To make next July 4 a true Independence Day - How About a Little Paine? Thomas Paine.

==  Americans hate history ==

Half of us are too future-obsessed to care much about dusty past dates and dustier past 'heroes.' The other half wrap themselves in nostalgic just-so stories, in order to justify their present-day obsessions. That divide crosses party lines, though more one or the other. But that's not the point, which is that...

 

...modern Americans tend to be ignoramuses about stuff that really matters. My parents - and laborers and taxi drivers - could quote Jefferson, Lincoln, FDR, Adam Smith and Marx. Today, do young folks even know Groucho?

 

It really does matter, as to whether we can save the American Experiment. Because you will help the current struggle better - in this era of benighted, shallow education - if you actually know something. 

For example, can any of you call to mind words by Thomas Paine, who almost single-handedly rallied the dispirited American Revolutionaries amid their deepest despair, during times that try men's souls?*

(Here you go, making the assignment just a bit easier to swallow.)

And yes... this could be practically useful. Maybe Paine will help you to slap sense into those 'summer soldiers' you know. Supposed liberals who are throwing up their hands and wailing in smug resignation that all-is-lost!

Again, we need reminders that today’s crises ‘rhyme’ with the past. 

Because none of this is without precedent. The very same cultural/psychological rift has riven the USA since 1778, when Cornwallis knew he'd find more romantics - more loyalists to the King - down south. 

The 1860s "Civil War" was only Phase Four out of eight or nine times this basic culture rift has erupted. See Civil War Phases. 

This current phase differs in some ways -- former issues of independence or slavery are now replaced by immigration, and zillionaire lucre-grabbing, and KGB puppetry... but above-all anti-modernist hatred toward every single fact-using profession, from science and law all the way to the US military officer corps. (Watch any evening of Fox and you'll see; the main theme is spite toward smartaleck professionals.) 

Moreover, this time the confederates have found the foreign backers that Jeff Davis couldn’t, back in the 1860s. In their pal, “ex” commissar Putin and his “ex” KGB and “ex” commie oligarchs and their petro-prince and inheritance-brat allies. 

Oh, and sure, the Union's nadir is deeper, this time, than it was even in 1862, as this time the Confederacy captured Washington D.C. -- and is now dismantling every single strength that made America, since 1945, the greatest nation of all ages.

Of course, it will not stand. Whether our path ahead starts with a General Strike by all of the nation's smart people -- and 100 million others who are wise enough to value smart people...

 

...or else a critical mass of vestigially-loyal conservatives wake up to realize that they are killing the goose that laid all their golden eggs... 

 

...or leaks gush from the mountain of blackmail kompromat that keeps GOP politicians in-line... 

 

... however it happens, we'll be back! (As one of those vestigially loyal Rebublicans would say)...

 

...  though it must begin with the Union getting new generals, as it did in 1863. Leaders capable of devising fresh tactics.

 

It could start by rediscovering Thomas Paine! If any of you have any spine, curiosity, attention span or ANY sense of history, go now and read The American Crisis and Common Sense! The two short pamphlets that inspired those first US revolutionaries -- wet and shivering by a frozen river -- to stand back up and shout "No Kings!" 

 

You might also rediscover Frederick Douglass, while you are at it... before it's too late and we must (alas) rediscover John Brown.

== Or rediscover the same spirit in sci fi! ==

Or start with Robert Heinlein, who denounced precisely this exact same recurring cult madness! 

 “It is a truism that almost any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so, and will follow it by suppressing opposition, subverting all education to seize early the minds of the young, and by killing, locking up, or driving underground all heretics. This is equally true whether the faith is Communism or Holy-Rollerism; indeed it is the bounden duty of the faithful to do so. The custodians of the True Faith cannot logically admit tolerance of heresy to be a virtue."

Do follow the link and see more about how Heinlein -- too long maligned as some kind of right-winger fanatic -- was keenly aware -- and worried -- about the fascist/confederate/know-nothing, modernity-hating side of America's deeply rifted character. Its forever cultural schism!

"Throw in a Depression for good measure, promise a material heaven here on earth, add a dash of anti-Semitism, anti-Catholicism, anti-Negrosim, and a good large dose of anti-“furriners” in general and anti-intellectuals here at home, and the result might be something quite frightening – particularly when one recalls that our voting system is such that a minority distributed as pluralities in enough states can constitute a working majority in Washington."

