Supreme Leader Quotes

Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there-on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam. The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand. It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.

Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there--on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

Yeah, Atatsuki, don't call him by that name. It's rude! Kuran-sama is handsome, well-behaved, and a perfect honor student. Calling him "gang leader" would ruin his image!! At least call him "SUPREME GANG LEADER!!

From this distant vantage point, the Earth might not seem of particular interest. But for us, it's different. Consider again that dot. That's here, that's home, that's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam. The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand. It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.

Consider again that dot [Earth]. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there - on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every 'superstar,' every 'supreme leader,' every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there - on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

Former corporal Hitler, decorated for his service on the front lines of the Great War, may have believed he knew more about waging war than the Prussian generals. His successes as an infantryman, terrorist, diplomatic bully, and military victor in early 1940 had made him supremely confident. But, in reality, he was out of his depth. He already had failed to easily capture the British Expeditionary Force at Dunkirk in May, 1940 and failed again a few months later in the Battle of Britain despite superior air power. Understanding the enormous potential of a comprehensive geopolitical strategy, such as the Quadripartite Entente, was beyond his capabilities and destroyed by his hatreds. While Germany was still powerful, the misjudgments in 1940 and the failure to conquer Russia in 1941 were taking a toll. Largely unrecognized at the time, the odds were beginning to shift away from Hitler. 

Anyaele Sam Chiyson Leadership Law of Legacy: Supreme leaders determine where generations are going and develop outstanding leaders they pass the baton to.

Not a thousand years ago, it was illegal to teach a slave to read. Not a thousand years ago, the Supreme Court decided that separate could not be equal. And today, as we sit here, no one is learning anything in this country. You see a nation which is the leader of the rest of the world, that had to pay the price of that ticket, and the price of that ticket is we're sitting in the most illiterate nation in the world. THE MOST ILLITERATE NATION IN THE WORLD. A monument to illiteracy. And if you doubt me, all you have to do is spend a day in Washington. I am serious as a heart attack.

Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every 'superstar,' every 'supreme leader,' every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there — on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Supreme Leader’s voice was flat. “You have compassion for her.” “No—never. Compassion? For an enemy of the Order?” “I perceive the problem,” Snoke intoned. “It isn’t her strength that is making you fail. It’s your weakness.” The rebuke hurt, but Ren didn’t show it.

If I could remove one thing from the world and replace it with something else, I would erase politics and put art in its place. That way, art teachers would rule the world. And since art is the most supreme form of love, beautiful colors and imagery would weave bridges for peace wherever there are walls. Artists, who are naturally heart-driven, would decorate the world with their love, and in that love — poverty, hunger, lines of division, and wars would vanish from the earth forever. Children of the earth would then be free to play, imagine, create, build and grow without bloodshed, terror and fear.

God makes clear in His Word that He does not anoint gifts or talents, but men. God is looking for men who know Him well, fear apathy supremely, and hate sin immensely. God is looking for leaders.

Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there-on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

We succeeded in taking that picture from [deep space], and, if you look at it, you see a dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever lived, lived out their lives. The aggregate of all our joys and sufferings, thousands of confident religions, ideaologies and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilizations, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every hopeful child, every mother and father, every inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every superstar, every supreme leader, every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there on a mote of dust, suspended in a sunbeam. The earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and in triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of the dot on scarcely distinguishable inhabitands of some other corner of the dot. How frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity--in all this vastness-- there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. It is up to us... To my mind, there is perhaps no better demostration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly and compassionately with one another and to preserve and cherish that pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.

The Devil hath power to assume a pleasing shape. —William Shakespeare, Hamlet How are you fallen from Heaven, Lucifer! Son of the Dawn! Cut down to the ground! And once you dominated the peoples! Didn’t you say to yourself: I will be as high as Heaven! I will be more exalted than the stars of God! I will, indeed, be the supreme leader! In the privileged places! I will be higher than the Skies! I will be the same as the Most High God! But you shall be brought down to Hell, to the bottom of its pit. And all who see you, will despise you... —Isaiah 14: 12-19

This week my son thinks he's the Supremes.All of them. So we can scratch "straight"off the list. At least I hope we can. As a gay kid he'll be a natural leader. Put him in a macho bullshit environment and he's going to have a hard time. I don't want that to happen. (Let's also not forget Wei's immortal words to him nine minutes after he was born, when she first stared into those big brown eyes: "Oh, honey. Promose me you'll grow up to like boys. Because I don't want any other woman in your life except me.")

Forgive me. I feel it again. The pull to the light. The Supreme Leader senses it. Show me again the power of the darkness, and I will let nothing stand in our way.

I have often been criticized for being an 'emotional' leader, for not being macho enough, but even during this early stage in my career, I believed that the magic of command lies in openness, in being both sympathetic to the troops and at the same time being apart, in always projecting supreme confidence in my own ability and in theirs to accomplish whatever task is set for us.

The primary leaders of the so-called founding fathers of our nation were not Bible-believing Christians; they were deists. Deism was a philosophical belief that was widely accepted by the colonial intelligentsia at the time of the American Revolution. Its major tenets included belief in human reason as a reliable means of solving social and political problems and belief in a supreme deity who created the universe to operate solely by natural laws. The supreme God of the Deists removed himself entirely from the universe after creating it. They believed that he assumed no control over it, exerted no influence on natural phenomena, and gave no supernatural revelation to man. A necessary consequence of these beliefs was a rejection of many doctrines central to the Christian religion. Deists did not believe in the virgin birth, divinity, or resurrection of Jesus, the efficacy of prayer, the miracles of the Bible, or even the divine inspiration of the Bible. These beliefs were forcefully articulated by Thomas Paine in Age of Reason, a book that so outraged his contemporaries that he died rejected and despised by the nation that had once revered him as 'the father of the American Revolution.'... Other important founding fathers who espoused Deism were George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Ethan Allen, James Madison, and James Monroe. [The Christian Nation Myth, 1999]

coercive leaders are Adolf Hitler in Germany, the Taliban leaders in Afghanistan, Jim Jones in Guyana, and North Korea’s Supreme Leader Kim Jong-il, each of whom has used power and restraint to force followers to engage in extreme behaviors.

Christ’s supreme sacrifice can find full fruition in our lives only as we accept the invitation to follow him. This call is not irrelevant, unrealistic, or impossible. To follow an individual means to watch him or listen to him closely; to accept his authority, to take him as a leader, and to obey him; to support and advocate his ideas; and to take him as a model. Each of us can accept this challenge.

We cannot search for the truth and for the way out of suffering without the freedom to think, investigate, and experiment. Secular people cherish freedom, and refrain from investing supreme authority in any text, institution or leader as the ultimate judge of what’s true and what’s right. Humans should always retain the freedom to doubt, to check again, to hear a second opinion, to try a different path. Secular people admire Galileo Galilei who dared to question whether the earth really sits motionless at the centre of the universe; they admire the masses of common people who stormed the Bastille in 1789 and brought down the despotic regime of Louis XVI; and they admire Rosa Parks who had the courage to sit down on a bus seat reserved for white passengers only.

The sacralization of the party opened the way to the sacralization of Stalin when he became the supreme leader. After 1929, the political religion of Russia mainly concentrated on the deification of Stalin, who until his death in 1953 dominated the party and Soviet system like a tyrannical and merciless deity.

According to Christ, then, the truest kind of leadership demands service, sacrifice, and selflessness. A proud and self-promoting person is not a good leader by Christ’s standard, regardless of how much clout he or she might wield. Leaders who look to Christ as their Leader and their supreme model of leadership will have servants’ hearts.

Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there--on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam

The supreme Taoist leader always leaves people to choose and pursue their own way of life, their own conception of the good.

We succeeded in taking that picture from deep space, and, if you look at it, you see a dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever lived, lived out their lives. The aggregate of all our joys and sufferings, thousands of confident religions, ideologies and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilizations, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every hopeful child, every mother and father, every inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every superstar, every supreme leader, every saint and sinner in the history of our species, lived there on a mote of dust, suspended in a sunbeam.

