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

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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.

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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

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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

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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

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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

The Hegelian Dialectic Of Capitalism And Socialism In The American Bureaucracy

Socialism may be impossible yet it is unavoidable and must occur in cycles of reform with Capitalism. In the Hegelian theory of dialectical materialism of existence, critique and synthesis in remedy and solution, Capitalism is destroyed in part periodically by Socialist reform and then reborn again. In the United States, Capitalism is structurally restrained by bureaucratic reforms based upon theories of the public interest, nationalism and the commonweal, all theories of Socialist empathy.

The U.S. Constitution creates three branches of government: the Legislature, the Executive and the Judiciary. The President, as a modern Executive, is empowered with an enormous regulatory bureaucracy which is overseen in a manner of checks and balances by the other two branches. This modern bureaucratic state has placed upon the private sector a primary motive of being that departs from the for-profit motive of Capitalism and imposes that of ensuring legal compliance. In a complex era of high technology and big industry, this Socialist leaning is unavoidable if Capitalism is to survive. And, such regulation, though democratic and Capitalistic in spirit and theory, is Socialist in result.

This dualism, the points along a continuum of Capitalism and Socialism, in the philosophy of G.W.F. Hegel, is humankind’s striving toward the absolute freedom of the species in actualization of an unknown Idea, the consummation of evolution. Regardless of one’s belief in the source or definition of the Idea, humans evolve incrementally, improving life in their community. The various elements of the community each evolve along the Hegelian dialectic from existence to critique to synthetic improvement. The many elements include: religion, science, philosophy, art, literature and education. An additional element is the economic Capitalist-Socialist continuum which evolves in dialectical form and is expressed in the governing structure of the community.

Through rational, reasoned reform of its Capitalist governing structure overtime, America has achieved its current bureaucratic state. This bureaucratic state is currently in a period of contraction, with the undoing of some Socialist theories and returning to earlier thoughts of Capitalism. Much of the current trend toward a rebirth of Capitalism is a result of new technology and the creativity it has inspired in the area of commerce. Entrepreneurs are emerging in all business sectors. Americans who enjoy new goods and services and a sense of patriotism economic creativity engenders ask for reforms in government to facilitate further business development.

The current expression in America of this phenomenon, of a demand for government and economic creativity, is not a full destructive critique of Socialist expressions in the American government and economy. Rather, it is an expression of the Janus dualism in human nature. As history indicates, humans are innately inquisitive and acquisitively self-interested. Humans as a species are also affectionate and emphatic. From the beginning of Colonial America until the current presidency, America has evolved in cycles of “boom and bust,” high surges in Capitalist creativity and profit absent imposing regulation to despairs of economic failure and the lessening burden of governmental business safe harbors and social safety nets. This is an example of the philosophical construct of dialectical materialism.

In example, the legislature acts in response to changes in popular will with developments in human history. Citizens ask for a repeal of burdensome laws in times of business prosperity and, in turn, for social measures in times of hardship. Unlike legislators, judges are bound by codes of ethics to abide the rule of law first and foremost as it embodies theories of democracy, fairness and justice. These theories should be immutable regardless of the nature of economic times, regardless of boom or bust. So, to what do we attribute judicial repeal of time honored legal precedent, especially when these changes in the law coincidentally parallel new economic events and changes in popular will?

Judges exercise independent judgment absent partisanship. Yet, in the spirit of Ludwig von Mises and great thinkers from time immemorial, judges acknowledge the essential qualities of human nature – self-interest, greed, empathy and affection. So, too, judicial opinions reflect changes in history and socio-economic developments over time which avail themselves of the Hegelian dialectic as expressed in Capitalist and Socialist theory. An essential question exists as to whether the judiciary must respond to the import of the human creativity these qualities produce and the effect of human creativity upon the community the judiciary governs?

The American public should discuss the nature of governmental reform as expressed by changes in rights and privileges incumbent within the rule of law. The primary focus is the Hegelian dialectic of the Capitalist-Socialist continuum.

