Featured

Nonprofit Organizations and Digital Assets, Beginning with Stablecoins

In July of 2025, the U.S. Congress enacted a law titled: “Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins Act” (commonly referred to as “the GENIUS Act”). This law would permit the issuance of a form of digital asset known as a “payment stablecoin” that would be used only for purposes of payment or settlement and not investment. Among various entities, payment stablecoins maybe issued by depository institutions but are not federally insured. Rather, they are supported by the requirement that every payment stablecoin issuer maintain a reserve fund of equal value to its outstanding payment stablecoins in U.S. dollars or items of a similar form.

In the course of implementing the GENIUS Act, the U.S. Department of the Treasury requested comments from the general public with respect to future regulation. The memorandum below was submitted in response.

From: Lori G. Nuckolls, Public Policy Researcher and Writer, Philosophy, Law and Politics (lorigaylenuckolls.blog)

To: U.S. Department of the Treasury, Attention: Office of the General Counsel, 1500 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20220, Via Electronic Submission: https://www.regulations.gov

Re: GENIUS Act Implementation Comments, TREAS-DO-2025-0037, 90 Fed. Reg. 45159-45163 (Sept. 19, 2025), 90 Fed. Reg. 47251 (Oct. 1, 2025) (Submission date extension)

Date: November 1, 2025

I. Introduction

The GENIUS Act, 12 U.S.C. §§ 5901-5916 (2025), was enacted with the legislative purpose of providing legal guidance and regulation in the use of stablecoins as a digital asset. A statutorily created “payment stablecoin,” denominated in U.S. Dollars, would be issued by legally approved entities and would allow entrance into the digital marketplace in a safe and sound manner. 90 Fed. Reg. 45159 (Sept. 19, 2025). In regulating the issuance of payment stablecoins by subsidiaries of depository institutions, specifically nonprofit depository institutions such as credit unions, the U.S. Department of the Treasury should consider regulations that support and permit as well require the nonprofit organizations to honor their asserted charitable mission and purpose. With respect to the credit union, this would be pursuance of its historical mission and purpose of enabling its governing members to obtain access to historically unavailable financial services, develop financial literacy, and transition into a competitive socio-economic environment premised upon self-government and self-sustainability. Credit unions which have already successfully entered the heretofore unregulated digital asset marketplace offer extensive and direct training to leaders, staff, and members to avoid financial loss. Participation of credit unions, large and small, in a well-regulated digital asset marketplace would facilitate the long-sought self-government and financial growth of members.

The Department of the Treasury should consider that nonprofit financial institutions bear a higher ethical standard than do for-profit entities. Their existence depends upon their reputation within the communities they serve and the absence of their engaging in intense competition with their peers. Credit unions rely upon the trust they engender in society, not to mention donors, volunteers and members. In governing the payment stablecoin activities of all nonprofits, including credit unions, regulators should premise requirements upon the principle that the trust engendered by the conduct of the nonprofit organization is based upon not only the appearance of propriety but also upon the absence of even the appearance of impropriety.

As a consequence, regulation could guide nonprofit organizations in achieving balance between engaging in authorized emerging digital assets and guaranteeing the financial stability of the communities served. Whereas, unleashing digital assets in a scarcely regulated environment to enable the efficiency, directness and globalization emerging digital technologies provide, would be an example of dialectical creative destruction. And, this achievement of positive development while permitting a threshold level of hardship is to be mitigated in the regulatory process. Specifically, in the historically financially fragile communities of the credit union, little is achieved by regulation allowing entrance into the digital asset marketplace if the burden of greater risk is endured by the financial communities most in need. Thus, questions arise as to how regulation of the nonprofit organization is to be structured in theory and practice.

II. Credit Union Subsidiary Issuers of Payment Stablecoins: a Theory of Regulation to Avoid the Creative Destruction Dialectic

The GENIUS Act currently provides that all issuers of payment stablecoins, state and federal, are required to meet federal standards. 12 U.S.C. § 5903(c) (2025). In regulating nonprofit organizations and, guiding regulation by the National Credit Union Administration of credit unions and the distinct communities they serve, perhaps the Department of the Treasury could consider the theoretical doctrine of the “veil of ignorance” established by American philosopher John Rawls. In the veil of ignorance, Rawls suggests that society place itself in the “original position” in which each individual in society envisions oneself to not know one’s specific place in society. (Rawls, A Theory of Justice (1971)).

In this case, the principles of the veil of ignorance guide governing leaders and citizens in reaching agreement as to public policy, law and regulation. Choices in law would be determined by a general understanding as to what being a citizen should mean. Commonality of thought would arise from leaders and the public alike perceiving themselves guided by the veil of ignorance under which they reach decisions and enact laws without consideration of their own personal circumstance and condition. Rather, each person deems their position to be that of those most vulnerable and in need. And, in turn, they seek a legal structure most capable of providing a just and fair society.

