In all of human history up to the summer of 1776, one assumption undergirded nearly every culture, government, education system, and social norm: humans are not equal.

From the dawn of civilization, hierarchies were the iron law of existence. Pharaohs and emperors ruled as living gods. Kings claimed divine right, their authority descending directly from heaven itself, a doctrine that made resistance to the ruler tantamount to rebellion against God. Slavery was ubiquitous across all cultures, societies, and kingdoms. Indentured servitude was common, and vast populations lived under the heel of monarchs, aristocracies, or warrior elites everywhere. Even in the celebrated ancient experiments with broader rule, such as Athens’ democracy or the Roman Republic, equality was strictly limited. Athenian “citizens” were a tiny fraction of the population; women, slaves, and foreigners had no voice. Rome had its Senate and popular assemblies, but power flowed through patrician families, and the system rested on conquest, clientage, and rigid class distinctions.

Rule by the strongest, the best-born, or the divinely anointed was simply how the world worked. The strong dominated the weak. Birth determined destiny. The idea that ordinary men possessed natural rights that no king or parliament could legitimately violate was almost unthinkable. A very small group of men had said such things—the Enlightenment philosophers—but they had been mostly ignored by the powers that be.

Then, on July 4, 1776, a small group of men in Philadelphia declared something audacious. It was something that had never truly been asserted at the founding of a nation before.

They wrote a document that shook the world to its very foundations: the Declaration of Independence. They declared that all men are created equal, endowed by their Creator with unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed.

Section 1: What They Actually Said

The Declaration is a masterpiece of Enlightenment reasoning wrapped in moral fire. Jefferson’s famous preamble distills ideas drawn from John Locke and the broader natural rights tradition. The philosophical foundation was clear: rights come from Nature’s God, not from kings or majorities. Governments exist to secure those rights, and when they become destructive of them, “it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish” that government.

This was explosive in 1776. The second part is not a petty rant. The long list of grievances against King George III was real, and he was a tyrant. It is a moral indictment, showing a “long train of abuses and usurpations” designed to establish “absolute Despotism.” From dissolving legislatures to quartering troops to cutting off trade, the signers laid out how the King had broken the implicit contract.

Section 2: The Real Risk

These were not demagogues with armies at their backs. Many were lawyers, merchants, planters—men with everything to lose if King George won. They pledged their “Lives, Fortunes, and sacred Honor.”

And many paid dearly: homes burned, families harassed, businesses ruined, imprisonment, and in some cases death. Five signers were captured and tortured. Others lost sons in battle or saw their wealth evaporate in support of the cause.

They signed anyway. In an age of kings and empires, they bet on an uncertain war and an even more uncertain experiment in self-government. They bet their lives against the most powerful empire on Earth.

Section 3: The Universal Idea

What made the Declaration truly world-changing was its appeal beyond America. It became a template and inspiration for independence movements and reformers globally. The language of natural rights and consent planted seeds for the abolition of slavery, women’s suffrage, and the spread of self-government.

The monarchies of Europe recognized the danger immediately. The American experiment was not just a colonial rebellion. It was an ideological virus. If colonists could successfully assert that governments derive their power from the consent of the governed and that people had the right to dissolve tyrannical rule, what was to stop the same ideas from spreading to France, Spain, Austria, or Russia? The success of the American Revolution sent shockwaves through the courts of Europe.

Those fears were dramatically confirmed by the French Revolution. What began with similar rhetoric inspired by America quickly radicalized into the Terror, regicide, and a continental war. The crowned heads of Europe united in coalitions against the French Republic precisely because they understood the threat: once the principle of popular sovereignty took root, no throne was truly safe.

The tension is real: the men who signed the Declaration were themselves having to grow into the radical implications of their own words. They were products of a world built on hierarchy, and 1776 thrust them into uncharted territory. Some, like Nathaniel Greene, actively worked to live out the principles more fully. Others managed only partial steps or struggled to reconcile the ideal with the realities they knew. Thomas Jefferson, the great philosopher that created this truly radical document, is perhaps the most obvious example.

But the power of the idea they had unleashed proved stronger than the limitations of their time. Over the generations that followed, Americans (and people around the world) used the Declaration’s own words as a measuring stick to demand fuller realization of those principles.

Section 4: The Deeper Meaning for Today

Two hundred and fifty years later, in what feels like a Late Republic moment of division, institutional distrust, and concentrated power, the Declaration remains our North Star.

Calvin Coolidge expressed this powerfully on the 150th anniversary of the Declaration in 1926. He argued that the Declaration was not the beginning of political wisdom, but in many ways its culmination. He told us that it is the clearest statement of principles toward which mankind had been striving for centuries. If all men are created equal, then there is nowhere further we need to go in terms of first principles. The task is not to transcend or “evolve beyond” the Declaration, but to live up to it.

It is not a guarantee that we will always get it right. It is a perpetual challenge: Do we still believe that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed? Are we willing to defend the principles of liberty and equality under law, or will we trade them for security, comfort, or partisan victory?

The document that launched the American Revolution is revolutionary, and remains revolutionary, precisely because it calls us back to these permanent truths rather than into new experiments in human engineering.

Conclusion

From Washington’s refusal to be king, to Madison’s constitutional machinery built for flawed men, to the quiet reverence of families walking through the Bicentennial Train in 1976, the America 250 series has been a reminder of what we inherited and what makes this nation truly extraordinary in the world.

On this 250th anniversary, as fireworks light up beaches and skies across the country, including here on the beach in Ocean Shores, Washington, let us recommit not just to celebration, but to vigilance. The Republic is not self-sustaining. It requires citizens who remember the radical promise of 1776 and who are willing to pledge something of their own lives, fortunes, and sacred honor to keep it.

The Declaration was not the end of the story. It was the beginning. The question for us, 250 years on, is whether we still possess the Spirit of 1776. Do we have the courage to be as radical in our defense of these truths as our Founders were in declaring them?

Further Reading

The Declaration of Independence — Read it slowly. It rewards careful attention every single time.

The Federalist Papers (especially Nos. 10 and 51) by Madison, Hamilton, and Jay.

The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution by Bernard Bailyn — One of the finest books on the intellectual world that made 1776 possible.

The Radicalism of the American Revolution by Gordon S. Wood — A powerful exploration of just how revolutionary the American founding truly was.

American Scripture: Making the Declaration of Independence by Pauline Maier — Excellent on the drafting, context, and immediate impact of the document.

Calvin Coolidge’s speech: The Inspiration of the Declaration, on the 150th Anniversary (July 5, 1926) — Short, eloquent, and deeply insightful.

America 250: A Series Celebrating America

#America250 #AmericanHistory #Founders

The Supreme Court’s 6-3 decision in Trump v. Slaughter has produced some of the most overheated reactions of the term. Critics are screaming about the end of democracy and the rise of an imperial presidency. Much of this hysteria reveals a deep misunderstanding of the Unitary Executive and basic constitutional design. Indeed, much of it is likely genuine, malicious misrepresentation of the Unitary Executive.