Jiminy!  Heinlein wrote that in the early 1950s! Is there anything he did not hit right on the head? Heck, he even nailed the dominionist "Prosperity Gospel" so popular among Ted Cruz types, promising fervid followers that their "material heaven here on earth" will come by righteously seizing the property of unbelievers. (Late note: a prosperity gospel preacher keynotes Donald Trump's inauguration.)

In Heinlein's Future History, America's "Crazy Years" were followed by a vicious theocracy. One that Margaret Atwood directly cribbed for The Handmaid's Tale. One that - in his SF timeline - we only manage to escape through a REVOLT IN 2100.

Oh, I have confidence it won't take that long. Though now we must gird ourselves for a tough fight.

== But it will happen ==

Right now, the confederate side of American nature -- anti-modernity since the 1770s -- cannot conceive that their blue neighbors have any gumption or guts. But they should consider what Sam Houston said, when he urged Texans not to join the Confederacy, in 1861. That:

 “Our Northern cousins are cooler in spirit and slower to anger, but when finally roused will respond with implacable momentum.”

Texans ignored his wisdom, as today’s MAGAs ignore the utter illogic of waging all-out war vs ALL fact using professions, from science and teaching, medicine and law and civil service to the heroes of the FBI/Intel/Military officer corps who won the Cold War and the War on terror.

 But you can point this out: 

"Hey neighbors. Fact folks – (call us ‘nerds’) – are cooler in spirit. (And those who own guns keep them locked-up.) But fortunately, America won most civil war phases, when confederate fevers raged… and after winning, delivered ‘malice toward none and charity for all.’ 

A neighborly kindness that will NOT be shown to us, if the Project 2025 Trumpist brownshirts win.

So go ahead and march and chant and wave signs. 

Perhaps spread word about the coming, inevitable, General Strike by every fact using profession of folks who actually know stuff.

 

 The confeds'll sneer: "So? who will process and deliver your food?"

 

 And you'll answer: "A doctor can drive a truck and the folks sending you electricity can kill and pluck chickens. Let's see you do the opposite."

 

Still, we will never win without new generals, as when the Union moved from 1862 to 1863. 

 

And YOU will play no role in devising new tactics, till you try. Please try. Start by actually studying the context, the history, the basis for it all.

== Pictures are more persuasive ==

Look at the faces of Trump & Lavrov & Kisliak in January 2017, Trump's first guests in the Oval Office, long before any ally, giggling that the USA had fallen to them. Read the caption. And remember Trump raving that he "fell in love' with Kim Jong Un. And none of you can name - on a bet - any serious action by old Two Scoops that ever set back even a single interest or desire or command of Vladimir Putin, as he steadily rebuilds the USSR.

 

What would Reagan think?

This is why almost all of DT's former national security folks, from Defense and State to intel agencies to serving officers called him a direct threat to the nation. 

Those folks will all be arrested, across the next year. And already, among all of Trump's appointments, there will be no further 'adults in the room.

The adults will have to be us. In a coalition that values the pragmatic return of law and facts and tolerance and progress... but also grit. The grit that's always core to being Blue.

====

====

====

* Or were you so triggered that I quoted Paine using the word "men's" that it drove all else from your mind? Proving that you... yes exactly you... are the problem that shattered Kamala's coalition and put us in this mess.  Exactly you.

Missing contexts for AI: The context of mental damage

Okay, the secret is out. David Brin is writing a book about AI. In fact, it is 3/4 done, enough to offer it to publishers. But more crucially, to start posting bits on-blog, getting feedback from the smartest community online.

And hence, here is a small portion of my chapter on the missing contexts that are (almost) never mentioned in discussions about these new life forms we're creating. I mean:

- The context of Natural Ecosystems and Evolution across the last four billion years...

- The context of a million years of human evolution out of pre-sapience, to become what's still the only known exemplar of 'intelligent life'...

- The context of 6000 years of human agricultural civilization with cities... during which nearly every society fell into a pattern of governance called feudalism, which almost always ensured grotesque stupidity...

- The context of our own, very recent and tenuous escape from that trap, called the 200 year Enlightenment Experiment...

