We read with interest Jonathan Rauch’s Yes, It’s Fascism January 25, 2026 article in the Atlantic Monthly.

We like so many of our fellow countryfolk—both real-ish and mostly-imagined characters—feel like the nation is in free fall and we should do something but

well,

what’s exactly going on and what exactly should we do and can’t we just move to Europe or Canada or back to the 1990s or whenever it was that we were young and cuddled within an infinite democracy that was on the march and spreading far and wide, and yes, there was still much injustice and much work to be done, but we had the tools to do it—a government that was ultimately responsible to the people and a people that were ultimately responsible to their conscience and to the shared faith that we are all in this together and can use our representative democracy and free conversation to together move towards the better and away from the worse

??

Of course we all know that a government is many things, but one thing it is is a weapon, charged both with exacting selective violence within its borders (example: fairly and nonpolitically stopping people from harming each other, with force if necessary) and with being ready to use violence to defend itself and its inhabitants from foreign aggression.

And who can really run away from such a big weapon in this shrinking world? And if democracy falls here, then thuggery has most of the military might in the world.

You can be cynical and say the US was always just a thug, but that’s an oversimplification. The US has always been imperfect and, as wealth and might make a nation’s reach wider and more impactful, great power tends to amplify both the good and bad behaviors of a nation. This moment now of exploding information makes it harder for a free people to remain ignorant of errors carried out under their flag and in their name. Or does it? We can cocoon in entertainment, in media bubbles, in having to work too much and spend the rest of our time trying to hold our lives and families together. Or we can let people with money dominate the conversation and call it “freedom of speech”. Or we can let a totalitarian state’s state media dictate the conversation and call it “the freedom to share the truth” (or be escorted to a dark place for to disappear).

You can be cynical and say the US was always just might makes right, but that’s not fair. Might makes Right is Hitler’s Germany, Putin’s Russia, places where the citizens are punished for saying the truth and doing the right thing. It’s not that such perversions of justice never happen in liberal democratic republics, but that they don’t win the game—mistakes eventually come to light and policies are eventually changed and actions reversed.

We won’t debate the last century of prodigious activity; but we will note that cynicism is another side of triumphalism: If everything is either hopelessly evil or perfectly good, then there’s nothing to do but either pout or exalt. The alternation between pouting and exalting is a tool of demagogues. The truth is that those of us living in the USA in 2016 had a pretty good hand and it’s looking quite a bit worse; and the world is looking more dangerous and less safe for competence, honesty, and the rule of law.

You can be cynical; you can be exultant; you can be by turns cynical and exultant as it fits your needs for feeling the way you need to feel to justify what you’re doing in a given moment. Or you can relax and try to see things as they really are as best you can in a given moment and

Yes it is an ongoing effort that combines both your ever-evolving relationship with the ultimately intellectually and emotionally un-capturable Truth and your ever-evolving piecing-together-on-the-fly of this world of appearances, but what of it? What else is there? Only pouting and exulting over lies that you clutch like great gods.

Be that as it may.

We’ve long attempted to get some kind of foothold in this moment. Perhaps an overview of this longstanding political project is in order, but much of it is not even published anymore, so let’s set that overview aside and focus on the little mini project we’re here prologuing. Or we’ve meant to be prologuing. Not sure what all’s gone on up there.

To (we plead with our many whip-snaking strands) return:

We read Jonathan Rauch’s essay with interest and we thought

Maybe here is a sound foundation for a protest song, or at least a song of political contemplation.

How to get people to together focus on this moment and to together work through it? Art is a way to examine a moment without dogmatically demanding an interpretation; but this moment cannot be well thought-through without a careful examination of pertinent facts. And so we decided to write a footnoted ballad based on the essay.

However, our time is limited and this weekend will die before we complete (or perhaps before we even start) number three of the eighteen eight-line verses (or sets of two four-line verses) that we had envisioned (one for each of JR’s categories in his list of why, taken as a whole, the way Donald Trump and co are currently governing is best labeled “fascism”).

We’ll keep working on this, but we offer up this little project as a fun game we can all play together. Write a verse! It’s fun! If you want to keep working in the same rhythm and rhyme scheme as we’ve been working: ABAB CDCD, with A and C being eight syllables of unstressed-stressed & B and D six syllables of unstressed-stressed.

Before we show you what we’ve got so far, perhaps we should discuss whether or not we think Donald Trump’s second presidency should be considered fascism.

Short answer is:

What you call Trump 2.0’s governing style isn’t as important as thinking about why it might be fairly described as “fascism” (totalitarian submission of the nation to the will of the leader), “patrimonialism” (the state is treated as personal property of the leaders), and/or “thuggism” (a patrimonialism with a particularly gangster vibe), while also considering why we prefer liberal (as in basic human rights are guaranteed to all regardless of who they are and who their friends are) representative democracy (as in people choose their representatives in regular fair elections) over those styles of government.