Specifically, the Department of the Treasury would identify with credit union staff and members most benefiting from the financial services and training provided and least familiar with emerging digital asset technologies. Safe harbor regulations for credit unions and other nonprofit organizations would guide the ambitious and encourage the wary ones unfamiliar with the digital asset marketplace. For, both are truly outnumbered by for-profit entities. In doing so, credit union regulation, in particular, would allow financial growth through the creative use of digital assets while maintaining a safety net for the credit union governed by members most in need of financial literacy and growth.

The GENIUS Act and its framework for the issuance of payment stablecoins as a creature of statute is a blank slate. It enables the beginning of a new economy premised upon regulation in the John Rawls original position, derived from the veil of ignorance. For example, both regulators and credit unions, including their issuer subsidiaries, would envision themselves in the position of a credit union with truly dependent members situated in a community of similar prospective members increasing in number. To continue in existence, this credit union and its members must be knowledgeable of market development, namely the advent of digital assets. In this position, Treasury would govern with reference to legal standards that would enable an understanding of rights, powers, and privileges, as well as the risks they engender. From this new beginning, credit unions would be able to implement risk assessment policies allowing the balancing of legally authorized conduct against the forbearance of some legally permitted activity in order to maintain trust and goodwill within the community. For, credit unions might not need to be as ambitious and as competitive as the GENIUS Act possibly allows.

III. Conclusion

With the GENIUS Act as a beginning, Congress and the administrative agencies may readily provide financial regulation of all nonprofit organizations as they enter every aspect of the digital asset marketplace. In guiding this transition, the law should promote new strategies of growth and risk management as to digital assets as it has historically with respect to more traditional financial markets.

Featured

When Was There Last Enforcement Of The American Identity?

Why is there a declining sense of community in America? Less active participation in one’s neighborhood, religious organization and charities is occurring. Could this be a result of an increasing awareness of the current American social identity and our failing to achieve or actualize our identity as described by the literal wording in our time honored governing documents: the Declaration of Independence, U.S. Constitution, enforcing statutes and interpreting judicial opinions. Many blame the atomization of society upon social media and Artificial Intelligence. But, perhaps, popular resort to an obsession with the arts of new technology is a remedy of this absence of human connectedness and not the cause.

There are some attributes of personhood in America that require public discussion and enforcement by the law. For, without enforcement, trust in American society and government ceases to exist. Many of these laws in want of enforcement involve social conduct and behavior that are prerequisite to the rights and liberties of American law. This is not a reference to the future recognition of new rights and liberties, though there probably will be some new ones overtime, but, instead, a focus upon the long ago designated crimes that undermine democratic American society: incest, truancy and illegal immigration.

Enforcement is necessary because American democracy is premised upon the sanctity of the individual as each person obtains learning and an understanding sufficient to engage in self-determination and self-government. Incest is prohibited owing to the scientific rationale that children produced from such relationships often suffer from genetic impairment and the social rationale that the relationships often result from abuse and exploitation creating a sense of shame and inferiority.

School attendance is a fundamental requirement for citizens to be able to function and participate as active members of the voting public. This includes an adequate skill level in an arts and sciences curriculum, with vocational training available. And, as a nation of immigrants, America demands the absence of the abuse and exploitation of those seeking liberty from oppression in other lands. Without a path to legal residency they lead a life of illegal employment, want of civic involvement and nonexistence of social integration.

There are newly recognized civil rights and liberties in the modern era: integrated schooling (1954), contraception (1965), integrated relationships (1967) abortion (1973) and same-sex marriage (2015). However, the theories and rationales underlying prohibitions against incest, truancy and illegal immigration support the emergence of the person upon which the foregoing more recently acknowledged rights and liberties exist as an expression. Without the attributes resulting from the absence of incest, truancy and illegal immigration, one may not partake in fair schools, private relationships and self-governance.

We must look to the very foundation of America, below our officials in all aspects of government to the concept of the Rawlsian “original position” in which each one of us imagines that we do not know our place in society. From this position, we conceive of what our world should be. We must begin again to establish our society and government from its description in our essential documents. Enforcement is necessary according to modern terms for a modern era. And, individual existence in such a society requires a viable economic structure of single income livelihoods and feasible higher education tuition. For, even the cost of a public college or university education is beyond the ability of most parental incomes as well as the incomes of most graduates who rely upon student loan financing.

Ongoing progress and development has and will improve law enforcement as it has given rise to the emergence of new rights and privileges, such as scientific advancements in contraception, abortion and in vitro fertilization, which have resulted in newfound debates over the meaning of life. Similarly, incest prohibitions may be reformed with scientific developments in the field of genetics.

Currently, we must ask both government and ourselves as members of the public to look to the connection between our pervasive social ills and the absence of the enforcement of century old legal restrictions. Eliminating duplicity and inefficiency will only make our true society and government more visible and render more feasible achievement of the American dream.

Featured

Is There A Universal Morality?

In our world, we individually experience rites of passage and achieve a meeting of the minds, a collective understanding that a development has taken place. Our understanding is based on knowledge of facts and ideas acquired from both mental and sensory views of life. Even according to the 1901 publication of a noteworthy, yet controversial, Continental Philosopher:

To the extent to which knowledge has any sense at all, the world is knowable: but it may be interpreted differently, it has not one sense behind it, but hundreds of senses…

Consequently, we should defer to our collective appreciation of reality and the law that governs our existence.

