What would I have done,
in the 1930s in Germany,
when Facism came to power?
Our democracy is in the greatest peril since the Constitution was written. A few quotes are appropriate.
Attributed to philosopher John Stuart Mill: Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.
A similar quote is attributed to Edmund Burk: The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
Trump and the current Congress is outright working to destroy democracy. Very unfortunately, the majority of the Supreme Court is choosing to help him. They certainly are not opposing him. So, I ask you, dear reader, select something you might do to help preserve democracy, then, please, DO IT.
Trump does not have the mental capacity to understand the needs, obligations and responsibilities of the office he holds. This was obvious to careful observers during his first term, and blatantly obvious now. There is a high probability that he will issue illegal orders to the military in the near future. (He already has. Ordering the military to engage in law enforcement within civilian populations is illegal.) The leaders of our military need to prepare for this. Right now. (Note, there is a major caveat below.)
The president does not issue commands directly to the members of the military. He goes to the top, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the JCS. This committee is composed of the top leaders of each branch of the military. They accept his commands and enact them.
However, the orders of the president are subject to restrictions. He is bound to act within the confines
of the U.S. Constitution. (Trump does not understand his oath to the Constitution, but that is another
very related story.) Further, all members of the military, from top to bottom, do indeed have the duty
to disobey unlawful orders. Readers can look this up but here is one web page:
https://www.militarydefense.com/military-personnel-must-know-the-limits-of-lawful-orders/
Unlawful presidential orders are not likely to make it down to the lower ranks. The top ranks must deal with such orders. And given that Trump is incapable of truly fulfilling that office, they need to be prepared. And if they have not already done so, they need to prepare now. I do presume they have already done so. Especially after the horrid presentations given by Trump and Hegseth at Quantico. BUT, things of this magnitude should not be taken for granted.
To this end I have written to each of the members of the JCS. I have asked them to explicitly
consider what they might do in the event that Trump violates his oath and the Constitution and gives
the military unlawful orders. That letter has been posted on this site here in Microsoft Word and as a PDF.
JSC Unlawful Orders.docx
JSC Unlawful Orders.pdf
One letter was sent to each member of the JCS. Finding what appears to be a definitive list and
postal addresses was a bit more difficult than expected, so my list is here.
JSC Members.docx
JSC Members.pdf
Please consider writing your own letters to each member of the JCS.
Now for that caveat. Discussions about unlawful orders should be, and to my knowledge, have long been, topics for discussion among the military. Long before Trump. But, if Trump or Hegseth learn about such current conversations, they may well declare that those conversations are disloyal to them and take drastic action. Military officers serve at the “… pleasure of the President of the United States.” Trump might go so far as to fire every officer who engaged in such a conversation. Then when the top military brass is down to sycophants, we are in far worse trouble than now.
Which, in my opinion, is much worse than the majority of the population realizes.
There are many reasons why a third party will not be successful in the United States. Elon Musk's
attempt at a third party has gained little traction and is very unlikely to succeed. The
reasons are complex and deep. An excellent web site presenting the case for a two party system
is found here
https://www.2partyparty.org/
The site name is there so you will know where you are going.
If you want to jump to a specific topic, this page lists the pages of the web site
https://www.mbkelly.net/politics/2partypages.htm
Please take a few minutes to read it. Well, it will take quite a bit more than a few minutes.
I know the author, but, see no mention of their name so I’ll take the hint and not publish it.. On that web page click the Contact Us button at the bottom to get in contact with them.
A major problem for me is exactly what to do to help ensure that our democracy does not perish in the next few years.
The 2partyparty site just mentioned suggests the concept of creating Candidate Interview Committees. The scope might range from local city and county elections and out to state wide elections to include governor, senators and Representatives. For each committee the members are to approach and interview the candidates for a particular elected office and discover what the candidates really want to accomplish in office. What policies do they want to implement? Then the committees make a recommendation, based on the facts of what each candidates wants and offers, and presents their findings to the public.