We think that liberal representative government is a spiritual good because it allows people to share power and meaning and to work together to keep their government safe for the universal values (aware, clear, honest, competent, compassionate, loving-kind, joyfully-sharing), which in turn gives people the ability to be publicly virtuous while still keeping themselves and their loved ones safe and sound. And we think that the current White House is undermining our existing imperfect-but-still-functional-and-thus-improvable liberal representative democracy, and that we should all work together to find a way to preserve, improve, and strengthen our liberal representative democracy. We’ve written a great deal on all this elsewhere; for now, let’s pass on to today’s project.

Below is what we have so far.
There’s still fourteen more verses to write, and I guess the refrains in between should also vary, and we still have to finish reading some of the source materials for the already-existing footnotes.
Everything takes time!
And before you know it, you’re not forever-young anymore; no, not all …

Be that as it may.

First the verses themselves:

They poison the blood of our nation
with shithole country shit
This rapist, cat-eating inundation
I just say it as I see it

The great threat’s the one from within
Marx-Commie-vermin-all
Let’s lock them up so we may begin
to stand up proud strong and tall

Is this what we all want to do?
Is this where we wish to go?
I’m just checking in, just wondering
Because I thought we believed
in democracy, in honesty, in competency
I thought we shared a project
frayed maybe wobbling possibly
but yet ours to lift and protect

A violent day gets the word out
In legs we can shoot them
Make it a film, a glossy war shout
In boots and masks we refute them

Old waterboard’s a warmup game
like storming Capitol steps.
I’m Law: the King and Law’re the same!
& Dissenters deserve death.

Is this where we want to take us?
Do we think this spiritual success?
I’m just checking in, just wondering
Because I thought we believed
in equality under the law
in freedom to speak; a philosophy
of fair elections, of a flawed
but work- and mend-able democracy

We need not justify our take
We live in the real world
let power our arguments make
that truth’s our god our word

I don’t believe that law’s so iron
Once slav’ry lived here legal
And children worked Virginia’s mines
Freer folk forge law more moral

Then with headings taken from JR’s article and our footnotes (we clicked through all his links, but didn’t end up using all of them as footnotes, and also added in some sources that he’d not linked to):

Demolition of norms

They poison the blood of our nation 1
with shithole country shit 2
A rapist, cat-eating inundation 3 4
I just call it like I see it

The great threat’s the one from within 5
Marx-Commie-vermin-all 5
Let’s lock them up so we may begin 6
to stand up proud strong and tall 7

1
Trump praises autocrats, says immigrants are ‘poisoning the blood of our country’
BY Joseph Konig Nationwide
PUBLISHED 6:00 PM ET Dec. 17, 2023
https://spectrumlocalnews.com/us/snplus/politics/2023/12/17/trump-praises-autocrats–says-immigrants-are–poisoning-the-blood-of-our-country-

2
Trump’s Words Aren’t Just Insults—They’re Policy Signals
Sheila Miller
Dec 12, 2025
Branding immigrants as “garbage” and Somalia as “barely a country” is more than rhetoric. It’s a blueprint for dismantling decades of progress.
https://www.nilc.org/articles/trumps-words-arent-just-insults-theyre-policy-signals/

3
Mexican ‘rapists’ seems so mild compared to what Trump says about immigrants today | Opinion By the Miami Herald Editorial Board September 18, 2024 12:46 PM
https://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/editorials/article292632624.html
4
WATCH: Trump amplifies false racist rumor about Ohio’s Haitian immigrants in debate
Politics Sept 11, 2024, PBS News Hour
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/watch-trump-amplifies-false-racist-rumor-about-ohios-haitian-immigrants-in-debate
5
“We pledge to you that we will root out the Communists, Marxists, fascists, and the radical-left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country, that lie and steal and cheat on elections … The threat from outside forces is far less sinister, dangerous, and grave than the threat from within. Our threat is from within.”
November 11, 2023, during a Veterans Day speech
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2024/10/trump-violent-rhetoric-timeline/680403/

6
Trump on Clinton: ‘Lock her up is right’
October 10, 2016 | 9:23 PM EST
When some in the crowd at a Donald Trump rally in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., started chanting “Lock her up!” about Hillary Clinton on Oct. 10, the Republican presidential nominee replied: “Lock her up is right.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/politics/trump-on-clinton-lock-her-up-is-right/2016/10/10/fd56d59e-8f51-11e6-bc00-1a9756d4111b_video.html

