Heritages

     We speak loosely of certain things that seem sufficiently common to us all. But we also speak pretty loosely of “us all.” Does it have specific criteria for membership? Are there by-laws? Can you be thrown out of the club for violating them?

     Yes, I’m being slightly silly here, but I do have a point.

     Not long ago, I ran across a rant by an entertainment lawyer to the effect that most of us who write fiction could be sued for zillions for the copyright violations we commit in our stories. Even quoting a few lines from a pop song, he wrote, exposes the writer to legal hazard. Lawsuits have been filed over such things, yes – but how often does the plaintiff win, and on what grounds? How often are such suits dismissed by the court, and on what grounds do the dismissals rest?

     In looking into such things, the inquirer will find a particular phrase prominent: “The common cultural heritage of Mankind.” Certain artistic treasures are regarded as being part of that heritage. Therefore, quoting them or referring to them is regarded as legally protected. Their originator is regarded as having lost copyright protection, often by having had the grace to die long ago.

     But admission to “the common cultural heritage of Mankind” is a rather informal process. It’s a prestigious thing, something to which many an artist would aspire. However, there are no strict criteria, other than some legislated magic numbers that are also legislatively alterable.

     I’ve occasionally “taken liberties” with a song lyric. I did so in this novel, and have done so occasionally in my pieces here. Perhaps I was legally assailable for it, but no lawsuits have followed. Many other writers have done the same. Yet those song lyrics are supposedly copyright-protected.

     Will those lyrics and others like them ever pass into “the common cultural heritage of Mankind?” It’s not possible to know. Some will be forgotten entirely, which would render the question moot. Others, possibly including some that are current as I write this, will be celebrated for decades to come. Yet at some point their legal protections will lapse. Will they then be deemed to be part of that cultural heritage?

     It’s a loose category, and fairly recent at that. I rather doubt that Ludwig van Beethoven bothered to ask Johann Friedrich von Schiller for permission to use the latter’s “Ode to Joy” in the final movement of the former’s Ninth Symphony. I could be wrong, of course.

     At this time, American copyright protection for written material extends throughout the life of the writer plus seventy years. (However, several contemporary writers have placed some of their novels outside copyright, as is their right.) After that, the work passes into the “public domain” – which is not the same as “the common cultural heritage of Mankind.” That more august category omits much that’s deemed unworthy to be so designated, and includes many works that were never deemed legally protected.

     We’re not done here. There are “fair use” provisions in the law, which permit modest quotes in reviews and other commentary. Other nations have other laws. Figuring out which laws apply to which writers and which of their works can cause headaches. And of course, some of those other nations have no standing to sue in an American jurisdiction. Often no such suit is ever contemplated, as the possible return is less than the cost of the plane ticket.

     In general, it’s courteous and good practice to ask a writer for permission to include a bit of his stuff in yours. However, I draw the line at song lyrics that pop into my head spontaneously. I deem them to be part of my “cultural heritage.” I’ll use them any way I damned well please, as compensation for their presumption in appropriating space in my brain.

Bad Moon At High Noon

     The consequences of unwisdom always arrive, albeit not always immediately.

     Do you remember This incident in Minnesota?

     On July 15, 2017, Justine Damond (née Ruszczyk), a 40-year-old Australian-American woman, was fatally shot by Minneapolis Police Department officer Mohamed Noor after she had called 9-1-1 to report the possible assault of a woman in an alley behind her house. Occurring weeks after a high-profile manslaughter trial acquittal in the 2016 police killing of Philando Castile, also in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul metropolitan area, the shooting attracted national and international press, exacerbated existing tensions over policing, and led to widespread street protests. Minneapolis Police Chief Janeé Harteau was forced to resign her post after facing substantial public criticism for her response to the deaths of Damond and Castile.

     Mohamed Noor, a Muslim Somalian immigrant, was unwisely admitted to the Minneapolis police force. That cost an innocent life. You’d think the incident would have alerted police forces everywhere to the unwisdom of allowing Muslims to serve as police. It didn’t:

Why do you think this officer decided to just barge into these people’s backyard? Was it the pork barbecue or was it that the women weren’t covered head to toe in black burlap? 6 th precinct area of NY a man was having a Memorial Day barbecue when an Islamic cop entered his backyard demanding to see his ID . The homeowner asked him to leave his property. The cop refused several times before he finally left.. what you see in the video was a little bit of that altercation and then a follow up to the homeowner going to the precinct and talking to another cop about the incident and showing body cam footage.

