God is Literally in Your DNA

I'll state my thesis right up front:

When we voice our thoughs, the words we speak are the literal sound of our inner spirit expressing itself. The letters in the words we choose to use are code for our spiritual DNA . There is no way around it.

In her landmark book, Molecules of Emotion, physiologist Candace Pert presents scientific evidence that our Spirit is in our body chemicals. In The God Code, Gregg Braden takes this body/spirit connection a step further. He says our body is a chemical pool that reflects our spirit. When we speak, we couch our deep feelings of spiritual understanding in the language we use, in the very letters of our words. We feel from our being and speak what we feel. It makes sense that if the words we speak have valence or value meaning, a value number could be designated for each letter of our heartfelt voicings. This is not just an entertaining word game. This method of investigation is known as the science of gematria.

Looking at the longest running, still existing language--Hebrew--Braden found insight in how this all works. In earlier centuries Hebrew was written using just consonants. Only in speaking were the vowel sounds used. I don't expect you to have much trouble reading (phonetically sounding out) the following: "Dnt fll dwn nd hrt yrslf." But the meaning does not hit home until the vowel sounds are added. We can see how the feeling—the meaning—is in the vowels which are the breath interrupted by consonants. (Put your hand close in front of your mouth and say the vowel letter e. Feel the breath? Now put a consonant in front and after of the vowel when you say it—like “peek.” Feel the punch?

Consonants give character to the breath. As infants we did not erupt in speech upon birth to say “hello, I’m here”; we just let out shrieking breath sounds to express our feeling about the shock of our arrival. Thus as newborn babies we expressed the "meaning" of our spirit-thoughts before we learned a tongue-language.

Think of it. Don’t we, as more sophisticated talkers, use words we have coined that sound just like the thing we want to express. Doesn’t the word “plop” sound like something that just plopped. How about “spit.” Don’t you just spit that word out. Love? Don’t you just “loooove” to sit in a hot tub. So, on and on (there we go again—the word “onnnnnnnnn”)

The message is in the combination of letter numbers. Braden finds the code for understanding what it is we know of God in the letters that we sound out when we speak of such things. The clue lies in the key example of the Hebrew letters for God—YHVH. Here is the surprise—the four base groups of genes that form the double-helix DNA structure unique to humans have alliterative letter values that match the Hebrew spelling of the name of God. The number value for nitrogen matches with the Hebrew Y, hydrogen with H, oxygen with V, and carbon with GH (gh is often shortened to h)—accompanying the three gaseous elements of the genetic base, the fourth element, carbon, is the one that solidifies our physical bodies. What we have here is a gematria match in the defined letter value for God in Hebrew and the base elements of DNA. If this makes some sense, then within the very body of a human is the call of God.

This may seeem too clever to be taken seriously. But don't walk away. First I note that my spirit is physicalized chemically as Dr. Pert proposes. Just as ancient alchemists concluded that the universe is made of a combination of fire, air, earth, and water, our modern physicists note that the basic chemicals fire, air, earth, and water are the four constituent DNA elements of our physical bodies. Then with this in mind, Braden says when we express our molecular emotions in language, we speak the code of spirit reality, whether we know it or not. Alphabet letters are the code for what we feel. Humans are a mirror of God in the Creator's unity of spirit made manifest on earth.

Speaking is an art expression, words are the paint. The words are letter-ized meaning tones. So it would make sense for the "meaning tones," the letters, to have a scripted number value--each letter in alphabetical order numbered in sequence. Hence, we have an orderly code for deciphering the underlying abstract meaning. Language is the wrap inside of which are meaningful feelings we experience. This is the sense in which the Bible can be considered the “literal” word of God. Fundamentalists, are you listening?

At first I thought Braden was nursing a fantasy by claiming to have found a hidden code in ancient but newly discovered documents (e.g., Nag Hammadi and the Dead Sea Scrolls) that tell what can be known about God and the universe. But when I see the discoveries of quantum physics making biblical miracles seem almost tame, Pert and Braden regain my respect. And I see how science--from alchemy to quantum physics--makes the power of God more impressive by being seen as more nit and grit believable. The wonder of it all is how I fit naturally in the divine unity of existence. The very name of God is a letter code that enables us to speak of who we are in our inner genetic formula. Our very DNA calls out to its divine letter-matching source of being.

