It is mid January and winter has returned. I woke this morning to a fresh mantle of pure snow. It is lovely but a nasty reminder that we are in the very heart of our annual season of cold and dark. Oh well, just about two months til Spring. So, while waiting, a few random thoughts.

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Cognitive and Cultural Ghettos: We are certainly aware of the hyper-segmentation that exists in society. Before neo-conservative thought idolized wealth and consequently dismantled the mechanisms that restrained greed to some extent, the psychic and physical chasms between the uber-rich the rest of us regular folk was less daunting. If nothing else, you might sit in the same stands with the wealthy during a football game.

No longer, the privileged are now sequestered in their private cocoons atop multi-billion dollar stadiums. They fly to the games of their choice in private jets while enjoying the final leg of any journey in a lavishly appointed limousine. After the game, they will be whisked away to private soirees available to the select few. 

Even the players on the field, some at least, exist in rarified, isolated worlds. I noticed an ex Wisconsin football player getting hurt during a recent NFL playoff game. He is an obscure lineman, a player most casual fans would not recognize. I googled him and found he is making $10 million per year.

When I first started following sports, pro football players had to take jobs in the off season to get by. They drank in the same bars as regular folk. Now they are royalty. They reside among the very rich with little association or contact with the rest of us. Increasingly, we are a tribal society, with distinct groups living in very separate worlds.

Then, it struck me. Am I any different? I choose to live in Wisconsin. For many years, my late wife and I wintered in Florida where we had a second home. When she became sick, and we chose a single residence. I could have chosen our place in the Sunshine State as a full time abode. But that would mean living in a red state with people who actually believe that Donald Trump cares about the common man or, worse, that he is some kind of modern day messiah. How could anyone live among such cognitively diminished folk. Really!

Wisconsin, you might protest, did vote for Trump a couple of times. True enough, but I live in Madison … a liberal island of sanity. In recent elections, the county generally has gone Democratic by about an 80 to 20 margin. In my condo association, which is populated by retired, highly educated professionals (doctors, lawyers, engineers, academics, etc.), it is very difficult to find anyone who does not despise Trump and the MAGA movement. The word despise hardly begins to match their level of disgust.

My point is that I am a most willing participant in our increasingly segregated society, not by race or even wealth but by profession and education and beliefs. I simply don’t want to be around people who cannot think analytically, who are incapable of connecting the simplest dots, and whose definition of ‘evidence’ is the palaver issued on Fox News or similar right-wing podcasts. I can’t  discuss serious matters with those who believed that Q-anon nonsense about Hillary running a pedophile ring out of pizza shops. OMG!

I want to associate with those who believe in diversity, civility, compassion, and science. I want to be surrounded by those who read deeply, think about issues on a profound level, and embrace the notion that life is more than collecting riches and power. Perhaps I am contributing to the tribal isolationism that marks contemporary society. So be it. I am old and probably deserve a bit of piece in my final years. Besides, arguing with idiots who spout the latest conspiracy theory being pushed by Q-Anon would surely hasten my end.

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Moral licensing: The common definition of moral licensing involves the psychological phenomenon where positive behavior gives one permission to be bad. To me, this is a bit like the way the Catholic Church once operated. You could buy (or earn) indulgences which would offset past and even future sins. What a deal! Not everyone was convinced that this was kosher, though. One priest, Martin Luther, remained skeptical of the practice resulting in the Protestant reformation.

But I think another meaning might apply to the notion of moral licensing. Behaviors, once considered appalling, unethical, and illegal become sanctioned by authority figures. Often, the process is gradual. For example, the Nazis in 1930s Germany did not immediately start with the wholesale extermination of targeted populations. They started more slowly, gradually pulling people into their horrific vision.

They first permitted segregation and institutional discrimination. Then, over time and in the face of scant opposition, they moved to extermination on a limited scale. They started this phase with a population that could not defend themselves … the developmentally disabled or those who were considered  to be non- contributors to society.