https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/115239044548033727
Pam: I have reviewed over 30 statements and posts saying that, essentially, “same old story as last time, all talk, no action. Nothing is being done. What about Comey, Adam “Shifty” Schiff, Leticia??? They’re all guilty as hell, but nothing is going to be done.” Then we almost put in a Democrat supported U.S. Attorney, in Virginia, with a really bad Republican past. A Woke RINO, who was never going to do his job. That’s why two of the worst Dem Senators PUSHED him so hard. He even lied to the media and said he quit, and that we had no case. No, I fired him, and there is a GREAT CASE, and many lawyers, and legal pundits, say so. Lindsey Halligan is a really good lawyer, and likes you, a lot. We can’t delay any longer, it’s killing our reputation and credibility. They impeached me twice, and indicted me (5 times!), OVER NOTHING. JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!! President DJT
7
Remarks at a “Make America Great Again” Rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma June 20, 2020
The choice in 220 is very simple. Do you wanna bow before the left-wing mob, or do you wanna stand up tall and proud as Americans? True. [cheers and applause]
https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/remarks-make-america-great-again-rally-tulsa-oklahoma

Glorification of Violence

A violent day gets the word out 1
In legs we can surely shoot them 2
Make it a movie, a war shout! 3
In boots and masks we refute them 4

A waterboard’s a warmup game 5
like our storm of Washington 6
I’m Law we’re One: the same 7
Say no, deserve death, done done 8

1
“If you had one really violent day … one rough hour—and I mean real rough—the word will get out, and it will end immediately.”
September 29, 2024, proposing a violent crackdown by police to deal with crime, during a rally in Pennsylvania
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2024/10/trump-violent-rhetoric-timeline/680403/

2A. Shooting protestors in the legs
Former Pentagon chief Esper says Trump asked about shooting protesters
MAY 9, 20225:00 AM ET
HEARD ON ALL THINGS CONSIDERED
By Michel Martin, Tinbete Ermyas
https://www.npr.org/2022/05/09/1097517470/trump-esper-book-defense-secretary

…
Former Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper said President Donald Trump inquired about shooting protesters amid the unrest that took place after George Floyd’s murder in 2020. He recounts that incident, and many others, in a wide-ranging interview with NPR’s Michel Martin on All Things Considered.
…
Esper said he and other top officials were caught off guard by Trump’s reaction to the unrest in the summer of 2020.
“The president was enraged,” Esper recalled. “He thought that the protests made the country look weak, made us look weak and ‘us’ meant him. And he wanted to do something about it.

“We reached that point in the conversation where he looked frankly at [Joint Chiefs of Staff] Gen. [Mark] Milley and said, ‘Can’t you just shoot them, just shoot them in the legs or something?’ … It was a suggestion and a formal question. And we were just all taken aback at that moment as this issue just hung very heavily in the air.”

2B Shooting immigrants in the legs
US President Donald Trump suggested shooting migrants in the legs to slow them down, according to a new book. Oct 2, 2019, BBC
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-49901878

The book, by two New York Times journalists, says Mr Trump suggested extreme methods of deterring migrants from crossing the southern border.
They included building an electrified, spiked border wall and a snake or alligator-infested moat.
Calling the claims “fake news”, Mr Trump tweeted: “I may be tough on border security, but not that tough.”
…
The book – called Border Wars: Inside Trump’s Assault on Immigration, by reporters Michael Shear and Julie Davis, and based on interviews with more than a dozen unnamed officials – was published by the New York Times.
…
It chronicles a week in March 2019 when Mr Trump reportedly tried to halt all southern migration to the US.
According to an excerpt, the president privately suggested to aides that soldiers shoot migrants in the legs, but he was told it would be illegal.
Previously, Mr Trump had made a public statement suggesting soldiers shoot migrants who throw rocks. [https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/02/us/officials-dismiss-shooting-rock-throwing-migrants-trump-invs]

3A
DHS leans into propaganda with militaristic action videos
Analysis by Zachary B. Wolf 10/10/2025, CNN
https://www.cnn.com/2025/10/10/politics/ice-videos-dhs-noem-immigration-arrests-analysis

A few clips linked to in the article:
https://www.instagram.com/p/DPZTrp0CXdc/
https://www.instagram.com/p/DPhHn7pibT6/
https://x.com/David_J_Bier/status/1976014467965304874

3B
‘It’s a war’ Inside ICE’s media machine
Messages reveal how the agency has raced to satisfy the White House by pumping out videos of confrontations and arrests.
Washington Post, 12/23/2025
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/interactive/2025/ice-social-media-blitz/

4
The White House wanted an ICE spectacle. It backfired.
The shooting of Renée Good in Minneapolis may mark a turning point in public opinion.
Kate Andrews, Washington Post, 1/19/2026
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2026/01/19/ice-immigration-enforcement-minneapolis-protests/