Fundamentalists, as biblical literalists, almost get it right, but they don’t know it.

                                                                                                                   Doug Good

Defining Racism; Donald Trump in Question

What is so endearing about Donald Trump is that he speaks from his heart.  

In the Trump University case, he said the ruling was unfair and the judge incompetent. Not equipped with cerebral tools, Trump reached into his bag of emotional cliches and suggested Judge Curiel's  Mexican heritage improperly guided his decision. These are charges to be handled by attorneys and appeals procedures, but Trump is a cheerleader. On any topic he is the opening act for lively discussion.  

His cryptic remark in this case set the stage for a few days of national discussion on racism while the details of the case and justice of the decision were hustled off-stage.    The problem is that when challenged, Trump simply repeats himself. He barks out arousing one-liners, then leaves his followers to come up with a script. This week we listened in vain for any media attention or panel discussions about the details of the Trump University case. The question was narrowed to one issue: Is Trump a racist, or is he not?

The facts: Judge Curiel was born and raised in Indiana, has a vetted reputation for fairness, and is even on record for ruling against a Mexican in a notable court battle.  Trump  had nothing enlightening to say about his school's case.  He only offered an attitudinal judgment about Curiel.  Trump's remark is classic racism; wrapped in transparent emotion from losing in court.  

I have never heard anyone accused of being a racist who ever admitted it.  Indeed, Trump says he is "the least racist you have ever seen."  To admit being a racist fatally undermines the validity of your convictions.  To convince others of the integrity of your opinions you have to deny the emotional fount from which they arise. If your disagreement with a person of another race has substance, then race does not enter the picture.  A solid opinion is not enhanced by unsupported emotion. With the lack of appending judicially crafted "reasons," Trump's ethnic slur became racism on parade.

In one televised panel discussion, a Trump defender lamely explained that whether a person is a racist or not depends on his motivation; that is, if he does not mean ill toward the other person, his remark is unstained by prejudice.   But does anyone really think that Trump's impugning a respected American born jurist as incapacitated by foreign ethnicity, was anything but a barbed arrow?  

During this year's presidential campaign, each time Trump has been called out for an outrageous statement, his pattern has been to double down and rub it in.  That is what so many people like about him--he doesn't back away. This time, however, as the presumptive Republican nominee, his need to reel in the establishment folk of his party is hard pressing. He apparently recognized he had a problem.  No, he didn't withdraw his racist claim about the judge, he just said he didn't mean it as it was taken.  Note this is not a retracting of the words used, it is a repainting of them.  

Trump's commentary about people in general is to call them foreigners, liars, ugly or deformed, weak, female, etc. His consistent mode is to attack the personhood of those who criticize him. If he were to follow his advice to protesters at his rallies, he would sucker punch the judge if had the chance. In contrast, the fine leaders he says he admires are fellow bullies like Putin, Kim Jong-il, or cross burning crusaders.  If Trump has other, unemotional reasons for his negative opinion of Curiel, I'll be listening. But the man is not strong on "reasons." 

Actually I think Trump is mostly "talk."  He is an effective motivational speaker if arousal is what is sought.  Mitt Romney, though,  just chimed in saying he fears Trump will foster "trickle down racism" nationally.  You may expect that if he becomes President, his arousal abilities will have international implications.

I am scheduled to give a lecture in July on why certain U.S. Presidents are consistently ranked "greatest" among the forty-three in polling surveys. I predict that Trump has a solid chance to bump Warren G. Harding one step up off the bottom rung.

Trump may be a stirring phrase maker, but I don't think he will find a hood and robe hanging in a White House closet alongside a copy of the Constitution.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   Doug Good

Donald Trump's Unexpected Place in History

Donald Trump is not a surprising human mutant with Presidential hope born of our troubled times.  He had a precursor.  An earlier crisis in our national history spawned the first similar presidential misfit, Lincoln's successor Andrew Johnson--Trump’s forerunner.  The issues are different, but the similarity in behavior is uncanny.   

