American First makes US weaker

Trump‘s MAGA mantra of putting America First is only making US fall further behind.  Tariffs, lies, and military threats make him predictably unpredictable.  This reduces what little trust nations once had in America’s global leadership.  And Trump's New World Order with his Board of Peace is marshaling into existence a new block of nations that refused to live by his rules.

At India’s recent major Energy Summit our Northern neighbor Canada, attended that summit.   And a quote out of Ottawa by Tim Hodgson, Canada‘s energy minister, asserted “we’re not going to live in a world where might makes right... where the strongest puts tariffs on everyone else. We’re going to live in a world where we believe in free trade, where we believe in trusted relationships.”  This is the sound of our nation tumbling further down and dust bin of history.

Meanwhile, most of the civilized world is recoiling at Trump‘s para-military force as its anti-immigration drive brutally swings across liberal states.  This is the weaponization of partisan politics that authoritarian leaders smile at.

Nobel prize winning economist Paul Romer’s 'modern growth theory’ asserts that ideas are non-rival: “My use of an idea does not prevent your use" of it.  "Knowledge" is like compound interest.  And a "new process, a better algorithm, a more efficient design can lift productivity across the entire economy. A barrel of oil can be burned once. A good idea can be reused forever.”  One major problem with this ‘theory’ is what will that idea being used for? To make more profits - or protect the health of people and our planetary life support systems?

America’s greatness and a little exceptionalism is in its global system that rewards discovery, experimentation, freedom, and entrepreneurial ship - all at scale.  But again, the main ideal must be using our freedom for taking virtuous national and global actions. Without doing this Americans will lose both our freedom and security.  And then our prosperity.  Simply because everything is connected, interdependent, and vulnerable.  And ideals need both virtue and global application.

Wise investments have never been more necessary.  And spending less money on servicing yesterday’s mistakes, lack of prevention, and interest on debt.  While investing more in preventing problems for creating a lasting legacy.  This means wisely prioritizing sufficient resources in achieving the 17th Sustainable Development Goals - ASAP.   We can either bring others up to our level of civilization, or they will bring us down to theirs.  

The US no longer has the market cornered on generating and applying new ideas. This is the freedom nearly every nation that makes it a priority.  And for the US to fail in affordably competing in this - is simply insane.  Because the cost of failure is simply unsustainable and un-American. 

Ubuntu {oǒ’boǒntoō|} in ten words: I Am Because We Are, We Are Because I Am

 African culture:  UBUNTU {oǒ’boǒntoō|}: The 0rigin of the word Ubuntu comes from the Xhosa/Zulu culture, the community into which Nelson Mandela was born, and has been summarized in the phrase, "Umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu" in the Nguni language of Xhosa, Zulu, or Ndebele. The concept of this phrase can be translated to mean, "A person is a person through other persons," or "I am because we are." In Mandela’s explanation it touches upon the multi-faceted nature of Ubuntu, including the way one feels Ubuntu as an innate duty to support one's fellow man. People should enrich themselves, meaning grow in their own Ubuntu, but true enrichment will naturally align with the duty to act towards the spiritual growth of one's community. Ubuntu is a spiritual ideal, a way of life that is conceptually represented in a wide range of sub-Saharan African societies. While Ubuntu exists in many variations within different African cultures and languages, each conceptualization retains the same core of meaning that is both a goal and a guide for humanity. In a philosophical sense it promotes the belief in a universal bond of sharing that connects all humanity".

The Spirit of Ubuntu Music Video:   https://www.spiritofubuntu.us/videos/The-Spirit-of-Ubuntu-Music-Video/  4 min.

"I believe much trouble and blood would be saved if we opened our hearts more. I will tell you in my way how the Indian sees things. The white man has more words to tell you how they look to him, but it does not require many words to speak the truth. If the white man wants to live in peace with the Indian... we can live in peace. There need be no trouble. Treat all men alike.... give them all the same law. Give them all an even chance to live and grow. You might as well expect the rivers to run backward as that any man who is born a free man should be contented when penned up and denied liberty to go where he pleases. We only ask an even chance to live as other men live. We ask to be recognized as men. Let me be a free man...free to travel... free to stop... free to work... free to choose my own teachers... free to follow the religion of my Fathers... free to think and talk and act for myself."  -- Chief Joseph  (1840-1904) Chief of the Wal-lam-wat-kain (Wallowa) band of Nez Perce Indians