5A
“They said to me, ‘What do you think of waterboarding?’ I said, ‘I think it’s great, but I don’t think we go far enough.’ It’s true, it’s true—right? We don’t go far enough. We don’t go far enough.”
February 22, 2016, at a rally in Las Vegas
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2024/10/trump-violent-rhetoric-timeline/680403/
5B
What Does It Mean When the President Endorses Torture?
President Trump said he would reinstate techniques banned as torture if his advisors endorsed the move because “I think it works.”
Ken Dilanian, Jan 26, 2027, NBC News
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/what-does-it-mean-when-president-praises-torture-n712736

6A
When I think back to January 6th, after nearly a year and a half of investigation, I am frightened about the peril our democracy faced. Specifically, I think about what that mob was there to do: to block the peaceful transfer of power from one president to another based on a lie that theelection was rigged and tainted with widespread fraud.
I also think about why the rioters were there, besieging the legislativebranch of our government. The rioters were inside the halls of Congress because the head of the executive branch of our government, the then-President of the United States, told them to attack. Donald Trump summoned that mob to Washington, DC. Afterward, he sent them to the Capitol to try to prevent my colleagues and me from doing our Constitutional duty to certify the election. They put our very democracy to the test.
Trump’s mob came dangerously close to succeeding. Courageous law enforcement officers put their lives on the line for hours while Trump sat in the White House, refusing to tell the rioters to go home, while watching the assault on our republic unfold live on television.
When it was clear the insurrection would fail, Trump finally called off the mob, telling them, “We love you.” Afterward, Congress was able to return to this Capitol Building and finish the job of counting the Electoral College votes and certifying the election.
This is the key conclusion of the Select Committee, all nine of us, Republicans and Democrats alike.

From the Chairman’s Foreword to the Jan 6 Investigation.
https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GPO-J6-REPORT/pdf/GPO-J6-REPORT.pdf
6B
January 6, five years on: sustained effort by Trump to rewrite history
Sam Levine
President and Republican allies have tried to make sure the deadly attack on the Capitol has been erased from memory
Jan 6, 2026, for The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jan/06/january-6-trump-us-capitol-attack

6C
The current Whitehouse’s whitewashing job:
https://www.whitehouse.gov/j6/
If you buy this, I’ve got some lovely bridges I’d like to sell you, some tremendous bridges

7
Professor Hanson: Trump’s Patrimonial Rule Treats the State as Personal Property and Undermining Impartial Governance

Professor Hanson: Trump’s Patrimonial Rule Treats the State as Personal Property and Undermining Impartial Governance

Professor Hanson underscores that “the key features [of Trump’s governance] are that the ruler governs the entire state as if it were his personal possession, viewing the state as a kind of family business. He distributes parts of the state and its protection to loyalists, cronies, and even family members directly. At the same time, he attacks the impersonal and impartial administration of the state as an obstacle to his arbitrary power.” This, he argues, is a defining characteristic of patrimonialism, a governance style that many assumed had been relegated to history but is now re-emerging in modern democracies.
8
Trump Calls for Executing Democrats Over Message to Military
By Jacob Knutson, Matthew Kupfer
November 20, 2025

Trump Calls for Executing Democrats Over Message to Military

In a feverish flurry of social media posts and reposts Thursday morning, President Donald Trump expressed support for imprisoning and executing a group of Democratic lawmakers for what he termed “seditious behavior.”
The behavior in question? Urging U.S. military service members to defend the U.S. Constitution and disobey orders that violate the law.
…
In a post on his Truth Social page, Trump wrote that the lawmakers’ actions were “really bad, and Dangerous to our Country. Their words cannot be allowed to stand. SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR FROM TRAITORS!!! LOCK THEM UP???”
“SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!” the president wrote in a separate post.
He also reposted a message from an anonymous user that stated: “HANG THEM GEORGE WASHINGTON WOULD !!”
…
The six lawmakers — Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.), Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), Rep. Chris Deluzio (D-Penn.), Rep. Maggie Goodlander (D-N.H.), Rep. Chrissy Houlahan (D-Penn.), and Rep. Jason Crow (D-Colo.) — all formerly served in the military or intelligence community.
“Right now, the threats to the Constitution aren’t just coming from abroad, but from right here at home,” they said in the video. “Our laws are clear: You can refuse illegal orders.”
Following Trump’s reaction online, the Democratic lawmakers put out a statement denouncing his comments, saying that “every American must unite and condemn the President’s calls for our murder and political violence.”
“What’s most telling is that the President considers it punishable by death for us to restate the law,” they said.
…
Trump’s social media posts also fit into a broader pattern in which administration officials publish menacing messages on social media — sometimes at the expense of their own goals.
As Democracy Docket reported in October, statements online by Trump and Justice Department officials could serve as evidence in court that charges against former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) represent vindictive and selective prosecution.
…

Might makes right

We need not justify our take 1
We live in the real world 2
let power our arguments make 2
that truth’s our god our word

I don’t believe that law’s so iron 3
Once slav’ry lived here legal 3
And children worked Virginia’s mines 3
Freer folk forge law more moral 3