Hearken to what Jeffrey Tulis (an essayist in, Presidential Leadership, James Taranto, ed.) says about this earlier aberrant leader. He notes that Johnson was [as is Trump]

"a 'semiliterate' man with a "gift for delivering speeches on the stump, impassioned appeals that skewered his opponents as he responded, quickly and effectively, to the reaction of his audience.  These were not polished orations, prepared in advance with appropriate literary references or attention to how the speech would be read after it was delivered. Johnson's [and Trump's] talent was for the extemporaneous, crowd-pleasing harangue.

“When Johnson became president he conducted the office [as Trump would] in the only way that he knew—as a demagogue. His main strategy to secure support for his policy toward the South was a presidential "Swing Around the Circle," a speaking tour in which he delivered sixty speeches, all variations on one speech. [Trump has had a tour ready-made for him in the televised campaign debates] Johnson carried a rough outline in his head and modified it to respond to each audience. In the typical speech, he would invoke the spirits of Washington and Jackson, claim his own devotion to the principles of Union [Trump's mantra is, "I will make America great again"), deny that he was a traitor [or "fraud" as per Romney; pathological liar, as per Sanders] as others had alleged, attack some part of the audience (depending on the kinds of heckles he received) [like Trump accusing his hecklers of being sent by Sanders]. . . . Nothing could be further from the Founders' intentions than for presidential power to depend upon the interplay of orator and crowd."

       But beyond the public persona of these two men, their relationship to the office of U. S. President has a disturbing odor.  Johnson became president by accident, and Trump is yet but hopeful.  Johnson’s term in office played out as what Tulis calls a model for a "plebiscitary" president—one who draws his supporters from a coalition "cobbled together personally through appeals that did not track prevailing party positions or organizations."  Johnson, a Democrat from Tennessee, was an addendum to the “refashioned" Republican party ticket by Lincoln’s choice--a border state senator who opposed secession. He was voted into the Vice Presidency  by happenstance.  

        At this point it appears that Trump is the choice of the disenchanted, to the consternation of the “establishment” element of his party. The word plebiscite stems from a combination of the Latin plebe (common people) and scitum (decree), hence the dictate of commoners, suggesting rebellion rather than official sanction.

A plebiscitary president also suggests one who personalizes his unusual mandate, which in turn hints at a tortuous twist on the constitutional scheme of inter-branch governmental cooperation. Tulis defines it as making policy "by employing unilateral powers, executive orders, and bureaucratic maneuvers rather than through legislation." This is the tactic of the (any) president who wants to "thwart the will of an unjust or a tyrannical Congress."      

Presidential power by “administrative” design rather than Constitutional authority draws energy from the veins of public opinion, bypassing institutional checkpoints.  (A plebiscitary mandate and administrative design are birds in the same nest.) Administrative Presidents view the personal power that comes with authority "as attributes of their own democratic skills [and personal appeal] rather than as derivative from their constitutional station." The Constitution becomes their "instrument" for authority rather than the "source" of it.  Even political parties are "refashioned" to be instruments of personal power, rather than organizations that "produce," "mold," and "limit" the president.

At the heart of Trump’s appeal is his vocalizing of public frustration with a do-nothing Congress and a spineless incumbent President.  With his announcements that he knows how to “deal” with problems and his take-charge presumptuousness, Trump clothes himself in the robe of an administrative presidency, an implied but shadowed acknowledgement that this kind of "power" reveals the weakness of traditional definitions of "power."

Tulis presents  Andrew Johnson as ”the first and most effective” president we have had  with this style.  I wouldn’t expect Trump to admit, if he even knew, that Johnson was a perfect model of how to administratively operate in a three branch government, because Johnson went down in flames.  But Trump has a laser instinct for how to do it Johnson’s way.  Johnson had different motivational issues--racism and sectional pride.  Trump has his own fountain of prejudices and spites (immigrants, Muslims, weakness and physical handicaps).

