"Just like it’s the duty of true Christians to actually read what Jesus said and live up to that ideal, it’s the duty of true Americans to actually fight to truly earn justice for all."
Basically this is the message of James Talrico, Dem Candidate for Sen from Texas, His interview with Colbert last night was canceled by CBS, so Colbert interviewed him via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oiTJ7Pz_59A&t=13s
yes I sent him some money early on. I am not religious but was impressed by his even-handedness, unlike the many Christian Nationalists and radical Catholics in power.
Yeh, he impressed me too. I have no problem with religion so long as it stays personal, and not political , as in Islam or in Texas and other "Red" states.
This, with all its documentation, needs to be sounded from every roof top, repeated in every public square, be required reading in every high school seniors civics class; i.e., everywhere possible. For those who quote the Bible, they should read 2 Timothy 4:3-4, which tells about people who won't stand sound doctrine but instead have "itching ears" for doctrine that excuses their behavior.
Yeah, Chris refers to this when he says "The founders failed their own words from the moment they wrote them," but the failings are not in the Constitution itself. We are still struggling with the concept that all men are created equal.
the “men” (vs “people”) part actually still is. and yes we have been regressing for 50 years- ever since the Supreme Court began pretending that corruption is protected by the Constitution instead of the thing that makes it meaningless.
Excellent essay. You sum up perfectly the ways in which honest originalism would interpret the Constitution to produce a country that aspires to improve the lives of the people. It sums up perfectly the trajectory we are currently on at the hands of those who claim to be originalists, but are in-fact, undoing our Constitutional and civil rights, dragging us back to the dark ages.
This might be the best thing Chris has written yet. It’s a very invigorating read, even if the message on our current state of affairs is less than positive. The potential good news is the Constitution is relatively silent on how the Supreme Court is to be structured. It can be made either larger—or smaller—without an amendment. All we need is sufficient willpower in Congress, which “we the people” can hopefully supply by staffing it with the right people.
Wow....very impressive, Christopher. I have sent it to my AG and screen-shot. I had to do a summary for my governor because his only online contact method is web-form. Here is the summary (under 4000 chars) in case anyone else needs it for their state:
Summary of the Child Sex Trafficking Investigation and Accountability Act
This legislation establishes comprehensive state authority to investigate, prosecute, and provide remedies for sex trafficking, sexual abuse of minors, and related criminal conduct, particularly conduct connected to Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell, and any associates, accomplices, or co-conspirators.
The Act affirms the state’s independent sovereign authority to pursue criminal and civil enforcement regardless of federal investigative or prosecutorial decisions, federal immunity claims, or federal pardons. It clarifies that state jurisdiction applies whenever conduct occurred in whole or in part within the state, involved state residents, produced effects within the state, or involved persons or assets connected to the state.
The legislation grants the Attorney General exclusive authority to investigate covered conduct and establishes broad investigative powers, including the ability to issue subpoenas, compel testimony, obtain documents, convene grand juries, and enter cooperation agreements with witnesses. It authorizes the creation of a Special Investigations Unit dedicated to reviewing federal investigative materials, including the Epstein files, and pursuing state-level enforcement actions.
The Act provides both criminal and civil enforcement mechanisms. Criminal penalties include significant prison terms and fines for sex trafficking of minors, sexual abuse, sexual assault, conspiracy, obstruction, money laundering, and failure to report abuse. Civil enforcement allows the Attorney General to seek injunctions, monetary penalties, disgorgement of unlawful proceeds, and compensation for victims. Individuals convicted under the Act are subject to forfeiture of assets connected to the crimes and disqualification from holding public office or government contracts.
To support victims, the Act establishes a Survivors’ Compensation Fund financed by fines, forfeitures, and civil penalties. The fund provides financial assistance for medical care, mental health services, lost wages, and other damages. The Act also includes protections against retaliation for victims and witnesses, ensures confidentiality where appropriate, and guarantees victims’ rights to information, support, and legal remedies.
The legislation removes the statute of limitations for future sex trafficking and sexual abuse offenses involving minors and tolls limitations periods in cases of concealment, absence from the state, or abuse of public office. It also allows private individuals to bring civil enforcement actions on behalf of the state under specified conditions, subject to oversight by the Attorney General.
Overall, the Act strengthens the state’s ability to investigate complex trafficking networks, hold perpetrators and facilitators accountable, protect victims, recover unlawful proceeds, and ensure that serious offenses involving the sexual exploitation of minors are fully investigated and prosecuted under state law.
