Belief vs. Biology: Is a Sustainable Environment a Human Right?

This week, the world’s highest court spoke. The United Nations’ top judges issued a sweeping opinion: nations might violate international law if they fail to act on climate change (Associated Press, July 23, 2025, Molly Quell and Mike Corder reported). The International Court of Justice (ICJ) opinion posited that a sustainable environment is a human right. And that nations harmed by climate change might be entitled to reparations. The ruling came in response to a campaign by Vanuatu, a small island nation slowly sinking beneath rising seas.

The court’s word carries no binding weight. No country must follow. No law compels it. No court can enforce it. It levies no sanctions, no penalties, and no compliance demands. Though not binding, ICJ opinions shape international norms and give weight to future legal and diplomatic efforts.

The ICJ argued that inaction threatening human health, safety, or survival could violate international law. It cements the idea that environmental protection is a human rights issue. Court President Yuji Iwasawa called climate change ‘an existential problem of planetary proportions.’

The big idea is simple: if clean air, a livable climate, and ecological stability keep us alive and dignified, then they are human rights.

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This ruling feels detached from reality. We need to dig deeper.

So this week’s question: Is a sustainable environment a human right?

We Have to Start at the Beginning. What is it to be “Human”?

Before we decide whether a “sustainable environment” is a human right, we need to ask a deeper question.

What is it to be human?

A courtroom will tell you a human is a natural person, Homo sapiens, endowed with dignity and moral status. That’s just a shallow definition. Strip it away, and the reality is older and harder.

A human isn’t a symbol or a legal category. A human is a biological creature. We arrive slick with blood. We hunt, dig, plant, and tear up what we need to live. We kill both plants and animals to survive. When our crops fail, we raid new ground. When danger comes, we fight or we flee. That instinct carried us through ice ages, famines, and wars. It still drives the hand that guides the harvester combine or closes a factory gate against cheaper imports. Biology never rests.

No matter how much philosophy or law we try to layer on top, we can’t escape that fact.

But we’re also unlike any other animal. We believe. We invent things no other animal can imagine: laws, borders, rights, money, marriage. Those beliefs let strangers cooperate by the millions. We write constitutions, build courts, and carve order out of chaos. But belief is fragile. When enough people stop believing, currencies collapse, treaties shatter, and thrones fall.

These two forces share the same skull. Biology pushes us to survive at any cost. Belief tells us to restrain that push for the greater good. Sometimes they align. Often they clash.

The International Court of Justice calls a “sustainable environment” a human right. That is a statement of belief, not a law of nature. It says humans must throttle back the internal engines that feed, warm, and defend us. On paper, the duty sounds noble. But in the flesh, it hits every nerve wired for survival.

Humans haven’t been here long in Earth’s timeline. Yet we survived ice ages, famines, and wars by adapting and producing. By overwhelming problems with force. Not by scaling back.

If the obligation demands we shrink the engines that power modern life, the conflict isn’t legal. It’s primal. We are watching belief walk into the ring with biology.

The court asks us to trade proven tools of survival for a moral blueprint still waiting on bricks and rebar. That trade is not impossible, but it will not be easy, and biology will keep the score.

So let’s test this idea against history, starting with the Marshall Plan.

The Marshall Plan

The United States launched the Marshall Plan in 1948. After World War II, Europe lay in ruins. Factories were silent, currencies worthless, and cities hollowed out. Communist parties gained ground, and Washington saw the danger.

We poured more than $13 billion, over $130 billion in today’s dollars, into Western Europe. The program remains a rare case study of large‑scale aid that actually worked: it restored stability, jump‑started shattered economies, and lowered the risk of renewed violence. But the motive was not ideology alone. The United States also needed solvent trading partners to buy American goods and help anchor a fledgling rules‑based order.

Europe needed security; we needed industrial muscle. America cranked up production of steel, food, fuel, and machinery at a pace that could hold the continent together. The emissions were massive, but the overriding question was survival, not cleanliness. We had to build fast enough to keep Europe from falling apart.

Look at the Netherlands. German fortifications and Allied bombing leveled whole districts of a city named The Hague and displaced more than 130,000 residents. After the war, America churned out the steel and cement that rebuilt the city, and the smokestacks poured emissions into the sky. Today, The Hague is the home of the same International Court of Justice that ruled a sustainable environment is a human right.

Marshall Plan funds of about $1.1 billion, the highest per‑capita aid in Western Europe, paid for coal, cement, and specialized equipment to the Netherlands. We rebuilt ports, factories, and housing stock. Within a decade, the city had gone from “largest building site in Europe” to a functioning capital again.

Would we generate more industrial and manufacturing capability to rebuild The Hague today, if necessary? Absolutely, yes. Even though the court that sits there ruled that the resulting emissions might violate international law. The Marshall Plan demonstrated what happens when biology takes precedence over belief.

But of course, nothing is black and white. The ICJ opinion looks forward, not back. It doesn’t punish the Marshall Plan or any past policy.

Let’s look at another story.

The Right to Clean Air: Delhi, India, 2019

In 2019, the air in Delhi turned poisonous. Schools shut down. Authorities grounded flights. Visibility dropped to near zero. Emergency rooms filled with children who couldn’t stop coughing. Construction halted. People wore masks long before COVID made it normal. The Indian government called it a public health emergency.

This event was the predictable result of crop burning, unchecked industrial pollution, vehicle emissions, and seasonal weather patterns that trapped smog like a lid over the city. It happened every year, and every year, people died.

Then, inside India, in one of the most polluted cities on Earth, belief overruled biology in court.

Biology said: Adapt or suffer. People were coughing blood. Kids were developing lifelong respiratory damage. Entire populations were living in a toxic cloud, and from a purely biological standpoint, they should have either fled the region or accepted the toll as the cost of living.

But they didn’t. Citizens sued.

In 2021, the Indian Supreme Court ruled that the right to life included the right to clean air as a binding constitutional right. The court ordered governments to coordinate, enforce pollution controls, and protect public health.

For India, this point wasn’t woke ideology. It was survival. No emissions cuts would fix it overnight, and Delhi still struggles with pollution, but the ruling forced governments to act. Environmental collapse became a human dignity violation, not a policy failure.

Follow-up data show that the ruling was more than symbolic. Since the court’s directives and India’s National Clean Air Programme kicked in, Delhi’s air is about fifteen percent cleaner today. Still triple the safe limit, yes. But every fraction means fewer asthma attacks, fewer cardiac emergencies, and thousands of school days reclaimed each winter. Belief did not cleanse the air overnight. But it forced measurable gains. It’s proof that a legal idea tied to enforcement and money can bend biology in the right direction.

But Now, the Brutal Truth

Even if America reduced its emissions today, would climate change stop? No. Even if we cut all emissions to zero tomorrow, the planet wouldn’t stop warming. Not right away. Not for decades.

Carbon dioxide stays in the atmosphere for hundreds of years. What we’ve already emitted, along with China, India, Europe, and the rest, is already baked in. That legacy carbon keeps trapping heat, melting ice, and driving storms, no matter what we do now.

And we aren’t the only emitter. We are currently responsible for about 13–15% of global emissions, depending on how you count. China emits more than double that. India’s emissions are rising fast. Developing nations, in total, now emit more than developed ones. And we are improving. We’ve cut emissions from electricity production by 35% since 2007.

But even if the United States went to zero, the warming would continue. Sea levels would keep rising. Places like Vanuatu would still drown, just more slowly.

That’s not an excuse for doing nothing. But we need to be honest.

Cutting emissions isn’t a rescue plan. It’s a brake. It slows the damage. It might help future generations, but it doesn’t undo the past. And it doesn’t save the people standing in the water right now.

If we’re serious about survival, emissions cuts aren’t enough. We need adaptation. We need infrastructure. And we need to stop pretending courtroom declarations can replace concrete, steel, and hard physical work.

We survive by adapting, producing, and overwhelming problems with force, not by scaling back. Countries like Vanuatu need our help, not promises made in cities we rebuilt with industrial might that pumped emissions into the air.

What’s It Going to Be?

We began with a court opinion and a question of rights. We trekked through biology, belief, wartime industry, and Delhi’s burning air to see how those rights collide with reality. Now the path loops back to you, the listener.

Here is our problem, simplified: believing that a stable climate is a human right does not cool a single degree of ocean or raise a single stretch of road. Biology will continue to test us, and belief alone will fail that test.

Our solution is equally plain: we need to turn belief into infrastructure. We need to cash our chips out as reinforced coastlines, relocated villages, cleaner grids, and resilient economies. Engineers first, lawyers later.

Every nation, especially the ones with means, has a choice. We can cling to declarations and watch biology take its toll, or we can pick up the tools that have saved us before and aim them at the new threat. History will judge us by reformed infrastructure, not by the eloquence of our court filings.

Belief may bind us together, but it will not overcome biology. Belief sets the goal. Biology will keep the score and decide the winner.

So this week’s question stands: Is a sustainable environment a human right? And if we say yes, what will we build to prove it?

May God bless the United States of America. May we find the resolve to build the consensus to adapt.

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State Government Funding Is a Paradox

State governments do important work, but too often, they’re boxed in. If we want better roads, stronger schools, and healthier communities, we don’t need to cut federal support. We need to change how it works.

Fragmented control kills leadership and accountability. Federal and state officials often share authority with different priorities. That overlap creates seams: delays, miscommunication, and gaps where problems fall through. Even an imperfect decision-maker, if clearly responsible, can move faster than a tangle of agencies working at cross purposes. Clarity beats complexity.

Effective leadership means guidance, resourcing, results, and accountability. To orient in the right direction, there’s one mission, one leader, one line of authority.

State power hasn’t been lost in a courtroom or an election. It’s been hollowed out by how the money works. Federal grants now pay for most of what states do, including roads, education, agriculture, healthcare, and law enforcement.

That might sound like help. But if we look closer, we see that money comes with strings, and those strings are a leash. Voters elect one set of leaders. Then a second, unelected set inside federal agencies writes the rules through grant conditions, deadlines, and compliance forms. The people don’t know who to hold accountable.

So this week we ask: What would it take to make state government matter again?

After all, We the People was never meant to describe a bureaucracy. It was a declaration of self-government. Government of, by, and for the people. Not federal control, but local judgment. Not compliance. Purpose.

The Problem: Compliance Masquerading as Governance

Every year, taxpayers send vast sums to Washington. That money returns to the states, but not freely. It comes with instructions: mandates, formulas, eligibility rules, and layers of accounting. States must apply for federal grants, and they don’t always win. In theory, it’s a partnership. In practice, it’s a transaction with terms that limit what states can do.

State leaders don’t really govern under this model. They implement. Legislators may pass budgets, but terms are set in federal agencies. Local needs or voter demands don’t shape priorities. Instead, federal guidance, often years in advance, sets the conditions.

This isn’t always malicious. The intent is to standardize, promote fairness, and ensure funds are spent wisely. But good intentions don’t guarantee good outcomes. Over time, this system rewards compliance over creativity, and risk avoidance over responsiveness. Innovation dies in the red tape.

Federal power expands under the banner of help; state autonomy shrinks under the burden of compliance. What looks like governance is just administration. What looks like support is control.

The Slow Death of Local Judgment

State governments must be able to set their own priorities, shaped by the needs of their communities. For a long time, they did. As examples, education, transportation, and agriculture were handled almost entirely at the state level. States had less money, but more authority.

Before the 1960s, states ran their own public schools with minimal interference. That changed with the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, which expanded the federal role. The funding helped rural areas, but it came with strings. Testing mandates and performance targets now shape classroom policy, but national academic outcomes haven’t meaningfully improved, especially in reading and math.