We may disagree, one with another, about the law and our governing leaders. If so, we must look to the role in politics and society that law and government permit us. To change law and or society, we may only participate in the specific manner we are allowed. Participation begins with the act of daily self-governance. In doing so, we will together understand and change our lives and world.

In America, we made certain promises at its founding which we are achieving gradually through many transitions in society and government. Ultimately, we seek to create a country of equal opportunity in a popular melting pot of free choice. Ideally, our schools, churches, clubs and places of employment will permit unfettered access and participation in a meritocratically ruled government and society.

In thinking of the recent transition in the American Presidency, we should evaluate governing leaders and the policies they propose by the same standards with which we govern ourselves. In no way may we hold them accountable to standards higher than our own.

Lori Gayle Nuckolls

Featured

A Natural Aristocrat for DNC Chair

In selecting the next Chair of the Democratic National Committee, democrats should learn from mistakes made in the most recent election this past November. The losses, president and below, are not solely the fault of current Chair Jamie Harrison. If any reason is to be cited, perhaps Harrison did not stress upon party members the importance of supporting candidates like himself. And, the next Chair should do so. A well-educated, wise, and worldly Democratic Chair would attract similar candidates.

Need we do much to remember the roles of Franklin Roosevelt and John Kennedy in history, not to mention Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. Democrats must admit that both Vice President Kamala Harris and President Joe Biden are not historical figures. Jamie Harrison would present a better candidate.

Democrats possess an opportunity in recently announced DNC Chair candidate Ben Wikler, currently Democratic Chair in Wisconsin, to elect a DNC Chair who may be held accountable to a known standard of ability. He and Jamie Harrison should be compelled to bring forth candidates, local to federal, similar to themselves. The nation must rely upon learned elites as its source of governance. This presidential election did not do this and qualified candidates further down the ballot lost.

Partisanship is not the issue. Rather it is the essential principle of democratic government, that of leadership by a natural aristocracy, derived from its populace with an equal access to education and information. Both Harrison and Wikler are meritocratic leaders. It is possible that more candidates of similar quality will announce for the position as Chair. However, Democrats, and all Americans, must abide by the manner in which a democratic society must be governed.

Lori Gayle Nuckolls

Featured

Where Is The American Governing Meritocracy?

America was founded upon a principle of equality of opportunity. It is world history that provides an appreciation of this ability to participate in society and government. Those well steeped in the thought, languages and literature of their era were learned scribes, tutors, and writers, from Ptahhotep, to Plato, to Shakespeare, to Beauvoir, and beyond. They are members of a historical meritocracy.

America must derive its leaders and elected officials from this stratum to form a governing natural aristocracy. In the words of founder Thomas Jefferson: “[t]he natural aristocracy I consider as the most precious gift of nature for the instruction, the trusts and government of society.” America’s political parties, citizens, and residents do not benefit from governing leadership that is not of the natural aristocracy. Average Americans cannot rise to the level required to govern an ever more demanding world. The political parties must empower its intellectual elites, both within as party leaders and as nominated candidates.

Reliance upon a governing meritocracy requires that society not engender a sense of personal inferiority within its working class. Becoming an intellectual must be feasible for all with the required ability. Respect must also exist for craftsmanship and industrial production. America needs to recognize those meritocraticaly able in all occupations in order to provide self-governance and participation for all. Self-government is an indication of individual achievement and success in a democratic society. It requires adequate education, economic self-sufficiency, and a sense of respect and integrity so that one may maintain trust in government. Personally, I have found that discrimination undermines self-confidence and creates a sense of inferiority, especially when reinforced with an emphasis on the newly declared impropriety of affirmative action. This harm long ago found resulting from racially separate but disputedly equal academic institutions one must wonder might currently exist in racially segregated yet ostensibly separate but equal religious communities.

A meritocratic leadership based upon self-government requires an equal access to education. Disparities in wealth have created an admission gap with wealthy families investing more in college preparatory resources resulting in a far higher level of admission to elite colleges and universities. To provide equal opportunity, government investment is needed in public college preparatory schools of the type that have long-existed in the United States but in insufficient numbers. Such an equal access to education allows the natural aristocracy to assume positions of leadership in both the private sector and in government.

And, as to those not inclined to attend college, all natural talents must be valued and serve as the basis of a meritocracy. For, attribution of a sense of value broadly across all expressions of ability will mitigate the present departure of many young people from scholarship to social media. Meritocracy should provide, in combination with the theory of self-government, a means for every individual to engage in self-evaluation and determine one’s interests and abilities at as young an age as may be possible, both vocational and professional.