— Leah Rain ✝️🇺🇸🎸🏝️ (@LeahRain77) November 8, 2026

     That happened less than twelve miles from my home.

     Other, unverified reports of similar behavior by Muslim cops are available. Muslim cops in New York City have harassed a woman for walking her dog. There are numerous reports of Muslim cops in New York refusing to enforce motor vehicle laws against other Muslims.

     Getting the idea yet?

     This is a subject I’ve written about often, occasionally at great length. If we combine Islamic insistence that Muslims’ duty is to impose Islam and sharia on all other creeds with the power-tropism that characterizes applicants to police departments, stir well, and serve, what else could we reasonably expect?

     Must I say out loud that we cannot have Muslims with badges? Muslims in positions of authority? Muslims who think they’ve been awarded the power to impose the dictates of their savage, Seventh-Century creed on peaceable Americans?

     But now New York City has a Muslim mayor. Minnesota has a Muslim Attorney-General, and has elected a Muslim to the United States Senate. Dearborn, Michigan is now a Muslim-majority city whose public officials are predominantly Muslim. Texas, which has experienced unprecedented levels of Muslim ingress, faces the construction of an Islamic city.

     If such unwisdoms proliferate and are permitted to continue, further consequences will be swift to arrive. We won’t like them much.

Differences And Humility

     This morning, two tweets about the paucity of fiction written for boys have my attention. First:

     We are going to have a fundamental difference of opinion if you think the answer to boys not reading is to write about “boy stuff” and not rethink how we engage with boys in general let alone as readers. No specific interest or taste should be placed on a gender binary!!!

     Second, the response:

     This kind of retardation is why you cannot write, and thus why, in 14 years on this platform, you have only accumulated an audience of 2000.
     You don't understand what the basic task of fiction writing even is.
     It's empathizing in two directions at once.
     You have to empathize with the characters, to know what they are thinking and feeling, what they want and why, so you know what happens in the story. And you have to empathize with the audience, so you know how to tell it.
     Except you cannot empathize with half the human race, because your overt ideology prevents you from admitting its very existence.
     You cannot make the effort to understand how men and boys see the world, what men and boys want, what men and boys believe, what men and boys are interested in, or what men and boys will do, if you cannot acknowledge that “men and boys” is an distinct category of people that exist, and therefore is possible to know things about.
     Of course, you do not actually believe that boys are indistinct from girls. No one believes that.
     If you believed that, you would not be able to engage with the question “Why are boys not reading?” because the very question is an admission that there is something distinct about certain children that makes them boys and not girls.
     No, what you actually believe is “If I acknowledge the differences between boys and girls, I will be punished by my social group.”
     This belief is true.
     But so what? It's entirely your fault that you chose a social group which makes such ridiculous demands.
     MY social group doesn't demand I pretend to believe silly things.
     You don't actually have to play this game anymore, you know. You can just stop. Sure, some people you know will say mean things to you, but you and I both know they kinda do a lot of that already just because of the kind of people they are.
     You and I also both know they would throw you under a bus in microsecond if some innovation in the mandatory belief system rewarded them for doing so.
     So, in addition to not having an audience, you don't even have all that many friends, for much the same reason.
     You may wish to reconsider whether the juice is actually worth the squeeze.

     Now, that second tweet is about as unsparing as it could get. It expresses open contempt of the previous one’s position, convictions, and personal integrity. The author, Devon Eriksen, is rather outspoken about his convictions, which he often goes on about at great length. That’s his right, but I think he’s a nasty son of a bitch more likely to evoke anger, resentment, and hatred than any positive reaction… even though in fact, his statement is largely correct.

     The facts are on Eriksen’s side. Facts are about differences. All information is rooted in the perception of a difference. The difference between boys and girls is the one at issue.

