Monday, October 2, 2023

October 2

Welcome to the first Monday in October when the (not-so-)Supreme Court starts judicial year. It is shaping up to be a potentially consequential year. A commentator on the morning news/talk show said that Americans have become accustomed to "government by crisis." A couple of the cases the Supremes are going to decide will, potentially, make government even more crisis ridden and chaotic.

Some of this sounds so familiar. We are very skeptical about additives and try to minimize the kinds and amounts. Given our economy it isn't practical to eliminate all. I can understand the parents' suspicion of mass produced meals. I think of all of the cases we have had of contaminated foods: peanut residues, baby foods, lettuce etc. The problem with mass production is so much product is pushed out so fast that by the time anyone realizes there is a problem it is nation wide.

It looks like North Carolina is setting up its own "secret police". I almost wrote "Gestapo" but I am trying to get away from those type of comparison. Secret police organizations, in history, aren't limited to Germany under the Nazi government. When you use such lazy descriptions that have ties to particularly pernicious groups (Gestapo=Nazi) it is all too easy for the group you are criticizing to legitimately deny half of the equation (We're NOT Nazis) to undermine what you are criticizing (that they are supporting a secret police.) 

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