Reflections on Democracy: Lessons from the White House, 1964 and 2025

I had decided to let this thing go, this WordPress subscription. I stopped it but I was informed by the WordPress powers (that’s their spelling with the capital P in the miDDle) that I had recently paid for a year and I could post until my renewal date but no longer if I didn’t renew. So I left it to fallow and let the old posts rot in the field thinking that I would never post again.

I’m not sure what pushed me over the edge and led me to reach out again last night but maybe it was the criminal destruction of the East Wing of the White House. I have always felt myself to be a part owner of the White House with a bit of personal interest in its preservation as a public historical asset.

I went there once in 1964 as a college student invited by President Lyndon Johnson who, working from a mailing list, asked Dr. Phillip Hoffman of the University of Houston to identify and sponsor a student leader to come to a special White House student leaders meeting.

[Push the button below to go to Page 2 of this post.}

Pages: Page 1, Page 2

Fear: the Political Weapon that Calls Us to Sacrifice

I confess to being something of a pacifist at heart.

I served in the military when my country required it of me because my country said it was needed. I never answered for myself the question of what I would do in a kill or be killed situation on a battlefield. I would make that decision when confronted with it. That was pretty chicken, I know now.

I disagreed with the justification relied upon by the authorities when they said my service was required. Yet the call to serve came from my country out of a process of debate, deliberation, and choice by popular election.

{Push the button below to go to Page 2 of this post.}

Pages: Page 1, Page 2

Goodbye Facebook

I began this journal on April 12, 2018. I bring it to the top here because we will soon be doing a short study of the Social Principles of the United Methodist Church and I thought it might be useful as a way to collect some of my own thoughts as we go along during the month of October. Besides, the United Methodist Church and those principles are at my core and they instruct much of my thinking about all of the social and political issues of the day.

Leaving Facebook seven years ago was an act that represented my rejection of all things “social media.” This is, of course, just another social medium – less noticed, less read and less quoted, retweeted, or generally batted around in our anonymous and unregulated 21st Century “free speech zone.”

When I started this, I did not intend to discuss politics at all. But it did not take me long to fall off the wagon. In 2018 that was impossible, no matter which party you honor with your precious vote. And I felt an urgent need to put myself on the record – for history and for my family. As you hear so often these days, silence is complicity.

I have made only a little noise here over the last seven years and have offered only the most ineffectual resistance. But it is open to you if your curiosity compels you to read more. Please, be my guest.

Originally posted April 12, 2018. Moved to the top and reposted with the comments offered above on September 13, 2025.

I made this journal entry just after I deleted my Facebook account. I had been a dedicated Facebook user. There was no better communication tool available to fill that niche between mass media and face-to-face interactions. I shared a lot of photographs, mainly from our community theater, Brazosport Center Stages, and from our church youth group. I also did my share of celebrating our beautiful, talented grandchildren with occasional Facebook posts. They were, by my design, nameless and homeless in the eyes of strangers, although I was always careful to limit the distribution to “friends”.

I did the total wipe on Facebook. I don’t doubt the files are still out there as backups or as research data for some “university professor” serving as a front for a marketing firm or for Vladimir Putin. A blog offers only a bit more privacy. At some point, it will be open to the public and most of what I post will be there for all the honest world to see.

So there are some things you may as well know from the start. There is no need to go to all the trouble of developing a psychographic profile based on assumptions about my friends, likes, and ad clicking. So allow me to save you (and perhaps Mr. Putin) the trouble.  I am a United Methodist Christian, born once and only once into the faith at the age of six kneeling at the altar with my parents in Jacinto City Methodist Church. I am a Democrat, have always been a Democrat and your suasions on behalf of some other party will probably be wasted on me. I do not hate or even mildly dislike Republicans. I live among them in Lake Jackson, possibly the most conservative 1,609 square miles in the country, and although they caused me lots of discomfort with barbs about Democratic presidents, I don’t hold that against them because I deliver a few aimed at their Republican heroes from time to time. Not feeling the safety in numbers that they feel, I deliver most of my barbs in the privacy of my home.

Continue reading “Goodbye Facebook”

A Re-interpretation of the Declaration of Independence for Americans Today

open.substack.com/pub/borowitzreport/p/a-new-declaration-of-independence

Andy Borowitz writes political satire on Substack, in books and, once upon a time probably, on his desktop in his junior high school. But this was offered in all seriousness as food for thought for all of us on Independence Day. You will note the subtle changes.

The flag is flying at our house today, by the way. I will always be proud of the things Americans have done to make the world a little more caring and sharing. I have lived long enough to have seen our failures in holding to those values as well as the valiant efforts of many to bring us back to what I believe is our moral center.

I have faith that we will always strive. I think of it as part of the great commission.