     The first tweeter, Kate Campione, refuses to acknowledge that difference. It would concede the “gender binary,” which she refuses to do. She’s actually rather militant about it; note the exclamation points. That’s the consequence of her adoption of a particular contemporary nostrum. That nostrum makes it impossible for her to respect the consequent fact that boys take little interest in fiction that centers on female tastes and aspirations. So factually, Eriksen’s demolition of Campione’s tweet is accurate.

     But a little humility would have served Eriksen well. Indeed, it would serve him in more fora and on more subjects than this one. The readiness to slather contempt on others is not a winning personality trait. Most people, including most who would agree with Eriksen’s statements of fact, are drawn more to kindness and civility than to brutality and contempt.

     X / Twitter isn’t Speakers’ Square. It isn’t a Sunday morning talking heads’ broadcast, whose participants are paid to slag one another off. (Yes, this is a Sunday morning. Don’t press the matter.) It’s particularly tawdry to try to humiliate another participant on the grounds of her low follower count. What can you purchase with that?

     You can be dead right on the facts and still be destructive in manner when you assert them. There’s no need for it, ever. And that’s all I have to say on the matter, except for this:

     Chapter 6 in the Book of Wisdom personifies Wisdom as female. Have a few verses:

     Wisdom is glorious, and never fadeth away, and is easily seen by them that love her, and is found by them that seek her.
     She preventeth them that covet her, so that she first sheweth herself unto them.
     He that awaketh early to seek her, shall not labour: for he shall find her sitting at his door.
     To think, therefore, upon her, is perfect understanding: and he that watcheth for her, shall quickly be secure.
     For she goeth about seeking such as are worthy of her, and she sheweth herself to them cheerfully in the ways, and meeteth them with all providence.
     For the beginning of her is the most true desire of discipline.
     And the care of discipline is love: and love is the keeping of her laws: and the keeping of her laws is the firm foundation of incorruption:
     And incorruption bringeth near to God.

     Wisdom does not inhere in facts. It inheres in the recognition of fundamental things. Among those are the recognition of one’s own limitations and fallibility.

     May God bless and keep you all.

The Tenor Of Our Age

     A provocative tweet from Spain has raised a question that has no universally applicable answer:

A 24-year-old woman started working in our office on Monday.
By Wednesday, she had already handed in her resignation.
The reason?
She refused to install a company app on her personal phone.
Her boss told her it was mandatory for receiving messages outside the office.
She asked if they would give her a work phone.
They told her no.
“So, will you pay part of my phone bill?”
“No. Everyone here does it.”
The woman looked at the rest of the team.
No one said anything.
Then she asked one last question:
“And if you message me on a Saturday, do I have to reply?”
Her boss replied:
“We expect commitment, not for you to be watching the clock.”
She looked at him and asked him a question that left the entire office in silence…
"Does commitment also show up in the paycheck, or is it only demanded once my workday ends?"
The boss laughed.
"With that attitude, you won't get very far."
She nodded.
"Maybe. But at least I'll get home knowing I've finished working."
She closed her laptop.
She gathered her things.
And she left.

She'd been with us less than three days.
And she got half the office wondering why we'd spent years putting up with it.
The funny thing is, some colleagues called her immature.
They said that at 24, she wasn't in a position to get so demanding.
Others said they wished they'd had her courage at that age.
I was left thinking one thing.
I get that a company needs committed people.
That there are unexpected things and times when you have to put in extra effort.
But if being available outside work hours is an obligation, why is it presented as a voluntary show of commitment?
And now tell me this:
Was she irresponsible for leaving a job on the third day, or did she do the right thing by setting boundaries from the start?

     Have you ever been in that young woman’s position, Gentle Reader? I have. Startup companies are like that. The possibility of “making it big” in such a company can outweigh the employee’s desire for boundaries between work and private life. But what about in established firms, where the real prospects are merely for a salary, annual increments to it, and the possibility of promotion?

     An established firm has clout enough to demand such accommodations and insist on them, especially in a buyer’s market for labor. The young woman who refused the demand is exceptional for having had the courage and resolve to do so.

     Should she remain an exception, or should the rest of us strap on our spines and stand with her?