Ingersoll was introduced as one of the main speakers by Frederick Douglass and proceeded, unlike most leaders of his party, to eviscerate the court’s logic. “This decision takes from seven millions of people the shield of the Constitution,” he said. “It leaves the best of the colored race at the mercy of the meanest of the white. It feeds fat the ancient grudge that vicious ignorance bears toward race and color. It will be approved and quoted by hundreds of thousands of unjust men. The masked wretches who, in the darkness of night, drag the poor negro from his cabin, and lacerate with whip and thong his quivering flesh, will, with bloody hands, applaud the Supreme Court. The men who, by mob violence, prevent the negro from depositing his ballot—those who with gun and revolver drive him from the polls, and those who insult with vile and vulgar words the inoffensive colored girl, will welcome this decision with hyena joy. The basest will rejoice—the noblest will mourn.

Later bad things will be said about Stalin; he’ll be called a tyrant and his reign of terror will be denounced. But for the people of Eduard’s generation he will remain the supreme leader of the people of the Union at the most tragic moment in their history; the man who defeated the Nazis and proved himself capable of a sacrifice worthy of the ancient Romans: the Germans had captured his son, Lieutenant Yakov Dzhugashvili, while the Russians had captured Field Marshal Paulus, one of the top military leaders of the Reich, at Stalingrad. When the German High Command proposed an exchange, Stalin responded with disdain that he didn’t exchange field marshals for simple lieutenants. Yakov committed suicide by throwing himself on the electrified barbed wire fence of his prison camp. *

David Lloyd George had been to Germany, and been so dazzled by the Führer that he compared him to George Washington. Hitler was a ‘born leader’, declared the befuddled former British Prime Minister. He wished that Britain had ‘a man of his supreme quality at the head of affairs in our country today’. This from the hero of the First World War! The man who had led Britain to victory over the Kaiser!

In every age, there comes a time when leadership suddenly comes forth to meet the needs of the hour. And so there is no man who does not find his time, and there is no hour that does not have its leader.

When love of one’s people becomes an absolute, it turns into racism. When love of equality turns into a supreme thing, it can result in hatred and violence toward anyone who has led a privileged life. It is the settled tendency of human societies to turn good political causes into counterfeit gods. As we have mentioned, Ernest Becker wrote that in a society that has lost the reality of God, many people will look to romantic love to give them the fulfillment they once found in religious experience. Nietzsche, however, believed it would be money that would replace God. But there is another candidate to fill this spiritual vacuum. We can also look to politics. We can look upon our political leaders as “messiahs,” our political policies as saving doctrine, and turn our political activism into a kind of religion.

In order to cultivate a set of leaders with legitimacy in the eyes of the citizenry, it is necessary that the path to leadership be visibly open to talented and qualified individuals of every race and ethnicity,

Upon learning that Washington intended to reject the mantle of emperor, no less an authority than George III allegedly observed, “If he does that, he will be the greatest man in the world.” True to his word, on December 22, 1783, Washington surrendered his commission to the Congress, then meeting in Annapolis: “Having now finished the work assigned me,” he announced, “I now retire from the great theater of action.” In so doing, he became the supreme example of the leader who could be trusted with power because he was so ready to give it up.

In order to cultivate a set of leaders with legitimacy in the eyes of the citizenry, it is necessary that the path to leadership be visibly open to talented and qualified individuals of every race and ethnicity,” is how O’Connor summarized the core of the argument for the law school’s position. She left little doubt that she had been persuaded not only

Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, every hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there--on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

It is not that the historian can avoid emphasis of some facts and not of others. This is as natural to him as to the mapmaker, who, in order to produce a usable drawing for practical purposes, must first flatten and distort the shape of the earth, then choose out of the bewildering mass of geographic information those things needed for the purpose of this or that particular map. My argument cannot be against selection, simplification, emphasis, which are inevitable for both cartographers and historians. But the map-maker's distortion is a technical necessity for a common purpose shared by all people who need maps. The historian's distortion is more than technical, it is ideological; it is released into a world of contending interests, where any chosen emphasis supports (whether the historian means to or not) some kind of interest, whether economic or political or racial or national or sexual. Furthermore, this ideological interest is not openly expressed in the way a mapmaker's technical interest is obvious ("This is a Mercator projection for long-range navigation-for short-range, you'd better use a different projection"). No, it is presented as if all readers of history had a common interest which historians serve to the best of their ability. This is not intentional deception; the historian has been trained in a society in which education and knowledge are put forward as technical problems of excellence and not as tools for contending social classes, races, nations. To emphasize the heroism of Columbus and his successors as navigators and discoverers, and to de-emphasize their genocide, is not a technical necessity but an ideological choice. It serves- unwittingly-to justify what was done. My point is not that we must, in telling history, accuse, judge, condemn Columbus in absentia. It is too late for that; it would be a useless scholarly exercise in morality. But the easy acceptance of atrocities as a deplorable but necessary price to pay for progress (Hiroshima and Vietnam, to save Western civilization; Kronstadt and Hungary, to save socialism; nuclear proliferation, to save us all)-that is still with us. One reason these atrocities are still with us is that we have learned to bury them in a mass of other facts, as radioactive wastes are buried in containers in the earth. We have learned to give them exactly the same proportion of attention that teachers and writers often give them in the most respectable of classrooms and textbooks. This learned sense of moral proportion, coming from the apparent objectivity of the scholar, is accepted more easily than when it comes from politicians at press conferences. It is therefore more deadly. The treatment of heroes (Columbus) and their victims (the Arawaks)-the quiet acceptance of conquest and murder in the name of progress-is only one aspect of a certain approach to history, in which the past is told from the point of view of governments, conquerors, diplomats, leaders. It is as if they, like Columbus, deserve universal acceptance, as if they-the Founding Fathers, Jackson, Lincoln, Wilson, Roosevelt, Kennedy, the leading members of Congress, the famous Justices of the Supreme Court-represent the nation as a whole. The pretense is that there really is such a thing as "the United States," subject to occasional conflicts and quarrels, but fundamentally a community of people with common interests. It is as if there really is a "national interest" represented in the Constitution, in territorial expansion, in the laws passed by Congress, the decisions of the courts, the development of capitalism, the culture of education and the mass media.

But for us, it's different. Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, ever king and peasant, every young couple in love, every moth and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

But for us, it’s different. Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there—on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

MY DREAM If I could remove one thing from the world and replace it with something else, I would erase politics and put art in its place. That way, art teachers would rule the world. And since art is the most supreme form of love, beautiful colors and imagery would weave bridges for peace wherever there are walls. Artists, who are naturally heart-driven, would decorate the world with their love, and in that love — poverty, hunger, lines of division, and wars would vanish from the earth forever. Children of the earth would then be free to play, imagine, create, build and grow without bloodshed, terror and fear. Our evolution depends on our memory. If we keep forgetting the mistakes of the past, only to keep repeating them, then we will never change. And if we keep recycling through the exact same kind of leaders— the kind who do not propel us forward, but only hold us back—then perhaps what we really need now is a completely different style of leadership altogether. We need heart-driven leaders, not strictly mind-driven ones. We need compassionate humanitarians, not greedy businessmen. Peacemakers, not war instigators. We need unity, not division. Angels, not devils.

Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black, another powerful Democratic leader, was known as a defender of civil rights during his three decades on the Supreme Court. But what many do not know is that Justice Black was a prominent and secretive member of the KKK. He supposedly resigned membership in 1925, but it was later discovered that he was subsequently welcomed back into the Klan and given a lifetime membership.

From this distant vantage point, the Earth might not seem of any particular interest. But for us, it’s different. Consider again that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there — on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

Certainly, I believed that our democratic system of government was the best thing going. I was a flag-waver from way back. I was proud of my country. It was the moral weakness of our leaders that concerned me. They were prone to the same frailties of arrogance, greed, and sanctimony as those of any other country. The primitive concept of 'might makes right' still reigned supreme. Hadn't thousands of years of history taught us anything?

He had long recognized that his task was not to be a field marshal, but rather to orchestrate a fractious multinational coalition, to be “chairman of the board”—the phrase was his—of the largest martial enterprise on earth. The master politician Franklin Roosevelt had chosen him as supreme commander from among thirteen hundred U.S. Army generals because he was not only a “natural leader,” in the president’s judgment, but also a military man with exceptional political instincts.

Himmler was himself ‘more normal,’ that is, more of a philistine, than any of the original leaders of the Nazi movement. He was not a bohemian like Goebbels, or a sex criminal like Streicher, or a crackpot like Rosenberg, or a fanatic like Hitler, or an adventurer like Göring. He proved his supreme ability for organizing the masses into total domination by assuming that most people are neither bohemians, fanatics, adventurers, sex maniacs, crackpots, nor social failures, but first and foremost job holders and good family men.