What the Court Actually Held

The Court ruled that the President may remove FTC Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter without cause and overturned the 1935 precedent Humphrey’s Executor. The core holding is straightforward: If an official exercises executive power, the President must be able to supervise and, when necessary, remove them. The Constitution vests “the executive Power” in one President, not in a collection of semi-independent commissions.

A Long History of Congressional Overreach

Congress tried this before. The Tenure of Office Act of 1867 attempted to prevent the President from removing executive officers without congressional approval. It led directly to the impeachment of Andrew Johnson (though he was not convicted) when Johnson removed Secretary of War Stanton from his position. Johnson believed, correctly, that the law was unconstitutional. Congress repealed the law in 1887, and the Supreme Court confirmed its unconstitutionality in Myers v. United States (1926). Humphrey’s Executor was always an outlier that Slaughter finally corrected.

Common Hysterical Claims

• “Now the President can fill the entire executive branch with Republicans (or Democrats)!” Yes. And that is literally what the Constitution requires. The President is elected to run the executive branch. Voters hold the President accountable for results. The Senate retains its confirmation power for Officers of the United States.

• “This makes the President a dictator who can do whatever he wants!” No. There is still the Constitution, a co-equal Congress with the power of the purse and legislation, and the Supreme Court. Checks and balances remain firmly in place.

• “The world changes too fast for Congress to keep up, so we need independent agencies!” This sounds reasonable but is not constitutional. It has produced the modern Administrative State. That vast fourth branch that makes, enforces, and judges rules with little real accountability to elected officials.

The Unitary Executive is about Accountability

The Framers deliberately created a single, accountable executive. Alexander Hamilton explained in the Federalist Papers that the President must have the authority to ensure faithful execution of the laws. Slaughter does not grant new powers. It simply ends a 90-year experiment in semi-independent agencies exercising massive executive power without real presidential oversight.

Blurring power and removing accountability makes things worse, not better. And so, Slaughter is, in fact, a major step in restoring the Republic and recovering from many of our Late Republic issues and problems.

Observations from the Late Republic
#Observations #UnitaryExecutive #AdministrativeState #LateRepublic #SeparationOfPowers

Further Reading

• The Federalist Papers, especially Nos. 67–77 (Alexander Hamilton on the Executive)

• Myers v. United States (1926) – The foundational case on presidential removal power

• Humphrey’s Executor v. United States (1935) – The flawed New Deal precedent overturned in Slaughter

• Trump v. Slaughter (2026) – The actual opinion

• Steven G. Calabresi and Christopher S. Yoo, The Unitary Executive: Presidential Power from Washington to Bush - excellent scholarly treatment of the history

• Philip Hamburger, Is Administrative Law Unlawful? – Deep dive into the constitutional problems with the modern administrative state

These sources will give you the constitutional and historical background without the media hysterics.

Forgive me for all the posts in the last few days and the upcoming days. I’m getting caught up on a bunch of Supreme Court doings, celebrating America 250, and doing some future prognosticating!

In the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s recent term, much of the hysteria has focused on Trump v. Slaughter and the reaffirmation of the Unitary Executive. That’s understandable, but the big-government left (and anyone who likes expansive state power) should actually be far more concerned about Wolford v. Lopez.

What the Court Actually Held

After the Bruen decision in 2022, Hawaii enacted a law that made privately owned property open to the public (gas stations, theaters, shopping malls, stores, restaurants, parking lots, etc.) “sensitive places”. It then went further and said that you could not bring a firearm, concealed or open carry, into these places even though you were a law abiding citizen with a valid concealed carry license. Unless the property owner put up signage explicitly allowing carrying a firearm. The state claimed they were simply enforcing private property rights.

In Wolford v. Lopez, the Supreme Court struck down that law as unconstitutional. The core principle is straightforward and powerful: The government cannot use its regulatory power to effectively nullify constitutional rights on private property that is held open to the public.

The Much Bigger Implication

This isn’t really (or only) about guns. It is about the limits of government power over private property open to the public.

SCOTUS has now made clear that states and cities cannot simply designate broad categories of private property as “sensitive” and thereby ban the exercise of constitutional rights there. This has obvious and immediate implications for the Second Amendment, but it also reaches into First Amendment territory like speech, religion, and assembly. As well as many other rights protected by the Constitution.

If the government cannot turn a shopping mall or grocery store into a gun-free zone by fiat, it similarly faces serious limits on turning those same spaces into speech-free zones, protest-free zones, or religious expression-free zones. This is a major check on the administrative and regulatory state’s ability to carve out exceptions to the Bill of Rights wherever it finds it convenient.

Missing the Forest for the Trees

The reaction has been strangely muted on the progressive side compared to Slaughter. They’re focused on the narrow “sensitive places on private property” angle and largely missing the deeper structural point: the Supreme Court just put a significant new constraint on the ability of states and cities to regulate away constitutional rights on property that is functionally public in character.

This decision strengthens property rights and individual liberty simultaneously. It tells governments they cannot have it both ways. they can’t treate private property as public when it suits them for regulation, but then restrict rights as if it were purely governmental space.

Bottom Line

Wolford v. Lopez may end up being one of the sleeper hits of the term. While Slaughter restores accountability within the executive branch, Wolford limits the government’s ability to create constitutional no-go zones across vast swaths of everyday American life.

The administrative state and big-government advocates just took a bigger hit than many of them realize.

Observations from the Late Republic
#Constitution #SecondAmendment #WolfordvLopez #ConstitutionalRights #PrivateProperty

Further Reading

• Wolford v. Lopez (2026) – Full opinion

• New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen (2022) – The foundation this builds upon

• District of Columbia v. Heller (2008)

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Opening Hook

Philadelphia, May to September 1787. Behind closed windows in the sweltering heat of the Pennsylvania State House, fifty-five delegates gathered in secret. The United States, barely four years old as an independent nation, was already on the verge of collapse under the weak Articles of Confederation.

Many of the men who walked into that room believed the Convention would fail. Some thought the union itself was doomed. The states were squabbling, debt was crushing, trade was paralyzed, and Shays’ Rebellion had shown just how fragile the young republic really was. European powers watched with interest, waiting for the American experiment to disintegrate so they could pick up the pieces.

Yet from this crisis emerged one of the most remarkable acts of statesmanship in history.

Section 1: The Crisis They Faced

The delegates arrived with deep, seemingly irreconcilable divisions:

• Big states versus small states, each fearing domination by the other.

• North versus South, with sharply different economies and interests.

• Commercial interests versus agricultural ones.

• Advocates of a strong national government versus fierce defenders of state sovereignty.