* * *

     There’s been a lot of talk recently about “work-life balance” and getting it right. Once again, there’s no generic formula that every working stiff can apply. Personal circumstances make all such decisions individual. Sometimes personal or familial needs constrain our options, often to the point of eliminating all but one. Employers will take advantage of such constraints.

     It’s part of what Thomas Sowell has called “the tragic vision.” All choices involve costs, including the sacrifice of the unchosen options. Life is not “fair” in any enforceable sense. Legislative attempts to make it “fair” by some standard are nearly always misguided, for such laws preemptively eliminate options that some would willingly choose. That’s particularly the case regarding employment decisions.

     All the same, contemporary employers’ readiness to impose after-hours requirements on employees does not speak well of contemporary employment practices or corporate cultures. Work isn’t everything. They who work for wages expect to have some personal freedom once they’ve downed tools for the day. Family and personal needs can be unsparing. Decent employers should take such things into account. It might help to bring the divorce and suicide rates down.

The Bloodbath

     Good morning, Gentle Reader. Happy Guy Fawkes’ Day. Do you feel like burning someone in effigy? I do.

     Needless to say, the results of the midterms have been on everyone’s mind. How did it happen? What should we expect? How do we cope with it? And of course, the gurus of opinion-mongering all have their analyses and prescriptions.

     It seems to me that the old investors’ maxim – “Past performance is no guarantee of future returns” – has some relevance here. Past performance doesn’t guarantee anything, but it’s all the information we have. Besides, the technical analysts have their maxim too: “The trend is your friend.” So we tend to steer by the winds we know.

     While no one in the Right wanted to see the Democrats take control on Capitol Hill, midterm elections tend to disfavor the party whose man is in the White House. So there were reasons to believe that the Left would make some gains. Given the thinness of the majorities the GOP enjoyed in both Houses, the loss of those majorities was, if not guaranteed, possible at least and probable if we go by the polls.

     But matters were graver than we thought. The fecklessness of the Republican caucuses disgusted many conservatives and Republican partisans. The GOP needed more voter turnout than it got. When a substantial fraction of “your voters” stay home, you tend to lose seats in Congress. Funny about that.

     How could it have been otherwise? Voter turnout is determined by voter engagement, and the Republican-led Congress gave us little to engage with. Blame is being heaped on a few prominent figures – Trump and Thune lead the list – but deeper understanding requires a deeper look.

     The Republican pattern is a “do nothing” pattern. The GOP has squandered its majorities since the era of Coolidge. This time around was different only in this: President Trump was expected to get them into motion. But the 119th Congress was indisposed to being mobilized for the Trump agenda.

     Sad as it is to say, that was predictable. After all, the successes of the first Trump Administration were largely produced by executive orders. The Republican caucuses of those four years were as intractable as those of the 119th Congress. The reasons are largely the same in both cases.

     A substantial number of Congressional Republicans dislike Trump and his agenda. Some didn’t want to support him. Others didn’t want to be seen supporting him. Trump’s titular leadership of the Republican Party meant little to them, for they had made careers out of their offices. Presidents can’t do that.

     Add that to Republicans’ notorious aversion to media criticism and their pusillanimity before the slanders of the Left. Add also the “don’t rock the boat” mentality that’s characterized Republican political performance since FDR. Add finally GOP nervousness about being blamed for anything that might go wrong following substantial policy changes. Given all that, would it have been reasonable to expect Republican gains in Congress?

     So here we are. What’s next?

     I expect we’ll have to endure another attempt to remove Trump from the White House. Worse, several anti-Trump Republicans will sign onto it. He probably will be impeached yet again, though he’s unlikely to be removed. His hands will be tied concerning Iran and the Middle East. He may be impeded in other areas of foreign policy as well.

     The bloodbath will also fuel the rise of contenders for the presidency who stand apart from Trump’s “Make America Great Again” agenda. They’ll point to the losses of November 3, 2026 as evidence that “it wasn’t want the nation wanted.” While attention has focused on J.D. Vance and Marco Rubio, expect the camera lenses to be pulled toward other figures that gain popular traction. The MAGA movement, such as it is, is likely to fragment as those new figures emerge.