A nice committee size might be six with two each Democrats, Republicans, and independents. A difficult part will be to find Republicans and Democrats who are receptive to the idea that members of the other party may have valid ideas and positions. Avoiding radicals on either side will be difficult, but critical.
A long term role of the committee can be to monitor the actions of the elected official and compare their in-office behavior with their campaign promises. This aspect will be much longer term, but may have greater effects than only a pre-election evaluation.
Products created and modified by AI are causing problems. Too many people are changing images and video to tell a false story. Some use AI to create false pornographic pictures of innocent people, sometimes to devasting effects. There is a relatively simple and easy way to mitigate much of this. All AI applications are required to mark any product they create or modify as being a product of AI. All images, still or video, must contain an icon showing it was created or modified by AI. All documents, on or in any type media must be clearly marked. Please find some additional details here: Mark As AI
First, the vote on this ruling. The majority consisted of: Chief Justice John G. Roberts, and Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett.
In opposition was the minority consisting of: Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Jackson.
The SCOTUS immunity ruling has been described as an extremely bad ruling. But it was not an absolute win. Many are writing up Constitutional Amendments to reverse this ruling. That is a high hurdle.
The suggestion is now made that an amendment is not required. Here are some reasons. The ruling is a bit vague. It is quite unreasonable to grant immunity for action before that action has taken place. It is not possible to create a law that is sufficiently broad and precise for this purpose.
The remedy is a relatively simple law. If any government official claims immunity from possible violation of any law, hold a trial for the sole purpose of determining if there is grounds for the claim of immunity. If the trial decides there is no immunity, then a trial may be conducted for the alleged violations.
This is presented in some detail here: https://mbkelly.net/politics/legal_immunity.htm Legal Immunity
There have been quite a number of town hall meetings for elected Republicans, none good for the Republicans. But, these meetings may not be as advantageous as we might hope. The meetings show our rage, but I suspect do little to our advantage. We can do better. We need to skip the outrage and organize our responses. Please read more about this Damper on Outrage
Much has been said about corporate taxes and how little tax many of the larger corporations pay. Here are some very simple suggestions for laws that might ensure more fair taxes for corporations, meaning more fair to the government and to average citizens. Please have a look here and see what you think. Comments and improvement suggestions will be greatly appreciated.
A new page has been added presenting some proposals for constitutional amendments.
One quite important topic is what might be done when the Supreme Court is wrong.
This is not a new topic as noted by the Anti-Federalists and this specific web page:
here
Further, adding methods to correct the Supreme Court will require an amendment to the Consitition.
Anything less can simply be declared unconstitutional by the Court.
Please visit that page for additional thoughts on needed amendments. here
All that I previously wrote about Constitutional Amendments is, as of Feb 2025, no longer relevant for current thoughts and events. With the Republicans in office, in the majority of both houses, and with their outright goal of the destruction of democracy, amendments simply will not happen. That said, if our democracy survives, the need for some of these amendments will not only remain and be valid, but far more important. This work needs to be continued.
We, meaning this country, are at a fork in the road. Well, we are always at multiple forks
in our roads, but this one is rather more ominous. The fork of concern is a multi-path
fork. A few paths lead us and keep us on the several paths of democracy. (There is not
a single path of democracy, not a single path that destroies democracy.) Several of them depart
that path of democracy and take us places we do not want to go. Please read that essay here:
Our Fork In The Road
Politics seems to be composed, in large part, of conflict. This is not a new trend but
can be seen in almost all history of politics. This essay about Socrates reflects upon
the conflicts present in his time that continue to rage today. The conflict then?
Conservatives versus Liberals / Progressives
Please read about how this conflict worked out in the time of Socrates
here
A new page is under development, the heading says it all. We, meaning the citizens of
these United States, have a significant cadre of dangerous people holding political office.
In Jan 2023 the politics section of these pages was modified with great worries about the
political state of these United States. In March 2025, the situation has become nothing
but much worse.
This page is definitely short and lacking. There is a significant list of people to add.
More will be added as I can.
