors found, “political conflict between American Democrats and Republicans and ethnoreligious conflict between Israelis and Palestinians seem intractable, despite the availability of reasonable compromise solutions in both cases.” 

Think about what this means: We are headed to the point where achieving bipartisan compromise, on issues from immigration to guns to confirming a Supreme Court justice, is as difficult as achieving Middle East peace. We may not be engaging in daily violence against each other, but we can’t make progress as a society when both sides believe that they are motivated by love while the other side is motivated by hate.

Brooks, Arthur C.. Love Your Enemies: How Decent People Can Save America from the Culture of Contempt (loc 305). Kindle Edition.

That reads like it was written this morning. He published that book in 2019. I bought and read it straight away. It warrants review in light of all this "Disagree Better" stuff of late in the wake of the Charlie Kirk murder.

 

"LOVE YOUR ENEMIES?"

 

Well, I have little trouble getting to "abide your adversaries," but the "enemies" thing is rather more complex (in part given my reluctance to accord inordinate cognitive energy thinking about "enemies").

 

And, that rumination takes us over to our increasing susceptibility to clutching the pearl hair-trigger to being "offended" by anything that irks us.

"You gain the strength of the temptation you resist." —Thomas Szasz 

We might also recall this:

“Anybody can become angry; that is easy. But to be angry with the right person and to the right degree and at the right time and for the right purpose, and in the right way—that is not within everybody’s power and is not easy.” —Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 

 

Back to Dr. Brooks.

 

Unless you inhabit a hermit cave with no internet access, you’ll know that we live in the Age of Offense. With high levels of polarization and innumerable ways to broadcast one’s every thought to strangers far and wide, it is easier than ever to lob insults and to denigrate ideological foes. Not surprisingly, according to a 2024 Pew Research Center study, 47 percent of Americans believe that people saying things that are “very offensive” to others is a major problem in the country today, whereas only 11 percent say it is not a problem. (The remainder says it is a minor problem.)

You might conclude that the solution is for people to stop offending others—good luck with that!—but consider another statistic in the same poll: A larger percentage of Americans (62 percent) says another big problem is “people being too easily offended by things others say.” These are not at all mutually exclusive findings; they suggest that we are simultaneously too offensive and too thin-skinned.

The second issue, however, is the one on which I wish to focus, because, for most people, being too easily offended is worse for one’s own quality of life than being obnoxiously rude. So instead of spending your efforts trying to stamp out what you find offensive, you should work on being less offended in the first place…

'eh?

 

"The Age of Grievance," anyone?

  

 

"LOVE YOUR ENEMIES?"

 

 

Right. He will not be loving his "enemies from within."

 

More shortly...

Attorney General Pamela Bondi

"tu quoque, Senator..."

"Testimony" before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Oct 2025

New on the BobbyG bookshelf

Will the internet get better, or worse? Or both?

    

 

TIM

CORY

It's not just you. The internet is getting worse, fast. The services we rely on, that we once loved? They're all turning into piles of shit, all at once. Worse, the digital is merging with the physical, which means that the same forces that are wrecking our platforms are also wrecking our homes and our cars, the places where we work and shop. The world is increasingly made up of computers we put our bodies into, and computers we put into our bodies. And these computers suck.

This is infuriating. It's frustrating. And, depending on how important those services are to you, it's terrifying. I've been an internet activist for a quarter of a century, working with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital human rights group that more or less invented the whole idea of digital human rights. I've been a United Nations observer and helped draft internet treaties; I've lobbied legislatures and agencies in the United States, Canada, Europe, and the United Kingdom. I've been through street protests and virtual blackouts.
I've never seen anything like this.

In 2022, after decades of striving to get people fired up about the esoteric world of internet policy, I coined a term to describe the sudden-onset platform collapse going on all around us: en-shittification. To my bittersweet satisfaction, that word is doing big numbers. In fact, it has achieved escape velocity. It's a funny, naughty word, and it's funny and naughty to say, and I'm proud of that. But that's not why the American Dialect Society named it its word of the year in 2023, nor why Australia's Macquarie Dictionary named it its word of the year for 2024, nor why millions of people have used it to describe the inescapable online dumpster fire that's roasting them alive.

The reason for enshittification's popularity is that it embodies a theory that explains the accelerating decay of the things that matter to us, explaining why this is happening and what we should do about it.

Because enshittification isn't just a way to say "Something got worse."* It's an analysis that explains the way an online service gets worse, how that worsening unfolds, and the contagion that's causing everything to get worse, all at once.

You see, this moment were living through, this Great En-shittening? It's not a mystery. It's not the Great Forces of History bearing down on our moment, decreeing that we must all suffer through the end of services that once met our needs. It's a material phenomenon, much like a disease.

Like a disease, it has symptoms, a mechanism, and an epidemiology. The first part of this book will explain these components of enshittification.
But the point of this analysis isn't to merely give you a more technically informed way to feel demoralized and furious about the state of the digital world-I wrote this book to propose a cure. That's the second part of the book.

