"Truths be told" free blog book introduction. And predicted bad news regarding human security.

Even before 1999 I have been reading, collecting, and analyzing tens of thousands of news articles from two newspapers, the Washington Post and the Washington Times.  Each have been printing my "letters to the editor" linking national security issues, political priorities, historical events, warnings, bi-partisan Presidential commissions, hundreds of C-Span programs, think tank articles, scientific reports, and personal/professional experiences within dozens of not-for profit organizations starting in 1981 at the Hunger Project in San Francisco.  In 1988 I was hired by RESULTS as its first Media Director, so I moved my family to Washington DC. Fired eight months after starting, the RESULTS Board chairman hired me as Advocacy Director of the Alliance for Child Survival.  Three years later I was volunteering with Friends of the United Nations Environmental program, then Christian Israel Public Action Campaign & Middle East Research Center until being hired by the National Council for International Health (later renamed the Global Health Council). After being elected by my peers to Chair the U.S. United Nations Council of Organizations and to be one of 14 members of the Action Board of the American Public Health Association, I ended my last four professional years inside the beltway as Issues Director for the World Federalist Association.  Its focused originated with Albert Einsteins advocacy in hopes of avoiding another world war, genocide, or the use of WMD by replacing the existing global 'law of force' with the global 'rule of law'.  I was fired from that job on the first anniversary of the attacks on September 11, 2001. I had pushed too hard internally for WFA to resist support for the Global War Against Terrorism...a tactic that could never be defeated with war... a prime example of WFA abandoning its original mission.      

I began my advocacy journey in 1977 as a High School biology teacher/wrestling coach for 6.5 years after graduating from Colorado State University with a dual degree in Biology and Secondary Education.  Fired from my last teaching job for speaking my mind about the need to connect biology to global issues -  many of which have now become obvious (pandemics, 'terrorist' attacks, unwinnable wars, failed nation states, declining democracies, unsustainable government debt. reactionary government policies, corruption linked to offshore accounts, the evolution of weaponry, and other issues linked to US national security threats.  All connected - and at great cost in human lives and dollars.  And most organizations not sticking to their fundamental mission or a willingness to adapt to clearly predicable trends in technology, health, politics, environmental issues, or economics.   Some went bankrupt.  Others never achieved their stated goals. Obvious goals that were needed, agreed to, achievable, and affordable - but missed because there was an unwilling to move in the direction of prevention and addressing root causes.  And thus, we have many of the new or accelerating threats to our nation and most of humanity now. 

This book has been burning in me for decades.  Other books have offered many of the same warnings, predictions, and documented their direct causes.  Some have even championed wise investments in action plans that usually lacked the national 'political will' to execute.  I'm not of the opinion that books make a difference.  If the Bible, Torah, Quran, and other idealistic spiritual guides have not been effective and too often cause more problems than they solve. Many other insightful and inspiring books have been written, yet the polarization of our species continues toward the cliff of oblivion. So, what difference would one more book make?   

In the end, it won't matter what we know or believe.  Or what resources we have.  It will only matter what we do.  And unless we urgently do what has been preached and taught for thousands of years our species doesn't deserve to survive. If most harmful trends continue as they are now most of humanity will experience great that chaos coming.  I don't believe our species will soon go extinct. Many may find ways to survive.  But the number of preventable deaths and human suffering will be greater than anything humanity has ever experienced.  Some of the horrors to come will result from inevitable natural events (super volcano eruption, solar electromagnetic pulse event) or human error (biosecurity lab accident, cyber coding error, or an accidental missile launch).  And knowing these will happen we still resist investing in resiliency measures or faster recovery.  

Note that during the Cold War (between 1958 and 1962) the US government did build a secret underground bunker in West Virginia as a safe haven for new legislators in the event of all-out nuclear war.  And their first act would be to "shred the Constitution".  I'm guessing they would do this because the previously honored document didn't work as intended. 

*******

The next blog post will identify multiple flaws in the Constitution that if ignored, will result in the failure of our "American experiment'.  Simply because we failed to adapt to the truth of the reality that we now face. 

Below may be the best example of perhaps the greatest security threat persistently ignored by every organization I've presented it to.   And I'm guessing even this new report will be ignored as well.

AI and the Evolution of Biological National Security Risks:  Capabilities, Thresholds, and Interventions

By: Bill Drexel and Caleb Withers   August 13, 2024     Print Download PDF

https://www.cnas.org/publications/reports/ai-and-the-evolution-of-biological-national-security-risks?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=BioTech%20AI%20Catastrophic%20Release%20Aug%2013%202024&utm_content=BioTech%20AI%20Catastrophic%20Release%20Aug%2013%202024+CID_4eb2b4dec03a387598c762c7c3804359&utm_source=Campaign%20Monitor&utm_term=New%20CNAS%20Report%20on%20AI%20and%20Biological%20National%20Security%20Risks

Executive Summary: 

Not long after COVID-19 gave the world a glimpse of the catastrophic potential of biological events, experts began warning that rapid advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) could augur a world of bioterrorism, unprecedented superviruses, and novel targeted bioweapons. These dire warnings have risen to the highest levels of industry and government, from the CEOs of the world's leading AI labs raising alarms about new technical capabilities for would-be bioterrorists, to Vice President Kamala Harris’s concern that AI-enabled bioweapons “could endanger the very existence of humanity.”¹ If true, such developments would expose the United States to unprecedented catastrophic threats well beyond COVID-19’s scope of destruction. But assessing the degree to which these concerns are warranted—and what to do about them—requires weighing a range of complex factors, including:

• The history and current state of American biosecurity
• The diverse ways in which AI could alter existing biosecurity risks
• Which emerging technical AI capabilities would impact these risks
• Where interventions today are needed

This report considers these factors to provide policymakers with a broad understanding of the evolving intersection of AI and biotechnology, along with actionable recommendations to curb the worst risks to national security from biological threats.

The sources of catastrophic biological risks are varied. Historically, policymakers have underappreciated the risks posed by the routine activities of well-intentioned scientists, even as the number of high-risk biosecurity labs and the frequency of dangerous incidents—perhaps including COVID-19 itself—continue to grow. State actors have traditionally been a source of considerable biosecurity risk, not least the Soviet Union’s shockingly large bioweapons program. But the unwieldiness and imprecision of bioweapons has meant that states remain unlikely to field large-scale biological attacks in the near term, even though the U.S. State Department expresses concerns about the potential bioweapons capabilities of North Korea, Iran, Russia, and China. On the other hand, nonstate actors—including lone wolves, terrorists, and apocalyptic groups—have an unnerving track record of attempting biological attacks, but with limited success due to the intrinsic complexity of building and wielding such delicate capabilities.