Both camps maneuvered to win the endorsement of Kaiser Wilhelm, who, as the nation’s supreme military leader, had the final say. He authorized U-boat commanders to sink any ship, regardless of flag or markings, if they had reason to believe it was British or French. More importantly, he gave the captains permission to do so while submerged, without warning. The most important effect of all this was to leave the determination as to which ships were to be spared, which to be sunk, to the discretion of individual U-boat commanders. Thus a lone submarine captain, typically a young man in his twenties or thirties, ambitious, driven to accumulate as much sunk tonnage as possible, far from his base and unable to make wireless contact with superiors, his vision limited to the small and distant view afforded by a periscope, now held the power to make a mistake that could change the outcome of the entire war. As Chancellor Bethmann would later put it, “Unhappily, it depends upon the attitude of a single submarine commander whether America will or will not declare war.

Upon learning that Washington intended to reject the mantle of emperor, no less an authority than George III allegedly observed, “If he does that, he will be the greatest man in the world.” True to his word, on December 22, 1783, Washington surrendered his commission to the Congress, then meeting in Annapolis: “Having now finished the work assigned me,” he announced, “I now retire from the great theater of action.” In so doing, he became the supreme example of the leader who could be trusted with power because he was so ready to give it up.20

The big breakthrough came with Christianity. This faith began as an esoteric Jewish sect that sought to convince Jews that Jesus of Nazareth was their long-awaited messiah. However, one of the sect’s first leaders, Paul of Tarsus, reasoned that if the supreme power of the universe has interests and biases, and if He had bothered to incarnate Himself in the flesh and to die on the cross for the salvation of humankind, then this is something everyone should hear about, not just Jews. It was thus necessary to spread the good word – the gospel – about Jesus throughout the world.

Growing numbers of us are acknowledging with grief that many forms of supremacy—Christian, white, male, heterosexual, and human—are deeply embedded not just in Christian history, but also in Christian theology. We are coming to see that in hallowed words like almighty, sovereignty, kingdom, dominion, supreme, elect, chosen, clean, remnant, sacrifice, lord, and even God, dangerous vices often lie hidden. . . . We are coming to see in the life and teaching of Christ, and especially in the cross and resurrection of Christ, a radical rejection of dominating supremacy in all its forms. The theological term for [this] is kenosis, which means self-emptying. . . . Rather than seizing, hoarding, and exercising power in the domineering ways of typical kings, conquistadors, and religious leaders, Jesus was consistently empowering others. He descended the ladders and pyramids of influence instead of climbing them upwards, released power instead of grasping at it, and served instead of dominating. He ultimately overturned all conventional understandings of . . . power by purging [it] of violence—to the point where he himself chose to be killed rather than kill.

In the same way, when newspapers began to die and social media started its supreme reign, we didn’t imagine the risk of fake news. We didn’t think that when media is freely in the hands of billions of people, they will do with it as they please. We didn’t suspect that social media profiles could be stolen and fake personalities would come up. We didn’t know that there would be fake profiles, pretend- ers, bots, and other ill-minded actors whose only goal would be to carry out some political or business manipulation agenda so they could destroy some company or boost another that didn’t have what it takes.

In our new world there are many emergent states and many longer established nations without the natural self-discipline to resist men similar in nature to the Nazi leaders should they emerge and either stride or slip to power. Such men are not always easy to recognize for what they are until it is too late. This certainly was the case with Himmler. Hitler at first appeared an absurd fanatic, Goebbels a posturing mob-orator, Göring a good-natured ass, Himmler a nonentity. Yet none of them proved to be what they had seemed, or they would never have won by their wits alone the supreme power in a great nation.

A German admiral, Henning von Holtzendorff, came up with a plan so irresistible it succeeded in bringing agreement between supporters and opponents of unrestricted warfare. By turning Germany’s U-boats loose, and allowing their captains to sink every vessel that entered the “war zone,” Holtzendorff proposed to end the war in six months. Not five, not seven, but six. He calculated that for the plan to succeed, it had to begin on February 1, 1917, not a day later. Whether or not the campaign drew America into the war didn’t matter, he argued, for the war would be over before American forces could be mobilized. The plan, like its territorial equivalent, the Schlieffen plan, was a model of methodical German thinking, though no one seemed to recognize that it too embodied a large measure of self-delusion. Holtzendorff bragged, “I guarantee upon my word as a naval officer that no American will set foot on the Continent!” Germany’s top civilian and military leaders converged on Kaiser Wilhelm’s castle at Pless on January 8, 1917, to consider the plan, and the next evening Wilhelm, in his role as supreme military commander, signed an order to put it into action, a decision that would prove one of the most fateful of the war.

Scholars regard the relationship between the Supreme Court and public opinion as elusive. Lee Epstein and Andrew D. Martin, two leaders in the empirical study of judicial behavior, titled an article: “Does Public Opinion Influence the Supreme Court? Possibly Yes (But We’re Not Sure Why).” The article surveyed the political science literature on the question, much of it inconclusive and contradictory. At best, the authors conclude, there seems to be an association between the Court and public opinion, but not enough evidence to “make the leap from association to causality,” that is, to prove that public opinion actually influences the Court.

There is no position on which people are so immovable as their religious beliefs. There is no more powerful ally one can claim in a debate than Jesus Christ, or God, or Allah, or whatever one calls this supreme being. But like any powerful weapon, the use of God’s name on one’s behalf should be used sparingly. The religious factions that are growing throughout our land are not using their religious clout with wisdom. They are trying to force government leaders into following their position 100 percent. If you disagree with these religious groups on a particular moral issue, they complain, they threaten you with a loss of money or votes or both. I’m

It is our reaction to tragedy, our resolution in the storm, that defines a lifetime. We can carry heavy burdens without complaints. Dwight D. Eisenhower was named Gallup’s most admired man of his generation twelve times. He was the leader of the Allied forces in Europe during World War II; he became president of Columbia University; he was the supreme commander of NATO; he was a two-term US president who ended the Korean War, initiated the US highway system, and signed off on NASA. He engaged his final years as a peacetime ambassador. He achieved a life of global impact despite personal tragedy. “The death of our four-year-old son,” he said at the end of his illustrious life, “we never did get over that.

Hundreds of political assassinations related to minority races, labor leaders and spokesmen against fascism have taken place in the U.S. since World War II. In 1963, the assassination of President John Kennedy in Dallas allowed our own hidden, clandestine government to maintain control. The candidate for President in 1968, Robert Kennedy, was murdered by the same people on the night of his victory in the primaries. The judiciary, including the Supreme Court, have supported secret government by lending its authority to the concealment of conspiracies to murder our leaders. They refuse to examine documents that exist, allow truth to remain locked in the National Archives to perpetuate the “national security” lie.

A majority of colonial Americans were either Protestants or unaffiliated with any church. However, many of the leaders of the American Revolution and signers of its Constitution such as Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin were Deists, along with James Madison, John Adams, and possibly Thomas Paine, Ethan Allen, and Alexander Hamilton. Most Deists believed in a supreme being who had created the universe along with the natural laws that governed it, but who then took a relatively hands-off approach to human affairs. The supreme being of the Deists could be apprehended by practical investigation and the use of reason to understand natural laws. Religious faith was not needed, nor were miracles, divine inspiration, or personal revelations of God’s spirit.

Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there—on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam. The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there--on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam. The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

With Iran’s revolution, an Islamist movement dedicated to overthrowing the Westphalian system gained control over a modern state and asserted its “Westphalian” rights and privileges—taking up its seat at the United Nations, conducting its trade, and operating its diplomatic apparatus. Iran’s clerical regime thus placed itself at the intersection of two world orders, arrogating the formal protections of the Westphalian system even while repeatedly proclaiming that it did not believe in it, would not be bound by it, and intended ultimately to replace it. This duality has been ingrained in Iran’s governing doctrine. Iran styles itself as “the Islamic Republic,” implying an entity whose authority transcends territorial demarcations, and the Ayatollah heading the Iranian power structure (first Khomeini, then his successor, Ali Khamenei) is conceived of not simply as an Iranian political figure but as a global authority—“the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution” and “the Leader of the Islamic Ummah and Oppressed People.” The Iranian constitution proclaims the goal of the unification of all Muslims as a national obligation: In accordance with the sacred verse of the Qur’an (“This your community is a single community, and I am your Lord, so worship Me” [21:92]), all Muslims form a single nation, and the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran has the duty of formulating its general policies with a view to cultivating the friendship and unity of all Muslim peoples, and it must constantly strive to bring about the political, economic, and cultural unity of the Islamic world.

