Showing posts with label law. Show all posts
Showing posts with label law. Show all posts

Wednesday, May 21, 2025

Lex Anteinternet: Occupational Identity and authenticity, a rambling...

Lex Anteinternet: Occupational Identity and authenticity, a rambling...

Occupational Identity and authenticity, a rambling thread.

Occupational identity refers to the conscious awareness of oneself as a worker. The process of occupational identity formation in modern societies can be difficult and stressful. However, establishing a strong, self-chosen, positive, and flexible occupational identity appears to be an important contributor to occupational success, social adaptation, and psychological well-being. Whereas previous research has demonstrated that the strength and clarity of occupational identity are major determinants of career decision-making and psychosocial adjustment, more attention needs to be paid to its structure and contents. We describe the structure of occupational identity using an extended identity status model, which includes the traditional constructs of moratorium and foreclosure, but also differentiates between identity diffusion and identity confusion as well as between static and dynamic identity achievement. Dynamic identity achievement appears to be the most adaptive occupational identity status, whereas confusion may be particularly problematic. We represent the contents of occupational identity via a theoretical taxonomy of general orientations toward work (Job, Social Ladder, Calling, and Career) determined by the prevailing work motivation (extrinsic vs. intrinsic) and preferred career dynamics (stability vs. growth). There is evidence that perception of work as a calling is associated with positive mental health, whereas perception of work as a career can be highly beneficial in terms of occupational success and satisfaction. We conclude that further research is needed on the structure and contents of occupational identity and we note that there is also an urgent need to address the issues of cross-cultural differences and intervention that have not received sufficient attention in previous research. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)

Skorikov, V. B., & Vondracek, F. W. (2011). Occupational identity. In S. J. Schwartz, K. Luyckx, & V. L. Vignoles (Eds.), Handbook of identity theory and research.

How some lawyers apparently want the public to imagine them.

A number of relatively recent experiences has lead me to post this thread.

Posted around town are some billboards by a lawyer who is apparently specializing in plaintiffs' cases and criminal defense.  I don't know him well, but I do know  him.

When I first met him, he came across, quite frankly, as a metrosexual.  I was quite surprised later on when I learned that he'd grown up on a ranch, and that he had a brother who now ran it.  Now, however, he appears on billboards with a huge mustache in Western attire and saddle and portrays himself as a cowboy.

And I guess, by cowboy, I mean both real cowboys and the movie image of a cowboy.

Cowboys, and that is of course a real occupation, have been a popular cultural image since the late 19th Century.  It's really interesting to me, as somebody who is a stockman and who has, accordingly, done a fair amount of cowboying, how cowboys continue to have a sort of wild image that they acquired in that time period.  I love working stock, but most of it isn't anything like what movies portray.  Maybe none of is, which is why  the popular Yellowstone television show tends to anger me.

Of course, being a lawyer isn't anything like portrayed on television either.

Anyhow, I never tell people that "I'm a cowboy", but I find that I"m referred to that way, in the working sense of the word, from time to time.  Or, people will refer to me as a rancher the same way from time to time.  I'm always a bit flattered when they do, as if I'd had my ruthers in the world, which I haven't, that's what I would have done full time.  I can't say its my occupational identity, however, as I'm well aware that I don't do it full time.

Affecting the image, however, miffs me.  It's fake.  If you simply come across that way, as you are naturally that way, that's one thing.  Using it to promote your legal career, however, is bullshit.

Indeed, on real cowboys, not all of which are men, today:

Come As You Are

I guess this gets back in a way to this thread:

A Nation of Slobs. But then. . .

If you are going to be a lawyer, look like one, it's what you actually are.

And, by the way, there's at least one politician in the state that does the same thing, and I'd have the same criticism about.  He's not a lawyer, but a commercial landlord.  

Anyhow, it also gets to the weird association that the law picked up at some point with cowboys around here.  I don't know when this occurred, but it might have been about the time that Gerry Spence's book Gunning for Justice came out.  Spence didn't try to portray himself as a cowboy, but he did take on a Western influenced style, wearing a fringed jacket and a cowboy hat as a matter of course.  Spence being sui generis has been able to consistently pull that off whereas those copying him tend to look absurd.

Anyhow, "Gunning for Justice" is actually a phrase that's been around for awhile and he didn't introduce it, as t his movie poster from 1948 demonstrates:


Spence's use of it, however, seem to have pushed into another sort of use, at least locally.

On this, it's interesting that the cowboy image can be coopted this way, whereas other "manly" professions genuinely cannot.  Fighters (boxers) have been a little bit, and I suppose that was an obviously one, but nobody, for example, talks about "whaling for justice".


Anyhow, dressing up like a cowboy for affect if you are not punching makes you a Rexall Ranger, not a cowboy.

While I'm at it, a Wyoming lawyer has affected the cowboy appearance for her columns on one of the local electronic journals.  In this case, she's gone for the a way too big hat big pushed way up on the forehead so you can see the face look, which to a working stockman looks absolutely absurd.  The same journal actually as a working rancher who wears his hat correctly as a columnist, and up until recently had another who did the same.

As a total side, if you notice in old cowboy portraits they often have their hats pushed to the back of their head, something moderns have wondered about, and for which they've even assumed that must be how they wore them.

No, the cameras were bad.

Isom Dart at Brown’s Hole Wyoming.

If they hadn't pushed them up some, their faces would have been in shadow

On identifies, I had a couple of odd encounters recently, one of which involves mental decline, and the other which involves gender attraction.