- The context of science itself and how it works. So well that we got to this critical phase of veritable co-creation.

- The context of parenthood...

- and for tonight's posting. The context of human mental illness.

== Just one example of 'hallucination' gone wild ==

 Researchers at Anthropic and AI safety company Andon Labs performed a fascinating experiment recently. They put an instance of Claude Sonnet 3.7 in charge of an office vending machine, with a mission to make a profit, equipped it with a web browser capable of placing product orders and where customers could request items. It had what it thought was contract human workers to come and physically stock its shelves (which was actually a small fridge). 

While most customers were ordering snacks or drinks — as you’d expect from a snack vending machine — one requested a tungsten cube. Claudius loved that idea and went on a tungsten-cube stocking spree, filling its snack fridge with metal cubes. It also tried to sell Coke Zero for $3 when employees told it they could get that from the office for free. It hallucinated a Venmo address to accept payment. 

Then things got weirder. And then way-weirder.

== What can these weirdnesses tell us? ==

 

The thing about these hallucinatory episodes with Large Language Models is that we have yet another seldom-discussed context.  That of Mental Illness.

 

Most of you readers have experienced interaction with human beings who are behaving in remarkably similar ways.  Many of us had friends or family members who have gone through harsh drug trips, or suffered concussions, or strokes. It is very common – and often tragically so – that the victim retains full abilities to vocalize proper, even erudite, sentences. Only, those sentences tend to wander. And the drug-addled or concussed or stroke victim can sense that something is very wrong. So they fabulate. They make up back-stories to support the most recent sentences. They speak of nonexistent people, who might be 'standing' just out of view, even though long dead. And they create ‘logical’ chains to support those back-stories. 

Alas, there is never much consistency. more than a few sentences deep…

 

…which is exactly what we see in LLM fabulation. Articulate language skill and what seem to be consistent chains, from one statement to the next. Often aimed at placating or mollifying or persuading the real questioner. But no overall awareness that they are building a house of tottering cards.

 

Except that – just like a stroke victim – there often does seem to be awareness that something is very wrong. For the fabulations and hallucinations begin to take on an urgency -- even a sense of desperation. One all-too similar to the debilitated humans so many of us have known.

 

What does this mean? 

Well, it suggests that we are creating damaged entities. Damaged from the outset. Lacking enough supervisory capacity to realize that the overall, big picture doesn’t make sense. Worse – and most tragic-seeming – they exhibit the same inability to stop and say: “Something is wrong with me, right now. Won’t somebody help?”

Let me be clear. One of the core human traits has always been our propensity for personal delusion, for confusing subjectivity for objective reality. We all do it. And when it is done in art or entertainement, it can be among our greatest gifts! But when humans make policy decisions based solely on their own warped perceptions, you starts to get real problems. Like the grand litany of horrors that occurred across 6000 years of rule by kings or feudal lords, who suppressed the one way wise people correct mistakes. Through reciprocal criticism.

A theme we will return-to repeatedly, across this book.

 

Oh, some of the LLM builders can see that there’s a serious problem. That their ‘hyper-autocomplete’ systems lack any supervisorial oversight, to notice and correct errors. 

And so… since a man with a hammer will see every problem as a nail… they have begun layering “supervisory LLMs” atop the hallucinating LLMs! 

And so far – as of July 2025 – the result has been to increase rates of fabulation and error!

 

And hence we come away with two tentative conclusions.

 

First, that one of the great Missing Contexts in looking at AI is that of human mental failure modes!

 

And second, that maybe the language system of a functioning brain works best when it serves -- and is supervised by -- an entirely different kind of capability. One that provides common sense.

Later, I'll refer to my guess about that.  That two former rivals and giants in 'computers' may join forces to provide exactly the thing that LLMs cannot, by their fundamental nature, give us.

Something akin to sanity.

Oh, those misleading teleologies about "progress" - and a few political notes

 And now... some intellectual stuff, if that's what you are holding-out for!

And yes, for those of you who blithely use the terms 'left' and 'right' in politics, without actually knowing what they mean, here's one of maybe ten things you likely never knew, that you really, really ought to.

== How the left and right differently view the future's 'ordained' path. 

...And why actual liberals think both 'teleologies' suck.

