​Democracy is being Disappeared

By Ed Raymond

fargogadfly@gmail.com

If a child is drowning in a ditch, will you get your shoes muddy?

“Big Moma” Leah Drumwright was a Black slave in the 19th century who had one of her numerous babies and was nursing an infant. At the same time, her white owner had a baby. Leah was assigned the task of also nursing that child. She was ordered to always nurse the white child on her left breast. Rationale? The left breast furnished healthier milk because it was closer to the heart, so of course, the white child deserved the best. After working hard all day, Leah was exhausted in the kitchen and was nursing her child at the left breast. The angry slaveowner saw her in the act, slapped her and ordered the white overseer to beat her. Leah’s son Byrd, who had nursed at both breasts, was 18 when Abraham Lincoln ended slavery. Byrd’s last name was Drumwright, the name of the man who owned him.

Is this anecdote history? Should a teacher be allowed to use this story in a discussion about race? At what age would this story be appropriate? Donald Trump, the Lyin’ King of our former slave country, issued an executive order demanding we “Restore Truth and Sanity to American History.” Is a father who is proud he has never changed a diaper on any of his five children and throws toddler-type tirades and tantrums when he doesn’t get his way capable of rational thought? A “man” whose courage and patriotism are revealed by five draft deferments during the Vietnam War supported by a physician’s letter lying about “painful” bone spurs? Everything is history and cannot be hidden or rewritten. If it happened, it’s history. Feeding on the left breast only opens up a hundred discussions about other important historical events.

The Cowardly Lyin’ King has finally told one truth in 80 years of history

Our Great Leader Donald Trump promised he was going to be a dictator from day one in his second term in the White House Mall and Mercantile and Thrift Oval Office. This time, he’s really trying after missing a trip to hell by a half-inch. For a few years in the 20th century, conservatives and liberals had similar goals for all citizens: an opportunity for the good life. But what is a conservative today? What is he “conservative” about? Power? Free elections? Equal races? Economic equality? Free trade? Equal treatment under laws, Equal access health care? Social Security and retirement programs?

Most “conservatives” today are persons who can’t name a year when America was great but wants to go MAGA anyway. They want to MAHA but are against medical treatments such as vaccines and prenatal and postnatal programs. The Lyin’ King and his Trumplican “Know-Nothing” Congress have only one goal in mind: Make America White Forever (MAWF).

Although the Trump family is of German ancestry, Donald seems to know nothing about the fact Germany was the most advanced country in Europe in the 19th century. Germany under Otto von Bismarck was the first country to offer universal healthcare to citizens. The concept of academic freedom and the freedom to teach (lethrfreiheit) originated in German universities. Since that time, modern research at universities in many countries follow the rules of academic freedom started in Germany.

A German-Jew by the name of Einstein said this about truth: “Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted with important matters. Truth is what stands for the rest of experience.” A professor of science at a German university, the winner of the Nobel Prize for physics in 1921 was touring the United States when Adolf Hitler gained power. He decided to stay in the U.S., becoming a citizen in 1940. He left Germany because of Hitler and his white Aryans (Make Germany White Aryans Forever). Otherwise, he would have been one of the six million Jews murdered by Hitler out of the 12 million living in Europe during the Final Solution.

The Troop Tower of Bloviating Babbling Bullshit has lies as foundation

I just heard Trump lie again and again and again. In one of his Trump Tower of Babbling, he bloviated: “I have great common sense. I’m a smart person.”

Prove it by releasing your high school and college transcripts. While releasing your transcripts, display common sense and smarts and explain why a can of coffee was $9.99 in February and $15.99 today. His invasion of cities to start another coup attempt is unprecedented and he should be un-presidented immediately by Congress. Trump is restoring his lies and insanity. Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna(tic!) of Florida wants to have Trump’s face carved on Mt. Rushmore. I have already asked the Department of the Interior to carve Trump’s fat buttocks near Lincoln’s head and build 500 steps to them so Trumplican members of Congress and the Republican National Committee can kiss his ass each year on a mandatory “genuflection” trip.

