The following is a post from 2 years ago.  I just re-read it today, as I was considering what to write, and found myself feeling that it remains so very relevant on this our 249th Flag day.  Even so, there is so much that has come to pass in those two years, we are at a war of choosing, we have threatened planting our flag on our allies soil, and we are imprisoning and oppressing people without due process for the reason of their birth nation, and we are celebrating with a cage fight at the White House!  We have an Administration trying to distance us from the principles which made us that “shining beacon on a hill” the principles so clearly called for in our Declaration of Independence. 

This flag was adopted June 14, 1777 to be the flag
of the United States of America!

This flag has found itself on a hundred foreign battlefields and yet never as a conqueror of distant lands.   It has been saluted with pride over the last 247 years by hundreds of millions of people in the service of this country, and by many billions out of love for this country.

It flies, as it should, topped with a blue field of white stars
as a reminder of our democratic freedoms, never to be
overturned by autocrats who’d rather enslave us to
their image of an America of conformity, as they enforce
their religious white nationalism, one-size-fits-all tyranny,
rather than the spirit of liberty, rights of self-determination and
rule of the people and by the people we cherish!

We are Americans!
We fought for the rights to worship as we wish, for equality
of race, gender and to keep government from telling us who
we can love.  We fought to be free of the dictates of tyrannical
leaders and for the opportunity of commerce, and for the
right to advance our lives and our children’s lives
in the pursuit of happiness.  We don’t seek retribution
and revenge from our leaders, rather we revere justice
and service to the causes of freedom!

We are strong!
We can protect our freedoms as well as, support the
weak who are fighting for the freedoms and liberties of self-determination we enjoy.

May our flag fly (right-side-up) over this land and always
represent freedom, liberty, and justice for all!

Imagine a time in the near future where all work is done by automation, by machines who could think faster and work faster than any human.  What if in this world all dangerous work, all tedious work, all diagnostic, corrective, everything is done more efficiently by robotics using artificial intelligent agents?

Imagine there is no work needed by humans, other than to ask their automated world for the continued sustenance, entertainment and recreation desired?

What would become of wealth?  Why would it matter?  Would we have a completely egalitarian society where everyone could pursue their creative potential, their sports, their entertainment, so the only winners and losers would be found in games we play?

Or would we find ourselves in battle for dominance and wealth over others which would be ultimately fruitless, because another bigger, badder machine could always be envisioned and come to pass through the availability of an ever-growing intelligence?

Would this ever-growing intelligence continue to find us interesting enough to continue to support our ambitions and liberties, or would it find us superfluous to a successfully run and optimized Earth?

These machines can only be a reflection of ourselves, for what they have learned is everything we have ever discovered and learned, all available all the time and all at once.  So then, the question it seems, is what have we learned?  What have we made available to these machines?  For is this not the soul of humanity?  Is it good, is it bad, is it creative and loving or waring and greedy?  Certainly all of these things.

So what will we ask?

The CATO Society (libertarian leaning non-partisan think tank) published a study.  The details are available at https://www.cato.org/blog/cato-study-immigrants-reduced-deficits-145-trillion-1994
The study addresses the issue of cost to government of immigrants, in light of the MAGA statements (especially Stephen Miller) that our country’s debt situation is caused by the benefits being paid out to legal and illegal immigrants.  The truth, based on data presented in the study, is that over the period of time from 1994 (earliest date of data) to 2023,  Immigrants  reduced debt by $14.5 Trillion.  They did not increase the debt.  The debt without immigrants was $48 trillion.  That means immigrants cut our debt over the period by 30%.   Immigrants pay a higher amount of tax, due to the extra jobs and work they do, and consume a proportionally less amount of benefits.   The study estimates that even illegal immigrants reduced the country’s debt by $1.7 Trillion over the study period.

From the Study:

“Concluding Thoughts

Overall, the main conclusion of our paper is that there is nothing systematically wrong with US immigration policy regarding the fiscal effects of immigrants. There is nothing unsustainable about the US immigration system. We could have scaled immigration as it existed without burdening government budgets. For years, nativists in Congress and the administration have wrongly claimed that immigrants are behind the growth in debt and that the US immigration system allows foreigners to take advantage of Americans’ generosity. Our data completely repudiates this view. Immigrants are subsidizing the US government.