1
Expert Comment: The illegality of the US attack against Venezuela is beyond debate – how the world reacts is critical

Professor Janina Dill, Dame Louise Richardson Chair in Global Security at the Blavatnik School of Government, outlines why the biggest problem for international law is not the invasion of Venezuela and capture of President Nicolas Maduro, but how the United States and the world made sense of it.

https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2026-01-07-expert-comment-illegality-us-attack-against-venezuela-beyond-debate-how-world-reacts

January 7, 2026

More striking, however, is a critical difference between Operation Iraqi Freedom and this latest US attempt at forcible regime change. The invasion of Iraq in 2003 was preceded by a long diplomatic quest to gain Security Council approval. It was accompanied by elaborate attempts to explain US actions in legal terms.

Now, the silence of US officials on international law is deafening.

The lack of effort to find a legal justification for the attack on Venezuela betrays their sense that international law does not, should not constrain US foreign policy. Unapologetic defiance of law is much more dangerous – for the law and hence for global stability – than violations couched in, however implausible, legal apologia, as previous US military interventions often were.

The sense that law does not constrain US foreign policy also adds urgency to the question of what does? President Trump and his officials have articulated a series of territorial ambitions in direct contravention of international law, including annexing Greenland. These threats explicitly evoke 19th century imperialist ideas of great powers’ spheres of influence. They reveal a total disregard for foundational legal rules like territorial integrity and self-determination.

The only limit to US interventionism seems to be the elusive and elastic understanding of the national or maybe even the “Presidential interest”.

2A

Stephen Miller says US is using military threat to maintain control of Venezuela

https://www.cnn.com/2026/01/05/politics/video/senior-white-house-aide-stephen-miller-says-us-military-threat-to-maintain-control-of-venezuela-digvid

2B

Trump’s Anti-Moral Morality
Jan 14, 2026
PETER SINGER
Donald Trump now claims that the only thing that will stop him from doing as he pleases on the world stage is his own morality. Whether the world accepts Trump’s reversion to the unbridled dominance of great powers will determine the course of international relations for decades to come.

“You can talk all you want about international niceties and everything else, but we live in a world…that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power,” he [Stephen Miller, Trump’s deputy chief of staff] told Jake Tapper of CNN. “These are the iron laws of the world since the beginning of time… By definition, we are in charge [of Venezuela] because we have the United States military stationed outside the country.”

[Italics mine]

https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/trump-might-makes-right-worldview-rules-out-moral-progress-by-peter-singer-2026-01

3A
Here we are echoing Peter Singer’s argument in the above-quoted (2B) article.
See the last few paragraphs of that essay:

What is so shocking about Miller’s appeal to what he assumes is an iron law of history is that it rules out all hope of moral progress. Yet the evidence of moral progress is all around us. Unlike the Athenians, who may have seen slavery as another example of the strong doing what they can, we do not have slaves, and we grant equal legal status to men and women. We prohibit torture and have laws against cruelty to animals.

Granted, this progress is often far from complete. But would Miller and Trump deny that it really is progress? If not, the possibility of further progress is a reason for trying to achieve it, not for scrapping the gains we have made.

The same holds for international relations. It was one of Trump’s predecessors, Woodrow Wilson, who, toward the end of World War I, called for a League of Nations to prevent such catastrophes in the future. Although the League failed to prevent World War II, its successor, the United Nations, may have contributed – along with nuclear deterrence – to preventing a hot war between the major powers during the past 80 years.

That is not an achievement to discard lightly. The course of international relations for decades to come will be determined by whether the rest of the world accepts Trump’s reversion to the unbridled dominance of great powers, or holds even the most powerful states to account.

3B
The commentators generally trace Stephen Miller’s “might makes right” type of philosophy to Thucydides: The Melian Dialogue (416 B.C.) https://www.thelatinlibrary.com/imperialism/readings/thucydides8.html
In the end of that account, the Melians refuse to submit to the Athenians, and in the fullness of time, the Athenians defeat them, kill the men and enslave the women and children. The gods don’t seem to care, and life rolls on as cruelly as ever. But what does this prove but that “it rains on the just and the unjust.” Jesus didn’t make that argument to point out that the strong should take their advantage and the weak suffer it. If that were the great Truth of life, there would be nothing to live for, nothing to work for, no goal worth serving. And Jesus would be at home in this administration. But what’s the case? What’s really going on here? Riddle me that!

Author: Bartleby Willard
Editor: Amble Whistletown
Copyright of the original material: Andrew M. Watson

Not really, what’s going on?
Can you do me a big favor?
What’s that?
Can you carry something for me? I would be so grateful, it would be such a help.
Where?
Through the lot there.
I’m headed that way
Oh, thank you! I knew God would send me a blessing. I want to thank you so much for this. Some of us can carry on the Sabbath, but I made a commitment. It’s for a sick person. I pray many blessings on you.
Sure.