I deeply appreciate this essay. Thank you. As one who grew up deeply enmeshed in the American religious right — which I now refuse to call Christianity — I have long felt like a voice crying in the wilderness about the corruption at the heart of religion in our culture.
Have you had time to study “The Dark Triad” of personality traits that we have cultivated for leadership in our culture? The combination of malignant narcissism, criminal psychopathy, and manipulative Machiavellianism form the rot at the core of our civilization.
At the core, the crisis is a spiritual and moral issue. The crisis is a matter of relationship.
Have you read Luke Kemp’s “Goliath’s Curse: the History and Future of Societal Collapse”? If not, I highly recommend it.
One thing Like Kemp has spoken about in interviews is that “civilization” is a propaganda term to cover “organized crime masquerading as government.”
Our governments, corporations, are fused together by organized crime masquerading as civil society.
You write as though conventional politics has potential to bring meaningful transformation. It does not.
We need to work far upstream of conventional politics. As our corrupt ecocidal, genocidal, settler-colonial civilization collapses under the weight of its own corruption, we do well to ask how we are developing local beloved community that takes responsibility for food and water sovereignty and local self-reliance.
ICE on the streets and the debacle of the Epstein files show that we are led by psychopathic criminals who have intentionally given us maps that do not correlate with the actual reality we live in.
You quote the Bible and Christian New Testament as though you actually understand what it means, and I thank you for that. I sonde if you have read the First Nation Version of the New Testament?
Read the Gospels through the lens of peoples who are already victims of the ongoing global project of genocide that our nation wages. This will help you see the face of the beast from the margins.
Are you able to study the ongoing conversations about “end times fascism” - see Naomi Klein and Gil Duran, Émile P. Torres, Jacob Silverman, and all….
The political system is entirely enclosed and co-opted by what is essentially a corrupt group of criminal oligarchs.
I feel like you touch on the ontological shock of our time, but you do not yet see the depth of the trauma caused by the collapse of false narratives that keep us all supporting the system that has actually declared war on the earth and the poor.
I suggest that our agency lies in creating communities of care as the accelerating ecological collapse and civilizational collapse combine to render these shallow narratives of political transformation moot.
We are living into a rapidly accelerating anthropogenic extinction event. No one can predict how many people or who will survive.
Will you engage with the framing of these questions?
How we are to engage with love and compassion as the false narratives provided by the political class shatter right in front of our eyes?
How are we to engage with love and compassion as we live into an accelerating “controlled collapse” that is designed to continue the species-it’s, eugenicist, racist settler colonial project that has captured what many still mistakenly refer to as “western civilization “?
I’d love to hear your reflections here, but also along the way.
I actually covered the Dark Triad personality traits in a book I coauthored with retired Clinical Psychologist Dan Brown, PhD. It's titled "Conservatism: America's Personality Disorder.
My familiarity with the bible comes from an upbringing that had me spending time around my Dad's Catholic family, mom's Jewish family, and our time in the LDS Church before the entire family left organized religion.
I'm doing what I can to prevent human extinction, but am ultimately at peace with whatever the outcome may be. If our collective nature is so deeply damaged that we are doomed to destroy ourselves, that is our nature and our fate.
I felt an unexpected sense of relief reading your statement of acceptance. There is something profoundly stabilizing about accepting what we cannot control while still doing what we can. That kind of clarity feels healthy. Thank you for saying it.
Thank you for your reply, Chris! I was *not* aware of the book you do-authored, and so now I will go look for it.
I’m really appreciative of much that you write.
I was raised by a fundamentalist preacher, so maybe there are some parallels in our stories as well.
Lately I have come to see individual death and species extinction as natural parts of life. I do not see the universe or God as punitive, nor do I see humans as inherently evil.
I do feel that a good many of us humans have become complicit in the great ongoing atrocity of ecocide - which includes human genocide. Most of us plunder unaware and in a state of induced ignorance and immaturity.
As to the future — I’ve come to see us as entering into a chrysalis - we are becoming, as poet Emilie Lygren put it “soupy liquid, butterfly goo”.
We contain imaginal cells that I like to think are deeply empowered by loving kindness.
Lygren says, in Chrysalis if you feel shapeless and scared, imagine yourself in hat tiny, thin-walled shell, whistling in the dark, some part of yiu already knowing the way.”
Here in Minneapolis right now, I see “end times fascism” trying to crush beloved community, which fascism cannot undestand or tolerate.
Looking at deep time, me own mytho-poetic narrative goes like this: we are a part of The Impossible House of Love, which has always been here and everywhere, is here and everywhere now, and always will be. We enter fully into this Impossible House of Love when we are loving.
Well - enough from me for now. May good conversations continue….. thank you again.