I'll start with the latter one first.  There's an older profession that I don't know well, but who've I've been familiar with for a very long time.  Somebody much more familiar with him than me dropped that he's a homosexual.  I was shocked.  Not because homosexuality in general shocks me, but because it was very well closeted for decades.  Indeed, he's married with children.

I suppose that might be the rule for people north of 70, the closteting, that is.

In retrospect, it pretty quickly made sense for some reason.  It just explained some personality quirks that I'd long noticed.  The point of posting it here, however, is that if it's true, he's lived a lifetime with sort of an interesting strained identity.

He's not the only one I know of who is alleged to be in this category.  Frankly a fairly well known person in the region is claimed by some insiders to fit this as well.  In that case, it's more notable for his public opinions on things, which would be generally contrary to this inclination, assuming its true.

Now, I'll note that I have the typically misunderstood Catholic views on homosexuality.  I'll also note that one of these individuals is a co-religious, and the other was.  My only real point in noting all of this is to note that it must be a strain to live an entire life with a sort of false identity, assuming that its true in either case, which I can't really say for sure.

I'll also note that homosexuals of that vintage who did not present themselves as "gay", which is different, may have had a better understanding of marriage than many.  Catholic Answers Hugh Barbour defined marriage as a union between a man and a woman to produce children for the worship of God, which while it may be more than that, that captures a lot of it.  People like to say that before Obergefell homosexuals couldn't marry, but that's simply false, if we consider that marriage is a unique institution between two people capable of reproducing and bound to care for those they create.

Going on to occupations, I've also run across recently a situation in which I've been dealing with somebody whom, once again, I don't know that well but who is still working fulltime and whose clearly suffering from some compression loss in the psychological cylinders.  I'm not their pal or anything but it's sad to watch.  It's also sad to watch, however, somebody whose psychological identify is so closely identified with the practice of law, they can't leave it.

I've known more than one lawyer who practiced into advanced old age with no mental detriment.  But it's also the case quite frankly that a person's physical clockworks, and often their mental ones, start to slip a bit after the hands hit 60 or so.  I'm frankly not convinced at all that allowing people to practice a profession after some point in their 60s is a good thing, and I don't think people should carry on into their 70s.  For one thing, it's just sad.  Surely there was something else that interested them once.

Back to occupational identities.

One of the really minor features of this blog is the M65 Field Jackets in the wild. page.  Minor.

I like M65 field jackets.  When I was in the Guard I had at least six of them due to having bought two and having been issued four more.  The reason I was issued four is that at Ft. Sill the switch from OG-107 to BDU was going on and we were issued OD field jackets. As soon as I got back, we were issued BDU field jackets, and told to keep the old ones.

I gave one of the OD ones to a girlfriend who had need of a jacket while I was in university, and then eventually I just got to big, i.e,. gained weight, or filled out, whatever, and couldn't wear the size I'd been issued.  But I still had the next larger size, Large Regular.

Well, time, etc.

A surplus store here had a whole bunch of uniform items here before they went out of business and I bought several BDU ones.  I just really like them.  I picked up a OD one for my son, as they're a nice coat, but naively didn't for myself.  The OD ones you can wear for daily wear really.

Well, here recently I found a Greek Lizard pattern one for sale and I bought it for hunting.  Which meant that I had three woodland pattern ones, one desert pattern one (a gift of an old soldier) and a Lizard pattern one.  Then I saw the current multicam pattern one for sale on Ebay, which I ordered.  Finally, I decided I needed an OD one and bought one of those off of ebay.

Some of these have the US Army tape on them.  One, the multicam one, came with paratrooper wings from the former and his name tape.  I took the name tape off and the paratrooper wings.  I'm not a paratrooper.  The OD one came with a name tape, the U.S. Army tape, and two unit patches.  I took everything off but the US Army tape.

For reasons that are silly, and I can't explain, I ended up ordering name tapes.  I can now sew those on.

Why?  I'm not sure.  I don't need name tapes on old uniform items for any rational reason.  Rather, I was required to do it back in the day, and I still feel like am now.  Indeed, it would make a lot more sense to take the US Army patch off the OD one so I can use it for its intended purpose of regular daily wear.

Odd

Well, I found a M1943 replica on sale and ordered it.  It won't have any patches.

I need to stop buying them.

As a further aside, a Carhartt coat is much warmer.  My old one is pretty much blown out now.  It was a gift from my wife and I've been resisting getting a new one, even though I need to.  Guess I'm hoping for another one as a gift so that I don't have to buy it.

Back to occupational identities for a moment.  It occured to me how, when I was young, men had much less of one. They genuinely seemed more well rounded than men do today

People always like to claim things were different, if not outright perfect, when they were young.  But it does seem to me that genuinely men were quite family oriented. That meant that their professions and occupations were focused on providing for their families, but it also meant that their professions tended not to be all that they were, including to themselves.  I can vaguely recall some men who were very career oriented being criticized for it.

Every man that I knew when I was young tended to almost be identified by a collection of interests.  Medical professionals were often hunters and fishermen.  Indeed, I don't know one who wasn't.  Some were dramatically so.  Men who had come into professions from farms and ranches tended to still be identified with their origin and retain some contacts with that life.  I knew a fireman who was a pretty good amature geologist, another who was a car restorer, and another who was the first long distance runner I ever knew.  More recently professionals, or at least lawyers, have almost become cartoons of themselves in some instances, only engaging in the law or perhaps one activity that's sort of socially approved for lawyers.

It isn't good.