Transportation followed the same pattern. After the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956, federal funding brought federal design standards, environmental review processes, and route constraints. Local projects came to depend on federal approval. States could no longer freely set priorities.

Agriculture shifted, too. Local extension offices once worked directly with farmers to adapt to local conditions. That changed with the rise of USDA-administered programs. Now, farmers make decisions based on eligibility for crop insurance, conservation compliance, and commodity subsidies.

One of the clearest effects? Instead of a variety of food crops, the Midwest now grows mostly two: corn and soybeans. Neither is meant for direct human consumption, but they’re the safest bet under federal policy. The heartland used to grow more vegetables; food for people, not for fuel or feed.

To sum up: kids don’t run in PE because they’re prepping for federally required benchmarks, but math scores didn’t go up.

Most roads got safer, but Wyoming got the Snow Chi Minh Trail. It’s I-80’s scenic southern route, built against local advice, now one of the windiest, snowiest, most shutdown-prone highways in America.

And all our food now contains federally subsidized corn sugar. A 2016 study in JAMA Internal Medicine found that Americans whose diets were highest in subsidized calories had significantly higher rates of obesity, high blood sugar, and inflammation.

None of this is inherently malicious. Some of it works. Some doesn’t. But the pattern is clear: as federal dollars expand standardization, local authority shrinks.

The First Stand for States’ Rights

This tension isn’t new.

June and July, 1798. The Fifth Congress of the United States, under President John Adams, passed a series of four laws that became known as the Alien and Sedition Acts. Congress claimed the laws were meant to restrict the activities of foreign residents and silence dangerous speech.

In reality, they made it a crime to criticize the federal government. If an American wrote something unflattering about the president or Congress, they could be fined or jailed. This wasn’t a fringe proposal. They passed and became law. And people were actually arrested, including congressmen, newspaper editors, and publishers.

Now imagine you’re a state leader: a governor, a legislator. You’ve just joined this new American experiment. The Constitution is still fresh. The idea of a federal government this powerful is still new. Suddenly, it starts to look a little too much like the old one you just fought a war to escape. The kind of federal control that reminds you why we added a Second Amendment in the first place.

Even Thomas Jefferson, the man who wrote the Declaration of Independence, and James Madison, the principal author of the Constitution, started to worry. And they didn’t just stand by.

Jefferson drafted the Kentucky Resolutions in October 1798 and quietly passed them to political allies George Nicholas and Wilson Cary Nicholas in Kentucky. The legislature adopted them on November 16.

A few weeks later, Madison followed suit. He drafted the Virginia Resolutions in secret and worked behind the scenes to move them through the legislature. They passed on December 24, just in time for Christmas.

Both men kept their involvement quiet. Jefferson was Vice President. Madison was still in Congress. They knew that open authorship could trigger political backlash, or even charges under the laws they were challenging.

Their resolutions argued that the states had created the federal government, not the other way around, and therefore retained powers not explicitly given away. They claimed the states had both a right and a duty to declare federal laws unconstitutional if those laws went too far.

The resolutions didn’t carry legal weight, but they planted a seed that grew into later doctrines of nullification and state sovereignty.

They weren’t perfect. The resolutions were later cited by those pushing secession at the onset of the Civil War. But in the moment, they were a clear stand for state autonomy against federal overreach.

Most states rejected the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions. But the ideas stuck, and they helped carry the next Democratic-Republican candidate, Thomas Jefferson, into the presidency. When Jefferson took office, he let the Alien and Sedition Acts expire and pardoned those who had been convicted under them. He even returned some of the fines. He erased the laws and made sure their damage didn’t linger.

Today, federal control looks different. It doesn’t come through dramatic laws. It comes through funding and the rules that come with it.

Some of that funding does real good: roads, hospitals, schools. But the more Washington funds, the more it dictates. And the more it dictates, the less space state leaders have to lead.

Federal agencies don’t see day-to-day realities clearly. They’re too distant to make the right call, but they still write the rules.

Maybe there’s a better way.

A Better Way: Fund Goals, Not Control

We need a better way to structure federal support. One that honors constitutional balance, improves real-world outcomes, and respects state autonomy. A model built on four principles: guidance, resourcing, results, and accountability.

Guidance doesn’t mean silence. Congress should set national priorities through laws and budgets. But those broad directions often get buried in red tape, splintered into grant conditions, reporting mandates, and timelines divorced from local realities.

Instead of prescribing how to act, guidance should focus on what we aim to achieve. That means setting shared outcomes, not universal methods, and trusting states, with their varied geographies, cultures, and capacities, to chart their own course. Federal oversight still matters, especially to protect civil rights and prevent abuse, but oversight is not the same as control.

Federal agencies don’t need to vanish. They need to collaborate. Agencies and state leaders should jointly define goals and align their work to meet them. A federal office doesn’t have to report to the state, but it should recognize the state’s voice as legitimate within its borders.

Missouri and Illinois might pursue different agricultural policies. California and Nevada may diverge on environmental rules. Different is okay. A joint state and federal agency team making progress and achieving the goals matters more than methods. The goals are the decisive element.

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Resourcing

Goals without resources are empty. If states are going to lead, they need the tools to act: funding, usable data, and flexibility. Resourcing isn’t about writing checks. It’s about building capacity and letting strategy guide how dollars are spent instead of bureaucracy.

In a better system, as long as states pursue the shared goals, they should be free to reallocate resources as needed. Leadership works adaptively, not by spreadsheets.

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Results

People don’t care if a program met its compliance checklist. Not how many forms were submitted, or whether a benchmark was technically met. They care about bridges and infrastructure, if the ER had a doctor, and whether the school taught their kid to read.

Measuring results is harder than measuring process. It requires trust, collaboration, and the humility to admit when something isn’t working. It takes courage to admit we don’t achieve a goal, because it makes us accountable.

Still, we have to measure results against the goals we set. Not because data is perfect. But if we don’t ask whether we succeeded, the system becomes self-justifying.

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Accountability

In sum, we have the decisive element in place: shared goals. We have the resources to achieve those goals and the flexibility to move them as needed. We have the courage to admit when we succeed, and when we don’t.

We have set the conditions for accountability. When a program fails today, no one knows who to blame. States point to federal rules; agencies point to state mismanagement. When authority aligns with responsibility, voters know exactly who to hold accountable.

Simply Saying We Believe in States’ Rights Isn’t Good Enough

We started with a paradox. State support has become federal control. But the solution isn’t less support; it's smarter support. Support that restores autonomy, honors local judgment, and delivers real outcomes.

We can’t just say we believe in states’ rights. We must prove it. Set goals. Trust states. Measure outcomes. Then hold leaders accountable. Only then will state government matter again.

Government of the people means trusting local judgment more than distant control.

At the same time, federal agencies bring expertise and capability that states don’t have.

Rather than cutting federal agencies that seem to be underperforming, we need to reorient our approach.

Set joint goals. Trust states. Measure what truly matters. Demand accountability.

What would it take to make state government matter again?

May God bless the United States of America, that government of the people might once again serve the people.

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We Don’t Build a Country on Things We Can Touch

Not really.

We build it on belief.

We believe a piece of paper can be worth a dollar. We believe strangers can govern us. We believe that if we follow the rules, justice and liberty will protect us.

None of that is real, not like gravity or fire.

But it works because enough of us believe. That’s what holds a nation together. Not armies. Not buildings. Not slogans. Belief. We think institutions hold society together. But it’s the other way around. We hold them together with belief.

When nothing is real, belief gives institutions value.

Today, we ask, if justice isn’t real, what is its market price?

And I don’t mean metaphorically. I mean literally. What do Americans pay out of pocket to achieve the justice our Constitution promises?

Money Isn’t Real

Money isn’t real. Not like gravity. Not like death. You can’t drop it on your foot. You can’t breathe it. It has no weight, no heat, no life.

Its value depends on whether others believe in it.

Even the bills in our wallets mean nothing. They’re just cotton paper and ink. And most money isn’t even physical. It’s digital, just zeroes and ones on a computer somewhere. If no one believes those numbers are worth anything, they aren’t.

But when enough of us believe in them, they become real.

When we go to the store to buy eggs and butter for breakfast, we might use a debit card for our purchase. We give the store some of our digital zeroes and ones for real eggs that we can eat.

In this way, money facilitates society. It’s a fiction that organizes everything from breakfast to war.

Again, money isn’t real. Even if we think it matters, that’s not enough. It only matters if others think it does. If we stop believing, our money is worthless.

But because enough of us believe in it, belief itself creates the value. The belief makes a dollar worth a dollar, and not just what the cotton paper would suggest.

This principle is society’s basis.

In the same way that money only has value because other people believe it has value, our institutions only have value when enough of us believe in them.

Our institutions aren’t real outside of our shared beliefs. They become real only because we act like they are. Religion, law, the stock market, America, and the Constitution exist only in the human mind, but once enough of us believe, we begin to shape the world.

Our churches can only bring relief to the needy in our communities if enough of us believe not in the rituals, but in the responsibility to care for the needy. It’s not a physical reality. It’s a collective commitment. Shared belief only matters if it produces real outcomes. We measure the value of our churches in meals for the needy, addiction recovery programs, volunteer hours, and youth mentoring. If those disappear, the steeple means nothing.

Our law can only bring order to society if enough of us believe it applies to all of us. If we don’t believe the law applies to all of us, order dissolves. We measure the effectiveness of law by disputes resolved without violence, access to and fair treatment in court, and access to counsel no matter your income.

Belief is the foundation of our institutions. When enough of us share these beliefs, our institutions gain value.

The Day George Washington Gave the Army Back

We think institutions hold society together. But it’s the other way around. We hold them together with belief.

Scene: December 23, 1783. Annapolis, Maryland. The war is over. The Constitution doesn’t exist yet. George Washington entered Congress to resign his military commission.

Everyone held their breath. Washington had led the Continental Army through eight brutal years of war. He was a war hero: beloved, feared, and trusted. If he wanted to become king, no one could stop him.

Rumors of Washington’s intentions to give up power had already crossed the Atlantic. King George III reportedly told the American-born artist Benjamin West that if Washington gave up power, he would be the greatest man in the world.

The American people loved him. He was a star. He didn’t have to give up power. He could be king. The night before the ceremony, they threw him a party. Washington “danced in every set, so that the ladies might have the pleasure of dancing with him, or as it has since been handsomely expressed, get a touch of him.”

But instead of claiming fame and power, he gave it back to the people. America would owe allegiance to no king, and George Washington believed in America. He would not become king.

The next day, he stood before the Confederation Congress, a weak, fragile institution barely holding the states together, and gave up command. To complete his tear-filled address, he said … “Having now finished the work assigned me, I retire from the great theatre of action... and take my leave of all the employments of public life….”

He didn’t have to. He could have stayed in command.

Washington’s single act gave birth to civilian rule. A weak Congress became legitimate, not because it inherently had power, but because one man believed it should. And once Washington believed, others followed. Washington relinquishing command transferred his belief to his fellow Americans.

His belief in rule by the people gave value to the institution that became the Constitution. When James Madison and the other authors wrote the Constitution, they opened with an idea that didn’t exist in governance: ‘We the People of the United States.’ People stopped believing that the Almighty ordained rulers at birth because they came from a ruling family. They started believing people consent to governance for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

The idea didn’t stop at the Potomac. It crossed the Atlantic. Less than ten years later, the French violently overthrew their monarchy. The streets of Paris ran red with blood. The Bastille fell. The people executed their king and queen. They refused to be subjects any longer. And it didn’t end in France. Across Europe, the old order trembled. Monarchies began to fall or reform. The divine right of kings gave way to constitutions, parliaments, and citizens.