Today, fast-moving advancements in biotechnology—independent of AI developments—are changing many of these risks. A combination of new gene editing techniques, gene sequencing methods, and DNA synthesis tools is opening a new world of possibilities in synthetic biology for greater precision in genetic manipulation and, with it, a new world of risks from the development of powerful bioweapons and biological accidents alike. Cloud labs, which conduct experiments on others’ behalf, could enable nonstate actors by allowing them to outsource some of the experimental expertise that has historically acted as a barrier to dangerous uses. Though most cloud labs screen orders for malicious activity, not all do, and the constellation of existing bioweapons norms, conventions, and safeguards leaves open a range of pathways for bad actors to make significant progress in acquiring viable bioweapons.

But experts’ opinions on the overall state of U.S. biosecurity range widely, especially with regard to fears of nonstate actors fielding bioweapons. Those less concerned contend that even if viable paths to building bioweapons exist, the practicalities of constructing, storing, and disseminating them are far more complex than most realize, with numerous potential points of failure that concerned parties either fail to recognize or underemphasize. They also point to a lack of a major bio attacks in recent decades, despite chronic warnings. A more pessimistic camp points to experiments that have demonstrated the seeming ease of successfully constructing powerful viruses using commercially available inputs, and seemingly diminishing barriers to the knowledge and technical capabilities needed to create bioweapons. Less controversial is the insufficiency of U.S. biodefenses to adequately address large-scale biological threats, whether naturally occurring, accidental, or deliberate. Despite COVID-19’s demonstration of the U.S. government’s inability to contain the effects of a major outbreak, the nation has made limited progress in mitigating the likelihood and potential harm of another, more dangerous biological catastrophe.

New AI capabilities may reshape the risk landscape for biothreats in several ways. AI is enabling new capabilities that might, in theory, allow advanced actors to optimize bioweapons for more precise effects, such as targeting specific genetic groups or geographies. Though such capabilities remain speculative, if realized they would dramatically alter states’ incentives to use bioweapons for strategic ends. Instead of risking their own militaries’ or populations’ health with the unwieldy weapons, states could sabotage other nations’ food security or incapacitate enemies with public health crises from which they would be unlikely to rebound. Relatedly, the same techniques could create superviruses optimized for transmissibility and lethality, which may considerably expand the destructive potential of bioweapons. Tempering these fears, however, are several technical challenges that scientists would need to overcome—if they can be solved at all.

The most pressing concern for biological risks related to AI stems from tools that may soon be able to accelerate the procurement of biological agents by nonstate actors. Recent studies have suggested that foundation models may soon be able to help accelerate bad actors’ ability to acquire weaponizable biological agents, even if the degree to which these AI tools can currently help them remains marginal.² Of particular concern are AI systems’ budding abilities to help troubleshoot where experiments have gone wrong, speeding the design-build-test-learn feedback loop that is essential to developing working biological agents. If made more effective, emerging AI tools could provide a boon to would-be bioweapons creators by more dynamically providing some of the knowledge needed to produce and use bioweapons, though such actors would still face other significant hurdles to bioweapons development that are often underappreciated.

AI could also impact biological risks in other ways. Technical faults in AI tools could fail to constrain foundation models from relaying hazardous biological information to potential bad actors, or inadvertently encourage researchers to pursue promising medicinal agents with unexpected negative side effects. Using AI to create more advanced automated labs could expose these labs to many of the risks of automation that have historically plagued other complex automated systems, and make it easier for nonspecialists to concoct biological agents (depending upon the safety mechanisms that automated labs institute). Finally, heavy investment in companies and nations seeking to capitalize on AI’s potential for biotechnology could be creating competition dynamics that prioritize speed over safety. These risks are particularly acute in relation to China, where a variety of other factors shaping the country’s biotech ecosystem also further escalate risks of costly accidents.

Attempting to predict exactly how and when catastrophic risks at the intersection of biotechnology and AI will develop in the years ahead is a fool’s errand, given the inherent uncertainty about the scientific progress of both disciplines. Instead, this report identifies four areas of capabilities for experts and policymakers to monitor that will have the greatest impact on catastrophic risks related to AI:

1. Foundation models’ ability to effectively provide experimental instructions for advanced biological applications
2. Cloud labs’ and lab automation’s progress in diminishing the demands of experimental expertise in biotechnology
3. Dual-use progress in research on host genetic susceptibility to infectious diseases
4. Dual-use progress in precision engineering of viral pathogens

Careful attention to these capabilities will help experts and policymakers stay ahead of evolving risks in the years to come.

For now, the following measures should be taken to curb emerging risks at the intersection of AI and biosecurity:

• Further strengthen screening mechanisms for cloud labs and other genetic synthesis providers
• Engage in regular, rigorous assessments of the biological capabilities of foundation models for the full bioweapons lifecycle
• Invest in technical safety mechanisms that can curb the threats of foundation models, especially enhanced guardrails for cloud-based access to AI tools, “unlearning” capabilities, and novel approaches to “information hazards” in model training
• Update government investment to further prioritize agility and flexibility in biodefense systems
• Long term, consider a licensing regime for a narrow set of biological design tools with potentially catastrophic capabilities, if such capabilities begin to materialize

Introduction

In 2020, COVID-19 brought the world to its knees, with nearly 29 million estimated deaths, acute social and political disruptions, and vast economic fallout.³ However, the event’s impact could have been far worse if the virus had been more lethal, more transmissible, or both. For decades, experts have warned that humanity is entering an era of potential catastrophic pandemics that would make COVID-19 appear mild in comparison. History is well acquainted with such instances, not least the 1918 Spanish Flu, the Black Death, and the Plague of Justinian—each of which would have dwarfed COVID-19’s deaths if scaled to today’s populations.⁴

Equally concerning, many experts have sounded alarms of possible deliberate bioattacks in the years ahead. There is some precedent: in the weeks following 9/11, letters containing deadly anthrax spores were mailed to U.S. lawmakers and media outlets, and the attack could have been considerably worse had the perpetrator devised a more effective dispersion mechanism for the anthrax. The episode could portend a future in which more widely available biological capabilities mean malicious individuals and small groups devastate governments and societies through strategic biological attacks. Jeff Alstott, former director for technology and national security at the National Security Council, warned in September 2023 that the classified record contained “fairly recent close-ish calls” of nonstate actors attempting to use biological weapons with “strategic scale.”⁵

Accurately weighing just how credible such dire warnings are can feel next to impossible, and requires clear judgment in the face of opaque counterfactuals, alarmism, denialism, and horrific possibilities. But regardless of their likelihood, the destructive potential of biological catastrophes is undeniably enormous: history is littered with examples of societies straining and even collapsing under the weight of diseases—from ancient Athens’s ruinous contagion during the Peloponnesian War, to the bubonic plague that crippled the Eastern Roman Empire in the 6th century, to the cataclysmic salmonella outbreak in the Aztec empire in the 16th century.⁶ It is essential that U.S. leaders soberly address the risks of biological catastrophe—which many claim will change dramatically in the age of artificial intelligence.