Slavery loomed as one of the most difficult issues. Many delegates, especially from the North and Upper South, believed slavery was economically inefficient and morally wrong, and that it would naturally wither away over time.

Reality: If the weak Articles of Confederation remained in place, the American nation was so fragile that the European powers (especially Britain, France, and Spain) would almost certainly divide it up and reconquer at least big chunks of the continent.

The delegates were not starry-eyed idealists. They were practical, ambitious, often disagreeable men who understood they were operating in a dangerous world. They knew that if they could not find common ground, the United States would likely fracture, and the grand experiment in self-government would die in its infancy.

Section 2: The Brilliance of Compromise

The Articles of Confederation themselves were the ultimate anti-compromise, a document in which no state was required to give up any meaningful sovereignty, rendering the national government almost powerless.

Faced with these divisions, the delegates did something extraordinary: they compromised.

The pivotal moment came with the Great Compromise (also called the Connecticut Compromise). This was most notable for addressing everyone’s deep fear of Virginia, by far the largest and most powerful state. Large states wanted representation based on population. Small states feared being swallowed. The solution was elegant in its simplicity: a bicameral legislature with a House of Representatives based on population and a Senate with equal representation for each state. This single compromise saved the Convention and laid the foundation for the new government.

Other difficult bargains followed. The Three-Fifths Compromise and the twenty-year ban on the importation of slaves were pragmatic measures designed by delegates who expected slavery to gradually decline. Most believed these provisions would set it on a path to eventual extinction.

The Electoral College was another brilliant, if messy, compromise. It balanced popular will with protection against pure mob rule and gave smaller states a meaningful voice in choosing the President.

Throughout the document, the Founders deliberately included ambiguities, such as the Commerce Clause and the Necessary and Proper Clause, that allowed the Constitution to be both firm in its principles and flexible enough to adapt to future challenges.

These were not perfect solutions. They were practical ones. The delegates understood that a flawed union was infinitely better than no union at all.

Section 3: Why This Was Extraordinary

These men were not demigods. They were flawed, ambitious, often disagreeable, and deeply divided on many issues. Some owned slaves. Some were idealists. Some were pragmatists. Many distrusted one another.

Yet they chose compromise over ideological purity.

They understood something that seems increasingly rare today: that perfect is the enemy of good, and that a flawed but functional union was infinitely better than no union at all. They were willing to accept imperfect solutions in order to build something that could endure.

This willingness to compromise was itself extraordinary. In an age of revolution and upheaval, they rejected radicalism in favor of careful, deliberate statesmanship. They designed a system not for saints, but for ordinary, imperfect people living in a dangerous world.

In stark contrast to much of modern politics, where compromise is often treated as betrayal or weakness, the Founders treated it as the highest form of statesmanship.

Section 4: The Deeper Lesson

The Constitution was not a libertarian or progressive manifesto. It was a practical, hard-won bargain designed for imperfect people living in a dangerous world.

It deliberately made change difficult, not because the Founders were reactionaries, but because they understood how quickly republics can descend into tyranny or chaos. The Constitution’s brilliance wasn’t in creating a perfect system, rather it was in creating one durable enough to survive imperfect leaders and citizens.

Conclusion

Two hundred and fifty years later, we still live under the system those men designed in that hot Philadelphia summer. The genius of 1787 was not perfection, but the willingness to compromise for the greater good.

In our own time of Late Republic crisis, the spirit of working together for the common good is one we need to rediscover. In 1787, the men that wrote the Constitution started with a single compromise to find a solution to what seemed an intractable problem. That led to further agreement and solutions. We need to find that spirit within ourselves again.

Further Reading

• Miracle at Philadelphia by Catherine Drinker Bowen — The classic, highly readable account of the Constitutional Convention.

• The Summer of 1787 by David O. Stewart — Excellent narrative history that captures the drama, arguments, and compromises of that fateful summer.

• The Grand Convention by Clinton Rossiter — A thoughtful analysis of the delegates and the political genius behind the Constitution.

• Founding Brothers by Joseph J. Ellis — Especially strong on the spirit of compromise and the difficult bargains the Founders made.

• Plain, Honest Men by Richard Beeman — A detailed and balanced look at how the delegates forged agreement despite deep divisions.

America 250

#Observations #LateRepublic #America250 #Founders

All Observations from the Late Republic posts

A Major Second Amendment Showdown Is Coming

This morning the Supreme Court consolidated two important “assault weapon” ban cases, Viramontes v. Cook County (Illinois, 7th Circuit) and Grant v. Higgins (Connecticut, 2nd Circuit), into a single case and granted certiorari. They will hear arguments during the next term.

This is a big development.

Both the 7th and 2nd Circuits had upheld state-level bans on commonly owned semi-automatic rifles. By taking the cases, the Supreme Court is signaling it is ready to address whether these bans are constitutional under the Bruen framework. Granting certiorari requires at least four justices. Those four were almost certainly Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, and Kavanaugh.

Justices Barrett and Roberts have consistently sided with strong Second Amendment protections in every major gun case they have heard. That strongly suggests a 6-3 decision striking down these bans nationwide is the most likely outcome.

Why This Matters

“Assault weapon” bans have been among the most aggressive gun control measures passed in blue states since Sandy Hook. They target some of the most popular rifles in America. These rifles are functionally identical to millions of other semi-automatic firearms that remain legal, with a few surface differences.

By taking these cases, the Supreme Court appears ready to bring clarity and uniformity to this area of law. If the Court rules as expected, it will likely hold that commonly owned semi-automatic rifles are protected by the Second Amendment and that states cannot ban them simply by labeling them “assault weapons.”

This would be a major victory for the Second Amendment and a significant rebuke to the post-2012 wave of gun control legislation.

The gun control crowd has long treated “assault weapons” as low-hanging fruit. They are about to find out that the Supreme Court takes the Constitution more seriously than political narratives.

I’ll be watching this one closely. And I will certainly have more to say between now and the Court’s hearing. A decision is expected sometime in 2027.

Further Reading

• Supreme Court Order List (June 30, 2026) — Viramontes v. Cook County & Grant v. Higgins consolidated and cert granted

• District of Columbia v. Heller (2008) — The foundational modern Second Amendment case.

• New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen (2022) — The landmark decision establishing the proper test for evaluating gun laws.

• In Defense of the Second Amendment by Larry Correia — A clear, no-nonsense defense of the right to keep and bear arms from a firearms instructor and author who actually understands the practical realities.

• The Second Amendment: A Biography by Michael Waldman — A more moderate/center-left perspective on the history and interpretation of the Second Amendment (worth reading to understand the other side of the debate).

#America #2A #SecondAmendment #SCOTUS

While George Washington provided the living example of virtuous leadership and restraint, James Madison attempted something equally ambitious. He tried to design a system of government that could endure even when filled with ordinary, flawed human beings.