WARNINGS: FINDING CASSANDRAS TO STOP CATASTROPHES  By Richard A. Clarke and R.P. Eddy,  2017: https://cco.ndu.edu/PRISM-7-2/Article/1401978/warnings-finding-cassandras-to-stop-catastrophes/   The first 8 chapters detail the millions of lives and hundreds of billions of dollars lost to catastrophes,– natural and human engineered – due to people in power failing to act on the advanced warnings of experts.   The last eight chapters estimates the billions of lives and trillions of dollars that could be saved if humanity collectively works to prevent the other dire warnings now being given regarding other threats (some existential).  Chapter 11 “The Journalist: Pandemic Disease”.   Most instructive is Chapter 9.  It outlines three cognitive reasons why humans ignore such warnings.

Here’s a video of optimism if you dare watch it  https://www.rethinkx.com/videos

Chuck Woolery 

Former Chair, United Nations Association Council of Organizations

Former Issues Director, Global Health Council.

Former Action Board member, American Public Health Association.

Author of 1996 and 1997 Congressional testimony warnings regarding threats to US and global bio- security.  For a Word Document copy of it...email chuck@igc.org

Rotarians (and other optimists) must rethink their hope that Peace is possible.

 

Is Peace Possible?  

 BC comic strip -Thor the Futurist:  A cave man asks Thor "Will there ever be an end to war?"  Thor's answer   "Yes! About 8 minutes after the Sun explodes." 

Not with Trump’s Board of Peace.  It would fundamentally work like the UN.  But under new leadership. Without fixing the UN’s basic flaw - its foundation is the illusion of independence. In a world where everything is connected, interdependent and vulnerable.  It maintains the protection of national sovereignty and wealth above the protection of human rights and nature.

World peace will not come from establishing Trump’s “Board of Peace”.  But humankind is not bored of peace yet. Not now, with more conflicts in the last 25 years than in the previous quarter century. If you haven’t noticed, the world’s progressive peace movement with its thousands of peace organizations hasn’t been working.  Even if they united, they could not overpower the national leaders who are so deeply committed now to the global paradigm of Peace through Strength – they are willing to let their nations go into bankruptcy or all go bust with WMD.

Here’s the problem in one word.  Ambiguoius.  The word “Peace” is ambiguous with every human ambition having a different definition.  The Truth is, Peace is a divisive word.  And trying to redefine it in our era of mounting Truth decay, political polarization, border disputes, the weaponization of everything, failing democracies, and rising tensions between an axis of tyranny and the instability of the axis of freedom -- not to mention the unknown future with AI‘s intervention in the evolution of weaponry as well as its own power, it’s a sure bet that world peace will not come even if 40 million or more people, play the Peace Game. You read that right.  It’s a real game!  Based on a decades old “Theory of Change” that assumes that if just one-tenth of one percent of the world’s people started taking small actions toward peace – we would have peace by 2030.  Rotary members are now being coached to play it between when they are not asking themselves the first question in their genius 4-way Test, “Is it the TRUTH?” As a Rotary member having studies peace and all other threats to human security for 4.5 decades, I assert it is “FAIR” that “all” Rotary members should be “concerned”.

A few years ago, I asked a wise Rotarian of 40+ years of ‘service above self’ what his “definition of peace” was.  He answered, “That depends on if you ask the policeman - or the protester.”  Now, with federal ICE officials murdering people when it feels right -while having the backing of their federal overseers, they are not building “GOODWILL & BETTER FRIENDSHIPS” with the 70% of Americans who are not MAGA devotees.  And this will not be “BENEFICIAL to all concerned!”

What is urgently needed here now and globally is a comprehensive, holistic, and synergistic effort at preventing violence. As well as every other form of human rights abuse known to humankind or nature’s vital environmental life support systems.

There’s only one word for this approach. It’s called Health!  And starting with mental health. By first transforming the concepts in our mind to prioritize cooperation and coordination among humankind, instead of competition and chaos between different religious, political, and economic views.

Next would be ensuring everyone’s healthy body, family, community, environment, government, and economic system, plus the health of our human spirit.