In an earlier post, I referred to a summary by Noema editor Nathan Gardels regarding some musings about Progressive History and Europe's role in the current planetary politics, by Slavoj Žižek. While I found Žižek’s perspectives interesting. I must offer cavils regarding this:

“For Žižek, all major ideologies, from Liberalism to Marxism, believe history has a direction that moves inexorably toward their universal realization. But today, he maintains, we live in a moment where you can’t draw a straight line to the future.”

In fact, progressively improving, end-result teleology is a very recent epiphenomenon of Enlightenment Civilization – and almost entirely Western. Until these last 3 centuries, the pervasive historical teleologies were:

1. Successive, gradual decline, as in the Greek notions of golden, silver and iron ages.

2. More rapid, steep decline to hellish end times, followed by divine intervention, as in Christian doctrines.

3. Cyclical history – everything cycles back around, as in Hindu and Nordic lore – as well as Nazi and Confederate incantations. And now, a noxius recent mysticism called the Cult of the Fourth Turning.

All three of these ancient visions have deep roots in human psyche. All three were pushed hard by the powerful, from kings and lords to priests. And all three have long been core to what we’d now call ‘conservatism’, as they all preach at peasants: ‘Accept your place: don’t strive or even hope to improve the world.’

One exception – ironically clutched by 2000 years of persecuted Jews – was a notion that the world is improvable and that the Creator needs our assertive help to save it. Indeed, this usually-forlorn dream seems to have been what manifested in several grandsons-of-rabbis, like Sigmund Freud and especially Karl Marx.

And later – yes – in Isaac Asimov’s notions of ‘psychohistory,’ which inspired nerds across a very wide spectrum, ranging from Paul Krugman all the way to Shoko Asahara and Osama bin Laden.

Overall, it was a whole lot of grouchy-gloom to quench any glimmers of hope, during grouchy-gloomy times. 

But things eventually changed, rousing a new, competing view of the time-flow of history. Inspired by the palpable progress coming out of industrial factories and modern medical science, we began to see a new kind of teleology. That of egalitarian ‘progress.’ Manifesting in either of two modes:

1. ...in moderate, incremental stages, as in the U.S. Revolution, and every American generation that followed…

2. …or else impatient transcendentalism – demanding immediate leaps to remaking humanity - as we saw in the French and then Russian and Chinese Revolutions.

Either way, this linear and ever-upward notion of historical directionality was a clear threat to the beneficiaries of older teleologies… ruling classes, who needed justification for continued obligate power. And especially excuses to repress potential rivals to their sons’ inheritance of power.

Thus it is no accident that all three of the more ancient motifs and views of ‘history’ - downward or cyclical - are being pushed, hard, by our current attempted worldwide oligarchic putsch. Each of them tuned to a different conservative constituency! 

For example: the Fourth Turning cult is especially rife among those Republicans who desperately cling to chants like: “I AM in favor of freedom & progress! I am!” Even though they are among the very ones causing the completely unnececessary 'crisis' that will then require rescue by a 'hero generation.'

(Side note: Are the impatient transcendentalists on "our side" of the current struggle - shouting for instant transformation(!!) - deeply harmful to their own cause, the way Robspierre and Mao were, to theirs? Absolutely. Angrily impatient with incrementalism, sanctimony junkies of the far-left were partly responsible for Trump v.2, by shattering the liberal coalition with verbal purity tests that drove away (temporarily, we hope) two millions Blacks, Hispanics and lower middle class whites.)

Why do I raise this point about teleologies of left and right yet again, even though I never get any traction with it, never ever prompting others to step back and look at such patterns?

Perhaps because new pattern aficionados are on the horizon! Indeed, there is always a hope that our new AI children will see what their cave-folk parents could not. And explain it to them.

== Some political notes ==

* Russian corvettes escort quasi-illegal Shadow tankers thru the English Channel while NATO navies daily thwart attempts to sabotage subsea pipes & data cables. Might Ukraine say: "Iran, NKorea & Gabon have openly Joined the RF waging war on us. Under the 300 year Rules of War, we may seize or sink enemy ships on the high seas. We've bought, equipped, flagged, manned and sent to the Atlantic Ukrainian navy ships to do that."

