Encore of Revival: America, April 12, 2021

The Supreme Court is proving its worth. The bench ruled in favor of itself many times this past week, even through silence. Justice Breyer doesn’t sound like he wants to resign. He doesn’t want the Court packed either. That throws a wrench in the gears of any attempt to subject the Court to politics. Courts are supposed to be independent of party politics so that routine wheeling and dealing does not disrupt society’s need for stable justice.

That need hasn’t been so strong for a long time. Congress and the White House are putting Washington theatrics on full display. Biden’s infrastructure plan is headed to the Senate where it’s sure to get a hair cut big enough to make it lose a few pounds.

But, the big question on the table is: Why—with all the Democrats rearranging the furniture—does Biden keep Trump’s same policies toward China? Something’s up.

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Encore of Revival: America, June 15, 2020

America faces a new kind of reconciliation. Democrat voters in Seattle have decided that government can be overbearing. Usually, that was a patent held by Republican-voting Conservatives. A group of citizens expected the government to obey their desires, another idea Conservatives faced opposition for. And, the news media falsely claims that this group in Seattle wants to become a separate nation and erase all borders. Usually, slander from the media was an honor reserved for Conservatives.

Things have reversed.

If a group of people have bad beliefs, the best way to survive those beliefs is to have those beliefs known so they can be rebutted fair and square. Listening is a vital part of proving someone wrong. The nation has a lot of growing up to do.

Democrat voters and Republican voters hold this in common more now than ever: refusal to listen. Republican voters believe that if a group in Seattle has an opinion, they are automatically wrong and therefore shouldn’t be heard nor should any claim of what they say be confirmed. Likewise, Democrat voters think if Trump says something, he is automatically wrong and anyone who says otherwise should be ignored without checking facts.

We have much more in common than we thought. But, the mutual refusal to listen tells us that fighting will only increase. Peace only comes to those who want it. Perhaps, the troubles our voluntarily deaf ears create will drive us to want to not fight more than we want to not listen—maybe.

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Encore of Revival: America, March 5, 2018

Everything happening in Washington news right now means absolutely nothing.

Gun legislation means nothing—bills will get passed, but the public hasn’t heard about those bills yet. There just hasn’t been enough time to draft and debate them.

Security clearances get adjusted all the time. Politicians meet and talk all the time—a president who has actual negotiation experience, however, might seem a little surprising to people who don’t understand Trump. But, none of it is news and none of it will go anywhere. It’s all one big, giant distraction for what is actually developing, which we should see in the coming weeks and months.

The only thing that happened of significance was the US Senate’s unanimous passage of the “Taiwan Travel Act”, which would basically allow Trump to visit Taiwan and vice versa, as well as many other officials, and, of course, irritate the Chinese. Unanimous passage of a Senate bill? Why didn’t that make headlines from a press obsessed with “bipartisan cooperation”?

It didn’t make headlines because everything happening, this week anyway, is just a distraction from what’s really going on, whatever “else” that may be, in addition to Asia.

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Cadence of Conflict: Asia, May 16, 2016

Cadence of Conflict: Asia, May 16, 2016

China and the US rattled sabers over Taiwan. Arguably, they smacked sheathed sabers. A US Navy ship, USS William P. Lawrence, sailed past one of China’s military-stocked man-made islands with two Chinese jet escorts chasing it away. Chinese and Washington generals want to increase freedom of navigation and communication. Washington wants Taiwan to spend more on asymmetric military defense against China.

The US is concerned about China’s missiles preventing it from intervening should China invade Taiwan. Guam and Okinawa are supposedly at risk and could be denied access to Taiwan’s defense. This concern has activated a strong response from the US and Taiwan to prepare responses. The new US electromagnetic railgun is approaching its days of early deployment and already has active prototypes. It can travel 7 times the speed of sound, uses no explosive propellants, costs less money, allows transporters to carry more ammunition, can penetrate steel “like a hot knife through butter”, receives satellite and other guidance, and can be used as both an assault and anti-missile defense system.

So it would seem, just as China claims freedom of navigation in the South China Sea has given Beijing reason to erect islands, China has given the US the excuse it needs to deploy technology that blurs the lines between science and science fiction.

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