Last Sunday I ran this item:

Pack Animals - the 🇩🇪 German Mountain Infantry Brigade

I knew that the Bundesheer has a mountain infantry brigade.

I've sometimes thought that if I had been born in Germany, which I'm very much glad I was not, I'd have opted for a career with this unit.  Outdoors. . . animals, etc.  By the same token, if I had been born French, there's the Chasseurs Alpins.

Hmmm. . . 

Well, I didn't opt for a career with the Wyoming Game & Fish, so I'm probably just fooling myself.

Have a nice day at work.  

Mehr Mensch sein,

Saturday, April 19, 2025

Lex Anteinternet: NO KINGS

Lex Anteinternet: NO KINGS

NO KINGS


This is the 250th anniversary of the Battle of Lexington and Concord.

A big cause of the American Revolution, as everyone knows, was Parliament's (not the King's) imposition of taxes on the colonies, which was done to help pay for the French and Indian (Seven Years) War.  They were, in modern parlance, value added taxes, which the colonist had no say in, and they were specifically directed, on tea.

"No taxation without representation" was the cry.


When, the following year, the Continental Congress got around to declaring independence the following year, they listed twenty five grievances they accused King George III of, those being:
  • Grievance 1 "He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good."
I think this charge can be levied against King Donald, but it is complicated by the fact that Congress is pretty much completely dysfunctional and has been for some time.
  • Grievance 2 "He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them." 
  • Grievance 3 "He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only." 
  • Grievance 4 "He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, and also uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures." 
  • Grievance 5 "He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people." 
  • Grievance 6 "He has refused for a long time, after such Dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining, in the meantime, exposed to all the Dangers of Invasion from without, and convulsions within."
  • Grievance 7 "He has endeavored to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands." 
The Trump administration's outright hostility to the foreign born is at a level not seen since the 19th Century, and which exceeds any level in any prior administration in the country's history.  Included in this is an assault on birth right citizenship, which is featured in the Constitution.
  • Grievance 8 "He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers."
  • Grievance 9 "He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries."
Trump's attacks on the judiciary are certainly evidence of this.  Right now, the Administration is ignoring an order to return a wrongfully deported prisoner.
  • Grievance 10 "He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance."
DOGE.
  • Grievance 11 "He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures." 
Just last week came the news that the Trump administration has basically martialized the public lands along the Mexican border.
  • Grievance 12 "He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power." 
See above and the use of the military for what the Border Patrol should properly be doing.
  • Grievance 13 "He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:"
  • Grievance 14 "For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us.
Again, see above.
  • Grievance 15 "For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:"
  • Grievance 16 "For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world".
Tariffs are accomplishing this.
  • Grievance 17 "For imposing taxes on us without our consent:"
Tariffs again.
  • Grievance 18 "For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Jury trial:
  • Grievance 19 "For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offenses:"
El Salvador prisons and Laotian deportation?
  • Grievance 20 "For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighboring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries to render it at once an example and fit instrument 
This was directed at Quebec, but it could now pretty ably describe what Trump is doing in general.
  • Grievance 21 "For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:"
Again, see it above.

King Donald is repeating many of those same offenses, albeit in new forms, those being the ones emboldened.  Explanations, for the doubters, are provided above, but like British conservatives in the 1770s, they will not be able to see their own violations.



Perhaps nearly as distressing is a new development that I'm seeing in some Conservative quarters.

New York Times conservative columnists David Brooks called just recently for a "National Civil Uprising".

That's essentially a call for a massive act of civil disobedience, and frankly I think it has a good chance of happening.

And some are hinting at even more than that.



For decades, the Wayne LaPierre National Rifle Association fueled  the belief in the firearms community that the Second Amendment exists in order to allow civilians to fight Federal tyranny, if it came to that. That's really completely incorrect, as the text of the amendment clearly demonstrates:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Posted on Twitter with the words "It won’t be long until the proletariat remembers why we have the second amendment".  This is suddenly a place where some on the left and some on the right are frighteningly meeting.

The founders of the Republic didn't want to keep a large standing Army, which they regarded, rightly, as a threat to democracy.  The early land defense of the country, therefore, relied on state militias, which had the added ability to take on local problems without the necessity of a Federal army having to intervene.  After all, keep in mind that one of the cited reasons for the Revolution is that the English had kept large bodies of armed troops in the colonies.  

Posted on Blue Sky with "The 2nd Amendment exists for a reason. It was put in place to protect us against tyranny, even from our own elected officials. We have the right to stand up."

Standing armies are always a problem and the current era might very well be starting to demonstrate that.  Throughout the nation's history it usually didn't have large armies save in times of war, or leading up to war.  But since the onset of the Cold War it has.  Even now, in the post Cold War era, the Army is enormous compared to what it had been before World War Two.

Anyhow, the Second Amendment doesn't exist so that average people can take on a tyrannical government.  It exists so that states can take on the British, basically.  That hasn't stopped at least three decades of firearms owners being schooled in the thought that they might have take up arms against the government, with those claims uniformly coming from the right, although in the 1960s, there were those on the left who argued with some justification that oppressed minorities should arm to protect themselves.

Malcom X, who was a big proponent of the Second Amendment, looking out a window while holding a M1 Carbine.

Now, all of a sudden, I'm seeing anti Trump Conservatives suggest that the Second Amendment's  clauses have what I've already noted as a mistaken view.  That shows, I think, how far down the road of chaos we've gotten. We haven't seen anything like that since the Civil War.