As traditional moral constraints weakened, the level of heinous atrocities increased. Eventally, German society as a whole, once known for its sophistication and high culture, embraced genocide on an industrial scale, decimating Jews, Romanis, and many Slavic groups.  Permission to be cruel eventually evolved into mass slaughter. When modest expressions of hate were sanctioned, extreme steps became feasible, if not welcome.

In recent years, America has embarked on a similar path. One might say re-embarked given that Blacks were once lynched with impunity throughout the south. But even these moral transgressions were largely ignored outside the South and not widely encouraged by national authorities. 

Today, something quite similar to the Nazi escalation of moral degeneration is being seen.  Donald Trump is training a federal goons squad to hunt down and persecute people of the wrong color and those who speak the wrong language. He is beginning an ersatz genocide of the country’s Latino population, rounding up non citizens and citizens alike at the discretion of his hired thugs. His call to Make America Great Again is little more than a vision of restoring a white European hegemony over the nation’s culture and politics.

In short, ICE is being trained as the new Gestapo, or SS, or the original brownshirts in Germany and Blackshirts in Mussolini’s Italy. They ignore our 4th Amendment Constitutional protections as they invade homes, schools, and businesses without probable cause nor warrants in many cases. They offer their victims little to no due process while frantically building camps to house the thousands being rounded up. Just how closely do Trump’s actions have to resemble Hitler’s before one admits that history is repeating itself.

Trump is giving a moral license to a group of federal agents to act without regard to the law, to our Constitution, or to any moral constraints. Why would he do such a thing? It seems clear to me, at least. Trump, and the minions around him who are dedicated to completing the 2025 Agenda have no intention of giving up power, no matter the will of the people. They are dedicated to creating an authoritarian state and retaining power by any means at their disposal.

My best guess. Trump’s minions will foment some crises that will be used to suspend our normal rules and Constitutional safeguards when he finally faces consequences for grossly mismanaging the nation. He will let loose his new Fascist thugs, the ICE brigade supported by other loyal followers, to intimidate the opposition in the 2026 mid-term elections if not before. Hitler did after the Reischtag fire in 1933. It was the end of the Weimar Republic and that country’s descent into darkness. Perhaps 2026 will be remembered as America’s final descent into the abyss.

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Patriotism … a dirty word: Recently, I was reflecting on the concept of patriotism. My interest has been fostered by the many political solicitations from Republican operatives that typically start with the salutation of Dear Patriot. That seems innocent enough but I find myself reacting with distinct disgust. I am not one of those… I am better than that, I say to myself.

But isn’t being a patriot a good thing? Isn’t that the very identity which was drummed into us kids after WWII and during the cold war. I recall saluting our flag during recitation of the pledge of allegiance at the start of each school day. I remember being bombarded with all the myths about our moral position in global affairs even as we sided with various right-wing authoritarians because they were on our side.

Despite the constant propoganda about how enlightened we were, I apparently had reservations … even from an early age. The very concept of national identity seemed backward to me, primitive in a way. Weren’t we all part of a global family. Wasn’t fidelity to the fatherland merely an excuse to treat others poorly? Wasn’t it merely a rationale for egregious self-interest? Wasn’t it merely an excuse to ignore apocalyptic threats to our fragile host planet?

As I have mentioned elsewhere, I joined something called the World Federalist Society, purportedly a bunch of one world idealists. It was more of an emotional response back then, one perhaps rooted in other lessons from my early days. We had just finished a conflict of global proportions. Some 50 to 70 million had perished, depending on how you count things. And why? Because average people thought they had to slaughter others for the sake of national pride. How  stupid is that?

I can never forget the story of what happened on the front lines in France during WWI. It was Christmas in 1914, the first year of the war. Somehow, during a temporary truce, troops from each side met in no-mans land. They sang Christmas songs, exchanged gifts, and even played a brief football (soccer) game. Those charged with killing one another, for a moment at least, treated each other as brothers. That amity ended when high-level officers on both sides forced their troops back into their own trenches. The slaughter would begin anew and 20 million eventually would lose their lives.

So yes, I am revolted by being called a patriot. I would have the same reaction no matter which country I called home. It is a matter of perspective. National pride pales against what really counts … our future as a species attempting to survive and evolve in a vast and mysterious cosmos.