This era, the Enshittocene, is the result of specific policy decisions, made by named individuals. Once we identify those decisions and those individuals, we can act. We can reverse the decisions. We can name the individuals. We can even estimate what size pitchfork they wear. Or at the very least, we can make sure that they are never again trusted with the power to make policy decisions for the rest of us.

We can make a new, good internet, one that's fit for human thriving. We can create the digital nervous system we need to connect and coordinate us through a twenty-first century haunted by climate collapse, genocide, authoritarianism, and economic chaos. We can create enshittification-resistant infrastructure for a new, good world.
_________

* Though it's fine with me if you want to use it that way! One of the glories of English is its malleability. English words mean whatever English speakers say they mean. Go nuts. You have my blessing.

There’s an old business maxim dating to the California gold rush: it’s easier to make money selling picks and shovels to aspiring miners than to strike it rich finding gold. Artificial intelligence is in a picks-and-shovels phase right now. If gold, in this metaphor, is artificial general intelligence—a machine smarter than a human—or some version of a digital god, then tech companies are snapping up the tools to create one, including graphics-processing units, data centers, and trained A.I. models. That scramble is why Mark Zuckerberg is paying a twenty-four-year-old A.I. researcher two hundred and fifty million dollars to work at Meta, and why Sam Altman, the C.E.O. of OpenAI, recently said that the company would spend “trillions of dollars” building infrastructure. It’s why Google spent nearly two and a half billion dollars to hire some of the leaders and research staff of Windsurf, an A.I. coding tool, and to license its technology. Insiders have described San Francisco as being in a new state of A.I.-gold-rush fervor, but the true gold has yet to be found; all of the major generative artificial-intelligence businesses are unprofitable. The race is on to find something, anything, that works …

In some ways, the A.I. bubble is not unlike that of the dot-com era, but, as a recent piece in Forbes put it, this time “the numbers seem to be 10 times bigger, and the burn is faster.” ChatGPT and its ilk have hundreds of millions of users, and the A.I. industry is already meaningfully affecting the U.S. economy. In the second quarter of this year, G.D.P. grew by three per cent; A.I. capital expenditures may have accounted for nearly half of that, and spending on the construction of data centers is on track to outpace that of building offices. Some kind of market correction is inevitable, as even A.I.’s boosters have acknowledged, and the current round of consolidation could be a sign of contraction. One or two of the crop of A.I. startups will become the new Apple or Google; the rest will likely disappear without a trace. “We’re about to enter a winter of companies shutting down,” Miller said. Regarding the A.I.-browser market, of which Dia is a part, he added, “The winner is going to be decided in the next twelve months.” …

Surveying the current A.I. landscape inspires a strange sort of whiplash. Some professions have already been disrupted by the technology. Coding, in particular, has become more automated. We everyday users are playing with ChatGPT and being bombarded by marketing messages from companies that advertise revolutionary functions but rarely deliver, as with Apple’s 2024 début of the iPhone 16, which was meant to deploy A.I. across the device but has been widely deemed a failure. Meanwhile, more picks and shovels are being sold all the time … [New Yorker]

Interesting.

 

I came into digital computing in the mid-1980s, prior to the WWW. My online world was dial-up, first via Compuserve (1200 baud), and then AOL (2400 baud). Mine was a MSDOS 2.0. 2.1 PC space. Within a few years I morphed into a "'Mac Snob" and pretty much never looked back. I will continue to follow current-day web tech development closely, notwithstanding now being a retired old coot nearing the age of 80. Among other things, I’ve been playing around with ChatGPT 5 lately, “Carbon based LLM” that I am.

 

Also relevant here: 

 

Donald Trump walked into Quantico Tuesday expecting a rally.

He got a funeral.
   

The generals sat in perfect silence, faces locked in the kind of grim stillness that comes from years of watching idiots talk and choosing not to react. Trump, of course, couldn’t handle it. “I’ve never walked into a room so silent before,” he confessed, his voice trembling somewhere between wounded pride and panic. 

Then came the kicker, “If you want to applaud, you applaud.”

This wasn’t leadership. This was a washed-up Vegas act begging the crowd to clap. The Commander-in-Chief turned into the Clapper-in-Chief, reduced to prodding the nation’s top brass like a sad carnival barker who forgot his punchline.

A campaign rally in uniform.

Instead of strategy, Trump delivered his usual medley of grievances: Barack Obama ruined everything, Joe Biden ruined it twice as hard, and only Donald J. Trump, self-proclaimed “two-term, maybe three-term president” could save America. It was less a military briefing than an episode of The Apprentice: Pentagon Edition.

The generals, trained to withstand battlefield chaos, sat stone-faced through the barrage of nonsense. They have endured artillery fire with more enthusiasm.

Enter Pete Hegseth, America’s Pastor-in-Arms. Trump’s “Secretary of War” took the podium with the intensity of a man who thinks Tom Clancy novels are actual military doctrine. He promised “fire and brimstone,” called for purges of “fat generals,” and announced he wants the next war to look exactly like the Gulf War, because apparently it’s still 1991 and CNN is running that same grainy footage of tanks in the desert.