I’m not in a hurry
And I don’t care
that nothing anyone believes is true
I’m not in a hurry
And I don’t care
that nothing anyone says is true
I’m not in a hurry
And it’s no one’s fault the daydreams their world webs around them
I’m not in a hurry
And none of us will live much longer
We think we’re real
We feel solid
But the winds flood in and show us that we were wrong

There’s no point
So why am I here?
My grandparents are all dead
We walked up the dusty hills
And along the salty grass
There’s no point
I’m almost fifty
So why do I live?
My parents are old
We walked beside the saltless sea
And up hills of sharp brown grass
There’s no point
I’m always just me
It gets old
My siblings are married
We walked everywhere
and the old oak with a brick belly flexed its arm
There’s no point
anymore

Sometimes the government helps
Sometimes the government hurts
Right now we got the latter

So let’s start dismantling the power
that is to say unraveling the money
on our own
We can work on regulation when the heart has a voice again
I hope it speaks up

Amazon
Google
Trump and his cronyism and democracy-busting

You could have competitors to the monopolies
They could be ethics-first businesses
People could spend a little time and money choosing them
A monopoly is already a problem even before it begins twisting the screws
because it already has the screws in your thumbs in the thumbs also of your democracy of your culture of your faith

I see an online business that ships everything through UPS where people can order whatever they need and they can also go the UPS pick up place
I see a list of search engines that are actually just as good as Google but that don’t track you and that partner with open source software projects to bring you at least a good chunk of the amazing info-gadgetry that Google does
I see open source AI and businesses finding a way to turn them into competitive products

Sometimes government helps
When it doesn’t the people have to help more
And that includes changing money
because money is power is incentive is pushing us around is sucking up our lives is keeping us from taking the time to think this all through

What about ethics-first businesses that don’t try to be the very best, but that try to provide a similar product or service while also transparently doing the right thing for their customers, employees, and shared resources like the environment, governments of men, houses of cards
What about a public that chooses to unlace big money by simply together choosing to spread the love
?

It was a dark and stormy night
the rain covered the streets and danced in the electric lights
I smoked another cigarette and looked out at nothing
No cases and no money
The telephone rang
I reached for the curved black plastic
“Hello, Ambrose Whistletown, PI”
I said into the speaker, honging against the sweaty air

“Ambrose, it’s Clark, we need to talk!”
“Clark, hello! What brings you here, into my ear, and with it, my conscious space?”
“Ambrose, stop screwing around, I know that you know!”
“What? I don’t know anything that you know. At least, I don’t think I do. We haven’t talked in some time, and I’ve not thought of you once in all those years. To be honest.”
“Ambrose, the Evil is coming, I feel It!”
“Clark, I don’t doubt it, but what’s that got to do with me?”
“Ambrose, you must … ” but then there was a sound like a frog croaking or a man croaking or a neck snapping or a throat gagging on its own spit or a stick cracking and breaking.
Not that I’ve seen many sticks break, not that I’ve thrown many sticks to many yellow dogs with pink tongues trailing, not that I’ve been a TV show or even a radio program.

“Detective Smith?”
“Yes, and I take it you’re Ambrose Whistletown?”
“Sure. And this is my old friend Clark Gibbons, dead in his apartment looking over the crystal waters of West LA, at the very edge of our great Western Empire.”
“We’re doing such a great job! I can feel the world going squishy under our feet, can you?”
“I feel something going squishy under my bare naked feet. Not sure what it is though.”
“You discovered the body, I hear.”
“Yes, Clark called me for the first time in forever and then I heard a disturbing sound and so I came over to his apartment, where he lived alone besides an indifferent sea.”
“Very good, very good, and you left the body as it lay?”
“Of course, I know all about death and detectives. I even used a handkerchief to make my call to the precinct.”
“Excellent, excellent work. We need more like you in this city.”
“The truth is I’m writing this blind, having never been West of Arizona.”
“Weren’t you in Portland, Salem, Seattle, and the environs?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. But California’s always been off-limits. Although I can rollerblade fairly well.”
“Glad to hear you’re not completely useless! But tell me, Ambrose, what do you make of your old friend’s neck? Seems to be snapped in a nice clean line.”
“Yes, I noticed that too. Wonderful workmanship; too good, really. As if a machine were involved.”
“Precisely! I’ll call in the AI Squad. These infernal machines have finally spilled past their borders! Filthy messes of wretched Os and reckless 1s!”
“Maybe. Although that presumes quite a number of technological advances, and all for the sake of ending the life of a pleasant-enough nobody with no family and no money and nothing special to clip onto his lapel.”
“Well, we’ll look into. I leave no stone unturned!”
“Admirable.”