Now, an important word from our Minister of Defense: Certainly the loudspeaker in each and every apartment in North Korea provides news, announcements, and cultural programming, but it must be reminded that it was by Great Leader Kim Il Sung's decree in 1973 that an anti-raid warning system be installed across this nation, and a properly functioning early-warning network is of supreme importance. The Inuit people are a tribe of isolate savages that live near the North Pole. Their boots are called mukluk. Ask your neighbor later today, what is a mukluk? If he does not know, perhaps there is a malfunction with his loudspeaker, or perhaps it has for some reason become accidentally disconnected. By reporting this, you could be saving his life the next time the Americans sneak-attack our great nation.

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to your new home.’ He gestured to the stone walls of the cavern that surrounded them. ‘Your lives as you once knew them are over,’ he continued. ‘You have been selected, all of you, the worst, the most cunning, the most mischievous minds from around the world . . . selected to become part of an institution like no other. You have all exhibited certain unique abilities, abilities that set you apart from the mediocrity of the teeming masses and which mark you out as the leaders of tomorrow. Here, in this place, you will be furnished with the knowledge and experience to best exploit your own natural abilities, to hone your craft to a cutting edge.’ He paused and slowly surveyed the pale, wide-eyed faces before him. ‘Each of you has within you a rare quality, a gift if you will, a special talent for the supremely villainous. Society would have us believe that this is an undesirable characteristic, something that should be subdued, controlled, destroyed. But not here . . . no, here we want to see you blossom into all that you can be, to see your innate wickedness flourish, to make you the very worst that you can be.’ He stepped out from behind the lectern and walked to the edge of the raised platform. As he loomed over them he seemed to grow taller and some of those at the front of the group edged backwards nervously. ‘For today all of you have the unique honour and privilege of becoming the newest students of the world’s first and only school of applied villainy.’ He spread his arms, gesturing to the walls around them. ‘Welcome to H.I.V.E., the Higher Institute of Villainous Education.

What happened to Athenian democracy? The conservative way was overthrown by rampant innovation. Old structures were replaced with fluid, mobile opinions (i.e., democracy). Aristocratic leaders were replaced by demagogues. A similar transformation has occurred in American life, only on a more massive scale, with innovation threatening the most basic social structures. Everything has been transformed today, and nothing is what it once was. If we have conservatives in today’s society, they have almost nothing left to conserve. The licentiousness of the multitude is the supreme law, so that freedom no longer means freedom from an oppressive government. Rather, it is the freedom to behave in a manner that requires greater and greater government involvement; more and more government intervention – from family courts to health care.

AND LOOK AT WHAT WE CALL ‘RELIGION’: TURN ON ANY TELEVISION ON ANY SUNDAY MORNING! SEE THE CHOIRS OF THE POOR AND UNEDUCATED—AND THESE TERRIBLE PREACHERS, SELLING OLD JESUS-STORIES LIKE JUNK FOOD. SOON THERE’LL BE AN EVANGELIST IN THE WHITE HOUSE; SOON THERE’LL BE A CARDINAL ON THE SUPREME COURT. ONE DAY THERE WILL COME AN EPIDEMIC—I’LL BET ON SOME HUMDINGER OF A SEXUAL DISEASE. AND WHAT WILL OUR PEERLESS LEADERS, OUR HEADS OF CHURCH AND STATE … WHAT WILL THEY SAY TO US? HOW WILL THEY HELP US? YOU CAN BE SURE THEY WON’T CURE US—BUT HOW WILL THEY COMFORT US? JUST TURN ON THE TV—AND HERE’S WHAT OUR PEERLESS LEADERS, OUR HEADS OF CHURCH AND STATE WILL SAY: THEY’LL SAY, ‘I TOLD YOU SO!’ THEY’LL SAY, ‘THAT’S WHAT YOU GET FOR FUCKING AROUND—I TOLD YOU NOT TO DO IT UNTIL YOU GOT MARRIED.’ DOESN’T ANYONE SEE WHAT THESE SIMPLETONS ARE UP TO? THESE SELF-RIGHTEOUS FANATICS ARE NOT ‘RELIGIOUS’—THEIR HOMEY WISDOM

Charisma in this world is often just looking good and speaking well. Others merely project onto you what they want to believe to be true. Most people have superficial attachments and shallow thoughts, so the glib man can persuade many. One does not have to be a supreme salesman. No need to be a wizard with words. People clamor for a confident speaker that sounds the part. That your actions can deliver on words cements their allegiance. But even if you don’t become a leader yourself, you may find a key supporting role as a great communicator. Even before you speak, work on being a better listener and observer of cues in others. All messages must be tailored to the audience. In a group, there may be one listener who, if engaged, can turn the whole room towards your speech. Speak calmly, clearly and keep eye contact. Your voice is the voice of a leader confident in his capabilities and beliefs. Changes in tone should have a reason.

We've known for a long time that this day would come. Today, an illegitimate Supreme Court-- stacked with justices who have been credibly accused of sexual harassment and assault, installed by presidents who took power via undemocratic sleights of hand-- ratified their cause of eroding the 14th amendment and the right to bodily autonomy. The decision to overturn Roe v. Wade will be lethal to Americans - particularly, Black women and queer people - who now will lose their already limited access to abortions. If establishment Democrats sit back and allow this Court to continue to dismantle every right protecting marginalized people, this decision won't just cost lives - it also will cost us our democracy. Our leaders in Washington must recognize how the tyranny of the minority, white supremacy, misogyny and bigotry brought us to this dark day. And they must act now to protect voting rights and enshrine the right to an abortion into federal law -- before it's too late.

Progressives today are quick to fault “America” for slavery and a host of other outrages. America did this, America did that. As we will see in this book, America didn’t do those things, the Democrats did. So the Democrats have cleverly foisted their sins on America, and then presented themselves as the messiahs offering redemption for those sins. It’s crazy, but it’s also ingenious. We have to give them credit for ingenuity. The second whitewash is to portray the Civil War entirely in terms of the North versus the South. The North is supposedly the anti-slavery side and the South is the pro-slavery side. A recent example is Ta-Nehisi Coates’s article about the Confederate battle flag in The Atlantic.3 Now of course there is an element of truth in this, in that the Civil War was fought between northern states and southern states. But this neat and convenient division ignores several important details. First, the defenders of the Confederate cause were, almost without exception, Democrats. Coates cites many malefactors from Senator Jefferson Davis to Senator James Henry Hammond to Georgia Governor Joseph Brown. Yet while identifying these men as southerners and Confederates, Coates omits to identify them as Democrats. Second, Coates and other progressives conveniently ignore the fact that northern Democrats were also protectors of slavery. We will see in this chapter how Stephen Douglas and other northern Democrats fought to protect slavery in the South and in the new territories. Moreover, the southerners who fought for the Confederacy cannot be said to have fought merely to protect slavery on their plantations. Indeed, fewer than one-third of white families in the South on the eve of the Civil War had slaves. Thus the rigid North-South interpretation of the Civil War conceals—and is intended to conceal—the active complicity of Democrats across the country to save, protect, and even extend the “peculiar institution.” As the Charleston Mercury editorialized during the secession debate, the duty of the South was to “rally under the banner of the Democratic Party which has recognized and supported . . . the rights of the South.”4 The real divide was between the Democratic Party as the upholder of slavery and the Republican Party as the adversary of slavery. All the figures who upheld and defended American slavery—Senators John C. Calhoun and Stephen Douglas, President James Buchanan, Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger Taney, architect of the Dred Scott decision, and the main leaders of the Confederacy—were Democrats. All the heroes of black emancipation—from the black abolitionists Sojourner Truth and Frederick Douglass, to the woman who organized the Underground Railroad, Harriet Tubman, to the leader whose actions finally destroyed American slavery, Abraham Lincoln—were Republicans. It is of the utmost importance to progressive propagandists to conceal or at least ignore this essential historical truth.