In looking for our ruling meritocracy in the results of the recent election, one may look to the candidates leading the ticket in the Presidential election: President-elect Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Vice President Kamala Harris. But, arguably, one must first ask whether President Joseph Biden would have been elected to the presidency if he had not previously been Vice President under President Barack Obama, unquestionably a natural aristocrat, even after having served many years as a publicly well known Senator? Does Vice President Kamala Harris differ from President Biden? Do we have to admit that they are not natural aristocrats? And, must we also admit that President-elect Donald Trump arguably is one? Are we empowering a meritocracy?

In conclusion, in this election, was the Democratic Party merely akin to being a child appended to the hip of the Republican Party as the ruing class. The Democratic Party must consistently designate its intellectual elites if it is to gain financial independence and exist as an effective independent entity. America requires competitive political parties that respect talent and ability in all expressions. And, America must recognize that it promised itself upon its founding that representation in a democratic republic is by its natural aristocracy.

Lori Gayle Nuckolls

Featured

The Ohio Citizens Redistricting Commission of Ohio Issue 1, November of 2024

How do we evaluate the fairness of proposed reforms? Historically, we see ourselves anew and think empathetically that we are in the place of those whose condition is being remedied.

The Ohio Issue 1 Citizens Redistricting Commission creates a different method of redistricting Ohio for the purpose of General Assembly and Congressional elections. Issue 1 removes the persons currently empowered to serve as the Ohio Redistricting Commission by the Ohio Constitution: the Governor, Auditor of State, Secretary of State, an appointee of the House Speaker, an appointee of the House Minority Leader, an appointee of the Senate President, and an appointee of the Senate Minority Leader. In their place, Issue 1 would name 15 Ohio citizens who: (1) are not elective or appointive officials and (2) in the previous six years, have not: (a) held elective or appointive office in Ohio; (b) been a candidate for elective office in Ohio; (c) been an officer, paid consultant, or contractor to a political party, political action campaign, or campaign committee; (d) been a staff member, paid consultant, or contractor for an elected official or candidate; or (e) been a registered lobbyist or legislative agent with the State of Ohio or the federal government. These disqualifications apply to the immediate family members of the citizen commissioners as well. Citizen commissioners will represent the two largest political parties and independent voters based upon their previous primary ballot selections.

The citizen commissioners must not, in general, possess interests that conflict with the redistricting process. For, they are prohibited from holding elective or appointive office in Ohio for the six years following certification of their commission ‘s redistricting plan.

The redistricting plan of the Citizens Commission is subject to judicial review and must comply with the U.S. Constitution and applicable federal law, including the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The proposed redistricting method of Issue 1 is, thus, accountable to the judiciary and constitutional principles of due process and equal protection of the law. Court action is a more speedy path to justice and fairness than would be awaiting the next feasible popular ballot approval of General Assembly elective officials or the redistricting plan itself. And, the citizen commissioners are selected by a panel of retired judges. Former judges often are active in the practice of law and subject to professional rules prohibiting even the appearance of impropriety in their conduct, no less actual conflicts of interest.

When we seek to begin a new governmental structure, we should consider our personal situation. If we were potential candidates without knowledge of our political party affiliation or socio-economic status, would we deem the proposed Citizen Commission fair and just in its consideration of districts for candidates? This view is that of American philosopher John Rawls in his theory of the “veil of ignorance.” For Rawls, we at no time know our future, what our social and political standing will be. Consequently, we seek governmental reform that assures equal government. In evaluating Ohio Issue 1, and all redistricting proposals, including that currently in place, we should envision that we are both the voter and the candidate whose district is to be drawn.

Lori Gayle Nuckolls

Featured

Union or Disunion: Is America Devolving into a Land of Divided Fiefdoms?

The law develops overtime. The experiences of a country result in new technology and customs. Incrementally, individuals form personal opinions guiding the way they live. In America, laws are agreed upon as individuals communicate their opinions to their elected officials. The judicial system serves as government by redress when individuals disagree about the meaning of the law.

How do personal opinions and the laws to which they give rise lessen in their ability to facilitate technology and cultural experiences? We should determine whether opinions and proposed laws are evolving or devolving, going forward or backward. Do we measure advances in technology and custom objectively against earlier expressions of science and social interactions?

American expressions, like the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution, are evaluated against the extent to which the law recognizes the inherent freedom of the individual. Human rights exist, fundamentally, under a federal system led by a central, national government of definitions that apply equally. Basic rights are not divvied up as decided among and between the states and territories. Achievements and advances only possess value if uniformly maintained for all. The goal of a representative democracy is peace and harmony for its public, not a devolution into acrimony and argument over the definition of essential rights and freedoms.

The law is a circular, yet didactic form. It instructs those it is made by. It creates a nation as it is created. And, an overarching abstraction then becomes the law for all. Regardless of your opinion on any matter, the naturalized American John Hector St. John de Crevecoeur provided a profound view in the idea that: from soil, values grow.

Lori Gayle Nuckolls

Featured

Utopia?

Will any society ever achieve perfection or an ideal structure of government? Many philosophers and political thinkers have offered utopian theories. How do we define a democratic utopia in the modern era, and how would it be expressed in practical politics, namely, in individual participation through self-government and self-expression?