Trump’s daily display of his bully habits doesn’t leave much to our imagination for how he would go about “leading.“ Tulis provides us an eye opening account of the havoc Trump’s precursor wrought with this leadership style. He describes how Lincoln’s successor “repeatedly ignored  the deliberate  will  of Congress,  [as] he fashioned policy through [peacetime] use of unilateral power that was, and still is, unprecedented. Johnson  refused  to enforce  many  properly enacted laws; he refused to spend money  appropriated for congressionally constructed  institutions;  he  pardoned countless Confederates, arrested by his own  military establishment, who would not pledge allegiance to the United States; he seized and returned land to former slave  owners  that  had been legally confiscated  and  distributed to slaves who had worked the land; he used patronage power to bully politicians throughout the nation to  support  his version of reconstruction; and [bullied] Congress to protect his understanding of the Constitution."

And you know what happened to Johnson—he was impeached. (After his impeachment, Johnson was acquitted by one vote.) Being that impeachment is only "indictment," it falls short of assessing conviction with incarceration. Convicted as charged only ousts the defendant from office. But let’s save ourselves the effort of "removing" Trump from office down the road. We can informally impeach him now by not electing him, since he already stands guilty of promoting "administrative" executorship.  He is flying through the primary voting season, petulantly displaying all the signs of an Andrew Johnson returned to life.

Johnson is now postmortem but remains a troubling marker. Tulis explains that this accidental president’s main legacy "was to disgrace the office" by repudiating the forms and formalities of leadership" that accorded with "constitutional order."  He "overlegalized the political relationship of President and Congress.  After repeatedly losing  legislative disputes with Congress,” he fell back  on the Supreme Court to arbitrate the clashes. [Trump can only think of expediting matters by sucker punching the “bad, very bad” protesters]  To Johnson, "the courts and the people  were preferred venues in a process of political forum shopping.”

This explanation underlines the Constitutional impropriety of Johnson’s mode of operation. George W. Bush was clever enough to keep his “administrative” steering under the radar.  He was not the first president to accompany his signature with remarks of interpretation and reservations to the laws he signed. But his “signing statements” challenged more than a thousand statutes in the legislation he initialized.  These “signing statements” signaled to his department how to “manage” the new laws.  Bush used Johnson’s “administrative” executive tool, but possessed a different temperament. I don’t think Trump is capable of being that subtle; he is a Johnson with the boost of media flare.

On another more oblique  but disturbing level Johnson demonstrated his mental divorce from the intentions of our Founding Fathers.  In defying the Tenure of Office Act he triggered the trivializing of the impeachment process, otherwise structured to confront “high crimes.”  His bullying provoked the Judiciary Committee to strike back in defense of the more cerebral Constitutional principle of balanced power. Congress, however took a deep breath, cooled down and edited out “bad rhetoric" in the list of impeachment charges.  This assured Johnson’s acquittal.  Congress caved.  Johnson survived but the Presidency became a carrier for a virus.

Historians have swallowed the trivialization of the impeachment “check” by stressing that the vote count was party line.  In Tulis’ judgment, Congress, wounded by Johnson's legal literalism, has been deprived of  its core constitutional weapon in the separation-of-powers dispute--that is, the power to democratically punish an executive who disgraces his office or who abuses the Constitution by repeatedly undermining laws [duly] enacted by  a deliberative democracy."

Donald Trump is so much like Andrew Johnson it is scary.  In most presidential rating polls, Johnson is tagged as a failure.  History can be music to our ears, but it helps to put it on speaker phone to hear the rumble tones and crashing sounds.

Doug Good

Is Obama's Gun Control Executive Order Defensible?

The Arizona state legislature is considering passing a law that would protect the state against federal agency actions that violate the Constitution.  It would make it illegal in Arizona to cooperate with any federal “executive order” not affirmed by a national vote in Congress.

This legislative bill is a call for coordinated nuisance to make federal implementation difficult in Arizona.  State non-compliance can lift nuisance to the level of mischief, but that does not cancel federal law. A key reason our enduring Constitution was created was because the Articles of Confederation lacked the ability to enforce its will on the states, so you might expect the states down the road of history to object to certain federal actions. Arizonans may argue that the state has no obligation to comply with constitutionally illegal federal orders, but federal Executive Orders are not unconstitutional.