Most of the private universities founded after the Civil War in the U.S. (such as Stanford, Cornell and the University of Chicago) protected professors from being fired using the German design. In America, it took until 1915 for the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) to become the academic-freedom watchdog and savior. As a teacher who has taught every level of academics from kindergarten through twelfth grade in Fargo public school system, and college and PHD programs at Concordia College and North Dakota State University, I was a member of the AAUP for three years while serving on an AAUP national committee for the study of student teaching.

Should Donald Trump or any form of government “police” academic freedom? Hell, no. Academic freedom works only when faculty members pass judgment on the work other professors produce and what they teach. Consequently, teachers and college professors must be the ones to determine what and how to teach. In other words, professionals determine who to hire and who to fire. Most of the norms associated with academic freedom were developed over strong battles between science and religion in the 19th century. Remember that any scholarship published by professors in recognized journals has already been approved by peers.

Why are college students called “me” and “we?” “Big bucks” or “service?”

In 1972, Peter Singer introduced a thought experience called Shallow Pond which was often used to determine whether a person was liberal or conservative. The experience: “If I am walking by a shallow pond and see a child drowning in it, I ought to walk in and pull the child out. But this will mean getting my shoes and clothes muddy.”

In 2025, what are conservatives conserving? Fossil fuels? Energy? Water? National Parks? Christian religion? Free speech? Books?

There are many reasons why about 70% of teachers and college and university professors are liberal and moderate politically and 30% are considered conservative using old general terms. Dr. Steven Pinker, a Harvard professor of psychology and specialist in cognitive and linguist psychology, describes why this is true: “Students with conservative viewpoints flood into the business schools and computer tech department. Very few stay in academia as educators after graduating. They go for the biggest-salary jobs in finance and high tech. It is the more liberal students, majoring in social sciences and humanities, who decide to go on for graduate degrees and join the academy. They are more motivated by a desire to serve society than to make big bucks.”

Such different motivations are unlikely to change, and thus the political views of university faculties are likely to stay skewed in a liberal direction.” If you want to make the big bucks, you are a conservative member of the “Me” group. If you want to serve society and be a member in it, you are a liberal member of the “We” group. There is an intrinsic link between liberalism and intelligence because history and the humanities demand more cognitive development than business and finance. Another point: professors work at universities in larger cities, have fewer children, are less religious than conservatives, and therefore embrace more liberal political views. Conservatives are more materialistic, usually prefer money over learning something new. Liberals are more drawn to academic work and love to debate. Conservatives have already made up their minds, so, it’s “end of discussion.”

What happens when politicians go to their capitals to govern?

My favorite political columnist for the last half of the 20th century was Texan Molly Ivins who died of cancer 18 years ago. She described President George W. Bush’s range of talents and abilities when she nicknamed him “Shrub.” She described herself in an interview: “Being tall helped — being six feet tall — you know, nobody ever looked at me and said, ‘Oh, you, poor, sweet, dainty, fragile, little thing — we couldn’t possibly send you out to cover a fire!’ It was always, ‘Ivins, get your ass out there.’” She always said: “I love to raise hell!”

My favorite political quote from Molly: “Our very own dreaded legislature is almost upon us. They’ll all be here, leaving many a village without its idiot.” She had an alcohol problem later in life because, as she said: “I have drunk enough beer to float the battleship Texas in pursuit of political stories. I think the meanest thing I have ever said about one of them was that he ran on all fours, sucked eggs, and had no sense of humor.” Whenever I listen to Lyin’ King doing his specialty, I always think of the Manhattan village idiot who is also the national idiot of the Divided States of America.

Columnist Andrew Sullivan, who calls himself a conservative, skewered the idiot Trump last week in a newsletter: “Once you grasp Trump is an elected monarch his full rebuke to the very idea of America comes into clearer view. He is precisely — almost uncannily — what this country was founded to oppose: an arbitrary, corrupt, mendacious, and utterly incompetent king. We need to repeatedly oppose this king’s long train of abuses and usurpations, his imposition of taxes, i.e. tariffs, without our consent, his transporting of people in America beyond seas to jails in dictatorships from which there is no escape or reprieve. We need to insist that a president whose character is marked by every act which may define a tyrant be subjected once again to the Constitution.”