     This is not an argument against the Trump agenda. It’s merely a forecast of the dynamics the bloodbath will evoke. If there’s a lesson for conservative-inclined voters, it would be this:

     If we want changes to federal policy, we must change federal policymakers. The opportunity to do that comes during the primaries, not on Election Day.

     Perhaps we’ll find stouter hearts and sincerer tongues to represent us two years hence. If it’s to be so, it’s time to get working on it now.

     Oh yes, there’s this as well: Buy ammo. Just in case, you understand.

Incomplete Questions

Let me remind you of the pilgrim
Who asked for an audience with the Dalai Lama
He was told he must first spend five years in contemplation
After the five years
He was ushered into the Dalai Lama's presence, who said
'Well, my son, what do you wish to know?'
So the pilgrim said
'I wish to know the meaning of life, father.'
So the Dalai Lama smiled and said
'Well my son, life is like a beanstalk, isn't it?'

[ Procol Harum ]

     This morning, we have a provocative question:

What if the meaning of life is obvious, but nobody likes the answer?

— XCosmos (@XCosmosOfficial) November 3, 2026

     We’ve been here before, of course:

     I’ve known a fair number of reasonably intelligent people in my sixty-six years. Many of them were atheists. But they were no happier than the theists around them. In many cases they were less happy. One complained to me privately about the sense that his life was meaningless. As bright as he was – IQ around 145, by my informal estimate – he hadn’t grasped that meaning requires an interpreter.

     “The meaning of life,” as XCosmos has put it, must be completed to be of use: “The meaning of life” to whom? To God? To history? To some federally nominated Board of Life Interpreters? Or to the asker himself?

     The completions vary; thus, the possible answers vary.

* * *

     Long ago I was told about a philosophy professor who, weary of the bickering among his students, posed them an incisive question: “Why was it wrong for Cain to kill Abel?”

     The students tossed it back and forth. Many claimed that for one human to kill another is always wrong. Others took the position that it “wasn’t necessarily wrong,” that “we don’t have all the facts.” And of course there were participants between those two poles.

     The professor allowed it to go on for awhile before he hauled the class up short. He gave the only answer that the tale of Cain and Abel in Genesis will support: “Because it was.”

     When the conditions surrounding an event have been fully specified, and the moral-ethical standards are agreed upon, questions of morality and ethics are answerable. It was wrong for Cain to kill Abel because Abel was an innocent who didn’t deserve to die. Willfully killing an innocent man is murder, which is wrong. That’s an absolute upon which Western societies agree. To question it is to question the basis of Christian-Enlightenment society.

     Yes, there are lands whose denizens don’t hew to Christian-Enlightenment moral-ethical standards. We’re having a spot of trouble with nations of that sort. Worse, individuals and groups within our own nation are disdaining those standards, some for political purposes. Consider the Left’s attitude toward the murder of Charlie Kirk. Those cleavages are causing more horror and grief than any other abstract disagreement could.

* * *

     At the base of all of what Robert Burns called “Man’s inhumanity to man” one will always find divergences from moral-ethical standards. But we’re aware that there are other lands than those of the Christian Enlightenment. They cannot trouble us unless we permit it… and by and large, we don’t.

     The divergences from Christian-Enlightenment moral-ethical standards among Americans are more troubling. They force an uncomfortable question upon us: What do we mean by ‘an American?’ What are the qualifications? Contemporary realities compel us to include those standards among the qualifications. That implies something many people would rather not face.

     Just as one cannot inquire about meaning without specifying an interpreter, one cannot inquire about membership of any kind without specifying the qualifications for membership. Aristotle told us so many centuries ago. The question must be complete to be meaningful… which brings us full-circle to the nature of meaning yet again. Sorry about that.

Democracy

     [This first appeared at the old Palace of Reason, so long ago that I can no longer remember exactly when. – FWP]

---

     To many Americans, the names of the two majority parties are words without precise definitions. The original meaning of the word “democracy” has been displaced by a host of implications and a glow of unquestioned sanctity. For “republic,” few persons have any feeling at all.