Is it necessary for political candidates and elected officials to possess individual theories and understandings of what constitutes an ideal government and an ideal society? Citizens and governing officials look at democratic society from the “grassroots up” to the world above. Yet, perhaps we should also share in the belief that society and government be viewed from the top down, and that each of us should possess an individual understanding and opinion as to the manner in which we think society and government should be structured. Our choice of candidates would then be based upon whether their view of the world is close to our own.

Regardless of the place of one’s political opinion on the ideological spectrum, from radical to conservative, our individual participation in an election might be determined by our sense of what our society should be. For each of us, perhaps, utopia is our view of the ideal world.

Lori Gayle Nuckolls

Featured

Shouldn’t We Rely Upon Natural Aristocrats To Maintain A Democracy?

Is it possible for a democratic nation to survive when governed by an average or mediocre leader who is surrounded by above average, intellectual advisors? Does the public defer and act each day under the mind of the leader or that of the leader’s staff? In reviewing America’s current election season, perhaps we should ask if the complexity and sophistication of the nation mandate the election of candidates with the greatest academic achievements, ability, and accomplishments. Leading a nation does not involve the same skill set as does political warfare. Americans have seen what happens when persons other than its natural aristocrats are elected. Periodic corrections are required by a well-versed staff to which the elected leader defers rather than with whom the leader consults and confers. Essentially, any elected leader should be qualified to serve on the cabinet or staff of the leader. The roles should be interchangeable. If not, the self-governing people have no mentor.

Lori Gayle Nuckolls

Featured

Must Women of Color Endure Destruction to Succeed?

In the philosophy of G.W.F. Hegel, society develops and history unfolds in a difficult and inconsistent manner. Specifically: an event occurs; the event encounters a negative reaction; and in the end progress results from the combination of the two. This is termed the Hegelian dialectic. We ask with respect to the world history of women of color whether and why their gradual social progress has endured such a step forward, step backward process to development?

Access to training and education in all occupations and professions is necessary to permit women of color to support themselves and their families. This training and education has become more available historically yet not without hardships such as inadequate preparation, inadequate funding and inadequate networking post-graduation. The negative reaction to the positive step of access to training and education is cyclical. Without adequate education, participation in society and government is not possible to an extent that equality may be pursued legally, socially and economically. Any subsequent advancement through legal reform is minor in comparison to that accorded the pyramidal strata above women of color who inhabit the bottom stratum, socioeconomically and emotionally.

In America, it has been legally affirmed that racially segregated institutions are improper. They instill a cultural distance, an inability to participate and a sense of inferiority. Yet, social segregation remains in schools, the workplace and social organizations. In religious organizations and social clubs, more appear segregated than not, ostensibly voluntarily. The stigma of racial segregation is upon women of color most of all.

Worldwide, overtime, reforms in laws, customs, and social institutions have occurred and as a result socioeconomic strata blend, academic achievement improves and women of color have achieved a greater sense of participation in society. However, with these positive developments, in the thought of Hegel, negative reactions occur before the positive are again experienced.

True reform should be unilateral with no reverses. Solutions abound as to how the Hegelian negative reaction may be avoided. For instance, America should look beyond the disparateness of its two political parties, a duopoly of two political parties which together dominate elected offices. It is the fact that women of color are elected to government offices more than in the past. And, this is a beginning.

However, in the social sphere segregation remains and the two major American political parties have not addressed this dilemma. For example, the topic of the American Black church is longstanding. Churches should become racially integrated. Integration in religion is a subject the two political parties should discuss as one of cultural and social importance. Party members should express their belief in the significance of integration in religious organizations by both welcoming those of another race into their church and by expressing interest in churches with congregations of another race. Members of integrated churches should be recruited to run for office.

Individually, worldwide, we should expand our own frontiers and explore religious organizations of races other than our own. Religious entities of one race my merge with one of another. In the words of Hegel: “Reason governs the world” through “religious truth” well- known to us. Religion through reason can guide us in social development without corresponding hardship.

Humanity relies upon religious entities and various additional nongovernmental organizations to remedy injustice and lead in suggesting reforms. Many religions guide society in improving its customs, laws and morality. On the subject of the lives of women of color, religion should provide support for social advances and improvements and assist to mitigate Hegelian reverses. For none of us should life be akin to the rise of Jim Crow in response to newfound freedom.

Lori Gayle Nuckolls

Featured

Does Catholicism Support Fascism in America?

As a representative democracy, the United States relies upon a sovereign citizenry of self-governing individuals who place government and country first and foremost. Before the world is debate on the subject of how society and government should be structured. Should religious thought be a source of law and government? Should education be free and fairly available? How should labor be organized and employed and what should be its source: a bountiful citizenry and a boundless immigration?

At this the time of the celebration of America’s Declaration of Independence, the Fourth of July, one looks to the origin of the government in the Protestant religion. Yet, from its beginning the nation prided itself upon the legal right of all to practice the religion of choice upon its soil. However, the question arises of whether America depends upon the tenets of the Protestant faith, one of which is the belief in self-governing congregations.