Fortunately, there’s a global plan already in place. In 2015 most of the world’s Non-Governmental Organizations and other concerned entities came together at the United Nations in NY. They finally agreed to and signed off on the 17th Sustainable Development Goals.  All to be achieved by the year 2030.  With only four years away from that goal – humanity is nowhere near achieving this wise endeavor.

With the world appearing crazy now from any perspectives, the most insanity can be found in the three progressive movements (Peace, Environment, and economic/social Justice) and their perpetual competition with each other for money, active members, media attention, and their access to key policy makers to urge favor for their particular mission.

Meanwhile, professional advocate leaders ignore the need of these movements to unite in common cause. And instead empower some to compete against each other for a limited amount of essential resources.

This has gone on for decades. With each movement, gambling on a different result. There are two names for this behavior.  Insanity and extinction.  Any living thing’s failure to adapt will not turn out well as environments change.  And our global environment’s irreversible interconnectedness has only increased while our minds and outdated governance systems have basically remained the same.

Perhaps with enough pain and suffering it might change their bubble mentality.  The finally unite to create heaven on earth with its unprecedent economic and technological wealth.  But don’t hold onto your lungs CO2.  

The resistance of the human mind to change - and doing the wise thing - is nearly impossible. 

Peace would be possible if humankind adopted the ideals within the American Declaration of Independence. Its 250^th anniversary is coming up in about 156 days. There are two phrases within we must contemplate. The first and most important “the Laws of Nature end of Nature‘s God.”  Take care of nature and each other.  The second is “…all experience has shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.”

This reflects the global movement’s failures to adapt.  They prefer their own favorite mission priorities. But not the single priority that humankind needs – achieving the UN 17th Sustainable Development, Goals.  And time is running out.  The acceleration of the evolution of weapons, pathogens, truth decay, political polarization, and mental insanity will not end well.  And time is not on our side.  Only by uniting do we stand a decent chance of pulling us away from this brink in wishful thinking.

 

"One day, hopefully, the globe will be civilized. All the points of the human dwelling will be illuminated and then the magnificent dream of intelligence will be fulfilled: to have the World as our homeland and Humanity as our nation."  Victor HUGO 1802–1885

 

"The unification of all humanity is a sign of the stage now approaching human society. The unity of the family, of the tribe, of the city, of the nation has been successively tried and fully established. Nation-building has come to an end. The anarchy inherent in the sovereignty of the state is reaching its climax; a world that is progressing towards maturity must abandon this fetish, it must recognize the organic unity and wholeness of human relations, and establish once and for all the mechanism that best embodies this fundamental principle of its existence.”  Shoghi Effendi  Appel aux Nations,

"Belonging to the human family confers on every person a kind of world citizenship, giving him rights and duties, men being united by a community of origin and destiny supreme. (...) The condemnation of racism, the protection of minorities, assistance to refugees and the mobilization of international solidarity towards those most in need are only coherent applications of the principle of world citizenship." John Paul II (01/01/2005)

 

“Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors, so that in glory and in triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction, of a dot.” Carl Sagan Astronomer, Astrophysicist and Cosmologist

“I'm not from Athens or Corinth, I'm a citizen of the world." Socrate.

 

Homo Sapiens (wise humans) or Bubble brains?

 We still call ourselves Homo sapiens—the wise humans.   That name hasn’t aged well.

Humans don’t just kill; we mass-murder over ideas (religion, politics, economics). Concepts that once helped small tribes bond now scale badly in a world with nuclear weapons and planetary limits. Our brains outpaced our wisdom. We became jokingly—but accurately—Homo bullatus: the bubble-brained human. When we live out these concepts in our head... our perspective is vastly limited.

Each of has our own mental bubble—stories we mistake for reality. Some are religious, some political, some economic. Some are movements devoted to good—peace, the environment, social and economic justice—that fracture into smaller bubbles – then  resist uniting.  An important distinction is culture versus cult.  A cult is organized around a personal or political truth: loyalty to a leader, an ideology, or a narrative that resists hard evidence.  A culture—at its best—is organized around objective Truths: Unalienable rights, human dignity, ecological limits, shared facts, ethical restraints – like the golden rule.