The Constitution does not spell out how the President should perform his duties, but it explicitly delegates to him the discretionary power of a Chief Executive (Article II, Section 1). The President's "federal directives," then, stand on the same ground as Congress' "federal legislation." He is instructed to "take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed" (Art.II, Sec.3). The three branches of government (Congress, Court and President) act in concert. The President's pronouncements (whether "orders," "memoranda," "decisions," "resolutions," or "proclamations") are normally couched as intended to provide his managing officers with instructions on performing their assignments.  

But these dictates are more than in house directives.  They are presumed to have the force of law, in the name of the Constitution. The absence of an Executive with this power was precisely why the Continental Congress bowed to the Philadelphia Convention's re-write that granted the President administrative authority. The Constitution covers the President's back as he establishes administrative policy to resolve the political and social problems the nation faces.  On more than one occasion in our past the President has threatened and even sent troops into states that have raucously resisted national law. In such cases he was doing his Constitutional job, "caring" for the national well-being from the "federal" home office.  

But what if the President oversteps his bounds?  There is no "constitutional"  provision for invalidating an Executive Order. At the core of the controversy is interpretation not validity. Nevertheless, there are several ways to counter an Executive Order. The Supreme Court can make a ruling against it, but court action is not the only way to get "interpretation" right. Congress can de-fund the agency involved, or pass new legislation on the issue (if vetoed, the stoppage can, with difficulty, be overridden).  The President can be impeached, or not re-elected.  Or a subsequent President can simply erase the order.   

Samples of other means that we, the people, have tried using in the past to challenge "Federal" action include: the Virginia and Kentucky Resolves (states objecting to the "alien and sedition" laws), the Hartford Convention (New England's threat to secede from the Union because of "Madison's War" of 1812), and South Carolina's objection to the "Tariff of Abominations." (1828). These gritty expressions of state dissent proved impotent for various reasons.

More often than not, Executive Orders (and other less commanding directives) are the President taking action when Congress dithers and procrastinates. In situations that need immediate handling, the President as Chief Executive may properly step forward when the rest of  the "federal" system (Congress) fails in responsibility or is torn by partisanship. Truman's racial integration of the Armed Forces may serve as an example.  By Executive Order Truman broke this log jam of insistent social advance.  If the President moving forward is judged to be wrong, he can be rebuked or removed; if right, praised and highly "rated." Jefferson's precipitate  purchase of the Louisiana Territory, without asking Congress, is the main reason he is rated near the top in Presidential rankings.  As for President (G.W.) Bush, within months of his  "troop surge" in Iraq, he was replaced by an Iraq war opponent (Obama), who began withdrawing our troops.

In all--Washington to Obama--Presidents have issued over 15,200 Executive Orders ranging from lowering of flags to half-mast, declaring a "bank holiday,” desegregating schools, interning Japanese, even starting wars ("police action").  Relatively few of these have been much contested.  For example, of Franklin Roosevelt's 3,522 Orders, the Supreme Court overturned only five, and only two of our "order happy" Presidents have been impeached, both times in vain.

Obama's gun control Executive Order, in my mind, is in the Truman mold -- taking necessary action to end stalemate (integrating the army, or commandeering the steel industry to force an end of a national strike during wartime).  Facing repeated mass shootings, Congress today is stymied largely by the force of private lobbying (NRA). If the states aren't happy with this Constitutionally legitimate "federal" tool of gun regulation, they need to spur their Congressional representatives in Washington D.C. to override the President.  I don't think the Supreme Court will determine the matter; it cannot initiate cases, it can only interpret them on appeal--a dilatorily slow process.  

In the past, when seceding states lost hope in properly countering a President who wanted to end slavery, we ended up in a Civil War.  Yet anti-slavery eventually won, regardless of the southern states adamant objection; and no northern states called Lincoln's formation of a Union Army an unconstitutional act.

What gun control opponents forget (or don't know) is that the 2nd Amendment is philosophically based on "regulation."  The prefacing clause of the one sentence-long amendment states its reason for upholding ownership of guns by individuals--namely because a "well regulated" militia [private citizens] was [from past experience] deemed "necessary." This clearly is not a Constitutional rally for ownership of guns by individuals for open season reasons.  