That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there — on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam. The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors, so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand. It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known

This failure of nerve already was manifest in the selection and confirmation process of Clarence Thomas. Bush's choice of Thomas caught most black leaders off guard. Few had the courage to say publicly that this was an act of cynical tokenism concealed by outright lies about Thomas being the most qualified candidate regardless of race. Thomas had an undistinguished record as a student (mere graduation from Yale Law School does not qualify one for the Supreme Court); he left thirteen thousand age discrimination cases dying on the vine for lack of investigation in his turbulent eight years at the EEOC; and his performance during his short fifteen months as an appellate court judge was mediocre. The very fact that no black leader could utter publicly that a black appointee for the Supreme Court was unqualified shows how captive they are to white racist stereotypes about black intellectual talent. The point here is not simply that if Thomas were white they would have no trouble shouting this fact from the rooftops. The point is also that their silence reveals that black leaders may entertain the possibility that the racist stereotype may be true.

It was in postwar Paris that Mandelbrot began this quest in earnest. Uncle Szolem urged him to attend the École Normale Supérieure, France’s most rarefied institution of higher learning, where Mandelbrot had earned entry at the age of twenty (one of only twenty Frenchmen to do so). But the aridly abstract style of mathematics practiced there was uncongenial to him. At the time, the École Normale—dite normale, prétendue supérieure, says the wag—was dominated in mathematics by a semisecret cabal called Bourbaki. (The name Bourbaki was jocularly taken from a hapless nineteenth-century French general who once tried to shoot himself in the head but missed.) Its leader was André Weil, one of the supreme mathematicians of the twentieth century (and the brother of Simone Weil). The aim of Bourbaki was to purify mathematics, to rebuild it on perfectly logical foundations untainted by physical or geometric intuition. Mandelbrot found the Bourbaki cult, and Weil in particular, “positively repellent.” The Bourbakistes seemed to cut off mathematics from natural science, to make it into a sort of logical theology. They regarded geometry, so integral to Mandelbrot’s Keplerian dream, as a dead branch of mathematics, fit for children at best.

There is no position on which people are so immovable as their religious beliefs. There is no more powerful ally one can claim in a debate than Jesus Christ, or God, or Allah, or whatever one calls this supreme being. But like any powerful weapon, the use of God’s name on one’s behalf should be used sparingly. The religious factions that are growing throughout our land are not using their religious clout with wisdom. They are trying to force government leaders into following their position 100 percent. If you disagree with these religious groups on a particular moral issue, they complain, they threaten you with a loss of money or votes or both. I’m frankly sick and tired of the political preachers across this country telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in A, B, C, and D. Just who do they think they are? And from where do they presume to claim the right to dictate their moral beliefs to me? And I am even more angry as a legislator who must endure the threats of every religious group who thinks it has some God-granted right to control my vote on every roll call in the Senate. I am warning them today: I will fight them every step of the way if they try to dictate their moral convictions to all Americans in the name of conservatism.

There is no position on which people are so immovable as their religious beliefs. There is no more powerful ally one can claim in a debate than Jesus Christ, or God, or Allah, or whatever one calls this supreme being. But like any powerful weapon, the use of God’s name on one’s behalf should be used sparingly. The religious factions that are growing throughout our land are not using their religious clout with wisdom. They are trying to force government leaders into following their position 100 percent. If you disagree with these religious groups on a particular moral issue, they complain, they threaten you with a loss of money or votes or both. I’m frankly sick and tired of the political preachers across this country telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in A, B, C, and D. Just who do they think they are? And from where do they presume to claim the right to dictate their moral beliefs to me? And I am even more angry as a legislator who must endure the threats of every religious group who thinks it has some God-granted right to control my vote on every roll call in the Senate. I am warning them today: I will fight them every step of the way if they try to dictate their moral convictions to all Americans in the name of conservatism.19

While the founder [of any religious or spiritual system] was still walking among his followers and disciples, the latter did not distinguish between the person of their leader and his teaching; for the teaching was realized in the person and the person was livingly explained in the teaching. To embrace the teaching was to follow his steps - that is, to believe in him. His presence among them was enough to inspire them and convince them of the truth of his teaching... So long as he lived among them and spoke to them his teaching and his person appealed to them as an individual unity. But things went differently when his stately and inspiring personality was no more seen in the flesh... The similarities that were, either consciously or unconsciously, recognized as existing in various forms between leader and disciple gradually vanished, and as they vanished, the other side - that is, that which made him so distinctly different from his followers - came to assert itself all the more emphatically and irresistibly. The result was the conviction that he must have come from quite a unique spiritual source. The process of deification thus constantly went on until, some centuries after the death of the Master, he became a direct manifestation of the Supreme Being himself - in fact, he was the Highest One in the flesh, in him there was a divine humanity in perfect realization... Indeed, the teaching is to be interpreted in the light of the teacher's divine personality. The latter now predominates over the whole system; he is the centre whence radiate the rays of Enlightenment, salvation is only possible in believing in him as saviour.

After that preacher told me to quit thinking, I began thinking harder. I did my research. Turns out, the memo he was trying to pass me—“A good Christian bases her faith on disapproving of gays and abortion”—started being issued only forty years ago. In the 1970s, a few rich, powerful, white, (outwardly) straight men got worried about losing their right to continue racially segregating their private Christian schools and maintaining their tax-exempt status. Those men began to feel their money and power being threatened by the civil rights movement. In order to regain control, they needed to identify an issue that would be emotional and galvanizing enough to unite and politically activate their evangelical followers for the first time. They decided to focus on abortion. Before then—a full six years after the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision—the prevailing evangelical position was that life began with the baby’s first breath, at birth. Most evangelical leaders had been indifferent to the Court’s decision in Roe, and some were cited as supporting the ruling. Not anymore. They wrote a new memo using freshly feigned outrage and rhetoric calling for “a holy war…to lead the nation back to the moral stance that made America great.” They sponsored a meeting of 15,000 pastors—called The Religious Roundtable—to train pastors on how to convince their congregations to vote for antichoice, antigay candidates. This is how they disseminated the memo down to evangelical ministers, who passed it down to pews across America. The memo read, To be aligned with Jesus, to have family values, to be moral, one must be against abortion and gay people and vote for the candidate that is antiabortion and antigay.

I see many so-called conservative commentators, including some faith leaders, focusing on favorable policy initiatives or court appointments to justify their acceptance of this damage, while de-emphasizing the impact of this president on basic norms and ethics. That strikes me as both hypocritical and wrong. The hypocrisy is evident if you simply switch the names and imagine that a President Hillary Clinton had conducted herself in a similar fashion in office. I've said this earlier but it's worth repeating: close your eyes and imagine these same voices if President Hillary Clinton had told the FBI director, 'I hope you will let it go,' about the investigation of a senior aide, or told casual, easily disprovable lies nearly every day and then demanded we believe them. The hypocrisy is so thick as to be almost darkly funny. I say this as someone who has worked in law enforcement for most of my life, and served presidents of both parties. What is happening now is not normal. It is not fake news. It is not okay. Whatever your politics, it is wrong to dismiss the damage to the norms and traditions that have guided the presidency and our public life for decades or, in many cases, since the republic was founded. It is also wrong to stand idly by, or worse, to stay silent when you know better, while a president so brazenly seeks to undermine public confidence in law enforcement institutions that were established to keep our leaders in check...without these checks on our leaders, without those institutions vigorously standing against abuses of power, our country cannot sustain itself as a functioning democracy. I know there are men and women of good conscience in the United States Congress on both sides of the aisle who understand this. But not enough of them are speaking out. They must ask themselves to what, or to whom, they hold a higher loyalty: to partisan interests or to the pillars of democracy? Their silence is complicity - it is a choice - and somewhere deep down they must know that. Policies come and go. Supreme Court justices come and go. But the core of our nation is our commitment to a set of shared values that began with George Washington - to restraint and integrity and balance and transparency and truth. If that slides away from us, only a fool would be consoled by a tax cut or different immigration policy.