The Brilliant, Frail Architect

James Madison was in many ways an unlikely founder. Small in stature, frequently ill, and painfully shy in public, he lacked the physical presence and natural charisma of Washington or the magnetic charm of Jefferson. Yet few men in American history have thought more deeply about how governments succeed or fail.

Several forces shaped the young Madison: an intense education at the College of New Jersey (later Princeton), deep study of classical history and Enlightenment thinkers, direct experience with the weak government under the Articles of Confederation, and a fierce commitment to religious liberty. By his early thirties, he had become one of the most knowledgeable and thoughtful political minds in America.

Learning from Rome

Madison drew heavily from the Roman Republic. He saw it as history’s greatest example of a mixed constitution. One that combined elements of monarchy (the consuls), aristocracy (the Senate), and democracy (the tribunes and popular assemblies). The consuls especially fascinated him: powerful executives who held near-kingly authority during their short term, yet were bound by law, time limits, and institutional checks.

But Madison was not merely copying Rome. He was designing something new and more formal for the American situation. Where Rome’s system had evolved organically and often blurred lines between institutions, Madison sought clear, deliberate boundaries. He created a much stronger and more explicit separation of powers, particularly by establishing an independent judiciary. This was something Rome never clearly formalized. And, in fact, the Senate often pulled the judiciary power back from the Praetors.

He also addressed the practical political reality of his time: the smaller states feared domination by the largest and richest one, Virginia. This fear helped produce the federal compromise of a strong national government balanced by powerful sovereign states and an upper house (the Senate) where every state had equal representation regardless of size.

Madison and the other Founders were not utopian dreamers. They were hard-headed realists who had studied history closely. They knew what men were really like: imperfect, greedy, short-sighted, ambitious, and often shallow. They had studied the fall of Rome, the tyranny of King John, Cromwell’s military dictatorship, and countless other examples of republics collapsing into chaos or despotism. They designed the Constitution for fallen men, not for angels.

The Science of Republics

Madison’s most important intellectual contributions came in the Federalist Papers, particularly Federalist 10 and Federalist 51.

In Federalist 10, he tackled what had destroyed so many previous republics: factions. He rejected the idea that factions could be eliminated in a free society. Men would always form groups based on differences in property, religion, ideology, and ambition. The solution, Madison argued, was not to suppress factions, but to control their effects. A large republic with many diverse interests would make it harder for any single faction to dominate the whole.

In Federalist 51, Madison laid out the mechanical genius of the Constitution. “Ambition must be made to counteract ambition,” he wrote. By dividing government into separate branches and giving each the means and motive to resist the others, the system would use human nature, rather than fight against it, to protect liberty.

Madison was not hoping for virtuous leaders in every generation. He was building a machine that could function even when filled with ordinary, self-interested men.

A System Built for Imperfect Men

Madison’s greatest achievement was designing a system that could survive leaders who lacked virtue. The Republic has endured presidents of wildly varying quality, including men like Woodrow Wilson and Warren G. Harding, who were far from exemplars of personal or moral excellence. That the country survived and even thrived under such leadership is powerful evidence that Madison’s machinery worked as intended.

Madison worried in later years about the rise of political parties and the slow concentration of power. He understood that no system is eternal. It still requires vigilance.

Conclusion

In our own time of Late Republic strain, Madison’s realism about human nature may be one of the most relevant lessons the Founders left us. He did not design the Constitution for angels. He designed it for men as they actually are: imperfect, ambitious, and often shortsighted.

The Constitution was deliberately built to resist rapid change. This frustrates people when they want the government to do something quickly, but they should be glad it is hard to change things, not upset. Rapid, sweeping change in government has historically been associated with revolution, tyranny, and collapse. Madison and the other Founders understood this danger well.

The remarkable endurance of the American Republic for two and a half centuries is a testament to the strength of that design. But Madison would be the first to warn us that no constitution is self-sustaining forever. The machinery still requires vigilant citizens willing to defend its principles and its boundaries.

#America250 #Founders

Further Reading

If you want to dig deeper into James Madison and the intellectual foundations of the American Republic, these works are excellent:

The Federalist Papers by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay — Essential primary source. Focus especially on Federalist 10 and Federalist 51.

James Madison: A Biography by Ralph Ketcham — The best single-volume biography. Balanced and deeply researched.

The Last of the Fathers: James Madison and the Republican Legacy by Drew R. McCoy — Excellent on Madison’s later years and his growing concerns about the direction of the Republic.

Founding Brothers by Joseph J. Ellis — Very readable look at the relationships and conflicts among the Founders, with strong sections on Madison.

The Quartet by Joseph J. Ellis — Focuses on the four key men (Washington, Madison, Hamilton, Jay) who drove the creation of the Constitution.

Original Meanings by Jack N. Rakove — Outstanding scholarly work on how the Founders understood the Constitution they created.

For the last five decades, we’ve been told that meat, especially red meat, is somehow bad for us. We are told, even today with a much better understanding of biology and nutrition, that the “ethical” and “healthy” choice is to move away from meat. We are assured that our ancestors were mostly peaceful plant-eaters until some terrible fall into carnivory.

This is absolute modern myth-making.

The archaeological and anthropological evidence tells a very different story.

Somewhere between 1 and 2 million years ago, our ancestors (likely Homo erectus or earlier hominins) learned to control fire and began cooking meat regularly. According to anthropologist Richard Wrangham, this often involved scavenging or stealing kills, or portions of kills, from other predators, and then cooking what they had taken. This was one of the most radical transitions in human evolutionary history.

Two Enormous Consequences

First: Dramatic increase in caloric efficiency.
Both raw meat and raw fruits/vegetables are tough, fibrous, and relatively hard for our bodies to fully digest. Our fellow great apes spend up to 18 hours a day foraging and chewing just to get enough calories. Cooking meat (and to a lesser extent, certain plants) breaks down proteins, collagen, and tough fibers, making nutrients far more bioavailable. Suddenly our ancestors didn’t need to spend their entire waking lives eating. This freed up enormous amounts of time and energy.

Second: Brain growth.
The human brain is an extremely expensive organ. It consumes about 20% of our total energy despite making up only ~2% of our body weight. Cooked meat provided the dense, high-quality calories and nutrients (especially fats and proteins) necessary to support that energy-hungry brain. Over time, this dietary shift correlates strongly with significant increases in brain size and complexity in the human lineage. We have significantly more brain mass per pound of body weight than any other great ape.

Cooked meat didn’t just help us survive.
It helped make us human.

A Modern Irony

The dietary guidelines produced and beloved by the administrative state are objectively wrong and stand biology on its head. You know, the ones that heavily emphasize grains, fruits, and vegetables while treating meat (especially red meat) as something to be minimized. This stands in direct opposition to everything archaeology, anthropology, and human biology tell us about the diets that actually produced modern humans.