If the public wants unguarded dispersal of guns, there is a way to introduce this: addend the Constitution (stating why the intent of the 2nd Amendment is insufficient.) Meanwhile the opponents of gun control should stop disingenuously lopping off part of the 2nd Amendment when they (partially) quote it. The real Amendment pairs "regulation" with gun use.  Actually I have never heard or seen any opponent of gun "control" actually quote the Amendment; they only paraphrase it, thereby misusing it for special interest purposes. If the historically positioned Amendment does not suit the large number of alternate interpreters, they should promote a new Amendment.  I don't expect them to, because this would be tacit admission that the original one doesn't meet their free-wheeling wishes--something they adamantly deny. You see, the legality of regulation is not at stake, it is a matter of the President responsibly stepping forward to administer gun handling rules of regulation, as the Constitutional amenders understood.

If Donald Trump becomes President, I expect he would entertain "ordering" more gun freedom.  Can't you hear him now, echoing the NRA's position: "we need more guns, not less"! Then guess who would be arguing against Executive Orders.

Doug Good

Is Democracy Threatened by Disease-carrying Immigrants?

I was recently privileged to receive an email discourse about how the Obama Administration has been hiding the truth from the American public regarding the connection between open immigration and the potential for epidemic spread of diseases hitherto under control here. For example, the article pointed out that the report of 900 new leprosy cases in the years 1996-2000 increased to 9000 for the three years 2002-2005--years in which Islamic jihadist terrorists have been infiltrating across our border.

Notice of our failure to take steps to protect our citizenry from the introduction of diseases with epidemic potential is an important warning.  All care should be taken to use medical knowledge and protective procedures to stamp out disease. But casting the message in anti-immigrant tone carries another threat.  We also need to protect the integrity of America reputed as the "hope for the world" as a trail blazer for democracy.   

      If we are to believe many of our aspiring politicians, we need to re-vision our "founding doctrines," for standard democracy is too inadequate for doing what needs to be done to assure our national strength.    Apparently we need to see ourselves not as a land of the free, but a land led by and for the healthy and physically whole; and we are to know that love, acceptance, respect and sacrifice are hindrances that divert us from securing liberty for those of us who have risen to the top--the notion that exclusivism is the way to protect what we have won for ourselves.  This revisionist kind of "democracy" mocks what underpinned the original "spirit of '76."

I sense that there is something fundamentally wrong with a desire to screen out our fellow humans who would join with us in our democratic celebration because they hail from countries with poor health histories.  This is not just a health issue, it is cousin to political narcissism.  If we would let the medical professionals deal with what is a valid concern, we will not be so vulnerable to the disease of zenophobia.  

Another shadow looming over instinctual protectionism is the temptation to lose track of Christian responsiveness. If we can't have it both ways--universally shared freedom, and medical insularity--should we choose the second at the expense of the first?  Jesus did not opt for this kind of exclusionary choice.  From my reading of the New Testament, I find no mention of Jesus recommending that all the leprosy colonies be emptied, the residents be deported, and all immigrants into Palestine be screened according to their country of origin.   As Jesus met the problem of endemic sickness, he stepped in after the fact in individual cases and provided instant healing, no matter who the subject was.  This healing ability is a rare gift, but quarantine is a poor excuse for not first turning to our medical professionals for dealing with the problem. Quarantine is a limited device that combines a narrow focus while weakening our commitment to Jefferson's "unalienable rights." Small mindedness and the odor of selfishness cling to desperate measures.  Throwing out the baby with the polluted water is only an act of desperation by those undeserving of carrying the Christian banner of American democracy.  Let's study for a better way to "prove ourselves worthy."

Do we think that Jesus had no better idea than quarantine for general welfare?  Was Jesus  committed only to relieving physical suffering one by one?  Did he have no advice for the cure of the sickness of social discrimination, no interest in the lucky ones sharing their favorable circumstances?  Did Jesus decide to ignore the problem of Roman occupation and Zionistic fervor because he thought we should handle such political matters by our own devices?  Do we really believe that the heart of the Gospel is inadequate for the realities of today's politics, that the challenges of a world of instant communication and jet speed travel are too overwhelming for the concept of "democracy" that calls for acceptance and the "lowering of our dukes" and reaching out with acceptance to our contiguous  neighbors?  Do we think Jesus' message needs updating?