In the light of the evidence it is hard to believe that most crusaders were motivated by crude materialism. Given their knowledge and expectations and the economic climate in which they lived, the disposal of assets to invest in the fairly remote possibility of settlement in the East would have been a stupid gamble. It makes much more sense to suppose, in so far as one can generalize about them, that they were moved by an idealism which must have inspired not only them but their families. Parents, brothers and sisters, wives and children had to face a long absence and must have worried about them: in 1098 Countess Ida of Boulogne made an endowment to the abbey of St Bertin 'for the safety of her sons, Godfrey and Baldwin, who have gone to Jerusalem'.83 And they and more distant relatives — cousins, uncles and nephews - were prepared to endow them out of the patrimonial lands. I have already stressed that no one can treat the phenomenal growth of monasticism in this period without taking into account not only those who entered the communities to be professed, but also the lay men and women who were prepared to endow new religious houses with lands and rents. The same is true of the crusading movement. Behind many crusaders stood a large body of men and women who were prepared to sacrifice interest to help them go. It is hard to avoid concluding that they were fired by the opportunity presented to a relative not only of making a penitential pilgrimage to Jerusalem but also of fighting in a holy cause. For almost a century great lords, castellans and knights had been subjected to abuse by the Church. Wilting under the torrent of invective and responding to the attempts of churchmen to reform their way of life in terms they could understand, they had become perceptibly more pious. Now they were presented by a pope who knew them intimately with the chance of performing a meritorious act which exactly fitted their upbringing and devotional needs and they seized it eagerly. But they responded, of course, in their own way. They were not theologians and were bound to react in ways consonant with their own ideas of right and wrong, ideas that did not always respond to those of senior churchmen. The emphasis that Urban had put on charity - love of Christian brothers under the heel of Islam, love of Christ whose land was subject to the Muslim yoke - could not but arouse in their minds analogies with their own kin and their own lords' patrimonies, and remind them of their obligations to avenge injuries to their relatives and lords. And that put the crusade on the level of a vendetta. Their leaders, writing to Urban in September 1098, informed him that 'The Turks, who inflicted much dishonour on Our Lord Jesus Christ, have been taken and killed and we Jerusalemites have avenged the injury to the supreme God Jesus Christ.

A few years ago, a couple of young men from my church came to our home for dinner. During the course of the dinner, the conversation turned from religion to various world mythologies and we began to play the game of ‘Name That Character.” To play this game, you pick a category such as famous actors, superheroes or historical characters. In turn, each person describes events in a famous character’s life while everyone else tries to guess who the character is. Strategically you try to describe the deeds of a character in such a way that it might fit any number of characters in that category. After three guesses, if no one knows who your character is, then you win. Choosing the category of Bible Characters, we played a couple of fairly easy rounds with the typical figures, then it was my turn. Now, knowing these well meaning young men had very little religious experience or understanding outside of their own religion, I posed a trick question. I said, “Now my character may seem obvious, but please wait until the end of my description to answer.” I took a long breath for dramatic effect, and began, “My character was the son of the King of Heaven and a mortal woman.” Immediately both young men smiled knowingly, but I raised a finger asking them to wait to give their responses. I continued, “While he was just a baby, a jealous rival attempted to kill him and he was forced into hiding for several years. As he grew older, he developed amazing powers. Among these were the ability to turn water into wine and to control the mental health of other people. He became a great leader and inspired an entire religious movement. Eventually he ascended into heaven and sat with his father as a ruler in heaven.” Certain they knew who I was describing, my two guests were eager to give the winning answer. However, I held them off and continued, “Now I know adding these last parts will seem like overkill, but I simply cannot describe this character without mentioning them. This person’s birthday is celebrated on December 25th and he is worshipped in a spring festival. He defied death, journeyed to the underworld to raise his loved ones from the dead and was resurrected. He was granted immortality by his Father, the king of the gods, and was worshipped as a savior god by entire cultures.” The two young men were practically climbing out of their seats, their faces beaming with the kind of smile only supreme confidence can produce. Deciding to end the charade I said, “I think we all know the answer, but to make it fair, on the count of three just yell out the answer. One. Two. Three.” “Jesus Christ” they both exclaimed in unison – was that your answer as well? Both young men sat back completely satisfied with their answer, confident it was the right one…, but I remained silent. Five seconds ticked away without a response, then ten. The confidence of my two young friends clearly began to drain away. It was about this time that my wife began to shake her head and smile to herself. Finally, one of them asked, “It is Jesus Christ, right? It has to be!” Shaking my head, I said, “Actually, I was describing the Greek god Dionysus.

Demonstrating for peace to promote war was nothing new. Totalitarianism always requires a tangible enemy. To the ancient Greeks, a holocaust was simply a burnt sacrifice. Khrushchev wanted to go down in history as the Soviet leader who exported communism to the American continent. In 1959 he was able to install the Castro brothers in Havana and soon my foreign intelligence service became involved in helping Cuba's new communist rulers to export revolution throughout South America. At that point it did not work. In the 1950s and 1960s most Latin Americans were poor, religious peasants who had accepted the status quo. A black version of liberation theology began growing in a few radical-leftist black churches in the US where Marxist thought is predicated on a system pf oppressor class ( white ) versus victim class ( black ) and it sees just one solution: the destruction of the enemy. In the 1950s UNESCO was perceived by many as a platform for communists to attack the West and the KGB used it to place agents around the world. Che Guevara's diaries, with an introduction by Fidel Castro, were produced by the Kremlin's dezinformatsiya machine. Changing minds is what Soviet communism was all about. Khrushchev's political necrophagy ( = blaming and condemning one's predecessor in office. It is a dangerous game. It hurts the country's national pride and it usually turns against its own user ) evolved from the Soviet tradition of sanctifying the supreme ruler. Although the communists publicly proclaimed the decisive role of the people in history, the Kremlin and its KGB believed that only the leader counted. Change the public image of the leader and you change history, I heard over and over from Khrushchev's lips. Khrushchev was certainly the most controversial Soviet to reign in the Kremlin. He unmasked Stalin's crimes, but he made political assassination a main instrument of his own foreign policy; he authored a policy of peaceful coexistence with the West but he pushed the world to the brink of nuclear war; he repaired Moscow's relationships with Yugoslavia's Tito, but he destroyed the unity of the communist world. His close association with Stalin's killings made him aware of what political crime could accomplish and gave him a taste for the simple criminal solution. His total ignorance about the civilized world, together with his irrational hatred of the "bourgeoisie" and his propensity to offend people, made him believe that disinformation and threats were the most efficient and dignified way for a Soviet leader to deal with "bourgeois" governments. As that very clever master of deception Yuri Andropov once told me, if a good piece of disinformation is repeated over and over, after a while it will take on a life of its own and will, all by itself, generate a horde or unwitting but passionate advocates. When I was working for Ceausescu, I always tried to find a way to help him reach a decision on his own, rather than telling him directly what I thought he should do about something. That way both of us were happy. From our KGB advisors, I had learned that the best way to ut over a deception was to let the target see something for himself, with his own eyes. By 1999, President Yeltsin's ill-conceived privatization had enabled a small clique of predatory insiders to plunder Russia's most valuable assets. The corruption generated by this widespread looting penetrated every corner of the country and it eventually created a Mafia-style economic system that threatened the stability of Russia itself. During the old Cold War, the KGB was a state within a state. In Putin's time, the KGB now rechristened FSB, is the state. The Soviet Union had one KGB officer for every 428 citizens. In 2004, Putin's Russia had one FSB officer for every 297 citizens.