But Hegseth wasn’t done. He led them in prayer. Yes, prayer. The nation’s top generals, summoned by presidential ego, now folded into a forced altar call like extras at a megachurch revival. The separation of church and state? Obliterated. Constitution? Shredded. Jesus, apparently, is now Commander-in-Chief. Trump can play Vice.

Weakness on parade.

Trump likes to brag about firing generals who “aren’t warriors.” But on Tuesday, the real firing squad was silence. Not one clap. Not one cheer. Just the steady hum of contempt vibrating off the brass like feedback from a dead microphone.

These men and women have seen actual combat. They’ve buried soldiers. They’ve lived with the weight of real command. And now they’re expected to cheer for a man who brags about moving “a submarine or two” like it’s a toy in a bathtub, or who lectures about “two N-words” as though nuclear strategy were a stand-up routine.

No wonder they didn’t clap.

The pin-drop presidency.

What happened at Quantico wasn’t just awkward. It was diagnostic. Trump’s presidency is a hollow shell propped up by applause, and when the applause disappears, so does he.

And Hegseth? He’s the zealot-in-chief, delivering sermons about war and Christ in equal measure, a man confusing the Book of Revelation with the Pentagon’s operations manual. Together, they make quite the duo: one desperate for claps, the other desperate for amens.

The generals gave them neither. Instead, they gave silence, the most cutting judgment of all."

 One of my Facebook friencs posted this.

 

Lots of talk about "a new civil war coming" in recent years. I don't think it'll be these Cosplay Militia legend-in-their-own-minds dimbulb types (e.g., below).

 

 

Much more likely to be US Military vs Hegseth "MAGA Military," I would bet.

 

UPDATE: QUESTIONS AFTER QUANTICO

THE SPEECHES ON TUESDAY IN QUANTICO—by Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine, Secretary of Defense (or War, as he would have it) Pete Hegseth, and President Donald Trump—were over in just two hours. But for the generals, admirals, and senior enlisted who left that auditorium and started their long flights home to the Pacific, Europe, and the Middle East, those speeches were just the beginning. Because when Washington speaks—especially when it speaks with bluster, ambiguity, or hostility—it is the commanders who must translate to their troops, steady their units, and respond to the challenges of new orders.

I’ve been that commander. I’ve flown back overnight from Washington to Germany, walked into my headquarters in Heidelberg, and faced staff officers and soldiers who were waiting—not for a policy memo, not for another directive from the Pentagon, but for their commander to tell them what it all meant and to give them implementing instructions…

COMMANDERS WILL STEADY THEIR TROOPS. They will walk the Kasernes, tour the hangars, eat in the mess halls, and show presence. They will listen, reassure, and set a tone of professionalism. They will tell their forces, We still train hard; we still deploy; we still defend the Constitution. 

But commanders cannot hold the line indefinitely against political chaos. Ultimately, soldiers deserve clear, consistent, and lawful guidance from the top. They also deserve leaders in Washington who see them not as props in a political rally but as guardians of the nation’s security.

Our men and women in uniform have given America their youth, their health, their families’ stability, and in too many cases, their lives. They deserve a military that is a shield, not a political tool. They deserve leaders who understand that words spoken in Washington ripple across the globe—to barracks in Bavaria, bases in Okinawa, ships in the Red Sea, and forward operating posts in the desert.

When Washington speaks, commanders must answer. But let’s not forget: Those commanders need a foundation of lawful, principled leadership to stand on, so they can answer the questions of individuals wearing their country’s uniform. Without all of that, we risk turning the world’s most trusted military into just another instrument of political theater. And that is a risk we cannot afford. [Lt. Gen Mark Hertling, Ret.] 

THERE'S MORE

 

...Robert McTague, a retired military officer who did two tours in Iraq, and also served in Kuwait, Qatar, Korea, Croatia, Romania, and Turkey, said that Hegseth "comes across as a bit of a car salesman" in his pitch before top generals from around the world...

 

"I have no freaking idea where he thinks he’s going to get all the money to build these extra platforms he mentioned—more troops (super expensive), more munitions, more drones, more Patriots, more submarines, more B-21 bombers— we’re talking about hundreds of billions of dollars in new expenditures, at least," he wrote...

 

The retired official added, "I think the whole 'we need to be able to kill things' message and tone were misleading, childish, and misguided, with subtle notes of fashy (will to power, y’all) and here’s why: We live in a frighteningly complex world, with layers and layers of things that, no matter how much will and savagery you want to muster, matter.Ignore at your own peril. Ask Bibi."

CODA

 

Seen on "X" posted by "@reeseonable"

I have a lot of friends who are Infantry officers, both active duty & Guard/Reserve. I asked them what they thought about Pete Hegseth’s speech, & honestly, I was a little surprised at the reaction, since the guys on X were so enamored by it. Most of them kind of smirked, snickered, & flat-out called him a “try hard.”

When we dug into it, a lot of it came down to his actions &, more importantly, his qualifications. The big deal breaker was that he never passed Ranger School. Apparently, for Infantry officers, Ranger School is the standard.