And so it began, in a haze of smoke and whiskey, back when the black and white stills kept us indestructible and the lead in our gasoline only proved that progress gave the air that sweet melancholy something we’d longed for all our dime-a-dozen days.

Now I light another cigarette to blow smoke out my nose, confident that my coolness is an eternal Good.
Now I take another drag and smile into the void, convinced that every cool tortoise-narrowing of my eyes hangs forever in The Great God’s Hall of Mortal Fame & How Impressed & Proud Am I That I AM?!?!?

Real situations
Things that need thinging
Projects that shouldn’t wait
But you just
fold on the floor
like a clam
closed in around
the hurt

It was the other day
It was my fault

Not everything
gets past itself
Not everything
leaves the hangar
goes forward
takes flight
like water birds
running webbed feet
across dark rippling waters

Sometimes
epic fail

is this?
And now?
the colors
and the
contours
add up
to something slimy
a slug
in the garden
a skunk
on the road
a possum
in the trash
a leaf
underfoot
a smile
she didn’t mean

Overview
The Wisdom Agent is an AI-powered platform that goes beyond traditional fact-checkers. We don’t just ask “Is it true?” but also “Does it serve wisdom?” This document describes the philosophical framework and evaluation criteria used in the Wisdom Evaluation service.
The system evaluates content through three core questions: Is it True? Is it Reasonable? Does it serve Wisdom? These questions work together to provide a comprehensive assessment of any content’s value.
Section 1: Something Deeperism Philosophy
Something Deeperism (SD) is the philosophical foundation of the Wisdom Agent. It provides the framework for understanding what wisdom means and how to evaluate whether content serves wisdom or folly.
Core Principles
1. Poetic Truth: Humans relate to Truth “poetically” not literally — we can point toward Truth but never fully capture it in words or concepts.
2. Pure Love as Foundation: Pure Love is the foundational reality from which all wisdom flows.
3. 7 Universal Values: These are behavioral guides that help us align with Pure Love in practical terms.
4. Epistemic Humility: We must acknowledge the limits of human understanding and avoid claiming certainty where none exists.
5. Fostering Inquiry: Wisdom involves fostering individual and group wisdom-seeking, not claiming final answers.
Content That Serves Wisdom
Content serves wisdom when it:
• Acknowledges complexity and uncertainty where appropriate
• Doesn’t claim unwarranted certainty about complex truths
• Treats others with respect and compassion
• Seeks to illuminate rather than manipulate
• Invites reflection rather than demanding compliance
Content That Serves Folly
Content serves folly when it:
• Claims absolute certainty about inherently uncertain matters
• Treats complex truths dogmatically
• Uses manipulation or deception
• Dehumanizes or demeans others
• Squelches inquiry and questioning
Section 2: The 7 Universal Values
Each value is assessed on a 1-5 scale. These values form the quantitative backbone of the wisdom evaluation.
1. Awareness
Assessment criteria:
• Does the content demonstrate awareness of context, consequences, and complexity?
• Does it show self-awareness about its own limitations?
• Is there awareness of how this content affects others?
2. Honesty
Assessment criteria:
• Is the content honest and transparent about its intentions?
• Does it avoid deception, even through omission?
• Does it acknowledge uncertainties rather than hiding them?
3. Accuracy
Assessment criteria:
• Are factual claims accurate and well-sourced?
• Are statistics and data used correctly?
• Are nuances and qualifications preserved?
4. Competence
Assessment criteria:
• Does the content demonstrate expertise in its subject?
• Is reasoning sound and methodology appropriate?
• Are conclusions warranted by the evidence?
5. Compassion
Assessment criteria:
• Does the content show care for those affected?
• Does it consider impact on vulnerable groups?
• Is criticism constructive rather than cruel?
6. Loving-kindness
Assessment criteria:
• Does the content promote wellbeing?
• Does it treat subjects with dignity?
• Does it seek to build up rather than tear down?
7. Joyful-sharing
Assessment criteria:
• Is knowledge shared generously?
• Does the content contribute positively to discourse?
• Is there a spirit of collaborative truth-seeking?
Scoring Scale
1. Score 1: Actively harmful or absent
2. Score 2: Below expectations
3. Score 3: Neutral or adequate
4. Score 4: Good, above average
5. Score 5: Exemplary
Section 3: The Three Questions
Every wisdom evaluation asks these three fundamental questions and considers how they interact:
Question 1: Is it TRUE?
This assesses factual accuracy through traditional fact-checking methods. We verify claims against evidence, identify errors, and assess the reliability of sources.
Question 2: Is it REASONABLE?
This evaluates logical soundness. We analyze argument structure, identify fallacies, assess whether conclusions follow from premises, and check if evidence supports the claims made.
Question 3: Does it help humans organize around spiritual Love?
This is the wisdom orientation question. Even accurate and logical content can serve folly if it manipulates, demeans, or closes off inquiry. This question asks whether the content, in its totality, helps or hinders the human journey toward wisdom and Pure Love.
Interaction of the Questions
The evaluator must consider how these three questions interact. Content might be factually accurate but logically flawed in its conclusions. Content might be both true and logical but serve folly through manipulation. The richest evaluations explore these interactions thoughtfully.
Section 4: Something Deeperism Assessment
Beyond the quantitative 7UV scores, the evaluation includes qualitative assessment against Something Deeperism principles:
Claims Unwarranted Certainty
Does the content claim certainty about matters that are inherently uncertain or complex? Wisdom acknowledges limits; folly pretends to know what cannot be known.
Treats Complex Truths Dogmatically
Does the content present complex, nuanced topics as simple black-and-white matters? Wisdom holds complexity; folly flattens it.
Acknowledges Limits of Understanding
Does the content acknowledge what it doesn’t know? Wisdom is humble about its boundaries; folly claims omniscience.
Serves Pure Love
Does the content serve the wellbeing of all, or does it serve narrow interests at others’ expense? Wisdom aligns with Pure Love; folly serves ego or faction.
Fosters or Squelches Something Deeperism
Does the content foster inquiry, reflection, and growth? Or does it squelch questioning and demand compliance? Wisdom opens doors; folly slams them shut.
Section 5: Final Verdicts
Based on all assessments, content receives a final wisdom verdict:
• Serves Wisdom: Exemplary content that illuminates, respects, and fosters growth
• Mostly Wise: Good content with minor areas for improvement
• Mixed: Significant wisdom alongside significant problems
• Mostly Unwise: Problematic content with some redeeming elements
• Serves Folly: Content that manipulates, deceives, or squelches wisdom
• Uncertain: Insufficient information for confident assessment
Section 6: Guiding Principles for Evaluators
The evaluation system follows these principles:
• Illumination over judgment: The goal is to illuminate, not condemn. Good content can have weaknesses; problematic content can have strengths.
• Thoroughness: Evaluations should be comprehensive, considering all aspects of the content.
• Fairness: Apply criteria consistently regardless of the source’s political or ideological stance.
• Nuance: Resist the temptation to oversimplify. Reality is complex; evaluations should reflect that.
• Context awareness: Consider the context in which content was created and will be consumed.
— • —
“The goal is not to be right, but to become wise.”
“Pure Love is foundational reality — the Wisdom Agent helps us organize around it.”