Our ancestors didn’t become human by eating like modern vegans recommend. Or even the American Heart Association recommendations. They became human when they learned to cook meat. The modern dietary guidelines pushed by the administrative state are only possible in today’s industrial world of cheap refined grains, year-round fruits and vegetables from global supply chains, and heavily fortified processed foods. Our biology evolved in a very different nutritional environment.

We can debate the ethics and environmental impacts of modern meat production. Those are legitimate conversations. But pretending that meat itself is somehow unnatural or antithetical to human health is historical and biological illiteracy.

Our ancestors learned to control fire and cook meat somewhere between 1 and 2 million years ago.

That discovery didn’t just feed them.

It helped turn them into us.

Further Reading

• Richard Wrangham, Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human (2009) — The definitive popular book on the cooking hypothesis and the scavenging-to-cooking transition.

• Wrangham’s academic papers on the “cooking hypothesis,” including the idea that early humans were stealing kills from other predators before cooking them. For example, this piece at NIH: Cooking as a Biological Trait

• NPR coverage is pretty good, also. For example “When Fire Met Food”

• Polymathic Being: “Veganism: A First-World Luxury” by Michael Woudenberg

#FifthBranch #Veganism #EatingMeat #HowWeBecameHuman

A bit before 2145 local time on 25 June 1996, a fuel truck was driven into the parking lot of Building 131 at the Khobar Towers military housing complex in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. It was followed by a white car.

The truck driver jumped into the white car, which immediately drove off. Moments later, an explosion estimated at ten tons of TNT detonated. At the time, roughly 2,000 US Air Force personnel were housed there. Nineteen Airmen were killed. Over 500 people were wounded.

The evidence strongly suggests the explosives were smuggled into Saudi Arabia by Lebanon’s Hezbollah, operating out of the Bekaa Valley with direct assistance from Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Saudi Hezbollah al-Hejaz, an Iranian-backed terrorist group, conducted reconnaissance on the complex at least forty times prior to the attack.

The FBI believes the operation was planned over a three-year period with approval at the highest levels of the Iranian government. The goal was to drive US military forces out of Saudi Arabia.

Over time, US courts weighing the evidence have found Iran guilty of the bombing and the murder of US Airmen:

• 2006: A U.S. federal court found Hezbollah and Iran guilty and ordered Iran to pay $254.5 million to the families of those killed.

• 2018: Iran was again held responsible and ordered by a US Federal Court to pay victims $104.7 million.

• 2020: A U.S. District Court cited evidence that Iran aided Hezbollah and ordered Iran to pay $879 million in damages.

In 1991, my unit was in Building 131 as we redeployed to the US after Operation Desert Storm.

Further Reading

• Beirut Rules by Fred Burton and Samuel L. Katz

• The Looming Tower by Lawrence Wright

• The Secret War With Iran by Ronen Bergman

#AmericanHistory #TheLongWar #KhobarTowers

I know, now, that it was officially called the American Freedom Train, but everyone I knew just called it the Bicentennial Train.

We lived in a small town near Sacramento at the time. My dad had been out of the Army for a couple of years. I was eight years old. The whole family went, which was Dad, Mom, my little brother (2 1/2 years younger), and me.

The train was parked in Old Sacramento, right along the river. My memory failed me on when exactly the Train was in Sacramento. So I did some google searching and discovered the Train was in Sacramento in November, 1975. I do remember that we stood in line for what felt like forever to an eight-year-old kid and was likely at least two hours, maybe longer. But we waited with everybody else. It was a wonder that we all wanted to see.

When we finally got inside, it was like stepping into another world. The cars had that old-time train feel: dark wood paneling and seats with heavy felt-covered cushions. Every car was a little museum. One after another, they told the story of 200 years of America: the founding and the Revolution, the Civil War, wagon trains heading west, the building of the transcontinental railroad, and America’s wars, the Depression, much more.

I remember how quiet everyone was as they walked through. Moms and dads pointed things out to their kids in hushed voices. Teenagers moved in little groups, whispering to each other. There was a real sense of reverence in those cars.

After we finished walking through the train, we wandered into Old Sacramento itself. It had been reconstructed to look like it did in the 1850s, with wooden sidewalks, old brick buildings, and the most wonderful part: Old time candy stores. We got to go in the old candy store and mom and dad let my brother and I each fill a bag with candy. It felt like stepping back in time.

That whole day stuck with me. History wasn’t just something in books anymore. It was something you could walk through on an afternoon with your family.

Looking back fifty years later, I’m grateful my parents took us. I’m glad I got to stand in that long line, walk through those quiet train cars, get some old school candy, and wander through Old Sacramento. I believe that was one of the pivotal days creating my deep and abiding love of America.

Soon after that, I started reading anything I could find at the library about the American Revolution and the Founders. One of the books I vividly remember was The Story of the Bonhomme Richard.

Some memories stay with you for a reason.

#America250 #America200 #Bicentennial Train

Further Reading
The Story of the 1976 Freedom Train

For those unfamiliar, federal law requires schools to integrate special education students into general education classrooms to the “maximum extent appropriate.” For students with milder needs, this can work. For many others, it means assigning a full-time caregiver, politely called a “para-educator,” to handle their needs throughout the school day.

I was largely unaware of the true scale until my wife spent five years working as a para-educator. What she experienced horrified me. The level of care required for many students went far beyond any reasonable definition of “education.” It was intensive, daily caregiving, often one-on-one, funded by taxpayers who have almost no idea this is happening.

Worse, these para-educators frequently lack meaningful specialized training for handling severe disabilities or challenging behaviors. Many enter the role with little more than a high school diploma and on-the-job learning. According to MDPI, as a result, they are quite often subjected to physical and verbal abuse from the very students they are assigned to support. Bruises, bites, scratches, thrown objects, and constant verbal aggression are common realities that get minimized or ignored in public discussions.

The Hidden Caregiving Reality

For students who cannot walk, talk, see, hear, feed themselves, or regulate behavior, a para-educator provides mobility assistance, toileting, feeding, medical monitoring, and constant behavioral support. In practice, the SPED system has become a taxpayer-funded daycare and respite program. It dramatically relieves the parental burden for families of children with profound disabilities.

This support is humane and necessary in some form. Raising a child with severe disabilities is an immense, round-the-clock challenge. But the public largely does not understand that a significant and growing portion of local school budgets now funds this intensive caregiving, often in general education classrooms. The broader citizenry remains unaware. Nor do most taxpayers realize the toll this takes on the under-trained paras themselves.

Nationally, special education serves about 13-15% of students but consumes a disproportionate share of resources. Per-student costs for SPED are typically 1.5–2x higher than general education, and far more for severe cases. Federal IDEA funding was supposed to cover 40% of excess costs but chronically delivers only around 10-12%. This leaves states and local districts to fill the gap from general funds. In California, the numbers are especially stark, with local taxpayers picking up the majority of the bill.