Moreover, there's some discussion going on in the military right now over what the duties are of military officers if they are ordered to take an illegal action.  To some extent I think you can argue they already have been, with the Trump administration declaring the public lands along the Mexican border to be military reservations, but that actually has a long history.  At any rate, Angry Staff Officer, whose blog we link in here, has put up two items recently on the military duties to disobey illegal orders.  The Space Force has had one commanding officer relieved for criticizing J. D. Vance's territorially aggressive statements, something I'm sure she knew would occur when she made them.  While we'd have to see what would actually happen, I suspect there's a lot of back barracks discussions going on amongst officers about the point at which they refuse to obey an illegal order from Trump.

Anticipating the worst, from Twitter.

Trump is a disaster, bringing the worse instincts in people to the top, and excusing them. This will get worse, and worse, if the 25th Amendment doesn't come into play. The man is an stupid, ancient, narcissist who may very well be bordering on insane. If Congress acted now, and truth be known a near majority likely grasp it and are too chicken to do anything, the situation could be salvaged.

Sunday, February 16, 2025

Lex Anteinternet: Some Grim Predications

Lex Anteinternet: Some Grim Predications

Some Grim Predications

“I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.
"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”
J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring


I still think that Vance will be President within 18 months of the inauguration.  Trump's clearly a demented, unhinged, fool who always had a defective narcissistic personality made worse by his declining mental status.  It's really impossible to ignore at this point, although the damage he does will be lasting.  Vance can't act immediately, as Trump put in sycophants and lackeys in his cabinet, but it's increasingly clear to non Maga Republicans that Trump's unhinged.  

Indeed, Vance acting quicker than 18 months, maybe even with in the first six months, is becoming an increasing likelihood. The nation will breath a sigh of relief no matter what Vance is like, as he isn't Trump, and by that time all the dirty work of firing government employees will have been done.

But I also think I can, at this point, see some other things happening with a high degree of probability, all of which depend to some degree on what Vance ultimately does, that will result from his administration, or occur during it. Some will surprise his supporters.  Here's what I think we're going to see, which the assumption being we're within the 18 month window, or perhaps that I'm wrong on that.  Indeed, if I'm wrong, the likelihood of these predictions goes up.

Note that predicting these events isn't the same as cheering them on, or hoping for them, or even remotely wishing for them. What I hope and pray is that God deliver the United States and grant to it what is his will.  I don't wish harm or disaster on anyone.  I think, at the end of the day, that Donald Trump is a demented old fool who deserves pity,  the nation that has chosen him as the Chief Executive is suffering from a sort of foolish dementia itself, and that all the proof that ever needs to be given on why people shouldn't be allowed to get massively rich has been given.

70% Chance

How solitary sits the city, 

once filled with people.

She who was great among the nations

is now like a widow.

Once a princess among the provinces,

now a toiling slave.

 Lamentations.

I'd give the following about a 70% chance of occurring.

Get ready for massive gun control (and worse).


Symbol of the Freedom Caucus, um, Nazi Germany's Sturmabteilung.

Eh?  With the NRA in Donny's pocket.

Yep.

The reason for this is pretty obvious.  Trump has no natural affinity for firearms, although apparently his son Eric does.  Trump's love for the NRA was because they loved him more than they loved their country, or anything else.  The NRA was and is his tool.  The NRA can thank Wayne LaPierre's leadership for that.*

But we're about to see some massive violence in American society, which gets to a couple of other predictions

Mass shootings, and by that I mean real ones, not ones where five people are shot up in a gang fight, are probably likely to break out here soon on an increased scale.  Political violence is about to occur.  You can't release 1,000 Brownshirts into society and not have violence break out and you can't routinely insult up to half the nation before somebody gets mad.

And sooner or later, some of that is going to be directed at Trump himself.

Of course, it already has. There's been two attempted assassinations of Trump already.  That's not going to stop, it will occur again.  

I'm not wishing that on him, or anyone else, but only a fool could deny that it might occur, or indeed that it will occur.  The level of tension is too high in the country for this not to start playing out, and Trump is making it worse on a daily basis.

The last President this hated was Abraham Lincoln, who was perhaps ironically hated by the same people who are MAGA today.  That's the last time the country was this divided, and that division resulted in John Wilkes Booth killing Lincoln.  Trump isn't comparable to Lincoln in any fashion, his own demented imagination aside, except for the level of hatred they both engender, and interestingly from the same classes.  It was probably nearly inevitable that somebody would take a shot at Lincoln, and it likely is the same in regard to Trump.

And frankly, like Booth going after Lincoln, the general trends fit the pattern, as do the sorts of personalities involved.

Leon Czolgosz

Leon Czolgosz killed William McKinley, whom Trump suddenly discovered, as Czolgosz was an angry unemployed anarchist and a member of a despised minority.  

We're about to see a dip in the economy, which I'd guess will be a massive recession, and there are going to be a lot of angry unemployed around.  For that matter, there are about to be a bunch of angry unemployed former Federal (and State) employees and we seemingly have a problem with angry semi employed veterans around right now.

Charles Whitman. . . he doesn't look like an unhinged killer, does he?

An angry radicalized veteran is what Lee Harvey Oswald was.  Charles Whitman was also a veteran. Indeed, they'd both been Marines. The country has spent the last several decades absolutely idolizing veterans to the point where we've seen at least three mass killing performed by them and barely took notice of that fact.  With the war in Afghanistan causing thousands of head injuries and a devotion to servicemen that's so profound that we excused their refusal to get vaccinated and have ignored service member presence at the January 6 insurrection, we're really setting ourselves up, something that's been amplified by the AR15 Effect.