Government and industry leaders have expressed grave concerns about the potential for AI to dramatically heighten the risks of catastrophic events in general, and biological catastrophes in particular.⁷ In a July 2023 congressional hearing, Dario Amodei, CEO of leading AI lab Anthropic, stated that within two to three years, there was a “substantial risk” that AI tools would “greatly widen the range of actors with the technical capability to conduct a large-scale biological attack.”⁸ Former United Kingdom (UK) Prime Minister Rishi Sunak similarly expressed urgent concern that there may only be a “small window” of time before AI enables a step change in bioterrorist capabilities.⁹ U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris warned of the threat of “AI-formulated bio-weapons that could endanger the lives of millions . . . [and] could endanger the very existence of humanity.”¹⁰ These are serious claims. If true, they represent a significant increase in bioterrorism risks. But are they true?

This report aims to clearly assess AI’s impact on the risks of biocatastrophe. It first considers the history and existing risk landscape in American biosecurity independent of AI disruptions. Drawing on a sister report, Catalyzing Crisis: A Primer on Artificial Intelligence, Catastrophes, and National Security, this study then considers how AI is impacting biorisks across four dimensions of AI safety: new capabilities, technical challenges, integration into complex systems, and conditions of AI development.¹¹ Building on this analysis, the report identifies areas of future capability development that may substantially alter the risks of large-scale biological catastrophes worthy of monitoring as the technology continues to evolve. Finally, the report recommends actionable steps for policymakers to address current and near-term risks of biocatastrophes.

While the theoretical potential for AI to expand the likelihood and impact of biological catastrophes is very large, to date AI’s impacts on biological risks have been marginal. There is no way to know for certain if or when more severe risks will ultimately materialize, but careful monitoring of several capabilities at the nexus of AI and biotechnology can provide useful indications, including the effectiveness of experimental instructions from foundation models, changing demands of tacit knowledge as lab automation increases, and dual-use AI-powered research into host genetic susceptibility to infectious diseases and precision pathogen engineering. Lest they be caught off guard, policymakers should act now to shore up America’s biodefenses for the age of AI by strengthening screening mechanisms for gene synthesis providers, regularly assessing the bioweapons capabilities of foundation models, investing in a range of technical AI safety mechanisms, and preparing to institute licensing requirements for sophisticated biological design tools if they begin to approach potentially catastrophic capabilities.

 

The “Death of Truth”. A new book by Steven Brill

 

The “Death of Truth”.  A new book by Steven Brill

RE:  This 4^th of July...2024 and the 2-5-0 Celebration of the Declaration’s universal wisdom offered 11 years before the creation of the United States Constitution.

Brill blames our bad media diets for the current state of the world.   This assertion may not be true, but this free blog book “Truths be told: Failing the Seven Cs” is an attempt to answer the January 2017 Time magazine cover page story on Trump was inaugurated, “Is Truth Dead?”.  Exactly 50 years earlier TIME used exactly same unique cover page with the words “Is God Dead? in white letters, on an entirely black page thinly boarded in red.  After the Fact checkers verified all the lies, misinformation, and pure poppycock spewing from mostly one candidate in the recent Presidential contest its truthful to say that if Trump is elected truth will be on increasingly critical life support.  And a sustainable remedy is urgently needed.

What many Americans and much of humanity fails to grasp is the ‘one sidedness’ of truth.  Neil deGrasse Tyson wisely and correctly asserted that our minds possess three kinds of truth.   The first is our personal truth. What God do we believe in or not.  There are plenty of sides to this truth that may never be agreed upon.   The second is our political truths.  And again, there is no limit to the sides of this increasingly polarizing species of truth.  The globally accepted ‘one sided truth’ is determined by objective analysis. It has provided all of humanity with profoundly useful technologies, lifesaving, profitable, and applicable for good or bad.  Communication, transportation, medicine, banking, and life prolonging preventive health measures along with unprecedentedly powerful weapon systems enabling any one disgruntled nation or leader to affordably and globally end all life as we know it.  Because “Everything is connected, everything is interdependent, so everything is vulnerable.... And that’s why this has to be a more than whole of government, a more than whole of nation [effort]. It really has to be a global effort....” Jen Easterly. CISA director.  Oct. 29, 2021. [the Cyber and Infrastructure Security Agency is our nation’s newest federal agency established by the Trump Administration in 2018].  Don’t forget that earth’s natural environment is the most fundamental and essential infrastructure for all life on this increasingly troubled planet.

So, after this past Fourth of July, instead of celebrating our mental delusion of independence, we should be thinking hard and deep about the profound words beginning the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence, “WE hold these truths to be self-evident”.   

While most Americans and others around the world are blessed with abundance, we have taken it for granted for too long while redefining happiness.  It is not about a fleeting ‘feeling good”.  Humanity will never truly achieve the deeper and longer lasting happiness that was imagined when that word was written.  Then it was a deep contentment with finding, creating, and applying one’s talents and using them in service to those they loved and others in their community.  With the most fundamental intent of ensuring the protection of their freedom, security, prosperity, and posterity as Thomas Paine wrote about in his “Common Sense” pamphlet that predated the writing of the Declaration of Independence.

Today our global community allows wars, genocides, violent extremism, extreme lethal weather events, hunger, starvation, economic instability, unsustainable national debts, and the global spread of pandemics along with other lethal and debilitating infectious diseases.   Most of which are affordably preventable.   But our existing global governance system created after the Second World War was never given the power to do this.  

Humanities’ greatest success remains the global eradicate the Smallpox.   That 10-year effort saved more lives in last century than all the lives lost in all the wars, revolutions, and genocides combined during the same century.   Given that everything is connected interdependent and vulnerable, such a global effort is increasingly and urgently needed for nearly all the threats we all face today. 

Our 2024 Fourth of July Americans did not celebrate any commitment to prevention.  Or a plan for achieving any of the seven intentions in our Constitution’s preamble.   We must not remain intentionally ignorant of the most profound set of laws offered in the first sentence of our Declaration of Independence.  This comprehensive set of laws can sustainably protect everyone’s alienable rights.   The most basic rights based on “the Laws of Nature and Nature‘s God” and the profound truth that humanity must take care of nature and each other if we intend to preserve our freedoms and security.  And achieve each of the seven intentions in our U.S. Constitution’s preamble.  The same intentions that every population in every nation aspires to achieve. 

The Declaration was made in north America but as Abraham Lincoln said, “the Declaration” is “For all People, at All Times, Everywhere.”.   In fact, every major religion in the world is founded on the primary law of God -the Golden Rule.” 