I did some research of my own, & they’re right: if an Infantry officer comes out of IBOLC & doesn’t pass Ranger School, it’s a very bad look. It’s one of the most important things you can do for your credibility & your career as an Infantry officer.

It’s the Army’s premier small-unit leadership course & a rite of passage. Passing proves you can endure, lead, & fight under extreme stress. That little black & gold tab opens doors to credibility as a platoon leader, respect from the enlisted ranks, competitive assignments, & promotions.

Don’t get me wrong, if you don’t pass, you can still serve, but it’s a career limiter. In the infantry especially, “tabbed vs. non-tabbed” separates who gets the toughest jobs & who stalls out. Officers without a tab usually end up in less competitive units, carrying the stigma of having failed what’s considered the baseline test for their branch.

Which brings us to Pete Hegseth. He never earned a Ranger tab. (He also never earned Airborne wings or completed Air Assault School or Pathfinder school—& for an Infantry officer, having none of these schools is extremely rare. Most infantry officers push hard to get at least one, if not all of them, b/c those schools are career multipliers & symbols of credibility.

That absence mattered. It meant Hegseth had a ceiling as an infantry officer. Without the tab or badges that define the profession, his promotion prospects in combat arms were always going to be weaker. Soldiers notice. Other officers notice. The Army notices.

So when he talks about the “warrior ethos” or lectures combat-arms Soldiers about standards, remember: he never earned the qualifications that set those standards. And in the infantry world, that isn’t a small detail—it’s everything.

Just sayin…

'eh?

"Disagree better?" Hmmm...

Donald Trump didn't get The Memo.

    

 

Trump posted this to his Truth Social platform at 10:07 pm, Oct. 2nd.

 

apropos, you might find this new book interesting.

 

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • In the spirit of George Carlin and Christopher Hitchens, the son of a former Catholic nun and a Franciscan brother delivers a deeply irreverent and biblically correct takedown of far-right Christian hatred—a book for believers, atheists, agnostics, and anyone who’ll ever have to deal with a Christian nationalist.

For more than two centuries, the United States Constitution has given us the right to a society where church and state exist independently. But Christianity has been hijacked by far-right groups and politicians who seek to impose their narrow views on government, often to justify oppressive and unequal policies. The extremists who weaponize the Bible for earthly power aren’t actually on the side of Jesus—and historically they never have been. How do we fight back against those acting—literally—in bad faith?

Comedian and broadcaster John Fugelsang finally offers the answers. In this informative, perspective-shifting book, Fugelsang takes readers through common fundamentalist arguments on abor­tion, immigration, LGBTQ rights, and more—exposing their hypocrisy and inaccuracy through scripture, common sense, and deeply inappropriate humor. It offers practical tips on how to debate your loved one, coworker, or neighbor on the issues that divide us using that Bible they claim to follow.

But Fugelsang’s message is about more than just taking down hypocrites. It’s about fighting for the love, mercy, and service that are supposed to make up the heart of Christianity. Told with Fugelsang’s trademark blend of radical honesty, comedy, and deep political and religious knowledge, Separation of Church and Hate is the book every American needs today. It’s a rallying cry for compassion and clarity for anyone of any faith who’s sick of religion being used as a cloaking device for hate.

Painfully funny.

 

See my priors on "Christian Nationalism." 

 

THE LATE CHARLIE KIRK ON "TRUTH" 

Last year, George Janko, a comedian and social-media influencer, hosted the conservative activist Charlie Kirk on his podcast. Kirk had been building his reputation as an imperious, right-wing avenger on college campuses, debating anyone willing to step up to the microphone to challenge him. Janko asked Kirk if he ever felt guilty about “annihilating some child” during those appearances. Kirk admitted that he did feel badly, on occasion, if it seemed as if he was “being unjust.” He did not elaborate on what he meant by this, and Janko failed to press him on the matter or his incendiary statements concerning Black people, the L.G.B.T.Q. community, and other groups, but, as Kirk saw it, the problem on college campuses was that “the entire institution”—he seemed to be speaking generally—was “in contradiction with God’s law.” Kirk said that it was important to remember that “Christ is all grace and all truth,” gesturing with his hands to his left and right, as if to emphasize their two-way relationship. As a result, Kirk said, if he was “contesting in the public arena for truth,” and his words angered someone, he wasn’t being disobedient to the teachings of Christ. He maintained that it was his responsibility, as a Christian, to “correct error with truth.”

"Disagree Better?"

"Disagree better?"

In the wake of the horrific Charlie Kirk murder.

   

DisagreeBetter.us

  

KHIT priors: "Civility?" "Influence?" "Deliberation?" "Conflict?" "Evidence?"

 

They cut to the chase fairly nicely.

Disagree Better by How You Speak

• Write down three things you admire about someone you disagree with.
• Identify an opinion or perspective you hold and research the opposing perspective.
• Invite someone with a different viewpoint to coffee or lunch.
• Share a positive story about someone you disagree with on social media.
• Share a book or article that helped you understand a different perspective.
• Send a text to someone you’ve had a disagreement with, expressing appreciation for their perspective.
• Write a thank-you note to a community leader of a different political party.
• Attend a cultural or religious event outside your own tradition.
• Avoid sharing inflammatory or divisive content online.
• Help a neighbor with a task, regardless of their political or social views.
• Organize a neighborhood cleanup or potluck.