And we're also in the process of making entire foreign and ethnic populations angry.  Palestinians who naively hoped for a less pro Israel administration now have a kook who proposes to take over Gaza and make it into a sort of Club Med.  Canadians openly boo the Star Spangled Banner at sporting events now every time they're held.  A hockey game in Montreal this past week showed at least one American hockey player nearly in tears.  The United States is experiencing a level of contempt not leveled at it since the height of the Cold War, when Communists nations and their fellow travelers displayed it.  And Trump has made vague threats against Iran, which has never had a problem with murdering people.

Shirhan Sirhan.

Sirhan Bishara Sirhan was a Palestinian who had formerly adored Bobby Kennedy, we might wish to remember.  The current goofball Secretary of Health and Human Services' father was running for the Presidency at the time he was murdered for his support of Israel.  That was at a time when the Muslim population of the United States, and the immigrant Middle Eastern population, was quite small in comparison to what it is today.  And Kennedy hadn't betrayed the misbegotten trust of an Islamic population the way Trump has.  Nor did Kennedy accuse anyone of eating cats and dogs, or create an environment in which Native Americans now carry their IDs out of fear of being expelled from their own country for looking too brown.

Truman's would be killers were members of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party, and we don't even usually think of the Puerto Ricans being all that angry.


Funny, by the way, with all the talk of adding a state, Trump doesn't mention Puerto Rico. . . I wonder why that is?

And added to that, Trump's targeted Mexican drug cartels.  For years some have been convinced that John F. Kennedy was "Paddy Wacked" by the Mafia or by Irish American mobsters working for the Mafia.  It seems to lack any real credibility, but if the mob had reasons to go after Kennedy, whose father had connections with bootleggers, who was going after them, surely the Mexican mobs have just as great of incentive, and frankly are much more violent.

Finally, and one that is admittedly unlikely, there are growing rumblings about a military strike on Trump.

Just the other day I saw an officer post an item which, while veiled, clearly argued that his fellow officers needed to be prepared to disobey illegal orders, basically like the members of the U.S. Attorney's Office in New York just did.  Okay, that's one thing. But then this past week I saw outright cries, from civilians, that the military oath to protect the country from foreign and domestic enemies applies to Trump, as he's a domestic, and maybe, a foreign enemy.

He may in fact be a foreign enemy, I'd note.  We've raised it here before, but now Time's raising it.


It is perfectly possible that Trump is a knowing Russian agent, in which case there's some sort of duty for somebody to do something, if not actually what's being urged.  On this we might note that the Army kept the Venona Files for decades before anyone knew it, and didn't really trust Franklin Roosevelt to know the truth about what was in it.  The Venona Files revealed that the U.S. Army was aware that people like Alger Hiss were Soviet spies, they just didn't feel they could get any traction on it, and for that matter Whitaker  Chamber's efforts to enlighted FDR outright failed.  The point is that the service, if Trump is a paid or compromised Russian agent, may very well know it, but be afraid at this point to act on it.  I wouldn't blame them for being afraid.

But, if that's the case, and of course we don't know that it is, it's worth noting that officers will act independently if they feel they have no choice or are obligated to.  That's what nearly caused the US and the USSR to nearly go to war over Berlin.  The officer in charge lacked clear instructions and was headed to war with the Soviets on one occasion when JFK was President before the clear instructions came in.  If the Service is stilling around with information that Trump is simply a Russian tool, and to an outside observer there's plenty of circumstantial evidence that he may very well be, it's not impossible that the service, or the CIA, might actually act.

Of course, the fact that Trump is still living is pretty good evidence that neither the military or the CIA actually have anything of this type on him or he'd already be dead.  If they had something, they probably would have done something by now.

On this topic, however, we might recall France.

France's politics became enormously polarized before World War Two, much like are own are, right now.  World War Two made the French far right ascendant.  Petain would have recognized the Project 2025 crowd pretty easily.  The Second World War put the French far right sort of in the trash can, from which its never emerged, but French politics didn't return to normal for decades.  One of the thing that occured in that context is that France fought two bitter colonial wars, one in Indochina and another in Algeria, in the decade following the Second World War.


DeGaulle's decision to pull out of Algeria lead to an internal anti DeGaulle movement inside of the French Army itself, the Organisation armée secrète.  The OAS not only opposed DeGaulle's decision to leave Algeria, it tried to kill him numerous times.  One such fictional attempt is the plot of the excellent book Day of the Jackal, which has been made into a movie twice.

The OAS was bitter about leaving Algeria, and not really happy about what happened in Indochina.  Of course, Algeria was an overseas department of France, so giving it up is sort of loosely analogous to leaving American Samoa or perhaps Puerto Rico, so the analay is strained.

Having said that, it was Donald Trump, not Joe Biden, who surrendered to the Taliban, something that Trump's deluded followers were easily distracted from, including those followers who served in Afghanistan.  But the fact remains we shed blood and then left, and now have a large population of veterans who served there.

And Trump is imperiling our relationship with Taiwan.  "Losing" China in the 1940s, is what caused the Republican Party of that era to be shaken out of its foreign policy slumber and lead directly to the McCarthy Era, which saw the first expressions of something resembling what we're now seeing, point being, if we "lose" Taiwan, it's going to shake something up.

And Trump's course seems likely to lead us from withdrawing to an 85 year commitment to the security of Europe.