Abraham Lincoln once wrote that our Declaration of Independence is our “Apple of Gold” and our constitution its “Frame of Silver”.   Unfortunately, our Constitution is based on the illusion of independence between nations.  And we believe we are independent of each other.  But this is a mental delusion.  Independence exists nowhere in the known universe.  And living with this illusion we can only expect increasing chaos at every level.   

Humanity all exists in an entirely interdependent reality.  And until we accept this fundamental truth nothing is safe, secure, or sustainable.   It is our lack of virtue that killing us, others, and the planet’s natural life support systems.  

Benjimen Franklin said “Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become more corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters.”   Artificial Intelligence might is not the master we want but if we fail to gain wisdom from our collective intelligence and actions, AI may be our species only hope, or greatest error.

"We have no government armed in power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Our Constitution was made only for a religious and moral people. It is wholly inadequate for the government of any other."  -- John Adams   (1735-1826) Founding Father, 2nd US President Source: Oct. 11, 1798; Address to the military

“Our Constitution is in actual operation; everything appears to promise that it will last; but in this world nothing is certain but death taxes.”  -- Benjamin Franklin

Our national and global governance systems based on the illusion of independence was created 400 years ago.   It’s way past time we created a global governance system that is true to our reality of interdependence and our flag pledge of “liberty and Justice for all”.

“A great part of that order which reigns among mankind is not the effect of government. It had its origin in the principles of society and the natural constitution of man. It existed prior to government, and would exist if the formality of government was abolished. The mutual dependence and reciprocal interest which man has upon man, and all parts of a civilized community upon each other, create that great chain of connection which holds it together. The landholder, the farmer, the manufacturer, the merchant, the tradesman, and every occupation, prospers by the aid which each receives from the other, and from the whole. Common interest regulates their concerns, and forms their laws; and the laws which common usage ordains, have a greater influence than the laws of government. In fine, society performs for itself almost everything which is ascribed to government.  – Thomas Paine, Rights of Man [1791]

If we truly intend to achieve each of the seven intentions in our Constitution, we need to amend it to codify this fundamental truth.  ‘Everything is connected, interdependent, and vulnerable.  And a global effort is needed.’   Only this will make America Great Again and prevent our republic from meeting the same end as Rome.   “We the people” need to rethink and do more than react to this fundamental truth.  It’s this or prepare for the consequences.

“Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” 

James Baldwin

 

If you have any doubts left that our Declaration of Independence is not a universal document applicable to all people, in all places, for all time - please watch this seven-minute video regarding Abraham Lincoln’s persistent belief  “The Declaration - For all People, at All Times, Everywhere.”  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcxysVRmy5Q

And when he wrote that the Declaration is our “Apple of Gold” and the our Constitution its “Frame of Silver” was inspired by a proverb “A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver” ~Proverbs 25:11

 

Why we should care more about Africa (Rand Institute)

https://www.rand.org/multimedia/video/2024/07/02/factoring-africa-into-u-s-security-policy/_jcr_content/par/multimediavideoplaye_597926641.embed

The roots of Truth Decay and the 10 Commandments

 The root of our Truth Decay Crisis.   Americans have forgotten or never fully grasped the profundity that “we hold these truths to be self evident”.  

The first and last thing required of genius is the love of truth.  — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“Sometimes people don't want to hear the truth because they don't want their illusions destroyed.” - Friedrich Nietzsche 

“The sad truth...is that most evil is done by people who never made up their minds to be or do either evil or good.” Hannah Arendt  Hannah Arendt   (1906-1975) German-American political theorist, escaped Nazi Germany  

“Never has our future been more unpredictable, never have we depended so much on political forces that cannot be trusted to follow the rules of common sense and self-interest—forces that look like sheer insanity" - Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism 

"Politically speaking, tribal nationalism [patriotism] always insists that its own people are surrounded by 'a world of enemies' - 'one against all' - and that a fundamental difference exists between this people and all others. It claims its people to be unique, individual, incompatible with all others, and denies theoretically the very possibility of a common mankind long before it is used to destroy the humanity of man." -Hannah Arendt, The Origins Of Totalitarianism p.227

Thus…“Truth decay.” 

"What convinces masses are not facts, and not even invented facts, but only the consistency of the system of which they are presumably part.” Hannah Arendt

"What makes it so plausible to assume that hypocrisy is the vice of vices is that integrity can indeed exist under the cover of all other vices except this one. Only crime and the criminal, it is true, confront us with the perplexity of radical evil; but only the hypocrite is really rotten to the core." -- Hannah Arendt Source: On Revolution (1963), ch. 2.

"The simple step of a courageous individual is not to take part in the lie.  One word of truth outweighs the world."  -- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn    (1918-2008) Russian novelist, Soviet dissident, imprisoned for 8 years for criticizing Stalin in a personal letter, Nobel Prize for Literature, 1970.

“Is Truth Dead?”  was Time magazine’s January 2017 cover story after the election of President Trump and the peaking of ‘fake news’.    Ironically that cover story marked that magazine’s 50th anniversary cover story “Is God Dead”. 

While some are still wrestling with the reality of God it is a scientific assessment that no human is capable of proving with 100% certainty that she does NOT exist.  The best one can rationally be is agnostic. But there should be universal agreement that truth does exist.  That last Time cover page sparked in my memory the phrase “we hold these truths to be self-evident”.  As a biologist I’m certain that there are many truths that are self-evident.  “A child should not die before their parents!”  “You can fight gravity, but you cannot win sustainably.”   I hold evolution to be a self-evident Truth.  Things change!  And if a species does not adapt to those changes, its chances of surviving and thriving into the next generation is nil.   With the understanding and reasonable acceptance that the very creation of the universe and “the Laws of Nature and Nature’s God” are enforced consistently on earth as it is in the heavens.  And everything is connected, interdependent, vulnerable, and a change in everything but these laws is constant.  And that is why Albert Einstein insisted humanity needs both science and religion.   Cw

“To kill an error is as good a service as, and sometimes even better than, the establishing of a new truth or fact.“  Charles Darwin

"One of the best ways to get yourself a reputation as a dangerous citizen these days is to go about repeating the very phrases which our founding fathers used in the great struggle for independence."  -- Charles Austin Beard  (1874-1948) Professor at Columbia University 1935

“We hold these truths to be self-evident….”  All people are endowed with certain inalienable Rights…

"It is natural to man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, and listen to the song of that siren, till she transforms us into beasts. Is this the part of wise men, engaged in a great and arduous struggle for liberty?  Are we disposed to be of the number of those who, having eyes, see not, and having ears, hear not, the things which so nearly concern their temporal salvation? For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst and provide for it." – Patrick Henry, Speech in Virginia Convention [March 23, 1775]

"It is wrong always, everywhere and for everyone  to believe anything upon insufficient evidence."  -- William Kingdon Clifford  (1845-1879) English mathematician and philosopher