Rotary International like other service organizations is a culture rooted in service to maximize health, positive peace, stewardship of the planet, fairness, and economic inclusion.  Like any large right-minded culture, Rotary includes ideological diversity - even some with MAGA hats.  That’s not a problem. The problem arises only when a personal or political truth replaces objective Truths.

Here’s the deeper challenge: even movements that agree on outcomes—health, peace, sustainability, justice—often compete rather than cooperate. Thousands of organizations chase the same limited pool of funding, active volunteers, media attention, and access to policymakers.   Each bubble defends its turf. Each believes its framing is the right one.  Meanwhile, the planet warms. Inequality deepens. Wars multiply.  And uniting is resisted like the plague.  This even happens between Rotary’s pillars and any other siloed organization or movement. 

The Declaration of Independence this 4^th of July offers an escape hatch appealing to “the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God.” That phrase anchors legitimacy beyond ideology—back to reality itself. And puts the protection of people and nature over abusive powers at any level – with a uniting message to prioritize the UN 17 Sustainable Development Goals. These are not partisan. They are operating requirements for a technological species that wants to survive.  Imagine what Rotary could do if it championed these as a comprehensive, holistic, and synergistic solution for preventing most of humanities problems by 2030.  United humankind stands a chance.  Divided?  Other powers win.

Rotary’s role—now more than ever—could be a bridge between bubbles: grounded in evidence, guided by ethics, and brave enough to state that objective reality with “self-evident” “Truths” still exists.

Because if we don’t learn to govern our ideas, our ideas will finish governing us—without guard rails.

“Today the most important thing, in my view, is to study the reasons why humankind does nothing to avert the threats about which it knows so much, and why it allows itself to be carried onward by some kind of perpetual motion.  It cannot suffice to invent new machines, new regulations, new institutions.  It is necessary to change and improve our understanding of the true purpose of what we are and what we do in the world.  Only such an understanding will allow us to develop new models of behavior, new scales of values and goals, and thereby invest the global regulations, treaties, and institutions with a new spirit and meaning.”  President Vaclav Havel

 

What are we doing to achieve the 17 Sustainable Development Goals by 2030?   Connect the dots!  See the web of life!  Achieve ‘liberty and justice for all’.  Or, prepare for the coming consequences.

What might spark a new American Civil War?

 

As ICE agents now regularly operate as "masked, heavily militarized, and without any visible identification" - ICE officials rationally argue that the masks are necessary to prevent their doxxing or harassment by rationally motivated citizens given repeated video evidence of ICE agents lethal abuse of force. 

But under the our nation's system of the 'rule of law', lawful force depends on legitimacy. And legitimacy depends on accountability. And accountability begins with personal identification. Thus anyone who is empowered to detain, arrest, or to use lethal force must be identifiable by a US government official for whom they are acting.  When ICE officers purposely conceal their faces and perform their  duties without name tapes, tags, or badge numbers, they turned their authority into a terrorizing anonymity.  “And anonymous power is precisely what democratic [rule of law] system is designed to prevent.” Retired Army Lieutenant General Mark Hurtling. Reported in The Bulwark. Jan, 2026

Recently a few US citizens have come out in their own community armed with military assault like weapons. Willing to risk their own lives to defend those they love and the peace their community has had for decades. 

In our accelerating age of fear and the growing threat of domestic and international terrorism, drug cartels, corruption, and lethal threats to our personal and family safety, all in addition to the context that many US states have “stand your ground” laws, this is a recipe for an very uncivil war.  

Prepare for more needless gun violence by innocent civilians caught in the crossfire between Trump’s abuse of power and our U.S. Constitutional rights to have guns for protecting our privacy, family, community security, and our US Constitution.  If a civil war is sparked as our existing political polarization and senseless violence increases, this will likely be the reason. 

So unless anyone who swore an oath to protect the U.S. Constitution takes their oath, the rule of law, and responsibility seriously - and removes the fools from office - with force if necessary - don’t expect this thing to get better anytime soon - on its own. 

After watching a movie last year about a modern US "Civil War" - obviously inspired by our nation's growing anger over political polarization, its premise was TX and CA military forces uniting against an elected and established President using his US Military forces.  Now I better understand how this might happen.  Spoiler alert - most Americans are not physically involved.  But it does not end well for those who hold government power.  