     In the Random House World Atlas, the United States is classified as a “federal republic.” Indeed, it was the intent of the Founding Fathers to form precisely that object; and for about a hundred years, the political structure of the United States was in that style. However, with respect for the editors of the World Atlas, it is no longer any such thing.

     Several historians specializing in the Constitutional period have written of the fear of democracy several Founders expressed. A number of historians have inferred that, whatever their gifts might have been, these nation-builders regarded the common man with the contempt typical of oligarchs. It's difficult to verify or falsify such a suspicion at two centuries' remove.

     Concerning the contempt felt for the private citizen by our contemporary political class, there is much that may be observed and analyzed. Despite politicians' endless public importunings for our “participation,” it is quite clear that once we favor any one of them with enough votes to install him in office, his desire for citizen “participation” vanishes. A citizen may count himself lucky to get half a minute's attention from a sitting executive, legislator, or judge, until about three months before that executive, legislator or judge is due to stand for re-election, and even then a furious waving of the checkbook is generally required. On the approachability and attentiveness of career bureaucrats, it is unnecessary to comment.

     In the early days of the Republic, the franchise was extremely limited in scope and application. The citizens of a state who were Caucasian, male, over twenty-one years of age, and owned land in that state could vote for the men who would sit in one or both of the two chambers of that state's legislature. The enfranchised citizens of the state were also empowered to choose those who would sit for them in the House of Representatives. Members of the Senate were chosen by the legislatures, not the people, of the states they represented, as required by the Constitution. The President was chosen by a College of Electors, whose members were also chosen by the state legislatures.

     Clearly, the citizen's democratic franchise, if he had it, was much less extended then, and its effects upon the federal government were much less direct than is the case today. The state of affairs described above lasted almost unchanged until 1913, when the Seventeenth Amendment empowered enfranchised citizens to choose federal Senators. The Sixteenth (Income Tax) Amendment and the Federal Reserve Act were also passed in 1913. In 1914, the fraction of the Gross National Product consumed by government at all levels passed 10% for the first time.

     Within five years, the United States had entered a war against a group of nations with which it had no contiguous borders; the federal government had asserted the power to nationalize whole industries; conscription and price controls had been instituted; the federal government had “suspended” redemption-in-gold of federal paper currency; a massive “civil service” bureaucracy, hundreds of thousands strong, had arisen in Washington; nine billion dollars (more than $200 billion in 1988 dollars) had been loaned to the governments of Great Britain and France from the federal treasury, never to be repaid; federal expenditures had exceeded the sum of all state and county expenditures for the first time; and 125,000 Americans had died in the trenches, fields and hospitals of war-ravaged Europe.

     This is not to suggest that the direct election of Senators, or the extension of the franchise to non-Caucasians and women, brought these things about. But it is remarkable that a people living in nearly complete peace and freedom could have been stripped so thoroughly of that peace and freedom for so small a price as the extension of the power to vote.

     Not one of the statist-imperialist trends set in motion during the Wilson Administration has ever been abated. The Republic had been dismantled from within, and a democracy had been erected in its place. A republic is a nation in which the permissible activities of government are limited by a written Constitution which defines them precisely; a democracy is a nation in which the majority makes all decisions, either directly or through its representatives, and imposes them on the minority by force. The doctrine of individual sovereignty had disappeared as government at all levels asserted unlimited power to arrange the lives of Americans and dispose of their fortunes as it pleased.

     Some of the Republic's finest moments were among its last, under one of its least appreciated Presidents, Grover Cleveland. Cleveland was the last of the Democrats of the party of Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson, “the party of hard money and personal liberty.” Under rising pressure from his own party, Cleveland maintained to the end that government in America had only a limited sphere; at tremendous cost to his popularity, he vetoed every emission of Congress not consistent with the moral limits on government. Among his achievements against a socialist tide whose strength is hard to appreciate today, Cleveland restrained the federal government's debt and spending, prevented the use of tax revenues for individual or corporate welfarism, blocked all attempts to legislate on personal morality, saved the gold standard, and limited the size of the civil service. The excesses of his successors would not have been possible had Cleveland not preserved the country in such fine condition.

     Old Grover knew what a republic was, and it's plain that he loved ours. He might well weep to see what has taken its place.