None of this means a military coup or an internal strike on the Presidency is going to  happen, but all of it does put the overall violent situation that Trump has fostered into a very strange position.  Men who have spent 30 years dedicated to defending the West might not really take it that well if they're told to cozy up to a side they know to be the enemy.

What would happen if the military actually acted in this fashion?  I think we'd see far right riots for about a week, and that's about it.  Most of the far right is a pack of paper tigers.  Faced with a military action, or an action by a limited number of servicemen, they'll just accept it as the right thing to do and claim they were for it all along.

Back to civilian actors.

If all this seems far fetched, I've already seen two barely veiled calls for assassination on Blue Sky or Twitter.  People outright hoping somebody will kill Trump.  During the Super Bowl I heard several people either outright note what an assassination opportunity it was, or in the words of one person "what a John Wilkes Booth moment."

So where does this lead, if it happens?

If Trump survives the next attempt, he'll slap down an executive order banning wide classes of long arms and handguns, as well as orders massively curtailing civil liberties.  My guess is that most semi automatic long arms will be outright banned.  If Trump asks Congress to do it, the Democrats are already all in, and the dog like GOP will do exactly what Trump wants.  He'll probably simply ban handguns as well.

And, as noted, he'll curtail civil liberties.  In that sense, such a thing would be a gift to him.

And there's a good chance he'll do that when the next big mass shooting occurs.  It's probably already being worked out.

And what's the risk to him?  It's not like the NRA is going to suddenly turn its back on somebody they fanatically worshipped.  Hitler, to a degree, turned on the SA, but they didn't turn on him.  The NRA will roll over like a dog and come out for whatever he asks for.

If Trump doesn't survive, mass violence will break out in the Populist Storm Trooper camp who will blame the murder on the fantastical "deep state". They already believe they're freedom's vanguard in this fashion.  J. D. Vance will use the event to declare an emergency and then he'll do the same thing.  That will last for about a week, as noted, until Vance declares all is well.

Indeed, William McKinley, whom Trump so adores, provides an example.  McKinley's Vice President was  Theodore Roosevelt, who many in the  GOP feared as a dangerous radical.  Roosevelt wasted no time making the government his own.  The  Trumpite lackeys and Elon Musk will be shown the door, and we'll have National Conservatism, like it or not, and whether or not anyone voted for it.

The upcoming marginalization of Evangelical Christianity.


It's overdue anyhow. 

The theological underpinnings of Evangelical Christianity are too thin to withstand any sort of examination by anyone who cares to do it and a Christian religion that basically holds that anything you can do is okay, as long as you do it with a member of the opposite sex, is not very Christian.  But the linking of the anti democratic populist far right with Evangelical Christianity will be something that it can't endure when things blow up in this Administration's face, and that is going to happen.

Mike Johnson with his smarmy smile, and Trump closed eyed as if he is in deep thought will be what people remember when they lose their jobs and have no place to go.  Health and Wealth Christianity, which is contrary to the Gospel, won't have a long shelf life when you are poor and sick and somebody on television is yelling at you.  People who voted for Trump as he was "Godly" won't remember that when they're lining up for assistance that isn't there, and Musk has gone on to have five more children with three more concubines.

When the bloom is off the rose of populism, Evangelical Christianity is going to tank.

The bad thing, I suppose, is that a lot of people leaving it will just leave religion altogether.

We'll have troops coming home in body bags within a year.


I don't know from where, or when, but we will. This administration is too reckless not to get troops killed, and when inflation creeps up over 7%, which is only months away, it'll need a distraction.  Nothing distracts like war.

Trump has found plenty of countries to pick on.  My overall guess, however, is that he'll pick on one that seems like it can't do much, or he'll pick a fight with Iran, which really can.  A war against Iran is one that we frankly can't win, as wars end when the people you attack decide they're over.  The Iranians are never going to agree that we beat them.

If I'm right, the irony will be that there will be dead Americans coming home for decades, and frankly they'll be blood right here on our shores.  Iran has no problem with waging a terror campaign right here, and that will itself spark a bunch of civil repression here in the US.

The United States will return to democracy, but we'll be irreparably harmed.

The populists had and continue to have a real point about rule by unelected officials. There's been complaints about that for decades. The complainers didn't understand what they were complaining about, which was the rise of a large Federal government from 1932 on, and ironically a lot of the complainers will be the fist to suffer as agencies shrink.  When people in the Trump camp can't get Medicaid, and a lot of them are receiving it, or drive on pothole filled highways, they'll be getting exactly what they deserve.

But only 50% of the country was in the Trump camp during the election and only a fraction of them are hardcore.  The country will come back.

But it won't be the same.  Much of the damage will be permanent and those who voted for it should be reminded of it every year for the rest of their lives.

People believed that Trump was going to take on government waste, and some still believe it.  Mostly he's just cutting.  Trump and Musk are very wealthy men born into wealth.  For them, people suffering economic deprivation is an abstraction.  

The US will be eclipsed as a major power

Flag of the European Union, which may be about to eclipse us as a the Western power people listen to.

The US really entered the world stage with  World War One.  Under Trump, we're stepping off.

That is in fact what a lot of people want, they just don't want comes next.  The world now will be a bipolar one, with the European Community standing for what the US did, and China being its main opponent (but read below).  We'll dance to their tune.  People who thought that Trump was going to make America great again will find that it has become just a second rate power with none, and I mean none, of the claimed things that were going to be achieved, achieved.