Disagree Better by What You Say

• "I respect your opinion, even though I don’t share it. Let’s keep talking.”
• "I see your point, and I’d like to share my perspective as well."
• "That’s an interesting perspective—can you tell me how you arrived at that view?"
• "Thank you for sharing that with me. I learned something from you today.”
• "I appreciate your passion on this topic—it’s clear you care deeply."
• "I hear what you’re saying, and I’d like to offer another way of looking at it."
• "I could be wrong."
• "I respect your opinion, even though I don’t share it. Let’s keep talking."
• "I hadn’t considered that angle—thank you for bringing it up."
• "Let’s agree to disagree on this, but I value the conversation we’re having."

Disagree Better by How You Think

• Avoid making assumptions about someone’s motives.

• Ask about the why behind the opinion or belief. What led someone to believe what they believe?
Be curious.
• 
Look for values you have in common.

• Consider that someone else might be able to teach you something (you might be wrong).

• Your opinions are what you think, not who you are—same for the person across from you.

• See disagreement as an opportunity to expand your thinking, not a threat to your identity.
• 
Respect opinions.
Focus on finding some common ground in a disagreement – what can you agree on?

Disagree Better by How You Listen

• Listen to understand.
• Commit to listening more than speaking in your next conversation.
• Challenge yourself to avoid interrupting during a discussion.
• Practice active listening by summarizing what the other person said before responding.
• Learn about how to increase your listening and conversational skills through partner resources and courses.

Disagree Better by What You Do

• Avoid making assumptions about someone’s motives.
• 
Ask about the why behind the opinion or belief. What led someone to believe what they believe?
Be curious.
• Look for values you have in common.

• Consider that someone else might be able to teach you something (you might be wrong).

• Your opinions are what you think, not who you are—same for the person across from you.
• 
See disagreement as an opportunity to expand your thinking, not a threat to your identity.
• 
Respect opinions.
Focus on finding some common ground in a disagreement – what can you agree on? 

PROBLEM #1:

THERE IS NO 1ST-PERSON SINGULAR PRESENT-TENSE USAGE OF THE WORD "WRONG"

 

No one ever says "I AM wrong."

 

And, how about this?

WHEN YOU THINK ABOUT the individual genetic and developmental differences that impact the sensory portions of our nervous systems, it’s remarkable that we can agree on a shared reality at all. You’ll recall that 30 percent of the four hundred or so olfactory receptor genes are functionally different when comparing two random individuals. That’s the first step of the sense of smell, before we even consider individual differences in the brain circuits that process that information or the ways in which those brain circuits are changed by experience. Due to these innate and learned differences in smell and taste perception, my integrated flavor experience of Barolo wine or Cheez Whiz is not exactly the same as yours.

Crucially, these individual differences in perception are present for all sensory systems, not just smell and taste. My red is not necessarily your red, my G-minor chord is not your G-minor chord, and my chilly bedroom is not your chilly bedroom. This individual variation doesn’t hold just for those senses that point outward, but also for those that point inward and inform us about the state of our bodies. In this spirit, my sensation of a full stomach is not your sensation of a full stomach and my ten-degree leftward tilt of the head is not your ten-degree leftward tilt of the head. Each of us operates from a different perception of the world and a different perception of ourselves.

A portion of the individual variation in sensory systems is innate. But those innate effects are elaborated and magnified with time as we accumulate experiences, expectations, and memories, filtered through and in turn modifying those very same sensory systems. In this way, the interacting forces of heredity, experience, plasticity, and development resonate to make us unique. Unique: the new science of human individuality / David J. Linden. New York: Basic Books, 2020. Pg 253.

ONE MORE FOR NOW

Because of livewiring, we are each a vessel of space and time. We drop into a particular spot on the world and vacuum in the details of that spot. We become, in essence, a recording device for our moment in the world. 

When you meet an older person and feel shocked by the opinions or worldview she holds, you can try to empathize with her as a recording device for her window of time and her set of experiences. Someday your brain will be that time-ossified snapshot that frustrates the next generation. 

Here’s a nugget from my vessel: I remember a song produced in 1985 called “We Are the World.” Dozens of superstar musicians performed it to raise money for impoverished children in Africa. The theme was that each of us shares responsibility for the well-being of everyone. 

Looking back on the song now, I can’t help but see another interpretation through my lens as a neuroscientist. We generally go through life thinking there’s me and there’s the world. But as we’ve seen in this book, who you are emerges from everything you’ve interacted with: your environment, all of your experiences, your friends, your enemies, your culture, your belief system, your era—all of it. Although we value statements such as “he’s his own man” or “she’s an independent thinker,” there is in fact no way to separate yourself from the rich context in which you’re embedded. There is no you without the external. Your beliefs and dogmas and aspirations are shaped by it, inside and out, like a sculpture from a block of marble. Thanks to livewiring, each of us is the world.  Eagleman, David. Livewired: The Inside Story of the Ever-Changing Brain (p. 245). (Function). Kindle EditioN,

More in a bit...