That page is
Dangerous People In Office
The political battles of the day can be loosely, very loosely, divided into a cultural
clash: conservatives -vs- liberals/progressive. This is not a new conflict. Indeed,
it is as old as politics. Yes, it really is that old. Some of this conflict came to a
head during the age we now call The Enlightenment. The conflict was not
resolved then, it continues today, but huge, and hopefully irrevocable, steps were taken.
Steven Pinker wrote a book dedicated to those concepts:
“Enlightenment Now, The Case For Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress”
This essay is titled after the era of the same name. Please read the essay here:
The Enlightenment
Update: It is now clear that the gains of The Enlightenment are not irrevocable. Indeed,
there is quite a list of politicians who are, today, striving to reverse those gains.
The best, and maybe only way to prevent that, is to understand what "The Enlightenment"
was and what it means today.
We have all heard the old saw stating you are not allowed to shout fire in a crowded theatre. Its still true. But, some elaboration is needed. We need to bring this up to date in our ever more connected world. We need to establish and implement some actual rules about this bad behavior. The essay is here
Over the last two years we have written over 1000 letters and postcards to elected officials and to members of the news media. That does not mean a bunch, it means count them one at a time to get more than 1000. Only one representative has responded with a generic form letter that did not address the topic of the letter. We have an idea that might take the concept of letter writing to a new level. Maybe even two or three levels up.
That level is in person visits. This is easily achievable for our representatives in the House and for state legislatures. But it is quite difficult for Senators. And even there, it is difficult to get an acknowledgement much less a specific response.
Here might be a new approach. We need to find someone in our district who is near to,
or regularly travels near, where our representatives have an office. We can send our
letters to those people. They can hand carry the letters to the representative’s office.
When there, they can state to the office staff something to the effect:
These are letters from your constituents. Each of these is about (some topic).
I will return in one week and will expect a reply that addresses these topic. Your reply
will be shared with all those who wrote these letters.
We suspect that this has a much better probability of getting their attention and a reply than any letter sent via USPS.
But wait! It might get better. We need to get in contact with people at a Democratic headquarters in or near Washington DC. Maybe we can get one or several people there to act as our representative. That person, or people, would receive the letters to federal representatives, senators and representatives, from the constituents back in the states and districts. Those people can then hand carry the letters to the appropriate offices and insist upon a specific reply to the letters.
It can get even better. If our representatives don’t respond, we can go to our local news media with out story and maybe get something published or even shown on local TV. If we can get enough excitement, maybe even some national coverage.
What now? All this looks like a good idea, but the most critical part is implementation. We are unsure of how to do that. One thought is to implement a forum, a bulletin board, or maybe a page on something like Facebook. If you have any suggestions, they will be very appreciated.
Seems to me, letters and postcards are the best method citizens have to express
their opinions to their representatives. Note that our votes for candidates tell
them only that we prefer one person rather than one or more others. And sometimes,
the vote says we dislike you less than we dislike the others. Recognizing that
letters and postcards can be totally ignored, they still do a much better job at
expressing our opinions.
In the hopes that others might join me and send more letters, a new section has
been created. It’s a list of letters sent describing to whom they were went and
the contents. This will be a bit much for the main page so please look
letters.htm
A look through history will turn up major events in which millions of people died.
Or stated more accurately, were murdered. My definition of murder is “the unjustified
premeditated killing of one human being by another. Some named people are Hitler,
Stalin, and Mao. But how many people did those individuals actually murder?
Nowhere close to a million. Almost certainly not even in the hundreds.
But why write this now? Because if we look at the paths taken to get to the point
of mass murder, some political leaders and many citizens of these United States are
now on that path.
Please visit that article
here.
This is a work in progress with many more changes meritted. Please visit again. This is the web site of an individual person, not a corporation with a nameless face. Comments will be read and appreciated.
Bryan Kelly, Sep 2025 email to webmaster at mbkelly dot net
Please put the word action in the subject line. I get so many newsletters and the such
that it is difficult pick out the sent to me the person as opposed to a member of the public.
I have a rule that sends everything with the word action to a specific folder in my in-box.
Thank you.