Colonial America expressed the dialectical continuum with the beginning point of the existence of the individual rights possessed by Native Americans. The discoverers of the New World were encouraged by developments in the means of maritime travel to conquer the Native Americans and, in Capitalist fashion, usurp their property in a theory of survival of the fittest. Yet, the Colonials stepped away from their own usurper, the English monarchy, through many acts and demands of social welfare, namely the survival of humans as individuals, possessing equal rights of individual self-governance and self-determination in a communal environment. The history of Colonial America is one of synthesis for England imposed tariffs as a large, usurpations government providing for English citizens. Yet, the Colonial and Early Americans, themselves, engaged in a Capitalist plantation economy with Socialist theories of paternalism in the maintenance of the institution of slavery and indentured servitude. Native Americans, even today, benefit from theories of Socialism.

The American Civil War began a critique of the Capitalism of the slave economy. It began with individuals forming the Underground Railroad and the act by predominately Northern slaveholders of permitting slaves to purchase their freedom through learning gainful labor or acts of unrestricted emancipation. The Socialist critique of the then existing Capitalist American economy consummated with the act by President Lincoln of emancipation.

In response, to newfound competition of Americans of African descent, the judicial opinion of Plessey v. Ferguson was issued imposing business restraints upon Black Americans. This, too, is a dualist, synthetic critique expressing Capitalist and Socialist theories. For, it provided a Socialist business subsidy to White Americans thereby encouraging competition at the expense of Black Americans. The Socialist correction was Brown v. Board of Education. Intervening was extensive public reform in the creation of the American Bureaucratic State in the form of the New Deal.

America continues the challenge of the bureaucratic state in the modern era. Much regulation is currently challenged to permit new forms of industry. The Hegelian dialectic provides material synthesis of contradiction and paradox to form new laws from new customs and new legal developments in the private sector of contract law and business formation.

The remedies proposed for the laws currently governing bureaucracies in America are equally along extreme points in a continuum. Some purveyors of conservative legal thought seek a return to theories of non-delegation which would extensively negate the power of Congress to delegate “legislative” power in the form of rulemaking to bureaucratic agencies. More liberal points of view on the continuum would support agencies by expressing great deference to their exercise of rulemaking and adjudicative powers owing to their expertise in highly specific subjects requiring centuries of experience.

In America, we rely upon the judiciary to honor a truly just midpoint along the Hegelian dialectic of Capitalist and Socialist reform. With the U.S. Constitution in place, we will never return to an economy that is too Capitalist or evolve into one that is too Socialist.

Lori Gayle Nuckolls

Are We Changing The Law Governing The Presidency?

Must we acknowledge that previous presidents over the course of American history abided practices, strategies and customs similar to those of Presidents in the modern era? And, similarly, if these principles and practices are centuries old, must we acknowledge that we are imposing a revision of the legal standards governing the presidency if we sanction modern presidents for ages old conduct?

One example of the foregoing would be the foreign policy of President John Tyler, the 10th president from 1841 until 1845. President Tyler confronted the issue of possession by the United States of only part of the Northern American continent and not the Pacific Northwest which was occupied by Britain and Mexico. President Tyler sought these territories, Oregon from Britain and California from Mexico.

Initially, President Tyler proposed a tripartite treaty wherein America would forego 2 million dollars of its claims against Mexico in exchange for California, north of the thirty-second parallel. Britain would be asked to support these terms in exchange for a favorable determination of the Oregon boundary without warfare, one at the Columbia River. Yet, this treaty proposal was not successful. Mexico sought to retain California, and British officials did not wish to unduly pressure Mexico to accept America’s terms.

President Tyler still wished to resolve the issue of ownership of the Northern American continent without warfare. He proposed a tripartite commercial treaty involving the lowering of tariffs. President Tyler sent a private citizen, Duff Green, at government expense to Britain. He informed the American Ambassador to Britain, Edward Everett, that it would be Green’s role to be of substantial service in negotiations.

Even earlier, President Tyler and his Secretary of State, Daniel Webster, contracted with a private entrepreneur, Alfred Benson, to transport Americans seeking residence in Oregon. They were transported with government funds.

In sum, President Tyler engaged in significant acts of foreign relations without Congressional approval or oversight. If we in the 21^st century, rather than those of Tyler’s 19^th century, are to assert that these types of entreaties into formal resolution of policy issues and disputes are improper, we should have an understanding that we are imposing a new legal standard upon existing custom.

Lori Gayle Nuckolls