The third tool of discipline or technique of dealing with the pain of problem-solving, which must continually be employed if our lives are to be healthy and our spirits are to grow, is dedication to the truth. Superficially, this should be obvious. For truth is reality. That which is false is unreal. The more clearly we see the reality of the world, the better equipped we are to deal with the world. The less clearly we see the reality of the world — the more our minds are befuddled by falsehood, misconceptions and illusions — the less able we will be to determine correct courses of action and make wise decisions. Our view of reality is like a map with which to negotiate the terrain of life. If the map is true and accurate, we will generally know where we are, and if we have decided where we want to go, we will generally know how to get there. If the map is false and inaccurate, we generally will be lost.   – M. Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled [1978]

"Man prefers to believe what he prefers to be true."  -- Sir Francis Bacon     (1561-1626) Philosopher, British Lord Chancellor   Source: Norvum Organum (1620)

“The steep decline in America's image and standing after 9/11 is a direct reflection of global distaste for the instruments of American hard power: the Iraq invasion, Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, torture, rendition, Blackwater's killings of Iraqi civilians” Shashi Tharoor

9-10-21:  Smithsonian talk….In the wake of the January 6 siege on the Capitol, bitter political divisiveness, anger, and irrational thinking continue to roil the United States, inhibiting the possibility of logical debate. Disturbed by the contentious state of politics and the disappearance of “truth, "Enlightenment scholar Seth David Radwell decided to take a deep dive into American history in search of the root causes of this split. 

In this investigative tracing of our nation’s divergent roots, Radwell explains that only reasoned analysis and historical perspective can act as salves for the irrational political discourse that is currently crowding out even the most remote opportunities to solve our most pressing problems.

Looking into foundational documents and the influence of the European Enlightenment, Radwell discovered a startling truth: Two disparate Americas have always coexisted, and the surprising origin of this was not an Enlightenment, but two distinct Enlightenments that have been fiercely competing since the founding of our country.

He discusses the nature of this divided vision and the core issues at the heart of the current national brawl. He also proposes a plan to begin the process of repair and reconciliation: a new dialogue between all thoughtful Americans, informed by our country’s history.

Radwell is an internationally known business executive and thought leader in consumer marketing. His new book, American Schism: How the Two Enlightenments Hold the Secret to Healing Our Nation (Greenleaf Book Group), is available for purchase.

"Freedom had been hunted round the globe; reason was considered as rebellion.

and the slavery of fear had made men afraid to think.  But such is the irresistible nature of truth, that all it asks, and all it wants, is the liberty of appearing."   -- Thomas Paine   (1737-1809) US Founding father, pamphleteer, author

"I think the subject which will be of most importance politically is Mass Psychology. ...It's importance has been enormously increased by the growth of modern methods of propaganda ...Although this science will be diligently studied, it will be rigidly confined to the governing class. The populace will not be allowed to know how its convictions were generated."  -- Bertrand Russell   [Bertrand Arthur William Russell] (1872-1970) Philosopher, educator

"It is easier to find a score of men wise enough to discover the truth than to find one intrepid enough, in the face of opposition, to stand up for it."  -- A. A. Hodge   [Archibald Alexander Hodge] (1823-1886) American Presbyterian leader, principal of Princeton Seminary

3-29-23:  ChatGPT:  What would be a streamlined version of the 10 Commandments to fight Truth decay?

"Truth decay" is a phenomenon characterized by the declining trust in facts, experts, and institutions that make up the foundation of our society. To fight truth decay, here are a few commandments that can be useful:

Seek evidence: Always seek out credible sources of information and evidence to support your beliefs and arguments.

Verify information: Before sharing information or making a statement, verify it with reputable sources and fact-checkers to ensure accuracy.

Think critically: Question assumptions, challenge opinions, and analyze arguments to arrive at your own conclusions.

Respect expertise: Acknowledge and respect the knowledge and expertise of professionals in their fields.

Be honest: Avoid lying, deceiving, or manipulating information to further your own agenda.

Listen to others: Listen actively and attentively to others, even when you disagree with them.

Foster civil discourse: Engage in civil discourse that promotes respectful, open-minded, and constructive communication.

Embrace diversity: Recognize and appreciate the value of diverse perspectives, experiences, and backgrounds.

Practice empathy: Try to understand and empathize with the perspectives and experiences of others, even if you don't agree with them.

Be accountable: Take responsibility for your own actions and words, and hold others accountable for theirs.

3-29-23: ChatGPT:  Would relying only on fundamental principles or self-evident truths be useful in combating Truth Decay? 

While relying on fundamental principles or self-evident truths can certainly be useful in combating truth decay, it may not be sufficient on its own.

Fundamental principles and self-evident truths are those that are considered to be true and valid without the need for proof or evidence. These principles are often based on widely accepted values and beliefs, such as the idea that all human beings are created equal, or that honesty and integrity are important virtues.

However, in today's complex and interconnected world, many issues and questions are not easily resolved by appealing to fundamental principles alone. To truly combat truth decay, it is also important to rely on critical thinking, careful analysis, and the use of evidence and expertise.

In other words, while fundamental principles and self-evident truths can be helpful starting points, they must be complemented by rigorous intellectual inquiry and a commitment to seeking out and evaluating evidence in order to arrive at accurate and trustworthy conclusions.

Letter to former President Trump,

What did you expect?  You once swore an oath to protect the Constitution then told so many lies it's amazing anyone trusts you.  Truth and trust are irrevocably tangled.  I remain a supporter of the 2^nd Amendment as one of the "unalienable Rights" and “Self-Evident” “Truth” referred to in the Declaration of Independence, our nation’s profoundly important founding document.  As a child I was beaten and watched or listened to the beatings of both my saintly mother and faithful sister.  Access to a gun gave me the confidence I stop the suffering if the police wouldn’t.  My father saw hard times.  He suffered much from his upbringing, ignorance, and tough stubborn tortured mind after the tragic loss of his 2-year-old first son in a drowning incident before I was born.  I understand him now, but his rage and hate then was infectious.  I'm glad my mother talked me out of killing him.  In Sunday school I learned the golden rule and what goes around, comes around.  Gravity is like justice.  It is an unstoppable force.  The increasing political polarization fuels passions.  And you have said things have fueled people's fears on all sides.  You swore an oath to protect the Constitution but so many of your actions and their outcomes prove that oath was ignored.  That sniper could not be ignored.  Hopefully it will wake you up to the increasingly urgent need bring all Americans (legal and illegal), and the world together keep our flag pledge of "liberty and justice for all'.  