The transfer of Washington’s belief in rule by the people to the Constitution is sharply evident. Where a king might believe primarily in order, people believe in justice. A king might believe in rules and obedience. People believe in liberty, protest, and the right to bear arms against their rulers.

His belief in rule by the people made the people believe in themselves.

Washington’s act powerfully illustrates how shared belief underpins our institutions. When we believe in an idea, we build institutions. When enough of us share that belief, those institutions gain value.

Of course, like money, we need to be able to measure this value. To measure justice, we need to pick something concrete and clear. We need measures that reflect real opportunity.

Measuring Ideas Like Liberty and Justice

Some think tanks say they can measure the payoff of our belief in the Constitution’s promises. They call their metrics “market quotes” on the value we assign to liberty, justice, and other national ideals.

Organizations like Freedom House publish global reports with titles like Freedom in the World. They attempt to track civil liberties and political rights across 195 countries. These reports have been cited for over 50 years.

But we should reject every proposed measure that comes from outside sources instead of the people. The people are the governed, and only the governed can say whether they are free. An external judge of internal values falls short.

Others suggest questionnaires, letting people rate their own experience. But surveys are subjective. If belief is real, it must leave a measurable trail. We must be able to measure our values like we measure the dollar.

So, how would we measure ideas like liberty and justice? Let’s consider justice. Justice has a dual meaning. It is equal treatment under the law, and it is access to fair opportunity, no matter where you were born.

Let’s consider two critical areas in society: housing and education. Why these two? Because where you live and what you learn directly determine the opportunities you have. Housing and education aren’t luxuries. They’re the foundation of fairness.

Genius hides in poverty. A child born in a trailer or housing project must succeed by structure, not by luck.

We need empirical data to measure whether we achieve our national goal of justice. If they are willing to work for it, a kid born in a trailer or project housing needs to be able to buy a house in a safe neighborhood with a good school for their children.

To measure our ability to achieve this goal, we need a test. To pass it, America needs a healthy supply of homes for first-time homebuyers that cost only double the household median income. The median cost for a house in 1960 was $11,900, when the median income was $5,600. The median household income in 2023 was $80,610. So a fair entry point today would be a home under $160,000.

Next, education.

Any loan a low-income student must take to attend a public college is a measurable price of fairness. That price tells us how far short we fall of our national ideal.

We need to track three numbers; each for first-time, full-time undergraduates from the bottom income quartile at in-state public colleges:

First, the average net price after grants: tuition, fees, living costs, minus all aid. If that price rises faster than family income, the system is failing.

Second, the average federal loan balance at graduation. If the poorest students graduate with the biggest debts, we have not achieved equal opportunity.

Third, the three-year default rate on those loans. If defaults are rising, the ladder of opportunity is breaking.

We Believe

When we believe in an idea, we build institutions.

When enough of us share our beliefs, our institutions gain value.

If money isn’t real…

If liberty and justice aren’t real…

If even America isn’t real...

Then our common belief is everything.

Led by George Washington, ‘We the People’ owe allegiance to no king. We believe in the America that is justice and liberty for free people.

Simple ideas, like access to housing and education for Americans no matter where they were born, are achievable. But we will not achieve our goals if we do not measure them.

Justice might not be physical, but its price, what ordinary people pay just to access fairness, is as real as any dollar.

So, if justice isn’t real, what is its market price?

May God bless the United States of America, as we work to ensure every American, rich or poor, has the chance to work, to succeed, and to prosper together.

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The One Big Beautiful Bill: A Poem

Our lives pass like shadows, despair takes root within us.

We convince ourselves property is our natural right; that we can own the land here before us, remaining when we are gone.

We guard it jealously, believing what we earn must remain ours alone.

We charge our leaders with duty: to defend our lives, our liberty, our property.

Yet to do so, we bury the unborn beneath our debt.

One generation fades, another rises. The earth endures; we are dust, mere travelers through a brief season.

We tax our days with worry and grief over troubles we might never see.

We borrow endlessly, debts stretching beyond bearing; chains placed silently upon shoulders yet unborn.

They never chose, never consented.

The dead hold no rights over the living, yet we, the living, pledge away a future’s harvest, earnings of lives not yet begun.

Theft, delayed.

When we pass, soon enough, what do we gain from our toil if all we leave behind is burden?

…

We say we protect property by cutting taxes. So our question: Can we protect what we own today by stealing from the unborn?

Debt Versus Property

Our lives pass like shadows, and despair grows in us. We tax our days and wring our hands with worry and grief over what may never come. No matter how hard we labor, what we own eventually passes to others. We arrive with nothing, leave with nothing, and gain nothing from our labor that we will take with us.

And it makes us worry.

Our humanity creates this problem. Aware of our smallness and short time on earth, we gather what we can and hold tight. We want to keep it. Even when our children die, we carry the feed bucket anyway. The desire to keep what we’ve earned is as old as the first harvest, the first hands that grasped their work with pride.

Out of this hope came the idea of property as a right; that no ruler, mob, or distant power could unjustly take what we’ve earned. This belief is freedom itself. If our labor belongs to us, we are free. If it can be seized, we are servants, whether our master is king, neighbor, or voting majority.

We established laws to protect what we earn, rules that say no one’s wages, harvest, or home can be taken without true cause. Protecting property safeguards liberty.

When we are free to keep what we work for, we can express our being. We can choose. We can grow from the effects of those choices. That is liberty.

But liberty has a cost. To protect our property today, we’ve embraced a dangerous shortcut: borrowing from tomorrow. We say cutting taxes preserves our property, that government should take only what it must. But instead of paying the cost with our own labor, we mortgage the lives of our unborn children. We pass the bill forward to generations who have no voice.

This is our tension. Our contradiction.

We protect the property of the living by indebting those not yet born. We say no one should steal from us, but we steal from those who will follow, who have no vote, no voice, no choice.

Promise

We made a promise in property, and a promise in liberty. We believe a person is entitled to the fruits of their own labor. That what they build, they may keep. That no power, however great, may seize it without just cause. If this is not so, then no man is free.

But this promise carries another. If a person is entitled to the fruits of their labor, then we cannot buy our comfort with another’s sweat. We cannot, by our actions, burden those who had no voice.

Yet today we break both promises at once. We declare no one may take what’s ours, that no ruler or future vote may steal it. But in the same breath, we pledge the labor of unborn generations to pay our debts.

This contradiction cannot stand. A nation cannot uphold a principle and violate it simultaneously. We cannot protect today’s harvest while mortgaging tomorrow’s.

Seed corn is the harvest reserved for planting next year’s crop. Eat it today, and we survive, but guarantee starvation tomorrow.

We must not consume our children’s seed corn or warm ourselves by burning their future fuel. Liberty isn’t free. It cannot be bought with debt or paid with the wages of those yet to be born and who cannot speak, vote, or stand for themselves.

If we believe in keeping what we earn, we must guard it ourselves, paying our cost today. Spending our children’s money means standing for a principle even as we betray it.

An America built on contradiction will not survive.

Broken promises bleed forward, generation to generation, until only the dead remain to answer.

The Dead’s Silent Claim

The dead hold no claim over the living. The next generation owes nothing to the bones beneath the grass.

Every age must choose for itself. Every generation must decide which burdens it will bear, which debts it will pay, and which work it will complete.

We have erred. We claim to protect our property, to keep what is ours, to stand free. But we build our freedom on promises made with labor not our own. We insist future generations pay debts we refuse to shoulder today.

This cannot stand. Freedom and bondage cannot coexist. We cannot guard our harvest by mortgaging someone else’s future. A nation cannot love liberty while chaining children who never chose their burden.

We call ourselves defenders of property, but we steal from tomorrow. With one hand we raise our fists and shout ‘freedom!’ With the other, we tighten our chains.

If reason has a law, it must be this:

A generation cannot call itself free while binding the next.

The dead have no rights over the living. Neither do we have any right to seize from those not yet born, to pile debt on backs that have yet to draw breath.

We claim to guard what is ours, but we have promised away what was never ours to promise.

Back to our question: Can we protect what we own today by stealing from the unborn?

May God bless the United States of America, and grant us the courage to pay our debts today before we ask our children to pay what they do not owe.

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When the Cure Doesn’t Serve the People, the System Fails the Constitutional Test

Public money, on its face, should yield public benefit. But every year, the federal government sends almost sixty billion dollars to universities like Harvard for research and development, most of it through the Department of Health and Human Services.

A university takes federal funding, makes a breakthrough, and licenses it to a drug company. Nothing stops that company from setting a high price, because while the research was public, the product isn’t.

Taxpayers fund the research, then get stuck paying again at the pharmacy. For many, the cost of needed treatment puts the remedy out of reach.

…

We drift because we forget our purpose.

The Constitution names six national goals: Union, Justice, Domestic tranquility, Liberty, the common defense, and the general welfare. Every law and every dollar must serve at least one. When a policy misses the mark, it serves power, not people.

The point of American governance is to serve the people. That philosophy is the reason we were born at war. Why we owe allegiance to no king. Why we have our uniquely structured Constitution.

We lose sight of aligning our effort with these national goals. We need to get back on track.

So today, we’re asking whether public funding for private research still serves the general welfare. Does it help all of us, or just a few? To answer that, we go back to the beginning, with a boy named Jimmy, a Boston hospital, and a small act of hope that changed cancer research.

Jimmy’s Radio Miracle

In May 1948, a boy named Einar Gustafson wanted to watch his favorite baseball team, the Boston Braves. Einar had a problem: he didn’t have a television. But he had a bigger problem. He was in the Children’s Hospital ward in Boston, dying of leukemia.

At the time, leukemia was effectively a death sentence. It had been first identified a hundred years earlier, but there was still no treatment, just blood transfusions and comfort care. Then came Dr. Sidney Farber.

…

Farber was a pathologist at Children’s Hospital. He’d grown tired of trying to learn why a patient didn’t respond to treatment after they had died and decided to try something new. He devised an experimental blood treatment he thought would block the food cancer cells needed to grow. His small study of just 16 children showed that 10 of them improved. The remissions didn’t last, but the fact that they happened at all was groundbreaking. It was the first time a chemical agent had ever worked against a non-solid tumor.

Farber had introduced the world to chemotherapy, or now the more common term, just “chemo” treatment for cancer.

That same year, Farber and a member of the Variety Children’s Charity were looking for a way to raise money for research. They needed a face for the cause. They found it in Einar, but to protect his identity, they called him “Jimmy.”

…

So they told his story on a national radio broadcast. They said Jimmy wanted a television to watch his Braves. They said cancer research needed support. The country responded. In just eight minutes of airtime, Americans sent in $231,000, more than three million in today’s dollars. The Jimmy Fund was born.

That money launched the Children’s Cancer Research Foundation, which later became the Sidney Farber Cancer Center, and eventually the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, now Harvard University’s principal cancer research center.

But Farber didn’t stop at the lab. He kept pressing Congress, explaining that major breakthroughs would take national funding and sustained effort. And Congress listened. Between 1957 and 1967, the National Cancer Institute’s budget more than tripled.

…

Then, in 1971, President Richard Nixon called on Congress for an extra $100 million, nearly $700 million today, to launch an intensive campaign to find a cure for cancer. Later that year, he signed the National Cancer Act, declared a formal War on Cancer, and pumped billions into cancer research nationwide. The act expanded the National Cancer Institute’s power, created new research centers, and marked the first time the federal government treated cancer as a coordinated national challenge.