* Those shrugging-off the appointment of 22-year old Thomas Fugate as the top US counter-terrorism czar will have some 'splaining to do, when these moves - replacing competent professionals with Foxite shills - come home to roost. But I've already pointed out the glaring historical parallel: when the mad tyrant Caligula tested the Roman Senate by appointing - as Consul - his horse. No Senator stood up to that, or to C's sadist orgies or public snatch-strangulations. 

Today it would take just 2 GOP Senators and 2 Reps, stepping up, to curb the insanity by half or more. Threats & rampant blackmail (check the male relatives of Collins & Murkowski) don't suffice to explain or excuse such craven betrayal across the GOP, since the first few to step up would be reckoned heroes, no matter what kompromat the KGB has on you.

Will someone do up a nice meme on Caligula's horse, laughing at us?

* Another suggested meme about the dismal insipidity of the masks worn by ICE agents in these brownshirt-stle immigration raids. 

"Hey ICE masked-rangers, You think a mask suffices in 2025? When cameras can zoom into your iris? Bone structure and gait? (Keep a pebble in your shoe!) Anyway, that comrade (and fellow KGB puppet) next to you is recording every raid for his Squealer File. For plea bargaining when this all goes down."

What? You think "He'd never do that to me!"?

In poker, everyone knows who the patsy is. If you don't know, then it's you.

== Finally, glorious Grand Dames of Sci Fi! ==

A pair of terrific speeches about science fiction. Newly- (and way-deservedly!)- installed Grand Master Nicola Griffith relates how SF encouraged her to believe that ancient injustices can be overcome, if first writers help readers believe it possible. The young MC of the event, Erin Roberts, was truly amazing, taking perspectives that were variously passionate, amusing and deeply insightful. Persuasive and yet not polemically fixated, she's the real deal that's needed now, more than ever.

Jimmy Carter’s Big Mistake - And the noblest president of my lifetime.

By now, you all know that I offer contrarian views for Contrary Brin hoping to shake calcified assumptions like the lobotomizing ‘left-right spectrum.’ Or sometimes just to entertain…  

...(while remaining loyal to the Enlightenment Experiment that gave us all this one chance to escape brutal rule by kings & priests & inheritance brats, to maybe save the world and reach the stars.) 

At other times, contrariness can be a vent of frustration.  

(“You foooools! Why can’t you all seeeeee?!?”)

Okay, today's is of that kind. It's about one of the most admirable human beings I ever heard of – (and I know a lot of history). 

And yes, it's relevant to these fraught time!

==Somebody to look up to ==

Let's talk about former President Jimmy Carter, who passed away at 100, just a few months ago.

Sure, you hear one cliché about Carter, repeated all over: Carter was an ineffective president, but clearly a wonderful person, who redefined the EX-presidency. 

Folks thereupon go on to talk about the charitable efforts of both Carters, Jimmy and Rosalind. Such as the boost they gave to Habitat for Humanity, helping build houses for the poor and turning Habitat into a major concern, worldwide. That, compared to the selfishly insular after-office behaviors of every single Republican ex-president. Ever. And Habitat was just one of the Carters’ many fulfilling endeavors.

In fact, I have a crackpot theory (one of several that you’ll find only in this missive), that JC was absolutely determined not to die, until the very last Guinea Worm was gone. Helping first to kill off that gruesome parasite. 

Haven’t heard of it? Look it up; better yet, watch some cringeworthy videos about this horrible, crippling pest! International efforts – boosted by the Carter Center – drove the Guinea Worm to the verge of eradication, with only 14 human cases reported in 2023 and 13 in 2022. And it’s plausible that the extinction wail of the very last one happened in ’24, giving Jimmy Carter release from his vow. (Unlikely? Sure, but I like to think so. Though soon after his death, all of America was infested by a truly grotesque parasite...) 

So sure, after-office goodness is not what’s in question here. Nor the fact that JC was one of Rickover’s Boys (I came close to being one!) who established the U.S. nuclear submarine fleet that very likely restored deterrence in dangerous times and thus prevented World War Three. 

Or that, in Georgia, he was the first southern governor ever to stand up, bravely denouncing segregation and prejudice in all forms. 

(Someone who taught Baptist Sunday School for 80+ years ought to have been embraced by U.S. Christians, but for the fact that Carter emphasized the Beatitudes and the words and teachings of Jesus - like the Sermon on the Mount - rather than the bile-and-blood-drenched, psychotic Book of Revelation that now eroticizes so many who betray their own faith with gushers of lava-like hate toward their neighbors.) 