But Muslims now find themselves in a world shaped by western theories and western values. If we are to consider how Islamic communities conducted their affairs throughout the greater part of their history, it may be convenient to compare and contrast this way of life with the contemporary western model. Today the Muslims are urged to embrace democracy and are condemned for political corruption, while western scholars debate whether Islam can ever accommodate the democratic ideal. On the whole, they think not. Democracy, they believe, is a sign of political maturity and therefore of superiority. Western societies, since they are seen as democratic, exemplify this superiority. So there is one question that has to be pressed home: what, precisely, is meant by democracy? Let me put forward an imaginary Arab who knows nothing of western ways but would like to learn about them. He is aware that the literal meaning of the word democracy is "mob rule", but understands that this is not what westerners mean by it. He wonders how this meaning has, in practice, been modified and, since his questions are directed to an Englishman, he is not altogether surprised to be told that Britain is the exemplary democracy. He learns that the people—all except children, lunatics and peers of the realm—send their representatives to Parliament to speak for them. He is assured that these representatives never accept bribes to vote against their consciences or against the wishes of their constituents. He enquires further and is astonished to learn that the political parties employ what are known as Whips, who compel members to vote in accordance with the party line, even if this conflicts both with their consciences and with the views of the people who elected them. In this case it is not money but ambition for office that determines the way they vote. "But is this not corruption?" he asks naively. The Englishman is shocked. "But at least the party in power represents the vast majority of the electorate?" This time the Englishman is a little embarrassed. It is not quite like that. The governing party, which enjoys absolute power through its dominance in the House of Commons, represents only a minority of the electorate. "Are there no restraints on this power?" There used to be, he is told. In the past there was a balance between the Crown, the House of Lords and the Commons, but that was seen as an undemocratic system so it was gradually eroded. The "sovereignty" of the Lower House is now untrammelled (except, quite recently, by unelected officials in Brussels). "So this is what democracy means?" Our imaginary Arab is baffled. He investigates further and is told that, in the 1997 General Election, the British people spoke with one voice, loud and clear. A landslide victory gave the Leader of the Labour Party virtually dictatorial powers. Then he learns that the turn-out of electors was the lowest since the war. Even so, the Party received only forty-three per cent of the votes cast. He wonders if this can be the system which others wish to impose on his own country. He is aware that various freedoms, including freedom of the press, are essential components of a democratic society, but no one can tell him how these are to be guaranteed if the Ruler, supported by a supine—"disciplined"—House of Commons enjoys untrammelled authority. He knows a bit about rulers and the way in which they deal with dissent, and he suspects that human nature is much the same everywhere. Barriers to oppression soon fall when a political system eliminates all "checks and balances" and, however amiable the current Ruler may be, there is no certainty that his successors, inheriting all the tools of power, will be equally benign. He turns now to an American and learns, with some relief since he himself has experienced the oppression of absolutism, that the American system restrains the power of the President by that of the Congress and the Supreme Court; moreover, the electe

Nov. 20, 1945: U.S. Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson is the chief American prosecutor as the International Military Tribunal convenes in Nuremberg, Germany, for the trial of 20 top Nazi leaders for their role in the wartime atrocities of World War II.

The man I married had started deteriorating while married to Jemima, but by the time I reached him, he wasn’t even a man anymore. He was not a cricket celebrity. He was a supreme leader, surrounded by sycophants and suppliers. As his political career touched new heights, his rapid downward spiral as a human being was accelerated.

Supreme in every department except colonization, Athens was the embodiment of all these fresh promises. But while Athens created a cultural legacy to which every succeeding age has been indebted, it sought to pre-empt for its own vainglory the goods that every other city had contributed to, and had a right to equally share in. Though conserving, indeed cultivating, the benefits of internal democracy, Athens chose to act the king among lesser cities, demanding homage and tribute, in tyrannous fashion, in return for protection. The excrement of early civilization-war, exploitation, enslavement, mass extermination-backed up on Athens, as from an ancient sewer. In the end these forces overcame a movement toward a wider fellowship, with more humane goals, that was already visible in the seventh century. Had Greece's intellectual leaders fully grasped the implications of this universalism, they might have liberated urban culture from its chronic involvement in the practice of human sacrifice for perverse and irrational ends.

When Aadhaar finally became part of law, with the Aadhaar Act passed in March 2016, it was under a government headed by the same BJP that had emphatically opposed it earlier. The government chose the unusual route of passing the legislation as a money bill—a route typically reserved for bills that deal only with the use of public funds, and which bypassed the Rajya Sabha, where the government does not have a majority. Critics argued that the Aadhaar Act pertained to issues including civil liberties, national security and social policy, and could not be defined as a money bill. A Congress leader challenged the move in the Supreme Court.

After only eight months in office, Meadows made national headlines by sending an open letter to the Republican leaders of the House demanding they use the “power of the purse” to kill the Affordable Care Act. By then, the law had been upheld by the Supreme Court and affirmed when voters reelected Obama in 2012. But Meadows argued that Republicans should sabotage it by refusing to appropriate any funds for its implementation. And, if they didn’t get their way, they would shut down the government. By fall, Meadows had succeeded in getting more than seventy-nine Republican congressmen to sign on to this plan, forcing Speaker of the House John Boehner, who had opposed the radical measure, to accede to their demands. Meadows later blamed the media for exaggerating his role, but he was hailed by his local Tea Party group as “our poster boy” and by CNN as the “architect” of the 2013 shutdown. The fanfare grew less positive when the radicals in Congress refused to back down, bringing virtually the entire federal government to a halt for sixteen days in October, leaving the country struggling to function without all but the most vital federal services. In Meadows’s district, day-care centers that were reliant on federal aid reportedly turned distraught families away, and nearby national parks were closed, bringing the tourist trade to a sputtering standstill. National polls showed public opinion was overwhelmingly against the shutdown. Even the Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer, a conservative, called the renegades “the Suicide Caucus.” But the gerrymandering of 2010 had created what Ryan Lizza of The New Yorker called a “historical oddity.” Political extremists now had no incentive to compromise, even with their own party’s leadership. To the contrary, the only threats faced by Republican members from the new, ultraconservative districts were primary challenges from even more conservative candidates. Statistics showed that the eighty members of the so-called Suicide Caucus were a strikingly unrepresentative minority. They represented only 18 percent of the country’s population and just a third of the overall Republican caucus in the House. Gerrymandering had made their districts far less ethnically diverse and further to the right than the country as a whole. They were anomalies, yet because of radicalization of the party’s donor base they wielded disproportionate power. “In previous eras,” Lizza noted, “ideologically extreme minorities could be controlled by party leadership. What’s new about the current House of Representatives is that party discipline has broken down on the Republican side.” Party bosses no longer ruled. Big outside money had failed to buy the 2012 presidential election, but it had nonetheless succeeded in paralyzing the U.S. government. Meadows of course was not able to engineer the government shutdown by himself. Ted Cruz, the junior senator from Texas, whose 2012 victory had also been fueled by right-wing outside money, orchestrated much of the congressional strategy.

Entry 3Å9Ø Father is upset again. Word has spread that a deserter went down to the planet before its first harvest. I don’t know why such information would upset him. The planet is not habitable for Tanyesi, and the coward will likely die alone. I suspect he simply doesn’t want the product to be disturbed before they’ve been collected, but he’s always been sensitive about the delicacy of the planet’s commodities. I guess I should try to learn from him if I’m ever going to take his place as The Supreme Leader.

The cause of Communism's bloodthirsty history may be found in the grandiosity of Communism as an idea, and the grandiose self-conception of the Communist as an agent of that idea. The successful strata of Communist revolutionaries suffer from an enormous, bloated egotism. One has merely to examine the psychology of a Hugo Chavez or Fidel Castro. Such are the special pampered children of history, magnificent in their own eyes, epic heroes, supreme and god-like agents of history's splendid drama. Here one finds no sense of self-limitation. There is only self-expansion. Unlike the well-adjusted human being, the aspiring Communist dictator is soaked in arrogance. From all of this flows the bloodthirstiness of the mass murderer. Identifying himself with the forces of history, the Communist leader puts himself in God's shoes. Here is a narcissism so pathological, an emptiness so profound, that nothing may come of it except monstrous crime.

They saw in their hearts a developed South Korea and asked God for a strategy to bring that about. He showed them that if they rallied Westerners to finance one child each through education, then this education would become a foundation for the future greatness of the country. They used this prophetic word to start one of the greatest humanitarian organizations for children in history: Compassion International. (How many readers, I wonder, have supported a child by sending money to a Compassion International child sponsorship project.) The first generation of Compassion International kids that graduated college had a knack for building, and they helped lay Korea’s foundation in government (one was even one of the first Supreme Court justices), education (many became teachers right away), religion (many became Christian pastors and leaders), and industry (many started businesses). It was such a pivotal movement that it is still referred to by many of the South Korean government leaders I have met. South Korea began its greater development into what it is today because God invested a vision of its future to Christians, organizations, and other groups. He gave them the faith to help Korea become what it is today.