The CIA has a saying, ‘there is no problem that can’t be solved with a well-placed explosive”.  I’m unaware of the sniper’s agenda, but it appears his intended well-placed bullet didn’t hit its mark.  The great tragedy is the loss of any civilian life and the possibly that the sniper’s action could spark a civil war if our mental hyperpolarization evolves further into radical violence as it often does when people's minds have lost touch with all of the Self-Evident Truths within the Declaration of Independence. Abraham Lincoln wrote that it is our "Apple of Gold" and the Constitution its "Frame of Silver".  

WARNING!  Movie spoiler!  In the conclusion of the recently released fictional movie “Civil War” that was made to reflect what a real civil war between Americans today might look like.  Both political sides have publicly expressed fear of such a thing coming,  In the movie, the make-believe President sounded a lot like 'a lying Trump' and he killed making it obvious that the Constitution had failed in forming a more perfect union.  That failure us real today as it continues to fail in achieving any of the other six intentions within its preamble.  "We the People" have failed in believing different truths and then electing those who agreed our personal and/or political truths.  But real truth, reality, has only side. And our minds have obviously failed at grasping and acting on these TRUTHS we were supposed to hold as self-evident. 

Project 2025 and most media coverage supporting both political camps in our currently ununited states have consistently warned Americans that we are about to lose our country - and then blaming the other side.  I’ve been guessing that someone guarding former President Trump - who had sworn a similar oath to protect the Constitution, would try to take him out.  Why?  Decades ago, while working professionally on national and global security issues, someone I worked with closely, came to work one day seriously fearing her husband, a military pilot on AirForce One, was going to kill the President. 

Anyone aware of Timothy McVeigh’s true ‘patriotic’ motive in blowing up the Oklahoma Federal building would know why I’m writing this.  McVeigh, a former military soldier witnessed firsthand the lethal abuses of the US government in taking the lives of innocent people in Iraq and Waco, Texas.  He felt bad about the truly innocent children killed in that explosion.  Then he referring to them as “collateral damage’ in violence he justified by the writings of one our nation's founding fathers. 

You once made the claim you could shoot and kill someone on the streets of New York, and it wouldn’t bother your supporters.  Live by the sword, die by the sword.   The phrase in the movie A few Good Men, “You can’t handle the Truth” comes to mind.  As well as “Feel lucky Punk?” from Dirty Harry.  The hard TRUTH is you remain a threat to the Constitution, just as "We the People" have been because of our collective lack of virtue essential to keeping our Union intact.  And you are lucky that the sniper was only an ‘ear shot’ away.  I hope you got the right message.  Unfortunately, the anger visible in some of your MAGA fans while your protectors covered you then walked you away- put fear into my heart that now more blood would be spilled in the days ahead - regardless of the shooters motive.  Many conspiracy theories are already flooding social media on both sides.  And the only Deep State that exists in the one "We the People" have elected with our multiple personal religious and political truths that are not "Self-Evident" "Truths".    

Our mind’s greatest flaw is its capacity to believe anything.  And ignore who we really are which is human beings. One species, earthlings, passengers or crewmembers on spaceship earth 99.9% the same genetically.  We only differ in the Identities that our minds have become addicted to... and then kill or die for different beliefs and various imagined truths.  

We have so many flawed beliefs.   I’ve been writing about them since President Bush was re-elected in 2004.  We fail to grasp the one-sided Truth essential our collective survival and thriving.   Meanwhile our mind’s personal and political truths and Identics it has claimed will continue to drive a lethal wedge between us all leading to unsustainable violence everywhere.   And now with the weaponization of everything, it would literally do ‘a world of good’ for our 2-5-0 anniversary of the 4^th of July now less than 2 years away to be celebrated globally, in every town, village, family, city, and place of worship.   

The Declaration of Independence remains a profoundly universal assertion that we all have an unalienable right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness”.   The saddest fact is that 'happiness' is not that modern and fleeting American feeling we associate it with.  Originally, happiness meant finding your bliss in being a good person and doing good for yourself and those you love.  In one word, virtuous.  

Perhaps the greatest thing you did as our President was creating the newest federal agency, CISA, the Cyber and Infrastructure Security Agency, and appointing Jen Easterly as its director.  She is still there.  And on Oct. 29, 2021, she said “Everything is connected, everything is interdependent, so everything is vulnerable.... And that’s why this has to be a more than whole of government, a more than whole of nation [effort]. It really has to be a global effort....” 

Please understand that words have power.  And the words “Everything”, ‘connected’, ‘interdependent’, and ‘vulnerable’ are not ambiguous words.  Each are autological words, meaning they define themselves.  Now consider that ‘everything’, like every strand of DNA in everyone’s body is vulnerable.  Even yours. 

We are so far lucky that you did not become a martyr to our nation's insanity that our guns and our military power can keep us safe and free as we, our Constitution, and the laws made with it persistently ignore “the Laws of Nature and Nature’s God”.  If that phrase is unfamiliar to you, please read the first line in the Declaration of Independence.  That profound document that should have truthfully been titled our “Declaration of Separation”.  Because independence is a mental illusion. And any law or government that believes in independence, then fashions and tries to enforce such laws based on this delusional concept, will be forced into a perpetual dilemma of exchanging freedom for security, or security for freedom...until both are lost globally.   The truth is all of humanity faces a trilemma.  And only by accepting and consistently acting on our irreversible global interdependence can we maximins both our freedoms and our security. 

With the hyper evolution of powerful, fast, and affordable weapons; pathogens (natures and lab created); environmental deterioration, and seemingly endless wars and economic debts it should be obvious humanity is running out of time.  
We have the wealth but lack the wisdom and the political will to achieve what nations and populations have already agreed on.  The 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights.  And the 2016 United Nations 17 Sustainable Development Goals to be achieved by 2030.  Progress on these goals is flailing. Yet they are the wisest investment humanity can make in addressing the root causes of so many of the threats we, our nations, and our earth's life support system face. 

Please use this chance you have been given to lead all Americans (North, South, and Central) and the rest of the world into a future we can all survive, thrive, prosper, and protect nature on our home planet long enough to do the same on others. 

Yours 'truly', 

A tired, yet hopeful old man. 

cw

"A human being is part of the whole, called by us 'Universe'; a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest - a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and affection for a few persons nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole nature in its beauty. Nobody is able to achieve this completely, but striving for such achievement is, in itself, a part of the liberation, and a foundation for inner security."   -Albert Einstein.  As quoted in Quantum Reality, Beyond the New Physics, p. 250.

“A great part of that order which reigns among mankind is not the effect of government. It had its origin in the principles of society and the natural constitution of man. It existed prior to government, and would exist if the formality of government was abolished. The mutual dependence and reciprocal interest which man has upon man, and all parts of a civilized community upon each other, create that great chain of connection which holds it together. The landholder, the farmer, the manufacturer, the merchant, the tradesman, and every occupation, prospers by the aid which each receives from the other, and from the whole. Common interest regulates their concerns, and forms their laws; and the laws which common usage ordains, have a greater influence than the laws of government. In fine, society performs for itself almost everything which is ascribed to government.  – Thomas Paine, Rights of Man [1791]

“Before you finish eating breakfast in the morning, you've depended on more than half of the world. This is the way our universe is structured, this is its interrelated quality. We aren't going to have peace on earth until we recognize this basic fact of the interrelated structure of all reality.” Martin Luther King, Jr.

"Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect." - Chief Seattle, Duwamish (1780-1866) 

“You cannot get through a single day without having an impact on the world around you. Whatever you do makes a difference.  You have to decide what kind of difference you want to make” Jane Goodall.

"The action of even the tiniest creature leads to changes in the entire Universe." - Nikola Tesla

 

"For peace to reign on Earth, humans must evolve into new beings who have learned to see the whole first." - Immanuel Kant

“All is connected. That’s the truth of the world’s wisdom traditions ... No single thing, no species or ecosystem, community or culture is safe when so much hangs in the balance. We unravel as one or we regenerate as one.”    - Ayana Elizabeth Johnson & Katharine K. Wilkinson, All We Can Save

 

“All this is simply to say that all life is interrelated. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality; tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. As long as there is poverty in this world, no man can be totally rich even if he has a billion dollars. As long as diseases are rampant and millions of people cannot expect to live more than twenty or thirty years, no man can be totally healthy, even if he just got a clean bill of health from the finest clinic in America. Strangely enough, I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. You can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be.”  ― Martin Luther King Jr.   .   (hear his full speech!  OMG.  https://youtu.be/QN8ej4k2ilc )

 

Africans speak of ubuntu (humanity), often translated as “I am because we are.”

 

"One touch of nature makes the whole world kin"  William Shakespeare.

“It is in the shelter of each other that people live”  Irish proverb.

“The earth belongs always to the living generation… Every constitution, then, and every law, naturally expires at the end of 19. years. If it be enforced longer, it is an act of force and not of right.”   Thomas Jefferson In a 1789 letter to James Madison

Jefferson believed in the principle that “the earth belongs to the living and not to the dead”.  In his mind, “no society can make a perpetual constitution, or even a perpetual law”. The only “umpire” between the generations was the law of nature.”

 

“Classical and Enlightenment thinkers defined happiness as the pursuit of virtue - as being good rather than feeling good” Jeffrey Rosen, President and Chief Executive of the National Constitution Center.

JUSTICE IS FOUND IN THE RIGHTS BESTOWED BY NATURE UPON MAN.  LIBERTY IS MAINTAINED IN SECURITY OF JUSTICE. Engraved into the exterior marble of the US Justice Department

"Justice is the great interest of man on earth.  Wherever her temple stands, there is a foundation for social security, general happiness, and the improvement and progress of our race."    Inscribed above the entrance to the US Dept. of Justice, Washington DC. 

 "America does not need another political campaign based on denial and avoidance of some of our real problems. It needs a crusade to reform and renew our country, its institutions and political system." - Richard Lamm   Reform Party's nomination for President of the United States in 1996.

"I would not use the US Constitution as a template if I was creating a new constitution."    Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg

Shred the Constitution? During the Cold War a secondary government was created to replace the real government had there been a nuclear war that obliterated it.  Those who proposed and organized such a ‘replacement government’ wrote that if this were ever needed, they suggested ‘shredding the Constitution” and starting over. I would love to know their reasoning.

 

"There are no necessary evils in government. Its evils exist only in its abuses. If it would confine itself to equal protection, and, as Heaven does its rains, shower its favors alike on the high and the low, the rich and the poor, it would be an unqualified blessing."  -- Andrew Jackson  (1767-1845) 7th US President    Source: July 10, 1832, Veto of the Bank Bill

"Understand that all battles are waged on an unconscious level before they are begun on the conscious one, and this battle is no different. The power structure wishes us to believe that the only options available are those which they present to us, we know this is simply not true." - Teresa Stover

 

 

“[T]here is no more truth more thoroughly established, than that there exists in the economy and course of nature, an indissoluble union between virtue and happiness, between duty and advantage, between genuine maxims of an honest and magnanimous policy, and the solid rewards of public prosperity and felicity . . . “  – George Washington, First Inaugural Address [April 30, 1789]

 

"But what is liberty without wisdom, and without virtue? It is the greatest of all possible evils; for it is folly, vice, and madness, without tuition or restraint:" Edmund Burke

 

“Societies in decline have no use for visionaries.” Anais Nin

 

“The real dilemma for all of us over the next twenty years is going to be that the future is going to have way more positive possibilities because of our interdependence, but also continued opportunities for hacking, for cybersecurity problems, and for the spread of deadly technologies, with a lot of confused, undereducated, and unemployed young people in the world, and with a global shortage of jobs for young people, opportunities to do destructive things. Young people are more vulnerable to the siren songs of fundamentalism and the social media. And if they get up thinking tomorrow is going to be like yesterday, that's a very bad thing. This is why I think it's so important that the nation-states that are functioning work harder on shared prosperity, shared opportunities, and shared security, because that's the great battle here.

You can't make all this stuff happen without technology, without relatively open borders and without other people being able to use the same technology for more selfish and more lethal ends. And that's basically where we are…The world is becoming more interdependent, and national borders look more like nets than walls. The nation-state will continue to be very important, but there will be more and more and more unique, previously unforeseeable partnerships required. Alliances by issues, hard choices. How can you make a deal with Iran on nuclear capacity if they're still gonna sponsor Hamas and Hezbollah? How can you break down barriers between government, business, and NGOs when you should and keep the barriers when you shouldn't? All these questions are going to present problems, and the nongovernmental movement is going to be filled with good actors that some nations are increasingly trying to control—China and Russia, for example—and also bad actors that can be very successful. You could argue that ISIS is the most successful NGO—it's like the Gates Foundation versus ISIS, you know? They're a nongovernmental organization…  So in the modern world, the ideas that will shape our time will be the intersection of science and technology, medicine and health and technology; the ability to eradicate poverty—we've already exceeded the poverty goals in the first Millennium Development Goals; the ability to identify and lend dignity and importance to every life, because there will be fewer people that need to live and die anonymously in the world; and the ability to find ways to cooperate against the forces that are using the same exact technologies and mobility and porous borders to try to gain a very different future. Boko Haram, Al Shabab, Ansar Dine, ISIS, et al. And underneath it all, in the twenty-first century we will be called upon, I think and I hope, to resolve the oldest dilemma of human society, which is "What does it mean to be a human being?" Our identity crisis. Which is more important, our differences or our common humanity?”  Bill Clinton   Bill Clinton on Missed 9/11 Signs, ISIS, and Ragging on George W. Bush.  By Mark Warren, Esquire   19 September 2015.