Catholicism in America is of a longstanding tradition. Its practitioners have faced discrimination and hardship. They defer to a worldwide authority. Does the Catholic faith contradict the democratic principles of a representative government, an individual’s right to self-govern and the existence of a unilaterally sovereign populace? Is it proper for working Americans to be anesthetized by a worldwide church that stands in contradiction to individual nations? Should all individuals live under a government similar to America’s, one that provides both democracy and a safe and sound work environment with an opportunity to practice a faith of choice?

Forcing a public to look to religion instead of to law for employment security is to deny law to all. In the guise of religion, some Americans defer to the Vatican as a means of surviving under the American government. For some, the American government becomes like a fascist society where the leader of their faith is their sole authority. They are then living under a combination of religious principles, American law enforcement and a central worldwide authority. This is the beginning of fascism in America.

In solving this dilemma, Americans might individually look to their government, from top to bottom and bottom to top. Ensure that America abides the rule of law and that laws are duly reformed and enforced. Fairness and justice in America permit a capitalist society of honest competition and safety and soundness. Free and adequate education from private and public funding of tuition rather than from student debt is possible. The United States was founded upon the principle and theory of a natural aristocracy. Let’s found one.

Lori Gayle Nuckolls

Featured

Science and the Right to Abortion

Judicial review in the United States serves a fundamental purpose in American government, it permits the courts to ensure that the acts of the other two branches of government, the legislative and executive, abide the Constitution. In doing so it enables the sovereign citizenry to create a legitimate representative government. As American society develops it changes its views of the nation and the world and, as a result, the laws by which it lives. Over time, the views of its judges as seen in their legal opinions also change.

One must remark that political opinions in the United States have been modified extensively to the extent that the public has completely changed its mind on many important life defining issues. As a result, certain laws and legal opinions contradict preexisting ones. For example, the legality of racial segregation became the right to racial, integration. The illegality of contraception became the right to birth control. The illegality of racial miscegenation became the right to interracial marriage. The illegality of abortion became a legal right to private abortion. The illegality of sodomy became the right to homosexual relationships. The illegality of homosexual marriage became the right to same-sex marriage.These changes in American law occur concurrently with noteworthy developments in social customs, science and technology that render the population able to envision present society in a new manner. Some regard these legal developments as not occurring with sufficiency to be adequate or just.

With respect to the legal recognition of a right to abortion by the judiciary in 1973, many social and scientific developments have taken place prompting judicial restrictions upon this right in 2022. In example, in vitro fertilization is a very common practice. As a result, issues before society are when a right to life begins and whether one’s power to create this life is accompanied by a power to destroy it. Contemporary opinions also include those arising from whether there is a governmental power of capital punishment or a private right to assisted suicide for the terminally ill.

American society must address the legal question of what constitutes life and what are its attributes. Could the concept of in vitro fertilization include a right to property? In discussing abortion, America must reconcile its power to begin and end life with newfound scientific developments.

Lori Gayle Nuckolls

Featured

Natural Aristocracy In A Time Of Digital Technology

Transitions in history often occur when scientific and technological development create social change. Our 21^st century of the postmodern era portends such social change. The digital technology before us and continually advancing, whether it be mobile phones, social media, websites, virtual reality, cryptocurrency, artificial intelligence, or the myriad not mentioned and not yet invented, are a social conundrum. In implementing this new technology, a safeguard is required to provide government by society’s intellectual elite.

The objective of every democratic republic is a society of individuals treated equally by governing law. Equality is not economic; it is in the right to participate equally and to be accorded due and just reward for one’s ability. In the wisdom of a British philosopher and politician of old, Edmund Burke, this was, and should ideally be, government by a natural aristocracy. It arises from the population of the republic, from the citizens academically cultivated who defer their social doctrines and privileges to those of their country.

The American democratic republic, as well as those around the globe, rely upon an effective self-governing citizenry. This citizenry arises from a society of individuals whose ability to self-govern is cultivated from their early years. Self-government and participation in society depend upon academic institutions and cultural attributes that are both inclusive of all and supported by a national government that is derived from the country’s natural aristocracy.

Today, we look to our social melting pot, as popularized in the theater of the early 1900s. We use our governing democratic institutions to cultivate children into adults, both as citizens and immigrants, to place the role individual in society first and foremost before all other affiliations. Each individual must learn to self-govern and participate in the various strata of society and the governing institutions as a self-governing individual. Cultural and social duties and privileges are subordinate to the obligatory patriotic devotion to one’s country cultivated in children and adults.

In enjoying the advancements of our increasingly more computerized society, we should ensure that social and governmental advancements parallel all scientific and technological advancements. We must guarantee that no harm results. In benefiting from new technology, we need not experience the historical dialectic of: advancement – destruction – development.

Democratic republics are not founded upon tyranny, irregardless of whether an autocrat or the public majority. The invention and application of digital technology must be accompanied by education for all and government by the republic’s best and brightest representing the people. Only when a natural aristocracy governs is a democracy a country of equals.