A corrupt and dynastic political party is antithetical to the rule of law and to carefully crafted constitutional checks and balances to prevent abuse of power. A tendency towards autocracy and consequent institutional subversion is inevitable with a party thus configured. The result is a prime minister bereft of real power, subservient to the dynastic head and a mute spectator to the loot and plunder of the nation’s resources; a president who is a loyal camp follower and will faithfully rubber stamp the decisions ordained by the dynasty: witness how unhesitatingly President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed signed the Proclamation of Emergency at Mrs. Gandhi’s bidding in 1975 and ponder whether Mrs. Pratibha Patil, (besieged as she was by her co-operative sugar factory in liquidation, her co-operative bank bankrupt, and her family embroiled in the murder case of a popular intra-party rival in Jalgaon at the time of her nomination by Mrs. Sonia Gandhi), would have done otherwise; or for that matter whether President Pranab Mukherjee, whose many acts of subversion of the Constitution during the Emergency have been documented by the Shah Commission, is so radically transformed that he would now protect it; a judiciary accused of judicial overreach when it censures the government or brings its ministers to book while its inconvenient judgments are subjected to review or Presidential Reference; a CAG whose findings against the government’s decisions are vilified as being patently erroneous, in excess of jurisdiction and even motivated, although that august body, the Constituent Assembly had opined that as the guardian of the nation’s finances, the CAG was as important a Constitutional functionary as the justices of the Supreme Court; a CVC appointed despite the taint of corruption and over the protest of the leader of the Opposition, whose appointment was finally quashed by the Supreme Court; and a CBI whose only role on empirical evidence is to falsely implicate political opponents and wrongly exonerate the regime’s members and cronies.

So they did in 1978, a year after Shariati died, under a leader he might have condemned as a very model of clerical despotism and arbitrary vanguardism. Born in a small town in 1902, Khomeini was educated as a cleric and philosopher. He came to prominence in 1963 at the head of a vigorous opposition to the Shah of Iran’s programme of modernization called the ‘White Revolution’, which included the privatization of state-owned enterprises, enfranchisement of women and mass literacy. He spent most of the next decade and a half in exile while Iranian youth absorbed the message of Al-e-Ahmad and Shariati. (Iran’s current supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, was present at one of their rare joint meetings in Mashhad back in 1969.)

As Fidel Castro’s M–26–7 forces increased their attacks, the Cuban army was forced to withdraw into the larger towns for safety. This caused ever-increasing pressure on Batista. The United States government stopped supplying the Batista régime with weapons and ammunition. In 1958, in spite of an all-out attack and heavy aerial bombings upon Castro’s guerrilla forces, known as “Operation Verano,” the rebels continued advancing. At that time Batista’s Army had 10,000 soldiers surrounding the Sierra Maestra Mountains and Castro had 300 men under his command, many of them former Batista soldiers who joined the rebels after being appalled by the abuses that they were ordered to carry out. By closing off the major roads and rail lines, Castro put Batista’s forces at a severe disadvantage. On January 1, 1959, with his pockets stuffed with money and an airplane full of art, Presidente Fulgencio Batista flew the coop. Flying to the Dominican Republic before continuing to Portugal some months later, he left Anselmo Alliegro Mila to serve as Acting President. The next day he was relieved and Carlos Manuel Piedra, who had served as the senior member of the Supreme Court, was appointed Provisional President for a day. It was in accordance with the 1940 Cuban constitution, but his appointment was opposed by the new leader, Fidel Castro.

If Trump had followed the example of his predecessors and conceded power graciously and peacefully, he would have been remembered as a disruptive but consequential populist leader who, before the coronavirus pandemic, presided over an economic boom, reoriented America’s opinion of China, removed terrorist leaders from the battlefield, revamped the space program, secured an originalist majority on the US Supreme Court, and authorized Operation Warp Speed to produce a COVID-19 vaccine in record time. Instead, when historians write about the Trump era, they will do so through the lens of January 6. They will focus on Trump’s tortured relationship with the alt-right, on his atrocious handling of the deadly Charlottesville protest in 2017, on the rise in political violence during his tenure in office, and on his encouragement of malevolent conspiracy theories. Trump joined the ranks of American villains from John C. Calhoun to Andrew Johnson, from Joseph McCarthy to George Wallace.

It is interesting that Lincoln, who was for the most part a skeptic in terms of religion and certainly not a Christian in any sense of orthodoxy, was also knowledgeable enough about Christian theology that he included it in this, his second inaugural address. His remarks were remarkable in their understanding of the faith and doctrines of Christians, Southern and Northern, and they are immensely important for us today in understanding just how much religious beliefs— be they Christian, Jewish, or Muslim— still influence political and foreign policy decisions. Lincoln’s decision to proclaim emancipation with a military order that could not be countermanded by a hostile Supreme Court was masterful. His understanding of the way the deeply embedded beliefs of Christians in the South and the North brought about the war were among the most insightful words spoken about the war made by anyone before or after. The Emancipation Proclamation and the Lieber Code were and remain revolutionary. They both regard the importance of justice as the most important part of law and freedom. To paraphrase a civil rights leader, without justice, there can be no peace.

The Midwesterners were supremely confident that theirs was the more American culture, one less imitative of the English and less sullied by foreign entanglements and obligations than those in the East. To them the Midwest was “the center of the American spirit,” in Colonel Robert McCormick’s phrase. The people back East, they believed, were essentially parasitic—they went around making money, while the good Midwesterners, purer of spirit but dirtier of hand, went around making products for the Midwest. Those resentments were deep and bitter and they were not unlike the resentments of people in a distant colony toward the leaders back in the colonial power.

Supremely indifferent to the chorus of car horns behind them, they [Breton Movers] took their time maneuvering into position, displaying with their Herculean strength the utmost disdain for the rest of humanity … As in all good criminal bands, the shortest one was the leader. Mind you, what Raymond lacked in height he made up for in width. He looked like an overheated Godin stove. Perhaps it was an occupational hazard, but they each were reminiscent of a piece of furniture: the one called Jean-Jean, a Louis-Phillipe chest of drawers; Ludo, a Normandy wardrobe; and the tall, shifty looking one affectionately known as the Eel, a grandfather clock … Each of them exuded a smell of musk, of wild animal escaped from its cage… Each worker made it clear that (Brice) had no business getting under their feet. At that point, the existential lack of purpose which had dogged him from earliest childhood assumed monumental proportions, and he suggested going to fetch them cold drinks.

In the 1970s, a few rich, powerful, white, (outwardly) straight men got worried about losing their right to continue racially segregating their private Christian schools and maintaining their tax-exempt status. Those men began to feel their money and power being threatened by the civil rights movement. In order to regain control, they needed to identify an issue that would be emotional and galvanizing enough to unite and politically activate their evangelical followers for the first time. They decided to focus on abortion. Before then—a full six years after the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision—the prevailing evangelical position was that life began with the baby’s first breath, at birth. Most evangelical leaders had been indifferent to the Court’s decision in Roe, and some were cited as supporting the ruling. Not anymore.

Draining public swimming pools to avoid integration received the official blessing of the U.S. Supreme Court in 1971. The city council in Jackson, Mississippi, had responded to desegregation demands by closing four public pools and leasing the fifth to the YMCA, which operated it for whites only. Black citizens sued, but the Supreme Court, in Palmer v. Thompson, held that a city could choose not to provide a public facility rather than maintain an integrated one, because by robbing the entire public, the white leaders were spreading equal harm. “There was no evidence of state action affecting Negroes differently from white,” wrote Justice Hugo Black. The Court went on to turn a blind eye to the obvious racial animus behind the decision, taking the race neutrality at face value. “Petitioners’ contention that equal protection requirements were violated because the pool-closing decision was motivated by anti-integration considerations must also fail, since courts will not invalidate legislation based solely on asserted illicit motivation by the enacting legislative body.” The d

the supreme value of all authoritarians: winning, by concentrating power in the hands of their group and its supreme leader.

-Once upon a time, Liberty was within the reach of everyone. However, the people did not value it because they had enough. They believed that Life could go on without Liberty, and as such, the Tyrant hoodwinked the people into believing that he saved them from the danger called Liberty. And presented himself as the Supreme Savior Leader, and his newly established Dark World Order as Life. -And people believed him.

Today’s populists can only function in the indefinite postponement of achieving their goal since they can only function as opposing the “deep state” of the liberal establishment. “The new right does not, at least not at this stage, seek to establish a supreme value— for instance, the nation, or the leader—that would fully express the will of the people and thereby allow and perhaps even require the abolition of the mechanisms of representation.