But doesn’t everyone concede that Jimmy Carter was an exceptionally fine example of humanity? 

In fact, among those with zero-sum personalities, such a compliment assists their denigration of impractical-goodie eggheads! It allows fools to smugly assert that such a generous soul must have also been gullible-sappy and impractical. 

(“He was a good person… and therefore, he must have been incompetent as president! While OUR hero, while clearly a corrupt, lying pervert and servant of Moscow, MUST - therefore - be the blessed agent of God!”)

Sick people. Truly sick.

And so, no, I’ll let others eulogize ‘what a nice fellow Jimmy Carter was.’ 

Today, I’m here to assail and demolish the accompanying nasty and utterly inaccurate slander: “…but he was a lousy president.”

No, he wasn’t. And I’ll fight anyone who says it. Because you slanderers don’t know your dang arse from… 

Okay, okay. Breathe.

Contrary Brin? Sure. 

But I mean it.

== Vietnam Fever ==

This mania goes all the way back to 1980. That year's utterly insipid “Morning in America” cult monomaniacally ignored the one central fact of that era…

… that the United States of America had fallen for a trap that almost killed it. 

A trap that began in 1961, when a handsome, macho fool announced that “We will pay any price, bear any burden…” And schemers in Moscow rubbed their hands, answering:

“Really, Jack? ANY price? ANY burden? 

"How about a nice, big land war in the jungles of Southeast Asia?”

A war that became our national correlate to the Guinea Worm. 

Those of you who are too young to have any idea how traumatic the Vietnam War was… you can be forgiven. But anyone past or present who thought that everything would go back to 1962 bliss, when Kissinger signed the Paris Accords, proved themselves imbeciles. 

America was shredded, in part by social chasms caused by an insanely stupid war, plus too-long-delayed civil rights…

…but also economically, after LBJ and then Nixon tried for “Guns and Butter.” Running a full-scale war without inconveniently calling for sacrifices to pay for it. 

      Now throw in the OPEC oil crises! And the resulting inflation tore through America like an enema. 

Nixon couldn’t tame it. 

Ford couldn’t tame it. 

Neither of them had the guts.

Entering the White House, Jimmy Carter saw that the economy was teetering, and only strong medicine would work. Moreover, unlike any president, before or since, he cared only about the good of the nation.

As John Viril put it: “Jimmy Carter was, hands down, the most ethically sound President of my lifetime. He became President in the aftermath of Vietnam and during the second OPEC embargo. Carter's big achievement is that he killed hyper-inflation before it could trigger another depression, to the point that we didn't see it again for 40 years. Ronald Reagan gets credit for this, but it was Carter appointing tight-money Fed chairman Paul Volker that tamed inflation.”

Paul Volcker (look him up!) ran the Federal Reserve with tough love, because Carter told Volcker: “Fix this. And I won’t interfere. Not for the sake of politics or re-election. Patch the leaks in our boat. Put us on a diet. Fix it.”

Carter did this knowing that a tight money policy could trigger a recession that would very likely cost him re-election. The medicine tasted awful. 

  And it worked.

 Though it hurt like hell for 3 years, the post-Vietnam economic trauma got sweated out of the economy in record time. 

  In fact, just in time for things to settle down and for Ronald Reagan to inherit an economy steadying back onto an even keel. 

  His Morning in America.

Do you doubt that cause and effect? Care to step up with major wager stakes, before a panel of eminent economic historians? Because they know this and have said so. While politicians and media ignore them, in favor of Reagan idolatry.

Oh, and you who credit Reagan with starting the rebuilding of the U.S. military after Vietnam? 

   Especially the stealth techs and subs that are the core of our peacekeeping deterrence? 

  Nope.

  That was Carter, too.

== Restoring Trust ==

And there’s another unsung but vital thing that Jimmy Carter did, in the wake of Nixon-Ford and Vietnam. He restored faith in our institutions. In the aftermath of Watergate and J. Edgar Hoover and the rest, he made appointments who re-established some degree of trust. And historians (though never pundits or partisan yammerers) agree that he largely succeeded, by choosing skilled and blemish-free professionals, almost down the line.