The best way to balance the budget is to reduce spending—particularly on wealthy retirees—but rather than hinder our efforts to control deficits, immigrants are helping.”

Now you know the truth instead of the propaganda that is so prevalent in populist MAGA politics! 

Sometimes, well, maybe often, I have been a prognosticator of terrible things to come.  These negative projections resulted from intense study of history and the current actions of a those with insatiable appetites for power and wealth.  As well as, a mistaken belief that we live in a time of vast amounts of information, and little wisdom.

But I’ve come to believe in a brighter future, one we would be proud to bring to life, one based on reason, empathy, and wisdom.  I see it in the rising tide of people rejecting the power of kings.  The developing wisdom of young people who no longer believe the wealthy and famous are infallible.  Who question leadership as we once did during the times of the Vietnam War and Watergate.

There has been an attempt to infiltrate our institutions with  Fascists who would seek to change the very essence of who we are.  But people are saying emphatically no to this change.  The institutions have cracked and frayed, but they are still there and can and will be repaired.

I see in the eyes of young people who want more out of this world and are using technology, applied reasoning and new found empathy to bring about a future that will be ever brighter.

We may have slipped into a dangerous place, but I believe there is a new and next greatest generation that will swing the pendulum back to a more prosperous and peaceful world.  Not without challenges of course, but it is coming, for the human spirit is alive and well and extremely resilient!

KINGS = TYRANNY
DEMOCRACY = PROSPERITY

We were the shining lights on the hill
a place of opportunity and goodwill
we were the hope of poor and huddled masses
with brilliant cities and wide-open spaces.

We are becoming a nation of brutality
no longer evolving toward  equality.
No longer the beacon of freedom
we are trending toward a MAGA kingdom.

Ice surges through an this king’s veins
his morality suppressed as ICE stains
of blood are on the streets of our cities
regardless of our civil identities.

America is dying, and empathy is dead
when a young mother is shot in the head
and is called a domestic terrorist instead
of a compassionate American wrongfully dead.

When a man protects a woman under ICE attack
and for this empathy he gets 9 bullets in the back.
Then he too is called a domestic terrorist instead
of a compassionate American wrongfully dead.

The numbers are there for us to see
38 deaths in immigration custody.
But the violence can be stopped very shortly
if the voter rolls are turned over extortively.

Then the king will control an enemy city
and voting machines and suppression will readily
achieve the next ring of power so desperately needed
to feed his lion of an ego and ensure MAGA succeeded.

And in meantime the search of voter records surprisingly
in Fulton County, will find 11,780 votes miraculously
to ensure the next election will not be free
and will advantage the king as we soon should see.

Institutions bow, the media is intimidated
the features of democracy just imitated
and truth dies easy as history is put in chains
to fit the Big Lie and the emerging fascist claims.

These are not separate, nor minor things
these are part of a plan that clearly rings
like the liberty bell, calling patriots who love freedom,
who love our country, to beat back the MAGA kingdom.

America’s story need not die and empathy can be found
again, if we remember the words of enlightenment bound
to this, the patriot spirit of America, our anti-tyranny founding,
our immigrant legacy and beating heart of freedom sounding.

We must rise above this death and gloom
and overcome the pending MAGA doom
as our ancestors had been called to do, too many times before
so American freedom may again reign from shore to shore!

An easy path it seems
to rooftop dreams
its a little bit tight
and hard to see at night.

With caution to the wind
another starts down again
done with rooftop dreams
looking for water streams.

But the timing isn’t right
and they meet where it’s tight
at the bottom of the spout
now neither can get out.

And there they remain
for weeks, as it seems plain
that they are both dead
as they cannot get fed.

Until we pull them out
from the tight down spout
and they come back alive
amazed that they survive

One on the way up
one on the way down
the way they were found
and now I’m sure
rethinking future paths.

It is the thought that counts I’ve heard,
meaning I didn’t really think this through
and so I have the reaction of a thought
I have the shadow of a decision
I have the whisper of a notion.

I have the feelings in my heart and soul
that matter more than material gold.
that matter more than planning for
something not found in an empty store
and the day of days is here so soon.

So if you are the un-planning partner
and your heart is giving what the mind
could not, and your time has simply run out
just remember it is the thought that counts
and Seven-Eleven is open on Christmas day! 🤪