In line with the wisdom of such thoughtless advice--to improve on the supposed limitation of Jesus' singlehanded medical help--we seemingly should let the unattended sick people ride out their illness in isolation--except where a few "healers" are available--while the rest of us more politically conscious folk deal with the overreaching task of barricading ourselves from the world.  If consistency is more important than first principles, then I must guess that applying immigrant exclusion as an answer to the threat of contagious disease also calls for us, as a precautionary measure, to deport all the poor citizens of our country who can't afford health insurance, so that if they get sick and can't pay for treatment, they won't spread their diseases here at home.

I'm holding my breath, expecting Donald Trump to pick up on this juicy idea.

Doug Good

Dissecting Donald Trump’s Mind : A Neurological and Psychological Inspection

                                                                                                                                                                 

Wouldn’t you love to know how Donald Trump’s brain processes the reality he sees?

Neuroscientists Andrew Newberg and Mark Waldman help us with their research into consciousness, logic, emotion and our brain processing mechanisms.  All  human brains are constructed the same.  The different sections perform certain services, respectively.  The frontal lobes integrate input from our senses, using logic with help from our beliefs to give objective form to what we think of as ideas.  The thalamus contributes emotion and meaning to the sense of it all.  Finally the amygdala takes over to herd the resulting stuff into emotive fountains.  We each have our own way of choosing how to influence the “firing” of the neurons. Trump is a model for an apparently  large percentage of the American population.
Through brain scans and thousands of carefully orchestrated surveys, Newberg and Waldman have marshalled evidence of the plasticity of the brain.  The human brain has evolved to handle the tasks we give it in our day, and we have an active role in influencing our own brain’s performance through meditation, task oriented concentration, skill practicing, choice of habits and associations, or just stimulants from the environment to which we expose ourselves.

The mass shooting in San Bernardino this past week sparked strong emotion nationally, and Trump is a perfect example of hot anger felt toward the terrorists.  Newberg and Waldman note that, “no matter how hard we try to control destructive emotions, our old reptilian brain continues to interfere [and I might add, for example, illogically group all Muslims together as culprits] . . . Anger interrupts the functioning of your frontal lobes.  Not only do you lose the ability to be rational, you lose the awareness that you’re acting in an irrational way. When your frontal lobes shut down [the problem only gets worse].”

There is nothing wrong with Donald Trump’s mental agility.  It is just that he has an insistent proclivity for publicly splaying his particular brand of brain tuning.  He is not a fresh player type on the human stage, he is just grandly uninhibited, and a significant percentage of the American population feels a mental kinship with him.  We should find out in the next few months whether American values and tradition will digest his input or gag on it.

Neurology is not alone in contributing to our understanding of Donald Trump.  Psychologists have a useful word--sociopath.  The dictionary defines a sociopath as one with “extreme antisocial attitudes and behavior and lack of conscience.”  Trump’s fans obviously feel a social connection with him, but his desire to obliterate (to use his word) some Muslims and ban all of them from crossing our national border line (even to return home) is not being very social.  One might reply that this idea is ultimate practicality given Islamic terrorism, but branding all Muslims as terrorists is a sign of frontal lobe malfunction and gives the fear producing amygdala full command.

As for the other element constituting a sociopath, lack of conscience is a synonym for “doesn’t care.”  Trump’s extreme, and vague, “solutions” for the terrorist problem, accompanied by a disregard for fact and legal strictures is patent disconnect, not to mention his bland indifference toward how his approach fuels radicalism and thereby compromises our national security.  The storm of protest from Republican party leaders and security experts toward Trump’s “unhinged” remarks shows where “conscience” resides. As Trump’s daily rhetorical malapropisms began to cascade, the word sociopath came to my mind.  But thinking again, I believe that is not the right word.  Psychologically, sociopathology is a mental illness.  A person suffering from this is described as knowing what he is doing is wrong and still doesn’t care.  I think Trump’s care deficiency is a euphemism for being morally clueless, unless expatriating people for their choice of religion or “contracting” the death of terrorist family members is an act of patriotism.  He is not a sociopath, he is a loose cannon with brain neurons misfiring.  