We the people must soon come to realization that our form of government can never achieve any of the seven intentions in its preamble.  Not without Constitutional Convention that puts into legal practice the fundamental principles that inspired the Declaration of Independence and the very birth of our nation's by its first civil war, that involved family against family, nations against other nations, and tribes against tribes.  With Freedom being the ultimate goal. But never achievable and sustainable without virtuous people and laws.  In the Declaration's words, "the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God".  A biological translation; Keep people and nature healthy!  Health of mind, body, spirit, family, community, environment, government, economy...  This IS rocket science. If our species intends to transfer our species to other worlds, if we trash this one, we can't rely on aliens to do it for us.  

Should we prioritize Peace or Health?

 "There is no defense or security for any of us except in the highest intelligence and development of all.”  Booker T. Washington 

“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life, and you will call it fate.”— Carl Jung

Not having the IQ or wisdom of Albert Einstein, nor the spiritual genius of Mother Theresa, I've heard they both put Health as their highest priority.  I try.  As a biologist, one who studies life, certain fundamental principles to maintain for any life form to survive and thrive.  Human evolution has succeeded too well by using our mind as a problem-solving tool. 

Unfortunately, humankind hit a potentially suicidal cliff around 1945 when our smartest minds developed nuclear weapons. Then used two as a weapon of mass destruction (WMD).  Now with many forms of WMD (bio, chem, nano, cyber...with AI now accelerating their creation, manufacturing, an sometimes anonymous delivery methods ) a change in our mind's priority is vital.  Without this we put many species on Earth, especially our own, at increasing risk.  Without rapidly transforming our thinking to prioritize our flourishing by protecting the life support systems that all life depends on, we will continue killing and dying by the billions in defense of our mind’s favorite nationality, religion, economic system, or grievance.

Our species is now wrestling with this trilemma.  We are as free as all species - to do what we were created to do.  Survive and thrive.  Unfortunately, modern minds invented the illusion of independence and used it to engineer two clever yet unsustainable governance systems (on both national and global level). A delusional foundation for individual, family, community, national and global security. Indigenous cultures had a sustainable perspective on life.  They learned after thousands of years that everything is connected, interdependent, and vulnerable.   Humans will always free to do what we want.  But no one will ever be free of the consequences.  A few of America’s founding fathers understood this.  They repeatedly warned that only a virtuous people can live together sustainably.  

Quickly, our conflicted minds need to recognize and act on this most fundamental Truth.  We cannot have freedom, security, and independence at the same time.  We can only have two.  And we need to wise up quickly and pick the right two. Most minds now don't understand this. And our flawed government systems are unlikely to change anytime soon.  Fortunately, we do have the 17 Sustainable Development Goals with 169 subgoals within them. They are measurable, affordable, and achievable if (and this a huge if) they are achieved comprehensively, wholistically, and synergistically - given their irreversible global interdependence.  

In life we are either getting better or getting worse.  Just maintaining isn’t a rational option. We are all going to die because our body is always aging.  But technically, no one has ever died of old age.  Death always comes with a breakdown in one or more of our body’s 11 systems - or any one of the millions structures within these.   Currently, the greatest possibility of an early death is our mind’s cognitive resistance to change and adapt quickly - to our reality.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) might change this.  But don’t bet your life on it.   Current analysis of global competitiveness between nations, economic systems, and religious beliefs suggests that AI is more likely to spark a minor conflict or major war.  If/when this happens - your age or the stage of your body’s health and mind won’t matter. And you will finally rest in peace. A lasting one.

For the past 120+ years Rotary International has pursued peace as its foundation. But Peace is a concept like independence.  In Truth, our immune systems are always at war with viruses, bacteria, fungi, and parasites.  These remain the greatest cause of preventable human suffering and deaths.  The economic toll and this persistent burden is the best evidence of the political, economic, and religious insanity of humanity.  This is unlikely to change but there is sanity in uniting to achieve the 17 SDGs 

Health is a universal desire while Peace is a polarizing word.  Especially now with the number of conflicts increasing since the turn of this century.  This rise may be related to the increase in partisan political polarization  - within the last decade.  It's uncertain to be causation or correlation, but our minds are certainly divided into multiple tribal camps due to Truth decay.   And this is unlikely to diminish any time soon. 