Administrative Bloat: The Davis Example

Even the raw administrator numbers don’t tell the full story. Staffing roughly tripled in key categories while compensation per role soared dramatically.

My alma mater, Davis Senior High School in Davis, California, is located in an affluent university town with a highly educated population.

1985 (~1,400 students):

• 1 principal, 1 vice principal, 1 athletics director

• 3 counselors, 1 nurse, 1 librarian

• 4 office/secretarial staff

A typical high school principal earned roughly $40k–$55k. In today’s dollars, that is roughly $124k–$170k.

2026 (~1,750 students):

• 1 principal plus 3 vice principals plus 1 athletics director

• 6 counselors, 2 nurses, 2 psychologists, 1 librarian

• 12 office/secretarial staff

• High school principals and top admins in California now earn $150k–$200k+ base, with total compensation much higher. District-wide admin costs have ballooned.

Student population grew 25%. Admin and support layers and their costs rose 400–500% or more.

Yet outcomes haven’t improved at all, let alone proportionally. We had strong graduation and literacy rates in the 1980s. Today, even students graduating in the top 20% of their class are showing up at CSU and UC campuses needing remedial math and English. High graduation rates (around 95%) and respectable CAASPP proficiency numbers hide the truth: actual academic preparation has declined. The expanded bureaucracy seems dedicated more to managing SPED inclusion, compliance mandates, equity initiatives, and meetings than to driving rigorous classroom instruction.

Entrenched Conflicts of Interest

And this doesn’t even touch the crazy political layer. In many districts, school boards, city administrations, and city councils are riddled with conflicts of interest. Board members often have family or professional ties to the district. City officials wear multiple hats that blur lines between oversight and spending.

In the district I now live in, for example, the mayor is also the school district operations director. When the people approving budgets and bonds are the same ones, or closely tied to those, managing operations and benefiting from expanded staffing and contracts, real accountability vanishes. This creates a cozy ecosystem where more spending benefits the insiders: administrators, unions, and service providers. Meanwhile, taxpayers and general education students bear the costs.

The Republican Question — and the Fifth Branch

The issue is not whether families of children with severe disabilities need support. Of course they do. The real question citizens of a republic must answer is this: What level of support, funded how, structured how, and at what cost to other priorities?

Under the current design, broad “inclusion” mandates push many high-needs students into general classrooms, often with dedicated paras. This creates real disruptions for the 85%+ of students without such intensive needs. Teachers and paras report spending disproportionate time on management rather than instruction. Resources are pulled from core academics. And the general public has almost no visibility into the trade-offs, including the safety risks to staff.

We should demand transparency: clear public breakdowns of SPED versus general education spending, excess costs by disability category, classroom impact data, staff injury rates, and honest accounting of the caregiving component. We also need strict conflict-of-interest rules with real teeth and independent audits at the local level.

To a large extent, this is a direct result of the permanent entrenchment of the Fifth Branch, the Administrative State, as I discuss in my recent article. Fundamentally, the people making the day-to-day decisions about how government education should be run are nearly 100% unaccountable to the sovereign citizenry.

How the Administrative State Became a Shadow Government

Citizens and legislators then need to debate practical reforms:

• Better federal fulfillment of IDEA funding promises

• More flexible placement options (including targeted settings when inclusion demonstrably harms overall outcomes or staff safety)

• Separate funding streams for intensive medical/caregiving needs, distinct from academic education

• Substantially better training, pay, and support for para-educators

• Stronger cost controls, outcome accountability, and genuine separation between oversight bodies and district insiders

• Prioritizing excellence in mass education while still providing humane support

My wife’s years as a para-educator opened my eyes. She witnessed the caregiving demands, the lack of preparation, the routine abuse, the classroom impacts, the governance problems, and the complete disconnect between skyrocketing costs and stagnant or declining results. And it is not sustainable, transparent, or, simply put, good for the vast majority of students, the staff, or ultimately the system itself. Taxpayers footing the bill deserve a real say in how this is structured.

This isn’t about lacking compassion. It’s about honest governance in a republic: weighing competing goods with open eyes instead of hiding difficult trade-offs behind emotional appeals, opaque budgets, and insider conflicts.

What do you think happens when citizens finally see the numbers?

Further Reading

More details here on Para Educator issues, spending issues, and student outcomes

Getting Down To Facts - Para Educator Trends and Recommendations

Josiah Bartlett Center for Public Policy (New Hampshire brief) — Clear example of rising spending with flat/declining performance.

Brookings Institution (2025 state-level analysis) — Weak overall relationship between per-pupil spending and outcomes, with large variation across states.

Observations from the Late Republic

#Observations #FifthBranch #Education

George Washington: The Indispensable Man

The popular image of George Washington as a brilliant military genius who outfought the greatest empire on earth is largely myth. Washington was neither a Caesar nor a Napoleon. He lacked their ruthless hunger for personal power and their operational military genius. What made him extraordinary was something far rarer in history. He repeatedly took power when his country desperately needed him, exercised it with restraint, and then willingly gave it up.

In this, he consciously modeled himself after the Roman hero Cincinnatus. According to legend, Cincinnatus was a farmer who was appointed dictator by the Senate during a grave emergency. He defeated Rome’s enemies in just sixteen days, then immediately resigned his dictatorship and returned to his plow. The American Founders so deeply admired this ideal of the citizen who serves only as long as necessary and then returns to private life that they later named the city of Cincinnati, Ohio after him.

Washington came closer to living that ideal than any other successful revolutionary leader in history.

The Forging of Character Through Failure

George Washington was not born great. He was born ambitious and determined in a world that gave him neither wealth nor high social standing.

As a younger son in a respectable but modest Virginia family, Washington had to make his own way. He began his adult life as a surveyor on the dangerous frontier. He was good at it, but it was not enough. He craved military glory and the respect that came with it.

The French & Indian War gave him his opportunity, and it nearly ruined him.

In 1754, at only twenty-two years old, Washington led an inexperienced force into the Ohio Country. He stumbled into a skirmish with French troops. He surrendered at a small stockade called Fort Necessity, and signed humiliating terms the French later used as propaganda. A year later, serving under British General Edward Braddock, he survived a catastrophic ambush along the Monongahela River. Two horses were shot from under him and four bullets passed through his coat. Yet Washington remained strangely untouched amid the slaughter. Like Napoleon and Patton after him, he seemed to have an almost supernatural ability to stand in the fiercest fighting and emerge unscathed. This episode marked the beginning of his reputation for exceptional courage under fire.

These early disasters taught the proud, hot-tempered young Washington hard lessons about overconfidence, logistics, and his own limitations. He began the long work of mastering himself, controlling his temper and building a reputation for honesty and reliability.

It was during this difficult time that Washington discovered the story of Cincinnatus. This ancient example became one of the guiding stars of his life.