Something uplifting for a change.

A Facebook friend of mine posted this.

 

Meet Blue and Rusty, two fragile little souls left behind in an empty field, shivering and clinging to each other for days as they tried to survive. They couldn't understand why they were cold, hungry, and so very alone.

When I found them, they were curled up inside a broken crate, soaked and silent. 

Their eyes said everything, confusion, fear, and a quiet plea for help. Now they sit side by side in my car, still tense, still uncertain. What they don't yet realize is that we're driving toward something they've never truly had before: home.

Home means safety. A warm bed. Sunshine in the backyard.

Brothers and sisters to play with. Food, water, gentleness, and love. The fear in their eyes will take time to fade, but that's alright.

Because this time, they're not abandoned. 

This time, they're safe.

This time, they're home.

—Nancy Marlow

My wife and I have been stray rescue magnets for a half-century.

"A CALL FOR VIOLENCE?"

Today, I choose violence. Literally.
GEOFFREY INGERSOLL
EDITOR AT LARGE Daily Caller

I know calls for violence are generally frowned upon. The issue is … I simply don’t care.

Part of the social compact in this country going all the way back to its founding there are simply some things you do not do. When you do those things, well, you might just end up with a few extra knots in your head.

Thus, the title of today’s newsletter … 
 
A CALL FOR VIOLENCE

It’s all about cost, and the cost is not high enough.

In some places, the cost is nonexistent. We need to reinstitute a public debt for anti-social and subversive behavior. In my opinion, some of this cost needs to be summary and ultra-violent.

Is this a call for violence? Yes. Explicitly it is.

The law is not enough. Or, it’s non-existent. Somewhere deep down inside we’ve always known no one is coming to help us. We need to help ourselves.q 

It reminds me a bit of this old bar fight story from good ol’ Teddy. Sometimes bullies require immediate and overwhelming force.

"It was late in the evening when I reached the place. I heard one or two shots in the bar-room as I came up, and I disliked going in. But there was nowhere else to go, and it was a cold night. Inside the room were several men, who, including the bartender, were wearing the kind of smile worn by men who are making believe to like what they don't like. A shabby individual in a broad hat with a cocked gun in each hand was walking up and down the floor talking with strident profanity. He had evidently been shooting at the clock, which had two or three holes in its face. ...As soon as he saw me he hailed me as 'Four Eyes,' in reference to my spectacles, and said, 'Four Eyes is going to treat.' I joined in the laugh and got behind the stove and sat down, thinking to escape notice. He followed me, however, and though I tried to pass it off as a jest this merely made him more offensive, and he stood leaning over me, a gun in each hand, using very foul language... In response to his reiterated command that I should set up the drinks, I said, 'Well, if I've got to, I've got to,' and rose, looking past him. As I rose, I struck quick and hard with my right just to one side of the point of his jaw, hitting with my left as I straightened out, and then again with my right. He fired the guns, but I do not know whether this was merely a convulsive action of his hands, or whether he was trying to shoot at me. When he went down he struck the corner of the bar with his head... if he had moved I was about to drop on my knees; but he was senseless. I took away his guns, and the other people in the room, who were now loud in their denunciation of him, hustled him out and put him in the shed." [Text excerpt describing Theodore Roosevelt’s barroom confrontation in Mingusville, Montana Territory, from An Autobiography (1913).]

They “hustled him out and put him in the shed.” Ah yes, Teddy knew how to deal with bullies.

Thursday bothered me a bit, on two fronts. One is that Comey got indicted, and the reaction was predictably unhinged. I’m not going to unpack the case, it seems clear he lied to Congress. An Eastern District of Virginia grand jury, hardly a bastion of conservatism, returned an indictment. Just like they did over censorship and Kimmel’s firing, amnesiac liberals squealed about political perversion of the Department of Justice.

Steven Bannon went to prison for four months. It wasn’t even that long ago and he wasn’t even the only one. All he did was defy a congressional subpoena. Democracy will survive if James Comey spends time in jail for lying to Congress to cover up a subversive conspiracy to undermine Trump. 

Let’s do Fauci next, how about that? He definitely lied to Congress too. Then let’s investigate Ilhan Omar, AOC, Barack Obama, and everyone in Clinton world. Let’s put Biden world through the wringer. I’m freshly out of shits.

Truth be told I don’t even care if Comey or Fauci end up in jail. As long as the arrest and adjudication process absolutely ruins them.

I also don’t care if Democrats turn around and do the same thing to Republicans. The GOP is full of morally bankrupt, lying elites too. Swamp creatures, profiteers, unpatriotic turncoats, transactional voters in the Senate. 

Let’s purge them.

If this is the new normal, I’ll take it. Your squeals are music to me. They are the soundtrack of nature healing.

There should be a cost. For the lies, for taking the American people for granted, for selling them out at every end. For bullying them nonstop. Let’s reinstitute the cost.