The undisputed champion of this divisive peace over the last 400 years has been the human principle ‘Peace through Strength’. This remains firmly planted in the minds of most leaders with nuclear weapons, powerful militaries, united powerful allies, and a population unable to demand the need for this to change.

On the flip side of this dilemma the progressive peace movement is betting on “Peace through disarmament”.  But this road to peace washed out many times. And now almost anything can be weaponized by cleaver minds defending concepts that are highly motivating (nationalism, religion, economics....) in our minds, but not our DNA. 

What can be done by a leader when her people or nation is being attacked without clear cause? Willingly surrender some or all areas of their land? What if treaties are broken while starvation and/or genocides are in process?  A leader’s claim that he/she is defending the homeland by attacking suspected drug cartels in other nations? Or, suspected terrorists, or close ally’s of the enemy they don’t like?  Disarmament would be foolish.  Believing ‘might makes right’ is worse.

But protecting one’s family and one’s own life is a fundamental biological right.  

The peace most folks desire/imagine rarely comes - or is sustained after - the outcome of a war or genocide.  There are at least five root causes of violent conflicts.  The first four are not an effective or sustainable arena for Rotary involvement.

1.    1.  Flawed political systems that cannot resolve differences peacefully.

2.      2. Different religious, economic, or political beliefs.

3.      3. Unresolved border disputes, legitimate grievances, or changing water/food needs. 

4.      4. Flawed or ignored elections - or lack of freedom or human rights

5.     5.  Inadequate basic needs/rights of a population not being met – driving up the Infant Mortality Rates (IMR)   This is where Rotary’s power - dollar for dollar/person to person  -already makes the biggest difference connected to its other pillars of service. 

The human mind offers a useful metaphor. Think of it as a powerful machine—relentless, tireless, literal. It follows instructions precisely, whether those instructions are wise or careless. Most people mistake that machine (the voice in their head) for who they really are (a body and sovereign soul). The mind is just their tool.  A powerful tool for quietly shaping thoughts, good behavior, natural stress, calming fear, building resilience, and preserving hope. Empowering a mind, body and spirit capable of building and sustaining a garden of Edan on our blue planet lightyears from another star.

Societies function the same way. When individuals are chronically unhealthy—physically, mentally, socially, their internal systems default to survival mode. Stress hormones rise. Short-term thinking dominates. Cooperation erodes. In that state, peace is not sustainable; it is fragile at best, illusory at worst.  Health is not separate from peace. Health is the precondition for it. 

Our subconscious mind teaches us several rules of life.  These apply just as powerfully to communities and nations:

• Literal Truth: Systems respond to conditions as they are, not as we wish them to be. A population living with untreated disease, malnutrition, trauma, or toxic stress experiences those conditions as emergencies. Conflict thrives where bodies and minds are under constant threat.
• The present moment: Stability is built now, not “someday.” When people can say, “I am safe. I am nourished. I am learning. I am valued,” their systems begin to organize toward cooperation rather than competition and fear.
• Habit and pathways: Just as repeated thoughts form neural roads, repeated investments form social infrastructure. Clinics, clean water, maternal care, vaccinations, mental-health access—these become the well-paved roads societies travel daily. Health systems create habits of trust, measurable results, and great economic savings.
• Images and imagination: Peace agreements are abstract. Health is visible. A vaccinated child, a mother surviving childbirth, a community with clean water—these are images the human mind understands and rallies around, and most people want to do.
• Emotion and motivation: Fear fuels division. Well-being fuels participation. Healthy people have the emotional bandwidth to care about others.
• Safety: The primary job of any system—biological or social—is survival. When survival is constantly threatened, change feels dangerous and conflict feels inevitable. Health restores the sense of safety that allows societies to evolve rather than explode.
• Persistence: Health improvements compound. They are sustainable. They can outlast political cycles and ceasefires.

This is precisely why the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals place health—SDG 3: Good Health and Well-Being—at the center of sustainable development. Without health, progress in education, equality, economic growth, and peace cannot endure. Sustainability is not an environmental slogan alone; it is the ability of human systems to function over time without collapse.

If Rotary or other peace groups truly seeks to make the world better not just today, but generationally, then health is the most strategic foundation we/they can choose. Peace emerges naturally when people are healthy enough to unite, imagine a future, trust institutions, and then invest sufficiently in one another. 