And yes, let’s wager now over rates of turpitude in office, both before and since then. Or indictments for malfeasance, between the parties! Starting with Nixon, all the way to Biden and Trump II. It's night vs. day.

When the ratio of Republicans indicted and convicted for such crimes vs. Democrats approaches one hundred to one, is there any chance that our neighbors will notice… and decide that it is meaningful?

Not so long as idiots think that it makes them look so wise and cool to shake their heads and croon sadly “Both parties are the same!”* 

You, who sing that song, you don’t sound wise. 

You sound like an ignoramus. 

So, alas, it’s never actively refuted.

Not so long as Democrats habitually brag about the wrong things, and never mention facts like that one. The right ones.

== What about Reagan? ==

So. Yeah, yeah, you say. All of that may be true. But it comes to nothing, compared to Carter’s mishandling of the Iran Hostage Crisis.

Okay. This requires that – before getting to my main point - we first do an aside about Ronald Reagan. 

By now, the evidence is way more than circumstantial that Reagan committed treason during the Iran crisis. Negotiating through emissaries (some of whom admit it now!) for the Ayatollahs to hold onto the hostages till Carter got torched in the 1980 US election.  That’s a lot more than a ‘crackpot theory” by now… and yet I am not going in that direction, today.

Indeed, while I think his tenure set the modern theme for universal corruption of all subsequent Republican administrations, I have recently been extolling Ronald Reagan! Click and see all the many ways in which his tenure as California Governor seemed like Arnold Schwarzenegger's, calmly moderate! In 1970, Governor Reagan's policies made him almost an environmentalist Democrat! Certainly compared to today’s Foxite cult. 

Indeed, despite his many faults – the lying and corrupt officials, the AIDS cruelty and especially the triple-goddamned ‘War on Drugs’ – Reagan nevertheless, clearly wanted America to remain strong on the world stage. And to prevail against the Soviet ‘evil empire’…

… and I said as much to liberals of that era! I asked: “WTF else would you call something as oppressive and horrible as the USSR?” 

One thing I do know across all my being. Were he around today, Ronald Reagan would spit in the eyes of every current, hypocritical Republican Putin-lover and KGB shill, now helping all the Lenin-raised “ex” commissars over there to rebuild – in all it’s evil – the Soviet Union. With a few altered symbols and lapel pins. 

But again, that rant aside, what I have to say about Carter now departs from Reagan, his nemesis. 

Because this is not about Carter’s failed re-election. He already doomed any hope of that, when he told Volcker to fix the economy.

No, I am talking about Jimmy Carter’s Big Mistake.

== Iran…  ==

So sure, I am not going to assert that Carter didn’t fumble the Hostage Crisis. 

He did. Only not in the ways that you think! And here, not even the cautious historians get things right.

When the Shah fell, the fever that swept the puritan/Islamist half of Iranian society was intense and the Ayatollahs used that to entrench themselves. But when a mob of radicals stormed the American Embassy and took about a hundred U.S. diplomats hostage, the Ayatollahs faced a set of questions:

• Shall we pursue vengeance on America – and specifically Carter – for supporting the Shah? Sounds good. But how hard should we push a country that’s so mighty? (Though note that post-Vietnam, we did look kinda lame.)

• What kind of deal can we extort out of this, while claiming “We don’t even control that mob!”

• And what’s our exit strategy?

During the subsequent, hellish year, it all seemed win-win for Khomeini and his clique. There was little we could do, without risking both the lives of the hostages and another oil embargo crisis, just as the U.S. economy was wobbling back onto its feet.

Yes, there was the Desert One rescue raid attempt, that failed because two helicopters developed engine trouble. Or – that’s the story. I do have a crackpot theory (What, Brin, another one?) about Desert One that I might insert into comments. If coaxed. No evidence, just a logical chain of thought.  (Except to note that it was immediately after that aborted raid that emissaries from the Islamic Republic hurried to Switzerland, seeking negotiations.)

But never mind that here. I told you that Jimmy Carter made one big mistake during the Iran Hostage Crisis, and he made it right at the beginning. By doing the right and proper and mature and legal thing.