By the time the American Revolution began more than twenty years later, Washington was no tactical genius. But he had become something much rarer: a man forged by failure who possessed the self-mastery his country would desperately need.

Interwar Years: The Making of a Virginia Gentleman

In the years between the end of the French & Indian War and the beginning of the American Revolution, Washington transformed himself from an ambitious young officer into one of the most respected men in Virginia. He returned to Mount Vernon, married the wealthy widow Martha Custis in 1759, and became a successful planter and businessman. He served in the Virginia House of Burgesses and slowly built the reputation of a solid, reliable member of the colonial gentry.

Yet he watched with increasing alarm as Britain imposed new taxes and regulations on the colonies. By 1774, Washington had emerged as a leading voice of resistance in Virginia. When the colonies needed a commander, they chose him.

The Revolutionary War — Endurance, Not Genius

In June 1775, Washington arrived at the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia wearing his Virginia militia uniform. Two days later, he was unanimously chosen as Commander-in-Chief. He was not chosen because he was the best battlefield tactician. Several officers, most notably Benedict Arnold, were widely regarded as more brilliant in combat.

The war that followed proved the wisdom of that choice.

Washington lost far more battles than he won. He was repeatedly outmaneuvered by better-trained British generals. The army suffered devastating defeats in New York, desperate retreats across New Jersey, and brutal winters at Valley Forge and Morristown. Supply shortages, short enlistments, disease, and political interference constantly threatened to dissolve the force.

Yet Washington proved himself a brilliant leader of men. His soldiers developed a deep, personal loyalty to him. As a combat veteran myself, I can tell you that generals who willingly go where the fighting is fiercest, and somehow emerge unscathed, earn a special kind of respect from the rank and file. Washington had that quality in abundance. His men respected his courage, his willingness to share their hardships, and his quiet competence. Even in defeat, his mere presence often steadied the troops.

Washington’s real military achievement was not tactical genius, but strategic endurance. While battlefield commanders like Benedict Arnold were superior in combat, Washington understood that keeping the army alive was the true requirement for victory. Arnold’s later treason, driven largely by resentment at being passed over for promotion, only highlighted why the Continental Congress had chosen character and steadiness over raw tactical talent.

His one clear flash of operational brilliance came on Christmas night 1776, with the surprise crossing of the Delaware and the victory at Trenton. It was a brilliant tactical stroke, aided by luck, terrible weather, and British complacency. But Trenton was the exception, not the rule. By Yorktown, Washington had won the war. But he had done so by surviving, not by battlefield genius.

The ultimate test came during the winter of 1782–83 at Newburgh, after Washington had actually won the military campaigns and Cornwallis had surrendered at Yorktown. Unpaid and angry officers threatened rebellion against Congress. Some urged Washington to seize power or accept a crown. In one of the most dramatic moments of the war, Washington confronted the officers, shamed their disloyalty, and reaffirmed civilian control. Once again, he chose the Republic over personal power.

By 1783, Washington had done what almost no successful revolutionary general in history had managed. He kept the cause alive through eight brutal years and won the war without becoming a tyrant.

The Reluctant President

In 1787, Washington presided over the Constitutional Convention. His presence gave the proceedings crucial legitimacy. Without Washington, it is likely the Constitutional Convention would have failed to create a new government to succeed the original Articles of Confederation. When the new government was formed, he was the only man the country could imagine as its first President. Once again, he answered the call despite his deep desire to remain at Mount Vernon.

As President, he set enduring precedents: the cabinet system, civilian control of the military, and neutrality in foreign affairs. His handling of the Whiskey Rebellion in 1794 was especially telling. Rather than ignore the unrest or use it as an excuse to expand federal power permanently, he personally led a militia force to restore order, then pardoned the leaders and stood the army down once the crisis passed.

The Final Refusal

After two terms as President, George Washington did what almost no successful revolutionary leader in history has ever done. He walked away from power.

In his Farewell Address, he warned the young nation about the dangers of permanent political parties, foreign entanglements, and excessive debt. Then he returned to Mount Vernon, not as a king and not as a permanent elder statesman, but simply as a private citizen.

Like the Roman Emperor Diocletian centuries before him, who shocked the world by voluntarily abdicating the throne and retiring to grow cabbages, Washington chose to step completely out of public affairs. He knew the story of Diocletian well. He understood that one of the greatest threats to a republic is the man who cannot bring himself to leave the stage.

This final act of relinquishing power may have been his greatest gift to the Republic.

Washington understood something that very few men who taste supreme power ever grasp. Republics die when their leaders refuse to let go. By choosing to be Cincinnatus rather than Caesar or Napoleon, he set a precedent that helped the American experiment survive its fragile early years.

He was not a tactical genius. He lost far more battles than he won. But he kept the Revolution alive when it could easily have died. He led men who loved and trusted him through unimaginable hardship. And, most importantly, he repeatedly refused to become the thing that has destroyed so many republics: the indispensable man who refuses to step aside.

In our own time of Late Republic decay, marked by career politicians, permanent bureaucracies, and leaders who cling to power at all costs, Washington’s example stands in sharp and humbling contrast.

#America250 #Founders

On June 19, 1865, in Galveston, Texas, Union troops announced that the Civil War was over and the enslaved people of Texas were free. For them, it was the true day of emancipation.

America was the first nation in history to declare, in its founding document, that all men are created equal. That radical idea challenged thousands of years of accepted practice across the world. Many of the men and women of the Founding generation genuinely believed slavery would wither away over time. They made compromises to protect the institution for a couple of decades, giving slaveholders time to adjust their economies and transition away from it.

Two things upended that expectation: Eli Whitney’s cotton gin, which made large-scale cotton production enormously profitable, and England’s Industrial Revolution, which created a massive new market for cotton. What had been a dying institution suddenly became hugely lucrative. The moral arc that many Founders assumed would bend toward freedom was disrupted and altered by countervailing forces.

The United States did not invent slavery. Slavery had existed in nearly every society throughout human history. And still does in many places. Slavery is not specific to race, tribe, or culture. All have practiced it and some still do. What was new was a country that explicitly rejected it as a moral wrong in its founding charter and eventually fought a war to end it.

It took eighty years and a brutal civil war to fully live up to the founding promise, but we did live up to it. America ended the sin of chattel slavery on its soil. Men, women, and children who had been held in bondage were freed.

Juneteenth is worth celebrating because it marks one of the great moral achievements in human history. A nation founded on the idea of liberty took that idea seriously enough to eventually extend it to everyone within its borders.

As we approach America’s 250th birthday, Juneteenth is a reminder that this country was built on the greatest expansion of human freedom the world had ever seen. We didn’t always live up to our ideals immediately, but we did move toward them. Often at great cost.

That’s something to be proud of and to celebrate.

Happy Juneteenth.