Moving past the legal “violence,” let’s get to the actual violence, shall we?
Alvin Bragg’s office dismissed a felony assault charge yesterday. That shouldn’t be a shock to anyone — nobody is more renowned for soft on violent crime prosecutions than Bragg. What is shocking though is in this particular case the act was caught on film. What’s more, the assailant then went on social media and bragged about doing it.

Pro-life advocate Savannah Craven Antao was doing a man-on-the-street video in Harlem, New York, when she was abruptly and viciously assaulted by a woman she was interviewing.

Brianna J. Rivers, a brutish, hulking woman, socked Antao in the face twice the moment she was distracted.

This is dead-to-rights felony aggravated assault. It should result in prison time and probation.

Prosecutors initially downgraded the charge to a misdemeanor, then dismissed the charges altogether.

And the message couldn’t be clearer.

The message is clear: In liberal jurisdictions, it’s open season on assaulting conservatives. https://t.co/VfSHQV1l3h

— Geoffrey Ingersoll (@GPIngersoll) September 26, 2025

How do we fix this? In corrupt legal scenarios, where the judges, prosecutors and even police are all a part of a rigged system, what do we do?

Choose violence.

We all know the government is not going to help you in your time of need. Especially a Soros-sponsored government.

Conservatives looking to peacefully assemble and publicly debate need to be realistic. Nobody is going to help you. In fact, they’re going to encourage violence. They’re going to excuse, justify and encourage it.

We saw as much with Charlie Kirk. They were practically begging someone to go after him, and when someone did, they quickly justified it.

Well, I think now that we know the extent of it, the time to go as lambs to the slaughter is OVER.

In real terms, this means: Bring security with you that’s dying to dole out drubbings. I’m sure a fair amount of ex-cons who found Jesus loved Charlie Kirk. Maybe they need work?

Whatever works. We need to reinstitute the cost. 

So some activist takes the sign next to your table at a public debate, like what happened here? She gets instantly clotheslined. I don’t care if police are present. Do it anyway. In fact, be wildly disproportionate.

A fat black lady assaults your on-camera talent? Book the kind of security that has no qualms hospitalizing her and people like her.

Dudes rope up your car and start vandalizing it? Bros dismounting with cudgels will fix that real quick. Turn it into an instant brawl. Break bones.
Force corrupt police to intervene. I want blood in the streets.

Speaking of costs, such a posture is indeed costly. It’ll cost money, firstly. Security isn’t cheap. It’d likely cost about $1,000 a day for just two guys. It’ll also come at a social cost, and a legal cost. Bragg might not prosecute militant liberals, but he’ll certainly take a conservative organization to court if his street brutes are harmed.

But you know what else isn’t cheap? The social compact in America. It comes at a cost. If patriots aren’t willing to step up and bear the burden, our people will continue to be harassed, assaulted, even killed with impunity.

What’s clear to me in these two examples is that liberals believe they have a monopoly on both legal and extra-legal acts of violence. They don’t. We need to show them they don’t.

We must stop clutching our principles and shouting “stop.” They own the legal system. That will achieve nothing. We need action. Disproportionate. Violent. Action.

Pain and suffering.

We need to raise the cost of obviating the social contract. Measure it in blood if necessary. Change requires pain, and you’re either taking it or inflicting it.

I know which side I’m on, and I’m more than ready to start putting people in the shed.

Another faux Tough Guy MAGA cosplay militia poseur? Nothing new, really.

 

Dawg, your clinical delusions of grandeur remain covered under Obamacare. 

 

____ 

Let’s do Fauci next, how about that?

 

At times, I am deeply disturbed about the state of our society. But it is not so much about an impending public health disaster. It is about the crisis of truth in my country and to some extent throughout the world, which has the potential to make these disasters so much worse. We are living in an era in which information that is patently untrue gets repeated enough times that it becomes part of our everyday dialogue and starts to sound true and in a time in which lies are normalized and people invent their own set of facts. We have seen complete fabrications become some people’s accepted reality.

This is not a new paradigm. Propaganda—turning words and ideas into weapons—no doubt started thousands of years ago, and we have seen it used to devastating effect many times within the life span of this country as well as over the course of world history. We have seen how easy it is to undermine the foundations of our democracy and of the social order. What is new is the dizzying pace at which information gets disseminated and amplified on the internet and through social media, disorienting and dividing us as a nation.

These divisions did not come out of nowhere, and they will not go away overnight, because they are set in the minds of so many people. It is why I am putting my hope in the young people I encounter around the country and the world.

Which brings me to the next chapter in my life. When I decided to step down from my position as director of NIAID, I asked myself what I could do over the next few years while I am still filled with passion and energy and blessed with good health. The answer came to me quickly and clearly: to share my experiences with the world and particularly the younger generation where I might serve as an example and hopefully an inspiration for some to pursue a life serving others not only in the field of medicine and science but in any of a number of career paths that one might choose. This was my main motivation in writing this memoir.