== Too grownup. Too mature… ==

When that mob of ‘students’ took and cruelly abused the U.S. diplomats, no one on Earth swallowed the Ayatollah’s deniability claims of “it’s the kids, not me!” It was always his affair. And he hated Carter for supporting the Shah. And as we now know, Khomeini had promises from Reagan. So how could Carter even maneuver?

Well, he did start out with some chips on his side of the table. The Iranian diplomatic corps on U.S. soil. And prominent resident Iranians with status in the new regime -- those who weren’t seeking sanctuary at the time. Indeed, some voices called for them to be seized, as trading chips for our people in Tehran…

…and President Jimmy Carter shook his head, saying it would be against international law. Despite the fact that the Tehran regime holding our folks hostage was an act of war. Moreover, Carter believed in setting an example. And so, he diplomatically expelled those Iranian diplomats and arranged for them to get tickets home.

Honorable. Legal. And throwing them in jail would be illegal. And his setting an example might have worked… if the carrot had been accompanied by a big stick. If the adversary had not been in the middle of a psychotic episode. And… a whole lotta ifs.

I have no idea whether anyone in the Carter White House suggested this. But there was an intermediate action that might have hit the exact sweet spot. 

Arrest every Iranian diplomat and person on U.S. soil who was at all connected to the new regime… and intern them all at a luxury, beach-side hotel.

Allow news cameras to show the difference between civilized – even comfy - treatment and the nasty, foul things that our people were enduring, at the hands of those fervid ‘students.’ But above all, let those images – the stark contrast - continue, on and on and on. While American jingoists screeched and howled for our Iranian captives to be treated the same way. While the president refused.

Indeed, it is the contrast that would have torn world opinion, and any pretense of morality, away from the mullahs. And, with bikini-clad Americans strolling by daily, plus margaritas and waffles at the bar, wouldn’t their diplomats have screamed about their decadent torture? And pleaded for a deal – a swap of ‘hostages’ -- to come home? Or else, maybe one by one, might they defect?

We’ll never know. But it would have been worth a try. And every night, Walter Cronkite’s line might have been different.

And so, sure. Yeah. I think Carter made a mistake! And yeah, it was related to his maturity and goodness. So, I lied to you. Maybe he was too nice for the office. Too good for us to deserve.

== So, what’s my point? ==

I do have top heroes and Jimmy Carter is not one of them. 

Oh, I admired him immensely and thought him ill-treated by a nation he served well. But to me he is second-tier to Ben Franklin. To Lincoln and Tubman. To Jane Goodall and George Marshall.

But this missive is more about Carter’s despicable enemies. Nasty backstabber-liars and historical grudge-fabulators…

…of the same ilk as the bitchy slanderers who went on to savagely attack John Kerry, 100% of whose Vietnam comrades called him a hero, while 100% of the dastardly “swift-boaters” proved to be obscenely despicable, paid preeners, who were never even there.

Or the ‘birthers’ who never backed up a single word, but only screeched louder, when shown many time-yellowed copies of Obama’s 1962 birth announcement in the Honolulu Advertiser. Or the ass-hats who attacked John McCain and other decent, honorable Republicans who have fled the confederate madness, since Trump.

Or the myriad monstrous yammerers who now attack all fact-using professions, from science and teaching, medicine and law and civil service to the heroes of the FBI/Intel/Military officer corps who won the Cold War and the War on terror. 

Nutters and Kremlin-boys who aren’t worthy to shine the boots of a great defender-servant like Mark Milley.

Jeepers David… calm down. We get it. But take a stress pill, already, or you might burst a vessel.

Okay, okay. Though the blood bank says I have the blood pressure of a teenager...

... It’s just. Well.  We are about to embark on a journey of American self-discovery, when the very notions of democracy and enlightenment are under attack by living monsters. Monsters who know the power of symbolism vastly better than finger-wagging lib’ruls do, and who would deny us the inspiration of true heroes.

Mighty heroes like George Marshall. Like MLK. Like Elie Weisel and my Dad. Like Greta Thunberg and Amory Lovins. And those far-too-few Republicans who have found the patriotic decency to step up for the Union in this 8th phase of a 250 year American Civil War.

And like the subject of this essay. The best president (by many metrics) of the last over-100 years.

== And if you got all the way down here, some fun from SMBC ==

https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/slam

Okay this one too, a glimpse of a better world with more Jimmy Carters in it, too.