Since the increased 1971 national commitment, the American people have sent more than $1 trillion to universities for medical research. Progress slowly advances. This year, Harvard Medical tested an anti-tumor vaccine with promising results.

…

We could look at this story as either a success or a failure. A success in that private contributions provided seed money that helped create a medical breakthrough. We have made great advancements. A failure that significant public obligations showed diminishing returns. We have not cured cancer, and American life expectancies have not increased in the last 20 years.

But that is too short-sighted.

It’s not that we should rely only on private funding commitments, or that public funding for private institutions is irresponsible.

Likewise, the crux of the matter is not that public funding is essential to make progress in research and development.

The decisive point is: does our effort advance our progress towards achieving one or more of our national goals? Let's ask the hard questions clearly.

Justice and the General Welfare

Can we definitively say that giving universities money for research and development improves the general welfare?

Can we say the effort advances justice?

Certainly, national infrastructure benefits the whole country. Medical research depends on nationwide clinical trials, standardized data sharing, drug-approval pipelines, and outreach to rural and underserved areas. Only the federal government has the mandate and capacity to serve everyone. We don’t serve the general welfare if cures stay bottled up in Boston.

But if we pay for research and development, and private companies turn the patents into private property and set prices that most families can’t afford, then the investment the American people made to advance justice and general welfare falls short.

The prostate-cancer drug Xtandi is a classic example. Our money helped discover it, but the company that holds the license lists the therapy at more than one hundred twenty-nine thousand dollars a year. More than ten thousand dollars a month! Far beyond the reach of most American families.

Patient advocates have multiple times asked the government to use its lawful authority to force wider access. NIH refused both times. In total, this authority has never been used in the forty-plus years it has existed.

Let me say that again.

In more than four decades, the federal government has never once stepped in to come to the aid of the American people to lower the price of a publicly funded drug.

When a publicly funded drug ends up on the market at a price well beyond what the average American family can afford, the spending fails the general welfare test. It also fails the justice test, because wealth divides the rich and poor, urban and rural, insured and uninsured.

Yes, inequality exists everywhere. But America was built to be different, on purpose.

Part of the reason America exists is justice. Every state in the union agreed that if the people fund medical research, then a poor man and a rich man should have equal access to the benefit.

So… it seems the way we structure public funding for cancer research at Harvard and other universities doesn’t align with our national goals.

How Would We Change That?

Right now, universities take our money in the form of federal research grants, but only part of that money goes to the actual research. The rest, sometimes nearly half, goes toward overhead. This includes administrative costs, building maintenance, and salaries for university staff who never touch the lab.

At Harvard, that indirect rate is nearly 70 percent for research conducted on campus. The indirect rate for research conducted at other Harvard facilities is still high, 26 percent.

So when the American people send a million dollars to find treatments for cancer, four hundred thousand might go toward the effort. The rest feeds the institution.

Second, we have a problem with private ownership of public money. Since 1980, universities have been allowed to patent inventions made with public money. They can then license those patents, often exclusively, to drug companies. There’s no requirement that the final product be affordable or widely available. The government has the power to step in when the public is denied the benefit, but in over forty years, it has never once used it.

Third, we admit where trials fall short. There are rules encouraging inclusion across race, gender, and geography, but enforcement is weak. Most trials still happen at elite hospitals. Rural Americans, tribal communities, and low-income patients are left out.

Again, the structure of public funding for cancer research doesn’t align with our national goals. It doesn’t reflect justice or promote general welfare.

A better system would start with a simple rule: 100 percent of public money goes to the research. If a university believes in the work, it can cover its own administrative costs. The taxpayer’s role is to fund discovery, not to subsidize building cafeterias and paying deans.

Next, any treatment developed with public dollars must be subject to a universal access guarantee. That means open licenses for nonprofit hospitals and VA clinics, and a price ceiling for commercial sale. If a private company uses public research to build a profitable product, the benefit must reach the people who paid for it.

Finally, we demand equity in clinical trials. That means conducting research across the country and proving that results apply to everyone. If we measure every dollar spent by whether it serves the people, across race, income, and geography, then we align with the Constitution.

The effort isn’t intended to punish universities or end research.

The effort intends to ensure that the commitment the American people make to justice and their general welfare serves the nation in return.

Wait…What Happened to Einar?

Einar Gustafson, or “Jimmy,” lived. He left the hospital and went home. He stayed out of the public eye until 1998, when he revealed his identity at a Jimmy Fund event in Boston. By then, he was in his sixties, working as a potato farmer in Maine.

We don’t lack commitment or generosity. We don’t even lack funding.

What we lack is purpose and structure.

Our question isn’t whether we should fund research. We already do. It’s not whether we can make breakthroughs. We already have.

Our question is whether we’re serious about what our Constitution says that funding is for.

This story isn’t about punishing Harvard. It’s about the promises we made when we became a country. It’s about justice, the general welfare, and holding ourselves to our highest standard.

If our effort doesn’t serve justice and reach the people who paid for it, then we are failing to achieve the goals America stands for.

So, should we continue to fund cancer research at Harvard and other universities?

May God bless the United States of America.

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Misunderstanding Iran’s Ideological Nature Invites Endless Conflict

American B-2 bombers struck Iran’s uranium-enrichment sites at Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan. President Trump called the raid successful. Tehran vowed retaliation.

Washington insists the raids sought to halt Iran’s march toward a nuclear weapon. No one in America supports a nuclear-armed Iran. Iran’s nuclear march is a real threat, but unilateral bombing rarely brings lasting stability; it breeds resentment and invites retaliation.

We look at Iran and see a country, but that simplified lens is short-sighted. Iran acts like a cause as much as a state, and when we fight a cause, we forfeit the momentum every strategist tries to preserve.

Because Iran sees itself both as a sovereign state and as a sacred mission, every rash strike feeds its cause; only disciplined patience denies its advantage.

Iran cannot defeat us militarily, but it doesn’t need to. It only needs to provoke us into endless conflict. It conducted limited strikes in response, but Tehran’s answer may come months or years from now; Iran has a long memory.

When they do respond, we must act with disciplined patience.

If they close the Strait of Hormuz, how do we respond? If a proxy kills US troops? If a cyber-strike paralyzes East Coast shipping overnight?

Disciplined.

Patience.

It’s not to say that we can’t act with appropriate force. But we won’t achieve national objectives by force alone.

To grasp why Iran acts like a cause, not just a country, we must start long before the revolution. Before the Shah. Before the CIA. We start with Persia; not a place on the map, but an idea of moral kingship and enduring memory. We start with the ruler who first fused power and reverence: Cyrus the Great.

Cyrus the Great and the Authority to Believe

Around 700 BC, a Hebrew prophet named Isaiah wrote a decree the Almighty spoke through him. He claimed that a foreign ruler, at the time unborn and unknown, would one day subdue nations and harness kings. He would free a captive people and rebuild their ruined city. The text named him directly: Cyrus. It was remarkable. No other foreigner is singled out like that in the Hebrew texts. And certainly not someone who wouldn’t be born for another 150 years.

We don’t know exactly how the name made it into the scrolls. But we do know what happened next.

In 539 BC, Cyrus the Great of Persia conquered Babylon, in what is now southern Iraq. At the time, Babylon was the most powerful city in the world. Its walls were legendary. Its temples massive. Its armies feared.

But Cyrus didn’t need to lay siege to the city. The priests of Babylon opened the gates. Cyrus walked in without bloodshed, declared himself king, and set the captives free, including the Jewish people, who had been exiled there for 70 years.

Rather than erase Babylonian culture, Cyrus did something rare: he preserved it. He didn’t burn the temples. He rebuilt them. He didn’t force anyone to worship his gods. Instead, he issued a decree, now carved into clay and housed in the British Museum. He declared that all people under his rule could worship freely, in their own languages, in their own lands. Some scholars call it the first human rights charter in recorded history. In 1971, the Shah of Iran presented a replica of the Cyrus Cylinder to the United Nations. The artifact is still on display at UN headquarters in New York, a 2,500-year-old document that helped shape modern human rights in governance.

Cyrus wielded political power through a moral framework. He legitimized his rule through divine-sanctioned tolerance, not fear.

Cyrus wasn’t just a conqueror. He was a strategist. He believed the Almighty gave him authority over the known world. He ruled through force when necessary, but through legitimacy whenever possible. His empire didn’t just stretch across continents. It was stitched together through tolerance, diplomacy, and something resembling vision.

Iran, once Persia, still draws from that heritage. Iran sees itself as a nation, but also an idea. One that mixes governance with belief.

Today’s Iran is built on an entirely different religion, but its political structure echoes the same fusion of moral authority and statecraft. Its constitution invokes divine authority. The Supreme Leader governs people both inside and outside the borders of Iran through law and their proclamation of truth.

So when we in America look at Iran and see only a hostile government, we miss the deeper architecture. Iran doesn’t see itself as just a state. It’s a symbol backed by thousands of years of belief that statehood and faith are separate but the same.

That fusion between divine purpose and political authority continues to shape revolution in Iran. Including the one we started.

The Day Democracy Died in Tehran

In 1953, Mohammad Mossadegh was the Prime Minister of Iran. He was elected by parliament, immensely popular, and bold. Mossadegh nationalized Iran’s oil, kicked out the British-owned Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (now BP), and demanded that Iranians control their own resources.

London and Washington panicked. Together, MI6 and the CIA launched a covert operation, code-named Operation Ajax, to remove Mossadegh from power.

The plan was old-school regime change. We bribed newspapers and paid thugs to stage fake riots. They worked with military officers loyal to the Shah, who had fled the country during the unrest. After just a few chaotic days, Mossadegh was arrested. The Shah returned in triumph, flown back like a king in exile.

To the West, the coup restored order, but many Iranians strongly objected.

They watched as Britain and America overthrew their democratically elected leader with foreign cash and royal approval. They saw that the Shah didn’t stand for Iran; he stood for Britain and America. And even though the oil kept flowing, anger simmered.

…

Fast forward 10 years.

In 1963, Iran’s Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, launched what he called the White Revolution. This initiative included land reform, women’s voting rights, and Western-style law. On paper, it looked modern. In practice, to many, it looked like Western intrusion dressed as reform.

A man named Ruhollah Khomeini objected to the Western influence. Before he was the face of a revolution, Khomeini was just a cleric with a sharp tongue and a sharper pen. In Khomeini’s eyes, the White Revolution looked like surrender.

He saw the reforms as a betrayal, not just of Islam, but of Iran itself. The Shah wasn’t acting alone. American advisors were everywhere. Foreign capital was reshaping Tehran. And then came the final insult: a law granting US military personnel full legal immunity inside Iran. If an American soldier shot an Iranian in the street, Khomeini warned, no court in the country could touch him.

He stood in the pulpit and thundered:

“They have reduced the Iranian people to a level lower than that of an American dog.”

The Shah’s government didn’t take long to respond. In 1964, they kicked Khomeini out. First to Turkey. Then to Iraq. Eventually, to a small village outside Paris. But exile didn’t silence him.

…

From abroad, Khomeini recorded sermons and manifestos onto cassette tapes. Those tapes were smuggled into Iran by the thousands, hidden in books, tucked into luggage, passed hand-to-hand in marketplaces and mosques. Khomeini didn’t need a militia. He had a message.

That message was simple: the Shah wasn’t just corrupt. He was illegitimate. Real authority, Khomeini argued, didn’t come from votes or tanks. It came from God and from those trained to interpret His law. This wasn’t just theology. In Shia Islam, suffering for truth isn’t failure. In exile, Khomeini turned his theology into a blueprint. Velayat-e Faqih: Guardianship by the Islamic jurist. In other words, rule by the clergy over the state.