  (Or maybe I should say how I really feel about this patriot.)

Doug Good

Presidential Candidates Re-Paint the Constitution

Republican Presidential candidates, apparently unwittingly, are painting themselves into a corner.

George Pataki, former New York governor and a long-shot candidate is quoted as saying free speech rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution do not extend to speeches urging American Muslims to take up arms against other citizens. "We do not have to tolerate that kind of speech in America," he said. "It is a crime and we must stop it."

Pataki is rallying us around a confusion. Threatening the government is certainly a crime, but advocating “taking up arms” (Second Amendment) is not.  And being a religious apostate is not a crime either (First Amendment). To extend gun rights to all good Christians but not to Muslim citizens is a Constitutional contradiction. The "confusion" embedded in Pataki's statement is fall out from the common sloppy generalization that all Muslims are terrorists--similar to the once popular idiosyncrasy that "the only good Indian is a dead one."

It is scary in today's world to think of a Muslim owning a firearm, but befuddling the Constitution in the process of displaying ones resolute patriotism is an awkward stumble. Something is amiss when one guarantee in the Bill of Rights is restricted to enhance another. Terrorism must and can be stopped, but rhetoric that has the odor of bigotry is liable to create collateral damage—to the integrity of the Constitution.  It is like a police car in a high speed chase where the patrolman does not follow wisely determined department protocol.

Senator Lindsey Graham, also a Republican Presidential candidate, says we should deploy troops against ISIS and "kill every one of these [Islamic] bastards that we can find." I acknowledge that we are at “war” with terrorists, but identifying the enemy as Islamic bastards knots religion and guns together in the slur, and the Constiutution is brushed aside as being unhelpful.

Donald Trump brings it closer to home in his engaging way by “finding” this enemy all around us. He says we need to start closing down mosques, gather data about American Muslims, and “take out” (kill) terrorist family members. By fogging over the distinction between “radicalism” and Muslim religious faith, this is defiance in extreme of the First Amendment's hands off regarding the “free exercise” of personal religion.

These Presidential aspirants in effect are throwing down the gauntlet, challenging (ironically) the patriotism of anyone who holds the strictures of the Constitution as sacred.

Yesterday a video crossed my social media transom that identified the perpetrators of all the infamous terrorist attacks of the past years as Islamists, making the point that we have to be stupid if we continue to tolerate Muslims. This is a useful example of how the above quoted Republican candidates likewise lose their footing. We are implored to grab the nearest weapon and attack the threat, taking no prisoners. No matter if the Constitution is left torn and discarded in the process. It doesn't matter who the enemy is. If he looks like, sounds like, acts like a Muslim, he is a terrorist.

I expect that anyone swallowing that video—erasing all peaceful and law abiding American Muslims as non-existent or secret friends of terrorism—would cheer on any means of removing them, apparently indiscriminately, just as Pataki, Graham and Trump want to. Killing them is the surest way to do this; at least jail them or deport them (along with those darn unibody illegal Mexican gangster types). The rule of law or the logistics of transport are too muddling to be of any use.

I understand that election campaign season is a time for letting loose all restraints on reasoning in order to get attention. There will be time later to backtrack and regain ones senses when faced with responsibility in office once elected. But the news crazed average voter meanwhile is expected to make important choices.   The common voter is left on his own to judge the candidates based on the one-liners that the candidates spill out to the news media who are competing for ratings.

Guns and violent responses are admission that we are devoid of creativity and are pronouncements that we are failures at responsible safeguarding of our political heritage. Our Founding Fathers had great hopes that their descendants would show how a Democratic Republic could endure without despoiling its promising potential. The Constitution has been amended 27 times, but always on technicalities or clarifications, not on principles. If the Presidential candidates want to cast the First and Second Amendments as principled contradictions, they need to either get their principles untangled or advocate a 28^th revision. There is a procedure for this, but it is not by the fickleness of election-cum-impeachment.

If Donald Trump (now joined by other contenders seeking better poll counts) is elected President and follows through on his rhetoric about how to deal with our problems, he will instantly become a candidate for impeachment, unless the Constitution no longer means what our Founders intended us to follow.

        Doug Good