"If liberty is worth keeping and free representative government worth saving, we must stand for all American fundamentals—not some, but all. All are woven into the great fabric of our national well-being. We cannot hold fast to some only, and abandon others that, for the moment, we find inconvenient. If one American fundamental is prostrated, others in the end will surely fall."
-- Albert J. Beveridge  (1862-1927) American historian, US Senator (R-IN)  1920

 

 

“…all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.” Declaration of Independence.

 

 

Newt Gingrich and young people

Newt Gingrich made valid points in his opinion piece “Key 'lessons in liberty'” July 5, 2024.  But it should be a ‘self-evident’ truth why young people are disgruntled with our nation and why many believe their lives have “little or no meaning.”  First, is our nation’s profound hypocrisy between what it remains today and the universal principles in our Declaration of Independence that inspired the American revolution.  Then engineered the US Constitution legalizing slavery that led to a civil war killing more Americans than all the wars Americans have fought in since then combined.  And our Constitution still puts the protection of basic human rights below the protection of states' rights and the rights of nations to do whatever they like to whomever they like, especially if they have nuclear weapons.   

Reagan was right "freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction”. But the founders agreed that virtue was the key to keeping it.   Our selfish culture is now anything but virtuous - with a leading presidential candidate with none.   It’s understandable youth feel powerless to change any of this with our increasingly dysfunctional congress.  And no chance of amending the Constitution to codify "the Laws of Nature and Nature’s God'.  The very essence of what is needed to sustainably protect our natural environment and every human's God given rights. 

Most youth understand the basis of human biology that all people are nearly identical genetically.  And we are all birthed with certain God given rights.  Unfortunately, too many adult mind's chose to attack any variety of identities (sexual, religious, national, or political) that their mind judges to be undeserving of rights or freedom.  And those same adults then fail to keep their flag pledge of "Liberty and justice for All".  A pledge that could best assist humanity and nature from perishing in another world war.

4th of July celebration? Or agenda for urgent action.

 

A new book is out by Steven Brill, titled the “Death of Truth”.  It blames our bad media diets for the current state of the world.   This may not be true, but this book is an attempt to answer the January 2017 Time magazine cover page story as Trump was inaugurated, “Is Truth Dead?”.  Exactly 50 years earlier TIME used exactly same unique cover page with the words “Is God Dead? in white, on an entirely black page thinly boarded in red.  After the Fact checkers verified all the lies, misinformation, and pure poppycock spewing from mostly one candidate in the recent Presidential contest its truthful to say that if Trump is elected truth is defiantly on life support.  And a sustainable remedy is urgently needed

What Americans in much of the world fails to grasp is the ‘one sidedness’ of truth. Neil deGrasse Tyson wisely and correctly asserted that our minds can possess three kinds of truth.   The first is our personal truth. What God do we believe in or not.  We all know there are plenty of sides to this truth and will never agree on which one is correct.   Then there are our political truths.  And again, there is no limit to the number of these increasingly polarizing sides.  The globally accepted ‘one sided truth’ is determined by objective analysis. This truth has provided all of humanity with profoundly useful technologies for any application.  Communication, transportation, medicine, banking, and life prolonging preventive health measures along with unprecedentedly powerful weapon systems enabling any one disgruntled nation or leader to globally end all life as we know it.  Because “Everything is connected, everything is interdependent, so everything is vulnerable.... And that’s why this has to be a more than whole of government, a more than whole of nation [effort]. It really has to be a global effort....” Jen Easterly. CISA director.  Oct. 29, 2021. [the Cyber and Infrastructure Security Agency is our nation’s newest federal agency established by the Trump Administration in 2018].  And our environment is our most fundamental and essential infrastructure!

So, this Fourth of July, instead of celebrating our mental delusion of independence, we should think deep and hard about the profound words starting the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence, “WE hold these truths to be self-evident”.   Meanwhile, many Americans and others around the world also blessed with abundance have managed to redefine happiness.  Too many believe it’s about ‘feeling good”.  But humanity will never be able to truly achieve the lasting happiness that was intended back when that word was written.  Then it meant as contentment with finding, creating, and applying one’s talents and using these in service to those they loved and others in their community, with the intent of ensuring the protection of their freedom, security, prosperity, and posterity.

 Today our global community allows wars, genocides, violent extremism, extreme lethal weather events, hunger, starvation, and the global spread of pandemics and other lethal and debilitating infectious diseases.   Nearly all of these are affordably preventable.   Yet our existing global governance system was never given the power to do this.  Humanity once achieved a global success in cooperating to eradicate the Smallpox.   That saved more lives in last century than all the lives lost in all the wars, revolutions, and genocides combined during the same century.   And because everything is connected interdependent and vulnerable, such a global effort is increasingly and urgently needed for all the global threats we each face today. 

Its certain that this Fourth of July Americans will not be celebrating our commitment to prevention.  Or our achieving any of the seven intentions in our Constitution’s preamble.   And we will remain intentionally ignorant of the most profound set of laws offered in the first sentence of our Declaration of Independence related to keeping everyone’s alienable rights.   The most basic rights based on “the Laws of Nature and Nature‘s God.”   We ignore this profound truth that we must take care of nature and each other if we intend to preserve our freedoms and security or achieve any of the intentions in the preamble of our Constitution. 

Most Americans and other religious believer also appear oblivious to the fact that every major religion in the world is founded on the ideal of the Golden rule. 

Abraham Lincoln once wrote that our Declaration of Independence is our “Apple of Gold” and our constitution it’s “Frame of Silver”.   With our Constitution based on the illusion of independence that exists nowhere in the known universe, we can only expect increasing chaos.  Because we exist in an entirely interdependent reality.  And until we accept this fundamental truth nothing is safe, secure, or sustainable.   And our lack of virtue is what’s killing us.  Benjimen Franklin said “Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become more corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters.”

"We have no government armed in power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Our Constitution was made only for a religious and moral people. It is wholly inadequate for the
government of any other."  -- John Adams   (1735-1826) Founding Father, 2nd US President
Source: Oct. 11, 1798; Address to the military

 

“Our Constitution is in actual operation; everything appears to promise that it will last; but in this world nothing is certain but death taxes.”  -- Benjamin Franklin

 

Our national and global governance systems based on the illusion of independence was created 400 years ago.   It’s way past time we created a global governance system that is true to our reality of interdependence and our flag pledge of “liberty and Justice for all”.

 

If we truly intend to achieve each of the seven intentions in our Constitution, we need to amend it to codify this fundamental truth.  ‘Everything is connected, interdependent, and vulnerable.  And a global effort is needed.’   Only this will make America Great Again and prevent our republic from meeting the same end as Rome.   “We the people” need to rethink and do more than react to this fundamental truth.  It’s this or prepare for the consequences.