Lori Gayle Nuckolls

Featured

A Right and Obligation to Participate

We all deserve representation. The current distress ending in violent unrest indicates a lack of adequate political representation. This is evident in a growing increase in the divide between the haves and the have nots in an increasing number of personal attributes. Many are without an access and understanding of emerging technologies, funding and access to higher education and health care. This is most evident in America’s rural and inner-city communities.

The rights we all possess go back to the early days of the Magna Carta, 1215. These fundamental rights of the individual are now deemed possessed by all within our global community, only after periods of time in which evolving and developing societies came to realize that these rights did not belong to a limited few.

In order to avail oneself of the various rights we possess as individuals, we must be able to self-govern and reach informed decision making about our place in society and our choice of governing leaders and government structure. Identifying our public responsibilities and obligations requires that we imagine that we are behind the John Rawls “veil of ignorance.” This is a circumstance in which we do not know our own place in society. And, we must determine the threshold socio-economic level we require for subsistence and survival.

In the thoughts of Alexis de Tocqueville, one of the greatest threats to democracy is pauperism. We must admit that pauperism exists on a global scale. Tocqueville believed that pauperism is best overcome by the guidance provided to the public by the productivity and efficiency of a capitalist economy.

In Tocqueville’s day this guidance was provided by local financial institutions. Small financial institutions located in individual, political subdivisions, close to the public, instill values required to adequately participate in society and a representative democracy. Currently in America, local branches of financial institutions impart capitalist ideals of self-sufficiency and money management through financial counseling. And these institutions guide small account holders in their use of emerging technologies and personal accounts, from making deposits to money transfers and investment. According to Tocqueville, these activities encourage principles of self-sufficiency and upward mobility. For Tocqueville, this was more feasible in rural communities where small farmers needed guidance with harvest management to avoid the force majeure, boom to bust circumstance of inclement weather. Cities for Tocqueville were more difficult. Industrial economies of the 1830s resulted in cycles of unemployment with periods of low product demand and an ever-increasing urban population that could not support itself. Modern financial institutions, now, provide an economic didactic to entrepreneurial development, emerging technologies and failing, outmoded industry.

Fear of an inability to provide for oneself and participate as an equal member of society generates protest, and rebellion, both at home in America and abroad. As an initial step, perhaps we should look to the sources of this insecurity and ask how would we respond if we were sitting in the place of the insecure and what the public response should be. What would I, as an individual and participating member, require to engage in informed voting? Perhaps Tocqueville and Rawls offer a beginning. And, in the thoughts of J. Hector St. John de Crèvecœur: from soil values grow.

Lori Gayle Nuckolls

Featured

The Democracy and Science Equilibrium

(Originally published in Thinktank No. 45 (British Mensa Ltd., Wolverhampton, West Midlands, Eng., U.K.), Winter 2021, at 2-4.)

Science and technology could enable us to develop democracy and the common good as they evolve in complexity and achieve a greater standard of living. The history of our world arrives from progressive steps of scientific advancements and governmental policy reform that leapfrog and alternate one after another. The difference between these points has at times been extreme, such as, in the modern era, the destructive technology at Hiroshima followed by the humane and peaceful mitigating governmental reform and salvo of the United Nations.

Humans are lost in contradictions between scientific advancements and humane policy initiatives, awaiting the synthesis of the dialectic, fearing that the contradictions will perpetuate through history. A scientific view of the history of culture influences our interpretation and application of technology. In providing enhancements in materialism, technology should defer to democratic principles. Governmental policy and reform must measure and evaluate technological power in a manner that honors foremost the public and common good.

Human nature is both good and bad. The minds of men give rise to negative incidents. Freedom, justice, equity and other positive connotations of progress require a global democracy founded upon diplomacy and immigration. Society must ensure that science and technology do not overwhelm, transcend or overpower a global democratic government.

Neither chance nor happenstance determine scientific and technological developments apart from study and expertise. Humans are self-determining. Democracies are founded upon meritocratic competition and government by a natural aristocracy ruling over a majority of equals. We must develop a global future without repeating mistakes of the past and without allowing scientific and technological developments create mistakes of the future. Moral principles must govern our technological advancements. We must look beyond the public good, the good produced for the majority population, being in utilitarian thought the greatest good for the greatest number. We must look for the common good of all.

An increasingly higher standard of materialism produced by technological advancements achieves, or at least could achieve, a public good for the world over.

In looking to the future in view of the past, the public good must be coextensive with the common good and principles of individual and personal dignity. A global, meritocratic democracy is one of fairness and equality, a utopia of self-government and community participation. A utopia which may be within reach.

A global democracy requires global respect for individual humanity and a shared appreciation for different identities, whether they be cultural, racial, religious, ethnic, national, gender and or sexual orientation, etc. And, this requires a quest for the common good where governing institutions maintain a quality of living for all citizens.

The present global dissension should not allow individual identities transcend our fidelity to a global citizenship and equality under the rule of international law, the common good. Immigration of those in search of a free country is the basis of the American democratic experiment as well as many others.