You have really covered all the bases in this (another!) exceptional article. So glad you included the reference to Thom Hartmann's explanation of how "corporations are people" came about. I read that years ago, and it left a lasting impression.
I love your thinking and writing and have shared with many friends. As a former journalism professor I can't help noting that you have used the wrong form of "it's" in the title of this piece. You don't need the contraction here. Its is preferred. Sorry to be a nitpicker. Carry on, please!
The originality seemed deathly afraid of foreign interference and bribery as well as government usurpation of individual rights. Thanks for the detailed nature of your commentaries.
There ought to be a law against taking the words of out of someone's mouth and replacing it because "they" know better. Pet peeve, but what tech is doing is on a scale of horribleness that I can't fathom. Makes me hate Cook, Bezos and Musk all the more.
Originalism, like family values, states rights, liberty, cancel culture does not mean what we think it means, because we do what all humans do, and this project.
When listening to,debating with, a conservative, one needs a decoder ring, or at least an Orwellian pocket thesaurus
Brilliant exegesis! Adding my gratitude to the voices of commenters who appreciate your palate cleansing regarding "originalism" and the Founders' civic moral framework — that is, cause, context, content, character, and consequences — that animated it. Have you read Yuval Levin's American Covenant? I highly recommend it; you're kindred spirits, methinks. You might also take a look at Cass Sunstein's latest, Separation of Powers. They certainly should be reading you! Again, deep thanks on lifting lying veils, the true meaning of apocalyptic thinking. 🙏🏽
As was suggested in a recent court opinion, it seems some people take 1984 to be an instruction manual
"Just like it’s the duty of true Christians to actually read what Jesus said and live up to that ideal, it’s the duty of true Americans to actually fight to truly earn justice for all."
Basically this is the message of James Talrico, Dem Candidate for Sen from Texas, His interview with Colbert last night was canceled by CBS, so Colbert interviewed him via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oiTJ7Pz_59A&t=13s
yes I sent him some money early on. I am not religious but was impressed by his even-handedness, unlike the many Christian Nationalists and radical Catholics in power.
Yeh, he impressed me too. I have no problem with religion so long as it stays personal, and not political , as in Islam or in Texas and other "Red" states.
Not exactly. Paramount ran it on YouTube. Paramount gets paid for every view.
I don't know who ran it, don't really care either. Just wanted to share the above link, to the Colbert interview with Talarico
Excellent article! I liked the way you tied it all together with documented examples.
This, with all its documentation, needs to be sounded from every roof top, repeated in every public square, be required reading in every high school seniors civics class; i.e., everywhere possible. For those who quote the Bible, they should read 2 Timothy 4:3-4, which tells about people who won't stand sound doctrine but instead have "itching ears" for doctrine that excuses their behavior.
I was mumbling the other day about originalism locking us into an 18th century morality. You've changed my mind; thank you.
I'm honored to hear that my words had an impact. Thanks, Phil 🌲 🌲 🌲
i mean the founders defined people as exclusively white wealthy men- their goal was to ensure that no single wealthy white man could oppress them.
american history was kind of a project of extending the definition of people.
Yeah, Chris refers to this when he says "The founders failed their own words from the moment they wrote them," but the failings are not in the Constitution itself. We are still struggling with the concept that all men are created equal.
the “men” (vs “people”) part actually still is. and yes we have been regressing for 50 years- ever since the Supreme Court began pretending that corruption is protected by the Constitution instead of the thing that makes it meaningless.
Excellent essay. You sum up perfectly the ways in which honest originalism would interpret the Constitution to produce a country that aspires to improve the lives of the people. It sums up perfectly the trajectory we are currently on at the hands of those who claim to be originalists, but are in-fact, undoing our Constitutional and civil rights, dragging us back to the dark ages.
This might be the best thing Chris has written yet. It’s a very invigorating read, even if the message on our current state of affairs is less than positive. The potential good news is the Constitution is relatively silent on how the Supreme Court is to be structured. It can be made either larger—or smaller—without an amendment. All we need is sufficient willpower in Congress, which “we the people” can hopefully supply by staffing it with the right people.
Wow....very impressive, Christopher. I have sent it to my AG and screen-shot. I had to do a summary for my governor because his only online contact method is web-form. Here is the summary (under 4000 chars) in case anyone else needs it for their state:
Summary of the Child Sex Trafficking Investigation and Accountability Act
This legislation establishes comprehensive state authority to investigate, prosecute, and provide remedies for sex trafficking, sexual abuse of minors, and related criminal conduct, particularly conduct connected to Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell, and any associates, accomplices, or co-conspirators.