Not just spiritual guidance. Political rule, or an Islamic government backed by divine logic and revolutionary will. The state was built to absorb punishment and convert it into legitimacy.

Iran’s people are not all the same. They hold a wide range of political, cultural, and religious beliefs, many of which differ sharply from the views of their government.

But by the time Khomeini returned to Iran in 1979, millions were ready to receive him not as a man but as a symbol. The monarchy collapsed. The revolution didn’t just change the regime; it changed the idea of Iran itself.

Persia became Iran. Cyrus became Khomeini. But the idea stayed the same. Iran sees itself as a country of borders, and as a religion inside and outside of them. None of this excuses Iran’s actions. The regime sponsors terror, represses its people, and destabilizes the region. But that’s exactly why misunderstanding it is so dangerous. The more crudely we respond, the more clearly we play the part they have written for us.

So we return to our question:

Is it possible to fight Iran without fighting Islam?

The Cart Before the Horse

Iran’s current political structure directly inherits the ancient Persian fusion of divine authority with state governance embodied by Cyrus the Great. Cyrus legitimized his rule by weaving morality, tolerance, and religious sanction. These qualities solidified Persian power for centuries.

Modern Iran mirrors this model: its leaders invoke spiritual legitimacy to justify actions inside and outside their borders. This isn’t politics; it is an expression of their identity.

So…maybe we’re still asking the wrong question. Instead of asking whether we can fight Iran without fighting Islam, the real question is whether we NEED to.

We are not under siege. Iran is not landing troops on our shores or circling bombers over our cities. Economically, militarily, and geographically, we hold every advantage. No clock is running out.

On Saturday, we chose urgency over patient discipline; now we must step back and reclaim that discipline.

We are committed to Israel, but Israel is not defenseless. They are not blameless in choosing to escalate. We don’t have to choose to let Israel drag us into a shooting war. We can maintain our commitment to Israel while defining our own interests, our own timeline, and our own limits.

Again, we are in a position of strength. In Eastern thought, that’s when we wait. Not because we are weak or passive, but because we are disciplined. The side with leverage doesn’t chase shadows. It observes, lets the opponent move first, and watches them spend their effort and overreach.

In America, we confuse patience and restraint with weakness. We think power only matters when the bombs are falling. That’s the cart before the horse.

When Tehran answers, and if we choose to keep fighting, what would victory even look like? We could raze the nation of Iran to the ground today, but destruction is not victory. Would we seek a toppled regime? A new government that still draws legitimacy from faith, just wrapped in different slogans? Would we fight the nation, or the shadow?

To achieve our national objectives, we must first observe. Then orient. Then bring decisive effort to bear at the point of advantage.

If our goal is stability and not empty symbolism, then we won’t achieve national objectives by force alone. It requires leverage, clarity, and diplomacy with teeth. Military action might play a role, but diplomacy and disciplined patience must carry the weight.

…

Iran is still a nation, still the shepherd of a religion. They are separate, and they are the same. Iran and Islam are intertwined. And now, for the first time in decades, the direct target of American bombs.

Iran will respond, and when it does, America’s path forward is clear. Iran cannot defeat us militarily, but it doesn’t need to; it only needs to provoke us into endless conflict.

We must adopt disciplined patience, clearly define our strategic objectives, and exercise diplomacy backed by strength, not impulsive force.

Our efforts must advance national interests, not the aims of those who provoke us.

May God bless the United States of America.

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The Spark

This week, outrage erupted after law enforcement used force against protesters opposing ICE raids in Los Angeles and other cities. We shouldn’t be surprised by any of it. For anyone paying attention, there’s already a blueprint. The administration intends to restore their version of order.

Then came the political theater. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez condemned the violence. Governor Gavin Newsom echoed her. Senator Alex Padilla got thrown out of a meeting. Senator Bernie Sanders warned that violent protest, no matter how passionate, won’t achieve its goals.

Let’s be clear. The right to PEACEFUL protest is a core feature of American identity. Most of these protests were exactly that: peaceful. But not all. Alongside them, we saw looting and destruction of public and private property. We don’t argue whether Americans have the right to protest. We argue over what kind of protest is justified, and when.

Just as we have a right to liberty and free expression, we have a right to domestic tranquility and order.

On one hand, government exists, in part, to protect our property. That’s one of its most basic roles. It’s part of why we consent to be governed in the first place. When government fails to protect what’s ours, we’re left with two choices. We can choose to surrender that property to someone else, or defend it ourselves, with the right to bear arms secured by the Second Amendment.

And on the other hand, Americans also have the right to protest their government. Even undocumented immigrants are guaranteed due process under the Fifth Amendment. When Americans believe that right is being denied, they protest. That impulse isn’t lawless. It’s constitutional.

Now here’s the harder truth. Whether we admit it or not, and even if it didn’t turn out the way we thought, the American people voted for this. The plan wasn’t hidden. It was published, promoted, and ultimately activated by the ballot box.

The Tinder

The protests and response to them were the spark. But the fuel for the fire was already stacked.

Project 2025, also called Mandate for Leadership, The Conservative Promise, wasn’t just a 900-page policy recommendation. It was a blueprint. A deliberate, detailed plan to realign American policy with parts of the Constitution that some favor over others.

In order to achieve its goals, Project 2025 recommended concentrating power in the executive branch, dismantling major federal agencies, and purging the civil service of those labeled “disloyal.” Gaining consensus and working through Congress was too slow a process. It relies too much on compromise. Because of this approach, some say Project 2025 was a plan to bring a king to America.

As a couple of examples from the document, page 142 recommended US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, specifically Enforcement and Removal Operations, be designated the lead agency for civil immigration enforcement. Not just at the border, but anywhere in the country. On the same page, Project 2025 further recommended that ICE officers act both with and without a warrant to arrest immigrants.

What’s more, page 137 called on the Federal Emergency Management Agency to withhold funding from any state, city, or private organization that isn’t fully aligned with federal immigration enforcement. In other words, access to disaster aid depends on loyalty.

Project 2025 isn’t law, but it’s not fiction either. It attempted to derive some legitimacy by using constitutional language as an outline. Unfortunately, it cherry-picks pieces of the language. Specifically, the plan aligns itself with only two of our six national goals: to provide for the common defense and promote the general welfare.

The others, including union, justice, order (or domestic tranquility), and liberty, are notably missing from the plan.

Perhaps the authors of Project 2025 don’t believe conservatives have a constitutional duty to pursue justice and liberty. But they do. That duty isn’t partisan. It’s foundational to America.

Even if we find the goals of Project 2025 too narrow, we shouldn’t all waste all of our precious time and effort shouting at a fire that’s already burning. Our effort is too limited, too valuable.

Project 2025 recognized that there are small windows, only fleeting moments, when we have both the political consensus and the public will to achieve progress. Moments of consensus don’t last. And when they come, we have to be ready.

Instead of only raging against the machine, we should be working to build something better.

So…if we are dissatisfied with Project 2025, is political theater going to fix it? While cars and dumpsters are burning in protests in Los Angeles and other cities across America, who’s writing Project 2029?

The Logs

Every fire needs more than a spark and tinder. If we want it to last, we need logs that hold the heat and maintain the flame.

Project 2025 won’t last. Not because it’s poorly organized, but because it’s incomplete. It’s shallow and empty. It aligns itself with only two of the six national goals. We will not achieve defense or general welfare without liberty. And there can be no lasting order without justice.

We don’t need a plan that burns fast and fades. We need purpose with endurance. It doesn’t matter whether we call it Project 2029 or something else entirely. What matters is our decisive effort and a focus, or framework, to guide it.

Every part of that framework must tie back to the Constitution’s six national goals. Union. Justice. Domestic tranquility, or order. Liberty. The common defense. The general welfare.

Every government action, to include every law, every dollar spent, every policy, should be traceable to at least one of those six. If we can’t do that, the action doesn’t belong.

Let’s take two examples: climate change spending and first-time homebuyer housing, and ask what it looks like to govern with that kind of clarity.

Climate Change Spending

We can debate the causes and consequences of climate change, but we can’t debate the fact that it’s happening. Some argue that human activity, especially the burning of fossil fuels, is the primary driver. They point to rising greenhouse gas concentrations. Others believe that natural forces, like volcanic eruptions and wildfires, play a larger role.

The 2022 National Security Strategy claimed that of all our challenges, “climate change is the greatest and potentially existential for all nations.” As of that year, three laws obligated the American people to spend more than $500 billion on climate technology and clean energy. An issue of that magnitude should pass our constitutional check with ease. Let’s give it a test.

…

First, does climate change spending directly tie to union?

We could argue that it brings Americans together around shared infrastructure, energy resilience, or the protection of common resources. But even if we fail to stop climate change, no state is going to secede from the union because of rising temperatures. So while the effort may involve shared concerns, it doesn’t directly tie to the preservation of union in the constitutional sense.

…

Second, does climate change spending directly affect justice?

Justice is both equal protection under law and access to opportunity, especially for the needy, for rural families, for children growing up in communities with no escape from hardship. If climate policy helps kids who grow up in trailers or in the projects, it can serve justice.

But climate spending doesn’t do that. It funds industry, infrastructure, and research, much of which is concentrated in business interests, urban centers, or corporate contracts. If justice is the goal, the spending should begin with those who have the least power to adapt, the fewest resources to rebuild, and the most to lose. So while the effort may possibly benefit the needy in the long run, it doesn’t directly tie to justice for Americans.

…

Third, does climate change spending directly affect domestic tranquility, or what we might call order?

Climate change drives rising utility costs, unpredictable harvests, and the slow loss of reliable seasons. These all create strain beneath the surface. But does that reach the level of threatening national order?

Most Americans aren’t protesting in the streets over the weather. They’re protesting over wages, housing, policing, and rights. Climate instability may be a stress multiplier, but it isn’t the source of disorder. And climate spending, as it exists today, doesn’t restore trust in the system or bring peace to our communities.

So while climate change may contribute to unrest in subtle ways, the spending itself does not directly preserve domestic tranquility.

…

Fourth, does climate change spending directly support liberty?

Liberty is the freedom to make choices about how we live and work. It also means limiting the reach of government into the private lives of citizens. When climate spending leads to regulation, such as banning gas appliances, restricting travel, or mandating energy sources, it can start to feel less like liberty and more like control.

Even when well-intentioned, we must scrutinize any policy that narrows individual freedom in the name of collective benefit. If liberty is the goal, climate policy should expand options, not limit them. It should make clean energy cheaper, not mandate it. It should protect the individual, not penalize the outlier.

So while some climate investments might indirectly support liberty through innovation or energy independence, the broader trend moves toward restriction. And restriction is not liberty.

…

Fifth, does climate change spending directly support the common defense?

Climate change has been framed as a national security threat, and in a sense, that is true. Rising sea levels can threaten naval bases. Drought and food shortages can destabilize foreign regions, creating migration pressures and conflict. Natural disasters can strain military logistics at home.

But does climate change spending actually strengthen our ability to defend the nation?

The funds could tie to defense if they go toward hardening bases, securing supply chains, or preparing for climate-driven conflict. But if the money is directed primarily toward consumer incentives, carbon markets, or long-term emissions modeling, then the connection is indirect at best.

And even if our efforts to stop climate change fail, we will still have the capability to defend the American people and our interests worldwide. That’s what the defense budget ensures. That’s what the military trains for. Climate instability may change the terrain, but it doesn’t erase our strength.