There's always been an element of this in American thought.  There were those who were opposed to even getting ready for the Second World War.  The US entered World War One when German ambitions began to hurt us to the extent we could ignore them.  After World War Two the GOP went isolationist again rapidly until it began to hurt us pretty quickly.

Going isolationist again will hurt us, and quickly.  I think, as noted, it'll get us in a major war with China, Russia and South Korea.  The difference this time is that we're hated worldwide. We'll fight a lot of that on our own, and badly.

If there's an upside to this, and I don't really think that there is, it appears to be that Europe is going to resume its traditional role as the dominant Western force.  Americans, for the first time in decades, are going to have to get used to being also rans.  In fact, in this context, it might be for the first time in US history where we basically have a seat at the children's table and nobody pays that much attention to us as we're not adults.  In a way, that's a lesson that we failed to learn somewhere and its time to learn it. Time to grow up.

If that's correct, and it seems likely that the National Conservatives are panicking it is, as they're sending Musk and Vance to try to lecture Europeans, it'll mean that much of the the external things National Conservatives are working on won't matter.  The US view on climate change, won't matter.  US tax policies, won't matter.  

We'll basically be like what Brazil current is, in regard to the rest of the world.

On a related item, within a few years of Trump's death, which will be soon anyway you look at it, he'll be such a despised figure in American history that his grave will be a frequent target of vandalism.  The government won't really bother, after a time, to guard it.  He'll be held in contempt, including by those who now fanatically worship him.  Americans will regard those who voted for him as contemptible fools, including the majority of people who voted for him, who won't admit that they did so.

50% Chance

Let all their evil come before you

and deal with them

As you have so ruthlessly dealt with me

for all my rebellions.

My groans are many,

my heart is sick.

Lamentations.

Some more remote possibilities, but not all that remote

We'll be in a type of world war.

Chinese poster from 1971. The Chinese have long memories.  Americans have the memories of gnats.

And I don't mean figuratively, I mean actually.

Somewhere around here is a post that predicted, at the time it was posted, that we would be at war with China within, I thought, about five years.  We aren't at that mark yet. 

China wants Taiwan and have been openly planning to invade it for years.  The Biden Administration was fairly openly planning on the defense of Taiwan.  Japan and the Philippines expect it to occur as well.

Trump is now punishing Taiwan economically, and China is going to move to get it.  The Chinese are not dumb, and my guess is that they don't figure that Trump will be around long either.  

North Korean Army poster.  North Korea is desperate, and it undoubtedly regards Trump as a complete doofus.

Trump's a demented doofus who is destroying the American government.  This would be the ideal time for China to act.  And if they do, and I think they will, North Korea will attack South Korea shortly thereafter.  Whatever has gone on or is occuring in Eastern Europe, Russia will launch a massive fully mobilized campaign against Ukraine, and maybe the Balkans and Poland.  You can easily see a scenario where China attacks Taiwan and North Korea attacks South Korea later that same week, and Russia has a major offensive occuring within a month.

Russian poster equating the Russian invasion of Ukraine with the Soviet victory in World War Two.

Indeed, if I led China, and the morals of the Chinese leadership, I'd do it. The balance of risks is on their sides, and will even be more on their sides after Elon Musk takes the meat cleaver to the military.

What will Trump do?  Probably babble and vacillate.  He'll yap for about a week on the basis that world leaders listen to him.  After a week, the situation will be grave for Taiwan and we'll be in an all out war in South Korea.  We'll act then, but we'll have lost a week which means when we do, we're going to take a naval pounding.

Trump, it might be noted, didn't answer his country's call when it came in Vietnam.  Musk managed not to be conscripted into the South African Army by migrating to Canada.

I think our chances of winning such a war are very slim.

A war like that isn't avoidable and we'll get in it.  Probably with Vance as head of state as Trump's escorted out the door babbling.

Trump's going to defy the courts

Napoleon, who claimed he was acting to save the country and went on to get a lot of people killed.  Don quoted him just the other day in what is likely a prelude to ignoring the courts.  Napoleon ended up in exile and was likely murdered by poisoning.

This is pretty obvious and will happen soon.

The thing is, this won't go well, and will prove to be one of those things he'll move away from quickly.  Courts have a lot more power than they did in times past and they really aren't afraid of Trump.  Once Federal Marshall start slapping people in prison or impounding assets, things will change.

40%  Chance

Trump's revealed to be an active Russian asset.

Whitaker Chambers warned for years the US government had been penetrated by Soviet agents and was widely derided. Turns out, he was right.  Chambers also did not expect democracy to be able to prevail against Communism.

There's no doubt that Trump is a Russian asset.  Indeed, there's no doubt that he's working out great for Russia, the question still remains why.

There has always been something really odd here that people just haven't been able to pin down.  He could just love Russia because he does, but he could be dancing to their tune as  they have something on him.

If the Russians do have something on him, things can only be kept secret so long. Trump has a lot of enemies including people he now thinks are his friends. What does Musk know that hte rest of us don't?  

What does the CIA and the military, or MI6?

And what does Putin?

When Putin dies, and he's an old man himself, things could suddenly change in Russia and the information open up.  Or somebody else could reveal  it.  If it breaks open, MAGA will deny it.  Indeed, there are still Democrats who pretend Alger Hiss, Harry Dexter  White, and the Rosenbergs weren't working for the Soviets.  But with enough evidence, famously fickle American public opinion can turn, and suddenly.

What Trump holds on politicos opens up.


There are somethings in the political world that are frankly just too weird right now not to have a backstory.