 Peace is the destination.     Health is the engine.      Sustainability is the road. 

Rotary has always believed in service above self. By grounding our mission in health—physical, mental, family, social, community, environmental, government, economic- we need not abandon peace. We will make it possible, durable, and sustainable.    

The machine is waiting for instructions.  It’s time to give it the right ones. Not the ones it dreamed up hundreds if not thousands of years ago.  We must operate our machinery with the right context.  Not it- operating us.

 

"A universal peace, it is to be feared, is in the catalogue of events, which will never exist but in the imaginations of visionary philosophers, or in the breasts of benevolent enthusiasts."
-- James Madison  (1751-1836), Father of the Constitution for the USA, 4th US President
Source: essay in the National Gazette, February 2, 1792

 

“If success or failure of this planet and of human beings depended on how I am and what I do...How would I be?  And what would I do?” R. Buckminster Fuller

US Law Enforcement Appreciation Day: They try their best and risk everything.

 

 

Today is U.S. Law Enforcement Appreciation Day.  Difficult to do when the FBI under Trump’s leadership is hard to have faith in. 

And, we must still pause and recognize the men and women who step into life and death uncertainty almost each day.

The question is, are they doing it to uphold the law, or the rule of law. There is a difference. The Rule of law requires three fundamental elements to be legitimate in human affairs. 

First, is the law made by the will of the people.  Second, is it enforced equally.  Last, is the law protecting basic inalienable rights (see Universal Declaration of Human Rights). 

 

Their work is often dangerous, frequently misunderstood, and always essential to the functioning of a free and civil society.

 

But appreciation does not require blind praise. In fact, the deepest form of respect we can offer those brave souls is to be honest about what their role truly represents—and what it must never abandon.

 

At its best, law enforcement exists to protect life, liberty, and basic human dignity. Those principles did not originate in the Declaration of Independence. They came from “the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God”—a moral framework older than any nation and higher than any single law.  And they are not always enforced on the streets, in statutes or in courtrooms.

And not all laws are equal in every city, state or nation.

 

Some laws are administrative. Some are temporary. Some are flawed. History offers sobering reminders that legality and morality do not always align. From segregation to the internment of citizens or non-citizens, unjust laws have always existed.  And sometimes even enforced—by otherwise well-intentioned people and institutions. 

 

That reality places law enforcement officers in a uniquely difficult position. They are sworn to uphold the law, yet they operate within a moral ecosystem that demands discernment, restraint, and respect for fundamental rights. The legitimacy of law enforcement depends not merely on enforcement, but on just enforcement.

 

Justice is what gives law its authority.

 

When laws protect basic rights—life, liberty, due process, equal treatment—they earn public trust. When enforcement is proportional, transparent, and humane, communities cooperate rather than resist. When officers see themselves not simply as enforcers, but as guardians of civic order, the social fabric strengthens.

 

This is why training, accountability, and community engagement are not criticisms of law enforcement; they are investments in it and the civility of the community they serve.  A system that supports officers in acting ethically, safely, and wisely honors both the badge and the people it serves.  When it inserts is power from outside the community it needs to work closely with the powers within that community.

 

Law enforcement is not meant to be a blunt instrument of power. It is meant to be a shield—especially for the vulnerable. It stands between chaos and community, between fear and freedom. That is a heavy responsibility deserving respect and a decent wage.

 

On this Law Enforcement Appreciation Day, we can hold two truths at once:

 

We can honor those who serve with integrity and courage. And we can recommend ourselves to the idea that laws must remain rooted in justice, human dignity, enduring moral principles, and the Truths that we should all hold to be self-evident.

 

When law enforcement aligns with those higher laws—of nature, conscience, and shared humanity—it does more than keep the peace.  It helps make a free society possible and sustainable.  It all starts with virtue and the wisdom and compassion to know what is right and what is wrong.

From what I saw on the visual coverage of the killing of a woman in a care by an ICE agent was the abuse of power and/or the fear of the woman in the care and the intent to kill by the man with the gun.  Three shots. Two nearly at point blank range while he was next to the car, never really in front of it.    Only a drone video (or God) from above - will we know any time soon.