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As indicated above in the editor’s disclaimer, I am the sole person responsible for everything written in this article and all other Musings. I apologize for offending you and encourage you to continue to read Musings if you so choose, but also encourage you to avoid Musings if it raises your ire! Peace be unto you!
My musings are simply that, musing about facts that are found in the current public domain. My sources are traditional, primarily CBS and NBC evening news and some podcasts. I used to review CNN and Fox as well, but determined that I want the simple facts! Less kibitzing and schmoozing! As Sergeant Joe Friday used to say, “the facts ma’am, just the facts!” Nothing new or created here, just commented or “mused” upon as civics topics seen through my eyes! Neither Republican nor Democratic be, but instead American of Texan origin, background and experience!
I once substitute taught Government for three weeks at the University of Texas in Arlington for a friend who was called away suddenly. Government was the area I first studied in graduate school but not my final area of expertise. It was a contentious class with multiple students from the Middle East and other parts of the world. I finally settled them down with the idea that government comes in many forms and used the analogy of the Rubik’s Cube, a 3-D combination puzzle. Instead of a cube, however, we should see government as a sphere with 3 dimensions that constantly revolve and shift much like the Rubik Cube, but as incidents and situations occur.
On the sphere, one finds (1) the economic variations of capitalism and socialism with combinations in between. Rampant capitalism can be as evil as rampant socialism. Witness our billionaires who pay little or no taxes but do not like majority rule and seek to control our democracy. (2) The social or organizational factors or “hierarchies”, oligarchy/ rule of the few rich/; monarchy/rule of a single monarch, queen, king, or family/; anarchy/no rule at all but chaos and absence of law! Then there are those social organizations “cracies”, autocracy/ single man rule/; direct democracy ( every man rules or rampant individualism; witness the current anti-mask movement!) or representative, republican democracy (which we have in the United States whereby we elect Senators and Congresspersons, the President and Vice President, all to represent us and our wishes)! Then there is theocracy, ruling by the religious group in power (Israel and the Knesset or maybe what we are seeing right now in Afghanistan with Taliban rule as the bearded hordes militarily force their interpretations of Muslim teachings).
Hang in there! We are almost done! Continuing on the revolving sphere, we have the (3) political aspects: Totalitarianism which is coercion with military force and can be fascist (nationalistic with very stratified roles/ elitist or supremacist rule/ top down like Hitler as a dictator) or communistic which supposedly advocates for economic equality and a classless hierarchy (obviously didn’t work in Russia under Stalin)! Whew! Contrasting totalitarianism is again democracy, rule of the majority for the common good! The military is to provide for the common defense, not to enforce it! At any rate, all this is on a sphere which rotates and revolves changing as the situations change! I say again “Whew!” Are you still with me?
At any rate, autocracy is what many in the press and in American politics are attributing to the actions of our immediate past President! Another example is Orban in Hungary, visited recently by Tucker Carlson. Whatever! All facts as stated in the free press! Public domain!
Remember me? Naivete, right? I so believe in our wonderful American democracy, in the Rule of Law, in majority rule, in the right of all citizens to vote and to elect our representatives. As I told that Government class so many years ago, the United States of America has an utopian government with all its mistakes and all its foibles, but regardless, it is still the world’s best experiment in democracy! God Bless America!