The Act affirms the state’s independent sovereign authority to pursue criminal and civil enforcement regardless of federal investigative or prosecutorial decisions, federal immunity claims, or federal pardons. It clarifies that state jurisdiction applies whenever conduct occurred in whole or in part within the state, involved state residents, produced effects within the state, or involved persons or assets connected to the state.
The legislation grants the Attorney General exclusive authority to investigate covered conduct and establishes broad investigative powers, including the ability to issue subpoenas, compel testimony, obtain documents, convene grand juries, and enter cooperation agreements with witnesses. It authorizes the creation of a Special Investigations Unit dedicated to reviewing federal investigative materials, including the Epstein files, and pursuing state-level enforcement actions.
The Act provides both criminal and civil enforcement mechanisms. Criminal penalties include significant prison terms and fines for sex trafficking of minors, sexual abuse, sexual assault, conspiracy, obstruction, money laundering, and failure to report abuse. Civil enforcement allows the Attorney General to seek injunctions, monetary penalties, disgorgement of unlawful proceeds, and compensation for victims. Individuals convicted under the Act are subject to forfeiture of assets connected to the crimes and disqualification from holding public office or government contracts.
To support victims, the Act establishes a Survivors’ Compensation Fund financed by fines, forfeitures, and civil penalties. The fund provides financial assistance for medical care, mental health services, lost wages, and other damages. The Act also includes protections against retaliation for victims and witnesses, ensures confidentiality where appropriate, and guarantees victims’ rights to information, support, and legal remedies.
The legislation removes the statute of limitations for future sex trafficking and sexual abuse offenses involving minors and tolls limitations periods in cases of concealment, absence from the state, or abuse of public office. It also allows private individuals to bring civil enforcement actions on behalf of the state under specified conditions, subject to oversight by the Attorney General.
Overall, the Act strengthens the state’s ability to investigate complex trafficking networks, hold perpetrators and facilitators accountable, protect victims, recover unlawful proceeds, and ensure that serious offenses involving the sexual exploitation of minors are fully investigated and prosecuted under state law.
thank you.
I deeply appreciate this essay. Thank you. As one who grew up deeply enmeshed in the American religious right — which I now refuse to call Christianity — I have long felt like a voice crying in the wilderness about the corruption at the heart of religion in our culture.
Have you had time to study “The Dark Triad” of personality traits that we have cultivated for leadership in our culture? The combination of malignant narcissism, criminal psychopathy, and manipulative Machiavellianism form the rot at the core of our civilization.
At the core, the crisis is a spiritual and moral issue. The crisis is a matter of relationship.
Have you read Luke Kemp’s “Goliath’s Curse: the History and Future of Societal Collapse”? If not, I highly recommend it.
One thing Like Kemp has spoken about in interviews is that “civilization” is a propaganda term to cover “organized crime masquerading as government.”
Our governments, corporations, are fused together by organized crime masquerading as civil society.
You write as though conventional politics has potential to bring meaningful transformation. It does not.
We need to work far upstream of conventional politics. As our corrupt ecocidal, genocidal, settler-colonial civilization collapses under the weight of its own corruption, we do well to ask how we are developing local beloved community that takes responsibility for food and water sovereignty and local self-reliance.
ICE on the streets and the debacle of the Epstein files show that we are led by psychopathic criminals who have intentionally given us maps that do not correlate with the actual reality we live in.
You quote the Bible and Christian New Testament as though you actually understand what it means, and I thank you for that. I sonde if you have read the First Nation Version of the New Testament?
Read the Gospels through the lens of peoples who are already victims of the ongoing global project of genocide that our nation wages. This will help you see the face of the beast from the margins.
Are you able to study the ongoing conversations about “end times fascism” - see Naomi Klein and Gil Duran, Émile P. Torres, Jacob Silverman, and all….
The political system is entirely enclosed and co-opted by what is essentially a corrupt group of criminal oligarchs.
I feel like you touch on the ontological shock of our time, but you do not yet see the depth of the trauma caused by the collapse of false narratives that keep us all supporting the system that has actually declared war on the earth and the poor.
I suggest that our agency lies in creating communities of care as the accelerating ecological collapse and civilizational collapse combine to render these shallow narratives of political transformation moot.
We are living into a rapidly accelerating anthropogenic extinction event. No one can predict how many people or who will survive.
Will you engage with the framing of these questions?
How we are to engage with love and compassion as the false narratives provided by the political class shatter right in front of our eyes?