Have a fun and neighborly Fourth of July. And don’t play with firecrackers.

Observing Flag Day, June 14, 2025

The president has demonstrated a distaste for anything that limits his power — the rule of law, the Constitution of the United States, courts that refuse to be used by him, and the free press which constantly reports “fake news”. The list goes on — foreign aid, immigration law, noncompliant Republican legislators, whistleblower protections, checks and balances, climate science, trade agreements, NATO. Those are only a few of the things that trigger him. (Do you like that word?)

Beyond that, he has insulted or abandoned allies that America has developed over many decades — some, for over a century. He has admired the leaders of Russia and North Korea when they rolled out tanks and rockets to demonstrate their power to the people of the Earth — but, most importantly, to their own citizens.

He has spoken derisively of the American men and women who loved their country and its democratic values enough to sacrifice their lives to protect those values from people like him.

Yet he loves his flag. He wears it on his lapel. He embraces it — literally.

I fly the American flag every day to show respect for those very things that justly limit his power.

Flag Day should be a special day. But no, he uses Flag Day to give himself a military parade through our nation’s capital to celebrate his birthday. Of course it is only a coincidence that Flag Day falls on his birthday, a day which in 2025 also happens to be the 250th anniversary of the United States Army.

What a convenient tri-incidence: Flag Day, the Army’s semi-quincentennial, and his 79th birthday. Why in the world would you have three parties when you could throw just one? We should be able to pull that off for a mere $45 million.

So, as the president debases the flag on this Flag Day, I will honor it by removing it from the front of our home, hopefully leaving a very noticeable blank space in our neighborhood where our friends and neighbors have long been able to count on seeing the red, white and blue on proud display. But at this address, our flag will not be associated with the most openly corrupt and illiberal American political leader in our nation’s history.

The colors will go back out the next day. I will once again fly it proudly as a symbol of devotion to democracy and the rule of law, the things that have made America a great nation, admired around the world, and a chosen destination for migration from all distressed nations — just as it was for most of our own forebears since the 16th Century.

We pride ourselves on America’s soft power — the ability to strengthen our influence by striving after peace, love, understanding, sharing and hope throughout the world. Sometimes we fall short, but still, it is the flag I celebrate every day of any year that our freedom endures — except when it is being used for authoritarian purposes.

“Confirm thy soul in self-control, Thy liberty in law.”

Read the words. It’s a beautiful hymn to God and country.

Tax Reform (again) and How You May Still be Able to Help Your ISD

Texas Republicans have controlled the House and Senate in the state legislature for a number of years. (Can anyone remember how many?)

Republican politicians always turn to what they call tax reform to boost their popularity with the electorate. What they really mean, of course, is tax cuts.

They particularly dislike school taxes since they would rather take care of education in other ways — in private schools, in the home, or in lockup situations for those who can’t afford private education, for whom home schooling is not available, or won’t attend public schools for a variety of reasons and wind up in a jail somewhere.

On my last county tax bill early this year, I noticed that on the breakdown of the levies of individual taxing authorities, I was not being charged a cent for public education provided by the Brazosport Independent School District. After confirming from the county tax office and the ISD that this was correct, I went ahead and paid my tax bill.

After that I did some math to compute how much I would have owed the district using my property assessment and the district’s tax rate.

Then I did a little research online to find the site of the BISD Education Foundation. The foundation raises money to help the district and its teachers to do some of the things they can’t do now due to the loss of state funding over the last several years. I think most local public school districts have education foundations now to try to help their districts cope with the work of the Texas legislature.

I also discovered the Brazoria County Dream Center. They do a lot of the things required to help underprivileged children go to school ready to learn. And they are doing an outstanding job.

And so is the Center for Arts and Sciences. The Center is providing some of the things that public schools cannot do now due to reduced funding to fine arts programs by the state.

After thinking about the things these organizations do and how public schools have suffered due to the losses of state funding over the last several years, it gave me a bit of a thrill to sit down and write checks to each of them

There are, no doubt, some taxpayers who need these tax reductions and they should do the things they need to do with the savings. But we should all be glad that our schools are here doing the job of providing an educated citizenry — so essential to our democracy. But for those whose retirement situation allows, I suggest that you examine your next bill from the tax assessor-collector and see if you are one of those with a zero tax levy by your local ISD.

If you drew that lucky number and don’t owe your local school district anything, find some good organizations that are doing things for students and teachers in public schools. Then figure up what your tax bill would have been for public education if you were a regular taxpayer. Write checks for that total to the organizations you have identified.

Mine were the:

Brazosport ISD Education Foundation

Brazoria County Dream Center

Brazosport Center for the Arts and Sciences

No public education, no democracy. If you value it, get behind it.