So while some elements of climate policy may touch national defense, the spending itself does not directly serve that goal.

…

Last, does climate change spending directly support the general welfare?

This is where the connection is strongest, at least on paper. A stable climate benefits everyone. Cleaner air, more predictable weather, and fewer disasters serve the general good. But again, the question isn’t whether climate stability is good. The question is whether the spending directly applies to the American people, not just business interests.

Climate change funding goes toward subsidies, research grants, and corporate incentives. That may advance long-term goals, but it bypasses the people who need it most today. If general welfare means improving the daily well-being of Americans through health, housing, food, and mobility, then climate spending should be measured by whether it helps people live better lives now, not just maybe someday.

While the goal of climate action may align with general welfare in principle, we judge the spending by its outcomes. If it lifts the many, it belongs. If it benefits the few, it doesn’t. The Constitution does not support spending money to benefit only a subset of America.

…

So…we’ve considered our six national goals. It’s difficult to argue that climate change spending strongly supports any of them. And spending half a trillion dollars on any item should never be loosely tied to the Constitution.

Let’s move on to our next example: first-time homebuyer housing.

First-Time Homebuyer Housing

Let’s apply the same constitutional test to another issue: first-time homebuyer housing. Unlike squishy climate change spending, this one’s easier to track.

Does it promote union? Yes. A nation of homeowners is a nation of stakeholders. Homeownership strengthens the social contract by giving people something to lose and protect.

Does it serve justice? Absolutely. This one is rock solid. Justice is access to opportunity. If a child grows up in a trailer or a crowded apartment and has no path to owning a home, then we’ve failed to deliver the kind of justice our Constitution demands.

Does it contribute to domestic tranquility? Yes. When people can afford stable housing, they’re less likely to fall into desperation. That means lower crime rates and stronger communities.

Liberty and defense…maybe. But the connection isn’t as strong as justice and order.

Does it promote the general welfare? Without question. Affordable housing improves health, education, employment, and civic participation. It’s one of the most direct, measurable investments in national well-being we can make.

Compared with climate change spending, obligating funds for first-time homebuyer housing has a strong connection to Constitutional goals.

So…what’s the path?

We need to apply the SBIR model, Small Business Innovation Research, to the housing market.

Right now, the USDA has an SBIR program under Rural and Community Development. It’s already authorized to fund technologies that improve life in rural America. But their scope is too narrow. They fund maybe someday research programs instead of spending funds that benefit Americans today.

Instead of this narrow scope, USDA needs to earmark part of that funding every year, in every state, specifically for innovation in small, affordable homes across rural America.

At the same time, we need legislative action to create a parallel SBIR program under Housing and Urban Development. Urban America has empty lots, abandoned warehouses, and entire blocks that need purpose. HUD should drive innovation in cities, spearheading ways to build affordable homes, not just funding old methods with higher price tags.

The SBIR model works. It rewards innovation. It scales good ideas. Phase I grants can fund design concepts, including modular homes, prefabricated units, and even reclaimed shipping containers. Phase II can fund prototype builds. And the best designs should win support, not just by cost or materials, but by outcome.

Aligning first-time homebuyer housing with Constitutional goals would be a sure win for the American people.

Who’s Writing Project 2029?

These were just two examples; climate change spending and first-time homebuyer housing.

But every policy deserves the same scrutiny. Tariffs. Criminal justice. Corporate subsidies. Food assistance. Each one must answer clearly: Which constitutional goal does it serve?

If a policy doesn’t support union, justice, domestic tranquility, liberty, common defense, or general welfare, it doesn’t belong.

This isn’t only about constitutional fidelity. It’s about purpose. Without a clear purpose, America drifts. Project 2025 provided a clear, but dangerously incomplete, blueprint. If we reject its narrow vision, it’s our responsibility to create something better.

So, we have a willful choice.

We can continue reacting to chaos rather than shaping order. We can continue engaging in political theater. Or we can commit our precious time and effort to building a lasting, purposeful framework. A framework that serves all Americans, not just the powerful.

So…who’s writing Project 2029?

May God bless the United States of America.

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We Say We Believe in Justice. But We’ve Stopped Asking What That Actually Means.

Some say it means equality. Others, freedom. Some try to manage it with policy. Others trust the market to sort it out. We argue. We legislate. We campaign.

But half of working American families still need government help just to survive.

That’s not justice. That’s a national failure.

We’ve normalized, excused, and even celebrated this failure in partisan terms. We’ve hidden the truth.

We don’t lack resources. We lack clarity and intent. We don’t lack compassion. We lack consensus.

This isn’t about left or right. It’s about whether we still pursue the goal that founded America: justice, not for the powerful, not for the loudest voices, but for the people.

Justice for the kid in the trailer or the projects. Justice for the single mom clocking in before sunrise. Justice not through handouts, but through wages. Through dignity. Through the freedom to work and build a life.

This piece asks a hard question: If none of our political tribes is delivering justice, how do we intend to?

And we’ll offer a real answer. Not another slogan. Not another tax. Not another mandate. A real answer, starting from a truth too many have forgotten: we will only achieve justice by building consensus.

It’s a Truth as Old as Humanity Itself

We take the advantages we’re given instead of giving them away. We don’t do it out of malice. We do it for survival. Over time, that instinct shapes the systems we build. They bend toward imbalance, not because someone planned it, but because some people find the edges faster than others. And once they do, it’s not in our nature to let them go.

This is why kids born in mansions go to better schools than kids born in trailers or projects. They get better doctors, better nutrition, safer neighborhoods, and more chances. A parent in Atherton, California, zip code 94027, median home about $7.9 million, can hire a private SAT tutor at two-hundred dollars an hour.Their kids earn top scores and reach elite schools.

A kid in a single-wide works full-time while going to school full-time, if they go to school at all. And this isn’t just one zip code in California. It’s true across America.

Books written three thousand years ago ask: Should we race horses in fields of rocks? We’d cripple the horses. Should we plow the sea with a tractor? We’d flood the engine and ruin the machine.

The questions sound absurd. Yet the same book then asks why we build systems that claim to offer opportunity while stacking the odds against those who need it most.

It’s an ancient question: How do we achieve justice?

The question is even more urgent today in America. Most nations were not founded to achieve justice. Nations rose to consolidate power, defend land, unify faiths, or escape colonial rule.

But America, born at war, is different. We are unique in putting justice at the heart of our identity. Our Constitution says it plainly: “We the People… in order to establish justice… do ordain and establish this Constitution (as the foundation) for the United States of America.”

Simply put, America was founded on the idea that a kid in a trailer should have the same chance as a kid in a mansion.

That idea is justice.

America set out six national goals. The first, and most important, is justice. Justice is the end of government, the reason it exists.

We can’t claim to be conservatives, progressives, or even Americans if we ignore this truth. Justice isn’t a side goal. It’s the point.

Will Capitalism Achieve Justice?

America’s financial system is capitalist. It isn’t good or bad. It’s a tool. Capitalism drives growth, sparks innovation, and lifts our standard of living. It meets consumer demand better than any system we’ve tried.

The problems we saw earlier aren’t capitalism’s fault. They happen when markets run without enough guidance to meet society’s needs. Markets respond to incentives, not morality. People act in their self-interest. Government exists to protect people’s rights and property, and to ensure the rules serve everyone.

Because markets do not guarantee justice, government must work within markets to set conditions that create justice. When the system ignores the worker, the worker gains nothing from the system.

We work for our bread. If the financial system forgets those who sweat for that bread, we end up with no bread at all.

Or, more accurately than no bread, we end up with half of American families with parents who go to work and still need handouts from their fellow American taxpayers, according to a US Department of Health and Human Services analysis from 2023. That is the reality of America today. Some tout the programs as federal programs that slash poverty. That’s a lie.

If half of working American families need government support to survive, that isn’t success. It’s proof we’ve failed to achieve our nation’s primary goal. But some celebrate this failure and keep the handouts coming.

It’s not the fault of those families. They are working families. But because we have failed to set conditions that allow American families to earn their bread, they cannot earn enough without government assistance.

So… America was founded to establish justice, and on the freedom to pursue self-interest and protect property. Bring those two ideas together, and a simple truth follows:

Every American, whether they grow up in a mansion or a trailer, must have a real chance to work, earn, and shape a life of their choosing. That is the promise of a just society.

If It Were Easy to Achieve Justice, We Would Already Have Done So

Republicans call for relying on the markets. But we will not achieve justice by relying only on the free market. Markets are great at many things: allocating resources, driving innovation, rewarding efficiency. But markets chase profit, not fairness. Justice requires intention and design. We must look beyond what markets reward, and instead focus on what an American family needs: food on the table and heat in the house through wages: real wages, not handouts.

Some think they’re kings, but we will not achieve justice through Executive Orders. They’re fleeting. They don’t last. They don’t demonstrate leadership. One president signs them in; the next one signs them out. Back and forth, election after election, no stability. We can’t build justice on paperwork that disappears with the next election.

Those who believe in government call for more rules. But we will not achieve justice through unfunded mandates. Mandates like raising the federal minimum wage sound righteous on paper. They promise higher wages, safer workplaces, better benefits. But government mandates arrive without resources to make them work. Small businesses run on tight margins. If we demand higher wages without helping businesses raise revenue, we ask them to defy economic gravity. When they can’t, they fail. We must give small businesses tools to succeed, even as we lift workers.

Socialists call to tax the wealthy. But we will not achieve justice through taxes. Taxes are necessary. They pay for roads, schools, defense, and the core functions of government. But if our strategy for justice starts and ends with taxing the wealthy, we’ll wait forever. Even if we taxed billionaires out of existence, most of that money would vanish into bureaucracy long before reaching a struggling family. Government-funded bureaucracy spends money managing poverty, not ending it.

Democrats call for social equality. But we will not achieve justice by dying on the hill of democracy. Justice does not mean equality. Some people will always earn more. Some will work longer hours, take greater risks, build businesses, invent tools, or manage others. And some will simply be luckier. That’s liberty. Not something to erase, but something to extend. We can’t reduce the advantages of the successful. Instead, we must expand the conditions that created their success, so others can follow the same path.

So… how will we achieve justice?

Focus on the Goal

We will only achieve justice through consensus. We are a nation of competing interests. Inside one state, many might agree. But across coastal states, the Great Plains, the mountains, and the Mississippi River basin, needs differ.

A policy that works in San Francisco might break a family business in rural Nebraska. A rule written for Wall Street might choke a rancher in Montana. One size does not fit fifty states.

Justice isn’t about uniformity; it’s about legitimacy. That means people across regions, backgrounds, and ideologies must see themselves in the outcome. We don’t need to erase differences. We need to build common ground.

And the place to begin is with agreement. Agreement on a goal. A simple, measurable idea most Americans still believe in: if you work, you should be able to provide for yourself and your family without government help.

It’s not a partisan idea. It’s a promise of justice. It’s the primary goal of America.

To fulfill it, we need a system that rewards employers for paying livable wages, not one that punishes workers with dependency when the market fails them.

So, how do we build that consensus?

Business Taxes in America are Low. But They’re Not Low Enough

Democrats say the answer to poverty is raising taxes to fund the government. They rage against cutting business taxes.

Here’s the truth: business taxes in America are low. But they’re not low enough. Not low enough for businesses that actually help us achieve our national goals.

We need real prosperity for working Americans. Not temporary patches, not programs that hide failure with handouts, and not policies that pile debt onto our children. If that’s the goal, then we must build a system that rewards the right behavior.