How are we to engage with love and compassion as we live into an accelerating “controlled collapse” that is designed to continue the species-it’s, eugenicist, racist settler colonial project that has captured what many still mistakenly refer to as “western civilization “?
I’d love to hear your reflections here, but also along the way.
Hi Gary,
I actually covered the Dark Triad personality traits in a book I coauthored with retired Clinical Psychologist Dan Brown, PhD. It's titled "Conservatism: America's Personality Disorder.
My familiarity with the bible comes from an upbringing that had me spending time around my Dad's Catholic family, mom's Jewish family, and our time in the LDS Church before the entire family left organized religion.
I'm doing what I can to prevent human extinction, but am ultimately at peace with whatever the outcome may be. If our collective nature is so deeply damaged that we are doomed to destroy ourselves, that is our nature and our fate.
- Chris
I felt an unexpected sense of relief reading your statement of acceptance. There is something profoundly stabilizing about accepting what we cannot control while still doing what we can. That kind of clarity feels healthy. Thank you for saying it.
Thank you for your reply, Chris! I was *not* aware of the book you do-authored, and so now I will go look for it.
I’m really appreciative of much that you write.
I was raised by a fundamentalist preacher, so maybe there are some parallels in our stories as well.
Lately I have come to see individual death and species extinction as natural parts of life. I do not see the universe or God as punitive, nor do I see humans as inherently evil.
I do feel that a good many of us humans have become complicit in the great ongoing atrocity of ecocide - which includes human genocide. Most of us plunder unaware and in a state of induced ignorance and immaturity.
As to the future — I’ve come to see us as entering into a chrysalis - we are becoming, as poet Emilie Lygren put it “soupy liquid, butterfly goo”.
We contain imaginal cells that I like to think are deeply empowered by loving kindness.
Lygren says, in Chrysalis if you feel shapeless and scared, imagine yourself in hat tiny, thin-walled shell, whistling in the dark, some part of yiu already knowing the way.”
Here in Minneapolis right now, I see “end times fascism” trying to crush beloved community, which fascism cannot undestand or tolerate.
Looking at deep time, me own mytho-poetic narrative goes like this: we are a part of The Impossible House of Love, which has always been here and everywhere, is here and everywhere now, and always will be. We enter fully into this Impossible House of Love when we are loving.
Well - enough from me for now. May good conversations continue….. thank you again.
You have really covered all the bases in this (another!) exceptional article. So glad you included the reference to Thom Hartmann's explanation of how "corporations are people" came about. I read that years ago, and it left a lasting impression.
THANK YOUUUU. Been talking about it for some years. Always wonderful to have your full analysis and education.
I love your thinking and writing and have shared with many friends. As a former journalism professor I can't help noting that you have used the wrong form of "it's" in the title of this piece. You don't need the contraction here. Its is preferred. Sorry to be a nitpicker. Carry on, please!
As soon I pressed post I noticed it and was not happy with myself!
I always welcome the red pen of corrections, glad you enjoyed 🌲🌲🌲
common mistake but as a member of the Grammar Police it drives me nuts!
What a wonderful articulation of the Democrat’s necessary and appropriate agenda. There is enormous work to be done.
Wow, Chris! Just, Wow.
The originality seemed deathly afraid of foreign interference and bribery as well as government usurpation of individual rights. Thanks for the detailed nature of your commentaries.
There ought to be a law against taking the words of out of someone's mouth and replacing it because "they" know better. Pet peeve, but what tech is doing is on a scale of horribleness that I can't fathom. Makes me hate Cook, Bezos and Musk all the more.
Originalism, like family values, states rights, liberty, cancel culture does not mean what we think it means, because we do what all humans do, and this project.
When listening to,debating with, a conservative, one needs a decoder ring, or at least an Orwellian pocket thesaurus
Qualified immunity = unqualified impunity. It’s my next protest sign. Perfecto.
Brilliant exegesis! Adding my gratitude to the voices of commenters who appreciate your palate cleansing regarding "originalism" and the Founders' civic moral framework — that is, cause, context, content, character, and consequences — that animated it. Have you read Yuval Levin's American Covenant? I highly recommend it; you're kindred spirits, methinks. You might also take a look at Cass Sunstein's latest, Separation of Powers. They certainly should be reading you! Again, deep thanks on lifting lying veils, the true meaning of apocalyptic thinking. 🙏🏽
Link to Cass Sunstein's Separation of Powers: https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262051774/separation-of-powers/
Link to Yuval Levin's American Covenant: https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/yuval-levin/american-covenant/9781668642795/?lens=basic-books
Link to Cass Sunstein's Separation of Powers: https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262051774/separation-of-powers/