It can't possibly be the case that every Republican in Congress does what Trump wants as they love him.  Not hardly.  And it can't be that they all do it as they feel its for their long time gain with the voters.

Politics have always been dirty and people carry secrets around with them.  William G. Harding was screwing his assistant in the White House and had a prior mistress who was probably a World War One German spy.  Franklin Roosevelt carried on a very long lasting affair.  John F. Kennedy had the morals of an alley cat and bedded Mimi Alford in the White House when she was still a teen, or barely out of her teens.

Some of the people in Congress are compromised somehow.  Some probably have received money illegally, some from illegal sources, and Trump knows about it.  Some probably have turgid affairs with minors, non spouses, and members of the same sex that would kill their careers if it was revealed and Trump or his minions know about that.  My guess is that in the next couple of years we should brace ourselves for lots of these stories, with lots of recognizable names.

A new conservative party will emerge

Emblem of the Progressive Party which nearly replaced the GOP.

It is, quite frankly, a perfect time for one.

There's been attempts at this for years, but now the time is ripe, as there isn't one.  The Republican Party isn't a conservative party at all, it's a populist party. The National Conservative element of it isn't either, it's a Francoist contingent.  

This has happened in the US before. The GOP itself came about when the Whigs collapsed.  And the Progressives made a good run at the GOP for several years in a row.  Had Taft bailed out of the his race with Roosevelt, there's be no Republican Party today, and frankly the Democrats would be the conservative party.

The elements of it are already there. Quite a few Republicans who had been figures lately in the GOP and backed out remain there and are active.  Some Republican members of Congress, such as Lisa Murkowski, consistently talk out of both sides of their mouths about Trump.  Some more cowardly Republicans in high office will privately voice the opinion that he's bat shit crazy, and then go on to support him in public.

All it really takes is enough people with conservative views to actually unite, which is easier said than done.  Having said that, intelligent conservatives are disgusted by much of which is branded as conservatism today, and yet can take advantage of Elon Musk and his band of meat cleaver juveniles to do much of their dirty work for them.

None of these are pleasant


Winston Churchill noted that in the 1930s he felt like a "voice crying in the wilderness" about the dangers of Hitler.  He didn't want World War Two to come, he was trying to do what he could to get ready for it or prevent it.

I feel the same way here.  None of these are things I wish to happen.  I'm pretty certain that some of them shall.

Ironically, all of them are avoidable, but only with great difficulty at this point. The people surrounding Trump are, by and large, small minded and unhinged.  He doesn't like to hear from people who don't agree with him, which makes him a weak person.  Intelligent people, which I do not feel Trump is, can listen to different views and weigh them.  He can't.

Given that, really avoiding these outcomes would require somebody to act now.  If there's somebody close to Trump who can give him the dope slap, which appears unlikely, that might be a means.  More likely, however, it will require something external.

The most obvious external thing would be invoking the 25th Amendment.  That would require, as a practical matter, a vote of 2/3s of both houses, which is almost impossible to imagine right now.  If things go very badly over the next two years, however, it's a possibility.  A much bigger possibility, I'd note, is that Vance boots Trump out in a little under 18 months, but if I'm right about much of this, it'll be too late to avert disaster by then.

That's a possibility, however, which if I were the Chinese I'd weigh.  Which is why, if I led China, I'd attack Taiwan within the year.

There's a small chance that disaster can be averted if the Democrats, which move at the speed of the Baby Boomers, can get their act together and launch an all out assault on the GOP.  So far, they're not doing it.  Some of that will have to be at the state level.  California and New York basically have the ability to cripple the Federal government if they wish to, and both are really Democratic states.  

Remember, LORD, what has happened to us,

pay attention, and see our disgrace:

Our heritage is turned over to strangers,

our homes, to foreigners.a

We have become orphans, without fathers;

our mothers are like widows.

We pay money to drink our own water,

our own wood comes at a price.

With a yoke on our necks, we are driven;

we are worn out, but allowed no rest.

We extended a hand to Egypt and Assyria,

to satisfy our need of bread.

Our ancestors, who sinned, are no more;

but now we bear their guilt.

Servants rule over us,

with no one to tear us from their hands.

We risk our lives just to get bread,

exposed to the desert heat;

Our skin heats up like an oven,

from the searing blasts of famine.c

Women are raped in Zion,

young women in the cities of Judah;

Princes have been hanged by them,

elders shown no respect.

Young men carry millstones,

boys stagger under loads of wood;

The elders have abandoned the gate,

the young men their music.

The joy of our hearts has ceased,

dancing has turned into mourning;

The crown has fallen from our head:

woe to us that we sinned!

Because of this our hearts grow sick,

at this our eyes grow dim:

Because of Mount Zion, lying desolate,

and the jackals roaming there!

But you, LORD, are enthroned forever;

your throne stands from age to age.

*Why have you utterly forgotten us,

forsaken us for so long?

Bring us back to you, LORD, that we may return:

renew our days as of old.

For now you have indeed rejected us

and utterly turned your wrath against us.

Lamentations 

I hope I'm wrong about all of this.

Footnotes

*LaPierre is yet another hawkish boomer who managed not to serve in Vietnam, first due to a student, and then due to a medical, deferment. He's also another Catholic raised person who divorced and remarried, a betrayal of what Catholics believe.

Why do I note this?

I'm finding more and more that people who can set aside serious religious vows can set aside anything.

Related threads:

Some election predictions.


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IVF and a Half-Cath | June 11, 2025