Consider the champion of Democratic leadership: President Franklin D. Roosevelt. FDR’s success didn’t come from control. He aligned incentives for businesses and individuals alike. He showed how the right incentives could rally a nation. And in doing so, he set a persuasive precedent for incentivized wage policy today.

Democratic leaders have forgotten his example.

Today, we tax businesses that pay livable wages. We tax businesses that provide healthcare. We tax businesses whose employees don’t need food stamps or Medicaid.

Meanwhile, businesses paying poverty wages shift their labor costs onto taxpayers. Their workers survive only because we pay through programs like SNAP, Medicaid, and the Earned Income Tax Credit. That cost isn’t small.Means-tested welfare spending approaches one trillion dollars a year.

So yes, business taxes in America are low. But they’re not low enough for the right businesses.

Using FDR’s example, we should flip the logic. If a business pays every worker a livable wage, it shouldn’t pay any federal tax at all. Because that business is already doing its part. It’s meeting the national goal: food on the table and heat in the house for every working American, without government assistance.

If we want a system that works, we need to stop taxing virtue and start taxing failure.

That’s what we mean when we say: business taxes in America are low.But they’re not low enough.

Wages in America are High. But They’re Not High Enough

Republicans argue that the solution to poverty lies in the free market. They say workers must make themselves more valuable, and that government action only distorts the market and slows growth.

But here’s the truth: wages in America are high. They’re just not high enough for families to support themselves without help.

We can’t support the idea that every American must work for their bread, then defend a system where millions work full-time and still go hungry.

We can’t say we value dignity and then ask working Americans to rely on handouts. We can’t say we believe in liberty and then block the conditions that allow a man or woman to earn enough to choose their own path. If labor has value, and it does, then all workers must be paid enough to reflect the cost of living in the country they support.

Consider the champion of Republican leadership: President Abraham Lincoln. He understood we couldn’t support this contradiction. Some claim Lincoln didn’t lead the fight for labor rights. In fact, Lincoln led the fight for the right of enslaved workers to be paid at all.

Lincoln didn’t need a modern welfare state to tell him that sweat deserves bread. He believed every worker, free or born enslaved, should see a path to prosperity.

Today, we subsidize businesses that underpay their workers. We tax businesses that take care of their workers. We spend nearly a trillion dollars each year dealing with the consequences of low wages, and then fight about whether social programs are bloated or broken.

We’ve missed the point.

The point isn’t whether we should have social programs. The point is justice.It’s whether our system reflects our stated values: that work has dignity, and every American who works should live without government aid.

If we believe people should work and provide for their families, the system should reward that work with enough to live, without handouts.

Wages in America are high. But they’re not high enough for half of American families to thrive without help.

With This Ring, I Thee Wed…

America is a union of states and individuals who live in those states. Like any marriage or partnership, a union lasts only if it’s built on commitment. And commitment demands we focus on what matters most.

We shouldn’t fixate on whether business taxes are too high or too low.

We shouldn’t argue over whether certain jobs "deserve" a living wage.

We shouldn’t let debates over social programs distract us from deeper truths.

These debates feel urgent. But they miss the point.

America wasn’t founded to preserve tax codes or pick economic winners. It was founded with a purpose, and that purpose was justice. Justice is our founding promise and enduring challenge. If we are to keep our union and remain Americans in more than name, justice must be our shared goal.

So… back to the question that opened this conversation:

How do we achieve justice?

We clarify our purpose. We incentivize progress on both sides. We build consensus to move toward the goal, even if we must sacrifice the method.

We won’t all agree on the path. But we can agree on the destination.

May God bless the United States of America.

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Americans Struggle Today with how Openly our Leaders Should Express Their Faith

I had a buddy growing up. His name was Emmett.

He wasn’t a classmate. He was much older than I was. One of those men from the Greatest Generation who made time for a kid who asked too many questions.

Few of us really know the stories of most of the people in our lives. And until I interviewed him for a Junior High grammar class assignment for Mrs. Adams, all I knew about Emmett was that he greeted me every Sunday in my small country church with a smile on his face.

I knew some details before the interview. Emmett Donovan. Born in Monroe County, Missouri. Carpenter by trade. Long-time deacon at the First Baptist Church. He had a second refrigerator in his garage where his lifelong bride, Hazel, let him keep his fishing worms.

I learned a lot about Emmett in that interview.

He was the only kid from Monroe County to board a boat in England on June 4th, 1944, bound for Normandy to fight Nazi Germany.

The weather across the channel was dicey. The operation delayed a day because of it, but there were too many soldiers to unload the boats. It would have taken too long. They had to stay an extra day on the boats, waiting. They played cards. Wrote letters. Tried to keep their spirits high. Emmett had married Hazel in 1937. She was on his mind, and he on hers.

The weather cleared up enough to try the assault on June 6.

At 2300 hours on June 5, paratroopers started taking off from their bases in England.

At midnight, June 6, the Allied Fleet pushed off. Five hours later, dawn bled into gray.

In the darkness just before dawn, the men had spent almost a full two days aboard the ships. The rough English Channel tossed the vessels to and fro. Many men were ill from seasickness and nerves. They knew they would not all survive and return home to America.

Sunrise in Normandy, France, came at 5:46 AM local time that day. From the boats, the men could see a faint outline of where they were going, but no clear view of what awaited them.

Landing craft carrying the first wave launched from the larger vessels about seven to 12 miles offshore. From aboard these landing craft, the faint outline of the coast was visible in the near dawn light.

But by 0530, the Germans absolutely knew something big was happening. Just after midnight, over 13,000 US and British paratroopers had dropped behind enemy lines. German units in Normandy were engaging paratroopers. German radios reported landings and firefights throughout the night.

Allied bombers, fighters, and gliders filled the night sky, lit by the flicker of explosions below.

Now, in the early morning, German radar and lookouts tracked an armada of ships. German defenses saw glimpses of the landing craft through the rough sea chop and the fog.

Not every landing craft made it to shore.

The sea was violent that morning. The swells were high. Beach obstacles and mines sank some boats. Artillery hit others before they ever touched sand. Engines failed. Men jumped into water over their heads and drowned under the weight of their packs. All under heavy German fire.

The obstacles and fires damaged, misguided, or destroyed hundreds of landing craft before they could reach their designated beaches. Omaha was the worst of the five landing zones. Nearly half the tanks sank before firing a shot. Some landing craft circled for too long, disoriented in smoke and chaos, and ran aground.

Emmett’s boat made it. But that didn’t mean it went well.

He jumped into the water, rifle held high, and slowly waded in heavy water toward the beach. On his way toward his objective, Emmett stopped to provide first aid to a fallen soldier on the beach. It was bad. He told me he tried to help the soldier put himself back together. But with bullets cracking around him, there wasn’t much he could do.

Allied forces paid a high price. Two-thirds of some initial landing units suffered casualties. Company A of the 116th Infantry Regiment, part of the 29th Division, hit Omaha Beach first. In just the first hour, 96% became casualties, a grim testament to the brutality of that morning.

Emmett would achieve his objective. Behind him, wave after wave of Allied troops poured onto the beaches, clawing out a foothold, marking the beginning of the end for Nazi Germany.

As a reward, Emmett had the pleasure of going on to fight at the Battle of the Bulge.

To the credit of many, America would help defeat fascism and liberate Europe from Nazi Germany.

After the war, Emmett returned home to his small country town. He and Hazel would stay married for 61 years. They had two sons and three grandchildren. She passed away when he was 85. He would survive her for 12 more years.

Many years later, as a young boy, I only saw him act with grace and dignity. He was always quick with a smile and a handshake.

He didn’t talk about politics or pride. Had you not known and asked about his experience, he would not have told you. You would have assumed he had lived his entire life in a little Missouri town.

He had a quiet faith. He was a proud member of his congregation, but he didn’t talk much about it.

I’ve never forgotten that interview. I was just a Junior High student. And like most kids, I didn’t ask enough of the right questions. He remembered the beach vividly. The chaos. The noise. The man he tried to help.

But if I could sit with Emmett again today, I’d ask about the hours before that.

What was he thinking about on the boat? Did he write a letter to Hazel? Did he stare out at the gray horizon, wondering if he would see her again?

I’ll never know. But knowing him later in life, I believe he carried something more than fear. Duty, maybe. The quiet strength of his generation.

I believe a strong component of his grace and dignity came from his faith.

Emmett and Hazel weren’t the only Americans praying that day.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s June 6th Address

1944 was a time of hand-wringing across the country. We worried about our nation’s sons and daughters fighting in Europe and the Pacific. When people worry, they turn to the Almighty. When they turn to the Almighty, they pray.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s calendar on June 6, 1944, detailed only one appointment. Invasion Day.

The FDR Library says that “During the tense early hours of the invasion, FDR monitored reports from the front. That evening, he delivered a statement to the American people. It took the form of a prayer, which he read on national radio.”

FDR sought to offer the nation strength with a heartfelt address.

“My fellow Americans: Last night, when I spoke with you about the fall of Rome, I knew at that moment that troops of the United States and our allies were crossing the Channel in another and greater operation. It has come to pass with success thus far.

And so, in this poignant hour, I ask you to join with me in prayer:

Almighty God: Our sons, pride of our Nation, this day have set upon a mighty endeavor, a struggle to preserve our Republic, our religion, and our civilization, and to set free a suffering humanity.

Lead them straight and true; give strength to their arms, stoutness to their hearts, steadfastness in their faith.

They will need Thy blessings. Their road will be long and hard. For the enemy is strong. He may hurl back our forces. Success may not come with rushing speed, but we shall return again and again; and we know that by Thy grace, and by the righteousness of our cause, our sons will triumph.

They will be sore tried, by night and by day, without rest-until the victory is won. The darkness will be rent by noise and flame. Men's souls will be shaken with the violences of war.

For these men are lately drawn from the ways of peace. They fight not for the lust of conquest. They fight to end conquest. They fight to liberate. They fight to let justice arise, and tolerance and good will among all Thy people. They yearn but for the end of battle, for their return to the haven of home.

Some will never return. Embrace these, Father, and receive them, Thy heroic servants, into Thy kingdom.

And for us at home -- fathers, mothers, children, wives, sisters, and brothers of brave men overseas -- whose thoughts and prayers are ever with them--help us, Almighty God, to rededicate ourselves in renewed faith in Thee in this hour of great sacrifice.

Many people have urged that I call the Nation into a single day of special prayer. But because the road is long and the desire is great, I ask that our people devote themselves in a continuance of prayer. As we rise to each new day, and again when each day is spent, let words of prayer be on our lips, invoking Thy help to our efforts.

Give us strength, too -- strength in our daily tasks, to redouble the contributions we make in the physical and the material support of our armed forces.

And let our hearts be stout, to wait out the long travail, to bear sorrows that may come, to impart our courage unto our sons wheresoever they may be.

And, O Lord, give us Faith. Give us Faith in Thee; Faith in our sons; Faith in each other; Faith in our united crusade. Let not the keenness of our spirit ever be dulled. Let not the impacts of temporary events, of temporal matters of but fleeting moment let not these deter us in our unconquerable purpose.

With Thy blessing, we shall prevail over the unholy forces of our enemy. Help us to conquer the apostles of greed and racial arrogancies. Lead us to the saving of our country, and with our sister Nations into a world unity that will spell a sure peace a peace invulnerable to the schemings of unworthy men. And a peace that will let all of men live in freedom, reaping the just rewards of their honest toil.

Thy will be done, Almighty God.

Amen.”

Now we are ready for our question.

If a national leader leads a prayer event, is that a violation of the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause? Specifically, the part that says the government can’t establish a religion?