It was also the reason I was delighted to accept the offer of Georgetown’s president, Jack DeGioia, to become a Distinguished University Professor at the School of Medicine and the McCourt School of Public Policy, where I can have daily contact with the bright and inquisitive minds on the Georgetown campus.

In the year since I stepped down as NIAID director, I have had the opportunity to lecture and engage in fireside chats and moderated discussions throughout the country. What became even more clear to me was something I already knew: that the diversity in our country in its myriad forms—geographic, economic, cultural, racial, ethnic, and political—makes us an attractive and great country. It is when this diversity gives way to divisiveness that society suffers. I have always been a cautious optimist, and I hope that the better angels in all of us, who tell us that we are more alike than different, will prevail and lead to a spirit of civility and respect for each other... [from the Epilogue]

Jeffery Ingersoll, son, we are not impressed.

____

 

OUR SECRETARY OF WAR

 

 

What is he planning for the 30th?

 

OH, YEAH, PORTLAND?

 

Dr. Anthony Fauci

This begins our 3rd season of attendance. Cheryl got an email apprising us of potential lengthy admission delays owing to enhanced security measures in the wake of myriad ongoing death threats aimed at Dr. Fauci.

 

We arrived well in advance of our usual time. The long line was already shuffling around the entire opera house property. Rain ensued.

 

When we finally got to the entrance, TSA airport-style measures were in place: your pockets emptied and placed on tables aside full-body scanners, with additional wanding for those who set off the scanners.

 

Inside, groups of armed Baltimore County Sheriffs Deparment tactical officers stood about, Kevlar'ed up.

 

All pretty surreal.

 

 

Start time was delayed. Sold out crowd.

 

Dr. Fauci was magnificent. You owe it to yourself to read his memoir.

 

 

"Public Health" expenditures comprise less than 3% of the total U.S. healthcare spend. The bang for the buck is in fact dispositive. Yet...

 

THEN, FRIDAY MORNING, I ARISE TO THIS STUPID STUFF

 

 

 

WTF? “TAKE HEPATITAS B SHOT AT 12 YEARS OLD, OR OLDER”

 

My late elder daughter, Sissy, was born in 1968 with undetected congenital Hepatitis-B. Her birth mother turned out to be an asymptomatic Hep-B carrier. I noted in 1997 at the outset of Sissy’s fatal cancer illness:

...Dr. Wren informed us that Sissy was positive for hepatitis-B (HBV), that it was likely congenital—passed on to her by her mother (my ex-wife)—and that it had surely caused her cancer. Given the HCC latency period of 20-30 years, any other explanation—such as picking up HBV during adolescence that could lead to cancer a mere decade hence—was highly unlikely.

This was baffling. Wouldn't it also have been passed on to others in the family, as it had not been? No, Dr. Wren insisted, sexual and/or in-utero transmission, while frequent, would not be inevitable. Sissy, however, had to have been born with hepatitis-B. Nothing else fit.

Subsequent family blood tests would provide both relief and agonizing confirmation. Sissy's stepmother, my partner of two decades, tested negative—as expected, given her years-long ongoing participation in thoroughly screened blood and platelet donation drives. Our son (Sissy's half-brother) also tested negative. Danielle—Sissy's direct sibling—on the other hand, tested positive for HBV antibody (indicating exposure to hepatitis-B), supporting Dr. Wren's assessment of congenital transmission. Finally, my assay; it would throw me into a black funk from which I have yet to recover.

While in Baltimore in early June of 1967, a year before Sissy was born, I retired one night feeling ill and awoke to acute flu-like aches and nausea accompanied by flaming orange eyeballs, yellow skin, and a rash not unlike that generated by poison ivy. Doctors at John Hopkins University Medical Center diagnosed my condition as "acute infectious hepatitis-A." Probably contracted, they mused, during my stay the prior month in Sacramento, California, where U.S. soldiers returning from Vietnam were found to be rapidly spreading the readily-transmitted disease.

I recovered quickly, and thought little more of it, except for the recurrent mild discomfort of always having to reveal my 1967 bout of hepatitis"A" during subsequent medical, dental, or insurance exams. Providers and underwriters obviously paid the matter equally little heed, for no adverse findings ever emerged. My hepatic and serological data during twenty-odd years of ensuing physicals were uniformly stellar.

"No, you had it, but got over it" my physician explained. It had indeed been hepatitis-B, not "A" that I'd experienced nearly three decades earlier. The assays weren't all that precise back then, she observed. Nowadays we can discriminate between viral strains  "A" through "G."

Oh, dear God. Was it me? But...

My therapist would hence recommend that perhaps a grant of self "absolution" was in order: that who "gave" HBV to whom prior to Sissy's conception was probably unanswerable—and was undeniably irrelevant to the task at hand. Yes, but there is somehow scant solace in such counsel...

Had Sissy gotten an HBV vaccination at birth she would likely still be alive today. Donald Trump, go to Hell.

____ 

 

AND, OH, YEAH,  DIFFERENT BOZO TOPIC:
HOW ABOUT THIS BEAUT?

 

 

Next Tuesday? Isn't that Federal Govt Shutdown day?

 

CODA 

I guess we'll see.