Worldwide, individuals will always possess unique group identities that separate them. In as early as the beginning 1900s, global migration in behest of freedom, unity and justice was the source of discussion in international entertainment. As stated in The Melting Pot, written by British playwright Israel Zangwill, premiered to rave reviews by American President Theodore Roosevelt in Washington, D.C. in 1908, and then in London in 1909, individuals can amalgamate into a melting pot of citizens who maintain and express their pluralistic selves.

Within a New Melting Pot of the twenty-first century, each citizen would respect the culture of all. Modern democracy would provide that all cultures are neither preempted by government nor society so long as the cultures are respectful of each other and of democracy. Former colonial nations exist that are still fraught with violent, anarchical and technologically steeped governments. Powerful democracies should strive to bring about a global democracy based upon the commonality of human nature.

In a New Melting Pot, we should seek a new utopian social contract of a just society under a global democratic government by imagining that we, ourselves, do not know our respective future condition, our position in society, or our own self-interest. We then, in all countries, would seek laws and governing institutions that safeguard the position of the least well-off in society as that becomes our point of self-interest. For, social unrest occurs when a social contract is disregarded, and there appears to be no other means of effective popular expression.

The conquering of Afghanistan by the Taliban is a recent example. Once students of religion, the Taliban now strive for a brokering by foreign powers of an inclusive government. Yet to be seen is whether the Taliban social contract will be one solely of religious doctrine. Or whether, instead, the insurgence resulted because only their faith provided a source of belief and trust rather than the democracy they now seek.

Another example is the continuing abduction of African school children. Attacks upon children’s schools are attacks upon the basis of democracy: education. Such acts are by those feeling deeply uncared for in society, evoke attention and result in government for none.

Neither we nor our leaders should allow our pluralistic identities determine our decisions and opinions. Rather, in a democratic society we should participate in our political community and do so in a way that places the principles governing a republic above all else. The doctrines incumbent within our group identities must defer to these founding principles.

The continuum of political affiliations, from left to right, may freely express opinions in civil discussion and debate, the requirements of a democratic society. Democratic self-government and participation should be cultivated. Public participation should be facilitated by reasonable means. Many citizens do not know how to vote. Many nondemocratic countries lack knowledge in how a democracy could be constructed from their existing society and government.

The New Melting Pot requires public and private leaders who guide citizens in their ability to place a global citizenship above personal identities and who engage in policies and decisions that reflect the myriad of identities in society. The decision making of our private and public leadership should consider public opinion regarding life’s issues and concerns gleaned from civil and respectful public expression, encouraged and not ignored.

Diplomacy may be the only answer. We exist interdependently and no one is entirely responsible for a success or failure, a win or loss. A meritocratically governed democracy is to be respected by all.

Perhaps our first step toward globalization in the leapfrog dialectic is that of respect for one another. Respect in behest of life creates goodwill rather than destruction. And, it is difficult to assert destructive technology and governmental power against life one respects. An earnest understanding of one another is the foundation of the global public and common good and a source of integrity and dignity for all.

Lori Gayle Nuckolls

Is There A Panacea For The Masses?

World history contains reference to the many forms of communication shared. The lyre player, knight, storyteller, dramatic troupe, athletic league, not to mention pamphleteer and more. All impart a unique view of current events. The number and diversity in these forms ensure that there is access to information.

The question arises: how should these various forms of communication be governed? We ask what is the proper purpose of the regulation? And, how extensive should this regulation be?

The extent of regulation should depend upon the purpose of the information. Is it intended as a panacea, a manipulation. Or, does it reflect the obligation of certain nongovernmental institutions to provide sufficient information for the public to maintain its representative democracy.

To review and decide upon rules governing our information, both leaders and the public must define the concept of manipulative panacea. Is the purpose of the information moral, legal and rational? All regulations should place a duty to safeguard the public from communication that improperly influences and deludes more than informs.

Improper influence and delusion is often imperceptible. Thus upon whom is the burden to decide whether something constitutes honest information, regardless of whether in the form of musical performance, drama, athletics, printed material or other forms of communication?

In the thinking of some we do not begin as we become. We are formed and develop as we learn, absorb and reflect. This we do individually and collectively as we communicate. Perhaps purpose and intent and not content should govern our expressions of community.

Lori Gayle Nuckolls

We Must Each Participate In Change

America is a republican form of government created by its citizenry. It relies upon an educated society. This democracy must ensure an adequate education to all citizens. Today we are in difficult times. We seek to both educate the public and provide well administered government. Education requires talent and resources. A population the size of that of the United States requires much to create and maintain an educated people.

Over the years, many have said that America’s government is too large, its agencies too numerous. The nation’s federal agencies were primarily created during a time of hardship and need, arising during the era of the Great Depression. They have been the subject of reform since creation. Can society envision the manner in which future reforms should be structured? Does each of us individually have a sense of our place and responsibilities in the revision of our government?

We all have an obligation to seek an education and share in that pursuit. Our nation requires it. We require it individually. Government cannot be reformed without it.

Lori Gayle Nuckolls