Thomas Jefferson: A Case Study in the Tension Between Personal Faith and Public Office

Thomas Jefferson was a deist. A deist believes in a single creator who made the universe, set natural laws in motion, and then does not interfere with those laws through miracles or revelations.

He saw a providential Creator behind human rights but viewed organized religion and government-issued prayer as matters best kept separate.

Jefferson believed Biblical miracles were myths. He doubted the power of prayer. At the same time, he recognized humans are obliged to worship God, and he prayed publicly.

He helped draft a 1774 “day of fasting and prayer” to protest the British Intolerable Acts, then later dismissed the event and claimed that the resolution had been cooked up for political effect.

As governor of Virginia, he passed along Congress’s request for another prayer day. But as president, he flat-out refused to issue one. In an 1808 letter to Rev. Samuel Miller, he said any “recommendation” from the chief executive would still carry pressure and that “it is not for the interest of religion to invite the civil magistrate to direct its exercises.”

Then, in his Second Inaugural address, President Jefferson said…

“I shall need, too, the favor of that Being in whose hands we are … and to whose goodness I ask you to join with me in supplications.”

No contradiction there, in his eyes. A president may pray aloud as a private believer, and at the same time refuse to command government power to stage a national fast.

Jefferson’s view became the foundation for religion in America. Freedom of religion and freedom from religion.

First, freedom of religion. A president, or any other American, may kneel in a church, chant in a temple, light a menorah, face Mecca, or follow any creed they choose.

Second, freedom from religion. We may skip worship altogether. No tax supports a church. A courthouse may never force a prayer. Citizenship never hinges on belief.

That distinction, personal expression versus official endorsement, became the core of our modern Establishment Clause test. It is why FDR’s D-Day prayer passed muster, and why a leader may still pray in public. The invitation must be voluntary.

At the same time, FDR’s address offended some Americans who believed we had no role in World War II. Isolationists urged that we ought to stay out of the war and continued to resent US intervention even after the attacks on Pearl Harbor. Pacifists lamented the tragedy of humanity and urged prayer for deliverance instead of military action. Activists objected to the prayer. When Congress later tried to add the D-Day prayer to the WWII Memorial, the ACLU and an interfaith/atheist coalition wrote that the plaque demonstrated a lack of respect for religious diversity that would detract from national unity.

So…what’s it going to be?

Lead with Grace and Dignity

Emmett understood better than most of us ever will that grace and dignity must lead us.

The separation of church and state isn’t about eliminating faith from public life. Faith cannot be government coercion. It is personal conviction.

Emmett, like Jefferson and Roosevelt, demonstrated that strength doesn’t impose itself. It reveals itself quietly, in dignity, humility, and quiet confidence.

When a national leader prays voluntarily in public, rather than immediately claiming a First Amendment violation, we should respond as Emmett would, with grace and dignity.

In truth, Emmett’s quiet faith, Roosevelt’s prayer, and Jefferson’s wall aren’t about religion at all.

Our greatest responsibility isn’t to defend what we believe or correct what we think is wrong in others. Greatness never comes from insisting others share our beliefs. Greatness comes from humility, courageously living our beliefs ourselves.

May God bless the United States of America.

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June 21, 1788.

New Hampshire becomes the ninth state to ratify the Constitution, activating the new government and binding America to a single compact.

Our Republic is dedicated to the premise that we are created equal. We fought a war to escape a king. We ratified a Constitution to rule ourselves. The Constitution is a contract between states. We can sum up the foundational basis of that contract in one word…

Trust.

Each sovereign state pledges to certify its vote and accept the certifications of every other. If that handshake fails, the Union fails.

Trust demands proof. How do we make every voter, every state official, and every member of Congress accept the tally as fact?

January 6, 2021

Tear gas. Pepper spray. Flashbang grenades.

The cameras didn’t miss a moment. Two thousand protesters from nearly every state turned into rioters. The floor of the House emptied. Staff members grabbed the mahogany boxes that, since 1877, have held the certified electoral votes of each state. They ran.

The count stopped.

Photojournalist and Marine veteran Chris Jones at the Capitol Building that day observed that “The looks in people’s eyes seemed religious to me, not political. So it was important for me to use that iconography in my pictures, to talk about how people do things for their faith that they wouldn’t do for their politics.”

For most Americans, the counting of votes had always been a formality. It wasn’t exciting. It wasn’t dramatic. It was supposed to be boring. That’s the point of a stable system.

But not on January 6.

The nation watched in horror as the institution of the American democratic Republic lost trust in itself.

That day, the count became the crisis. Some stormed the Capitol because they believed the tally was rigged. Others defended the building because they believed the tally was sacred. While the crisis was unfolding, a precious few, but enough, stood firm and did their duty to preserve the Republic. We owe them a debt of gratitude.

No matter our opinion of the facts of the legitimacy of the vote or the cause for the distrust. Either way, something broke. The numbers no longer spoke with authority. Many Americans believed they no longer trusted the count.

And the problem persists. In 2024, the FBI warned that foreign actors continue trying to undermine Americans’ trust in elections through disinformation. The fracture isn’t healing. It’s spreading.

Somewhere along the way, the foundation of the institution cracked.

January 6 wasn’t just an isolated moment of chaos. It revealed something deeper. Something dangerous. Trust in the vote itself fractured. That fracture didn’t heal when the building cleared. It’s a live threat today. Without trust, our elections lose their meaning. Without trust, our Republic crumbles from the inside.

Trust demands proof.

We Are One Nation Because We Are a Union of States

The Constitution isn’t a rulebook. It’s a contract between states that each state agreed to sign. As a part of the contract, New York agreed it would accept a certified count from Alabama. Wyoming agreed to trust the vote in California. Ohio agreed they can’t override Georgia’s tally just because it doesn’t like the outcome.

Article II, Section 1, Clause 2 of this Constitutional contract outlines that each state decides how to choose its electors, based on whatever method its legislature sets. Article I, Section 4, Clause 1 identifies that states and not a federal authority govern the times, places, and manner of their elections.

In short, states decide their vote. Not the federal government.

Congress does retain some authority to intervene and standardize practices to ensure consistency and protect voting rights, but only because the states amended the contract to give Congress this authority. Every state later agreed voting rights could not be denied by race (15th Amendment), sex (19th), failure to pay poll taxes (24th), or age over eighteen (26th).

Bottom line. Each state runs its own election. That’s not a flaw. That’s the design. When we ratified the Constitution, we had just fought with everything we had to win a war against a king, and we weren’t about to give the keys to another one.

We decided that no one person in Washington, or even a group of people, would manage elections. We gave that power to the states. But inherent in that power is responsibility. States agreed that once a result was certified, the rest of the country would accept it.

We didn’t personally sign the Constitution, but every Election Day, we delegate our voice to whoever wins, and we live with their choices. That’s representative governance. Institutions endure because each generation inherits them unless it chooses to dismantle them. Without that carry-forward consent, fifty states would drift apart and the Union would fracture. Trust in the contract, then, is necessary for national survival.

When one state casts doubt on another’s election, or when Congress or the President threaten to reject results a state has already decided, the entire structure starts to crack.

The states don’t all have to agree. We never could anyway. But we have to trust each other and accept the vote from other states. Without trust, the contract collapses.

Trust demands proof. How would we prove the results of elections?

The Technology Test

With mass elections, we face two different vulnerabilities. Both are technology-based. There is paper, and there are machines.

Some call to rely on paper ballots. But paper ballots, counted by hand or scanned, carry a human burden. Humans make lots of mistakes. We are slow. We scale poorly. We are prone to fatigue, bias, and clerical error.

The weakness of paper ballots isn’t in the vote itself; it’s in the count. Large-scale studies show hand counts differ half a percent to two percent from audited totals. Some one-off experiments collapse entirely. Nye County, Nevada’s 2022 “full hand count” logged a discrepancy of nearly twenty-five percent between manual and machine tallies before the state shut it down. Even the low end, half a percent, would swing 25,000 votes in a five-million-ballot state. That gap alone can decide a close race. In the 2020 election, President Biden won the vote in the state of Georgia by 12,000 votes. Arizona, 10,000. Wisconsin, 20,000. Trust demands proof.

The more complex the recount, the more faith we have to place in people. Humans perform poorly on repetitive, tedious tasks.

So, if we want to maintain trust, a human count isn’t proof.

Digital machines offer a different problem. They are fast. They scale beautifully. But their weakness is perception. They aren’t transparent.

If they’re connected to the internet even once, they open the door to doubt. A single confirmed breach, or even a plausible story of one, is enough to rupture confidence. If people believe the machines can be tampered with, they no longer trust the count. A machine count where we can’t see behind the curtain isn’t proof.

So we have a tradeoff. Paper risks accuracy and timeliness. Machines risk legitimacy.

Both fail the test because they can’t answer the central question.

Can they prove the result?

Maybe there’s another way. Trust demands proof. To fix trust, we need a new standard. One that we already apply when the stakes are life or death.

I Am Become Death, the Destroyer of Worlds

Few systems achieve the high standard of societal trust. These systems have zero‑failure tolerance because the stakes are civilization‑level.

Let’s think about how we certify weapons platforms that carry nuclear warheads. Each platform must achieve nuclear certification before it becomes active.

Nuclear certification isn’t a casual process. We subject those systems to a standard of review that assumes one tiny mistake could end civilization. When the cost of failure is existential, that system must meet a no-failure bar. Every bolt, every microchip, every software patch.

The standard is a transparent reliability rate of fewer than one error in one billion events. The 1-in-1-billion benchmark is not a metaphor; it comes straight from official federal nuclear safety guidelines. DOE Order 452.1F and DOD guidance require that the probability of an accidental or unauthorized nuclear detonation remain below this threshold.

If our election system counted 160 million votes with the same reliability, it would permit fewer than one single miscounted ballot. Practically zero. “Good-enough” paper or opaque machines fall short. That is the cost of keeping legitimacy non-negotiable.

The nuclear certification process is slow, rigorous, and unforgiving. Why? Because when the stakes are existential, “good enough” isn’t enough.

An election collapse threatens the Republic with equal finality. Once voters stop trusting the count, they stop trusting the system. At that point, we’re not debating the process. Just like we did on January 6, 2021, we watch in horror as some challenge the continuity of the Republic itself.

In short, instead of choosing between paper ballots and machines that count behind a curtain, we should hold vote-counting systems to the same standard we use for nuclear weapons platforms.

A nuclear weapons-grade election system means air-gapped hardware that’s never connected to the internet. No remote access, ever. Open-source, frozen code base. An immutable paper backup for every ballot. A public, mathematically verifiable audit trail. Continuous independent surveillance and testing. Tamper detection alerts. A public record briefing to each state’s election body detailing every abnormal event. Full transparency.

Engineers test, states see the data, and voters can download the report. A continuous loop from opaque process to transparent, verifiable record.

No more challenging the legitimacy of elections.

No more threatening the legitimacy of the Republic.

Results everyone can see and prove. Trust demands proof. If we already use this zero-failure standard to protect lives, shouldn’t we use it to protect our democratic Republic itself?

If the Republic lives on trust, shouldn’t trust deserve our decisive effort?

Yes, a zero-failure system is expensive. But the question is bigger than price.

We already spend fortunes to protect the Republic’s borders. We should spend what it takes to protect the Republic’s integrity.

Preserving the Union is our first national goal. That Union lives or dies on public faith in the count. Lose that faith, and no army can save us.

Union is not the absence of conflict; it is the shared burden of conflict. We win and lose together, and we accept the result together.

Union depends on trust. Without trust, we risk permanent fracture.

Trust demands proof.

May God bless the United States of America.

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