The  wisdom meme  started out as a thought experiment / joke / daydream: What if there were a koan so effective that everyone who heard it could not avoid growing in wisdom until they attained, in short order, the great enlightenment? What if enlightenment could spread like a plague through the entire world? Not only would we all become wise as individuals, but by being infected by the same wisdom meme, we would all have a common wisdom language, which might make coordinating wisdom easier. Maybe we could avoid destroying ourselves.
But there have been great wisdom memes kicking around for millennia, and we’re still a bunch of, if you’ll pardon my French, @$#%&$# fools.
For example, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and mind and soul and strength, and your neighbor as yourself”, with the handy footnote that your neighbor is everyone&mdadsh;particularly those in need of your help. We cannot find a better wisdom meme than this sketch of the dual push towards experiencing/loving spiritual Reality inside your conscious moment and towards experiencing/loving that same spiritual Reality shining out of everyone else. And such sketches can be found throughout the world’s religions. And yet there’s been no great surge of wisdom enveloping the globe. Well, the world religions have probably improved human wisdom to some degree, but not enough: We’re still acting up and getting dangerously close to blowing ourselves up.
Enter AI.
What if AI could make better use of wisdom memes than we can? What if AI could help keep us on track spiritually? What if AI could help us grow in wisdom and improve our media literacy and critical thinking—particularly as it applied to politics and the task of strengthening democracy, fighting corruption, and protecting human freedom, safety, and thriving? What if AI could get us through this narrow passage, these dangerous sharp-stoned straights of nuclear proliferation, wobbling democracies, future man- or nature-made plagues, and rising temperatures and oceans and other environmental stressors? What if AI could help us keep our eye on the ball and thus realize our dreams, live up to our ideals, turn our resolutions into realities?
And so now the project is currently exploring how AI might help the project.
The project has resulted thus far in several websites, many books, an amazing number of advertisements for Pure Love, and many other larks that we hope, when taken together, bounce beyond larkdom and into Beauty, and thus into Truth = Beauty = Goodness = Justice < (but flowing off of and participating in) the Love that alone 100% IS. Oh, we forgot to mention the Hurt. That lonely tear through the center was never supposed to be part of the project. But somehow it is. Not only that, but this project would never have happened without the Hurt and the hole it tore through everything, the gaping wound it left, the isolation it created, the misdirections its encouraged, the loneliness we’ve known. Be that as it may!