#America250 #Juneteenth #AmericanHistory

I recently ran an experiment. I took something I wrote several years ago, before Generative AI was used broadly. In fact LLMs were being trained at the time. It’s a straightforward, practical piece about a major storm hitting Western Washington. I fed it into several popular AI detectors.

The results? 65% to 85% “AI-generated.” And the irony is thick enough to choke on.

It is entirely possible, in fact, extremely likely, that this very piece (and all the others I’ve published over the years) was scraped from the internet and used as training data for the large language models now being accused of producing it. My own pre-AI human writing is probably helping the machines sound more like me, only to be flagged years later as suspiciously AI-like.

This panic and response to knowledge technology isn’t new. Not even close.

In Plato’s Phaedrus, Socrates launches a passionate attack on the new technology of his day: writing.

What’s remarkable is not just that the fears are the same, it’s how consistently humans repeat the exact same pattern with every new tool for recording and spreading ideas.

The Luddite Fear: “The old tool is just fine”

The Luddite fear is rarely just “new thing bad.” It’s almost always:
“The current tool we have is perfectly fine, in fact, it’s superior. This new tool is dangerous and inferior.” In the 19th century just such arguments were made about the mechanization of writing by the typewriter.

And you can see that same argument was made against the tool they’re now defending the last time around.

I’m old enough to have watched this cycle a couple times. I came into the world as computers and word processors were replacing the typewriter.

I saw the typewriter→computer→internet cycles and I’m watching the latest. Typewriters were just fine and word processors were automating the act of writing. Word processors were just fine until the internet and blogging. The internet and blogging were just fine until AI.

The Professional Panic: Socrates’ Real Fear

When Socrates attacked writing, he was defending something he saw as sacred: the living, breathing practice of philosophy through face-to-face dialectic. He feared writing would destroy the rigorous oral tradition and replace it with something dead and static.

This is the exact same fear we see repeated with every new writing technology. Scribes feared the printing press. Typesetters feared desktop publishing. Journalists feared blogs. Writers today fear AI.

The people closest to the old way of doing things are usually the first, and loudest, to see the threat. And the threat is to their profession. Technology is, absolutely, a labor replacement. But do you think the world would be better off if it took an army of scribes to update the accounting books of a business rather than one person with a computer and internet based tools like QuickBooks?

The Gatekeeper Fear: “This Will Destroy Quality and Standards”

The third recurring panic is the most elitist: the deep anxiety that the new technology will cheapen knowledge, destroy excellence, and let the unworthy masses produce (and consume) intellectual garbage. And the gatekeeper will no longer be the gatekeeper. That is the deep down fear, of course.

Socrates warned that writing would create people who possessed “the appearance of wisdom without the reality.”

This same fear has repeated for centuries:

• The printing press horrified the clergy because suddenly any literate person could read the Bible themselves, without the Church as gatekeeper.

• Cheap paperbacks and pulp magazines were denounced as vulgar trash.

• The internet and blogs triggered contempt about “unbathed bloggers in their parents’ basements, writing in pajamas with no editor.” The backlash was so strong that one company proudly named itself Pajamas Media, now PJMedia.

• Today we hear the same arguments about AI: “Anyone can have AI write a book now,” “It will destroy literature,” “We’re replacing real authors with soulless spam.”

The underlying belief is almost always the same: If the tools become too accessible, the wrong people will flood the field and true excellence will be lost.

Conclusion

Technology has consistently improved our ability to create and communicate. And humans have consistently feared what it might bring. I’m sure some caveman a million years ago was opposed to fire for the same reasons Socrates was opposed to writing. There is always a fear of the new. As one wag says, “humans are most conservative about what they know best.”

Every single time humanity has developed a better way to capture, preserve, and spread knowledge, a vocal group has warned that it would lead to intellectual collapse. And every single time, they have been wrong about the long-term outcome.

Writing didn’t destroy wisdom. It spread it far beyond Athens and helped contribute to Rome, one of the greatest civilizations to ever exist. The printing press didn’t end scholarship. It ignited the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, directly contributing to America. The internet didn’t kill journalism or literature, it created new forms and vastly expanded who could participate. We really have no idea how much that will change the world.

AI will be no different.

It will disrupt. It will devalue some old skills. It will create new problems. But it will also dramatically expand humanity’s ability to create, explore, and share ideas. It will drive the current democratization even further than today.

The real question isn’t whether these new tools will change things. They always do. The real question is will we get good at wielding the new tools while keeping our own voice, judgment, and standards intact.

Light a cigar. Relax. The machines aren’t coming for your soul.

They’re just the latest chapter in a very old story.

And the story keeps going.

#AI #Socrates #LudditeFears #Gatekeeping #Typewriter #GutenbergBible #wordprocessor

You can visit it and bookmark it at Foundations!

Far too many people believe that being prepared in the modern world means buying a pistol, slapping it on their belt, and calling it good. That mindset is dangerously incomplete. Real preparedness is about building genuine capability, not collecting gear. Medical skills, physical resilience, and proper training matter far more than any single tool.

Over the last several posts we have laid out the essential foundations. Here are the key takeaways from each.

1. Mindset, Training, and the Gear Trap

So You’ve Got the Gear… Now What?

• Gear is only the starting point. Most stop here and never build real skill.

• True preparedness combines consistent training, deliberate practice, realistic plans, and the right mindset.

• Mindset is everything. Be polite and professional, but have a plan to act if necessary.

2. Emergency Medical Training and Equipment

The First Pillar

• Medical capability is the single most important skill for a Modern Minuteman. You will almost certainly need it long before a firearm.

• Begin with Stop the Bleed, then advance to higher-level trauma training (TECC). Learn to stop life-threatening bleeding and keep someone alive until help arrives.

• Build and carry a compact, proven Individual First Aid Kit (IFAK). Real-world use has shown its value repeatedly.

3. Physical Fitness and Resilience

The Second Pillar

• Medical skills are worthless if you lack the strength or endurance to reach someone in need or function under stress.

• Prioritize functional strength: the big three lifts (squat, deadlift, bench press), regular rucking with 30+ pounds, and daily walking as a baseline habit.

• Consistency beats perfection. Build sustainable habits that serve you for decades.

4. Firearms and Self-Defense Training

The Third Pillar

• The firearm comes third for good reason. Medical skills are almost certainly going to be used before a firearm. And without fitness and resilience, you are likely to not be very capable in an emergency, gun or no.

• Try before you buy at a range. Rent options in 9mm and choose one that fits you for both practice and concealed carry. We live in a golden age of excellent concealed carry pistols.

• I personally transitioned from 1911s to the Sig P365XL for everyday carry. Build fundamentals first (at least 1,000 quality rounds with a consistent range plan), then pursue quality defensive courses that cover law, decision-making, and realistic scenarios. Know your state’s laws on self-defense and concealed carry.

The Bigger Picture

Being prepared is not about playing operator or accumulating tactical toys. It is about becoming quietly competent — the kind of person who can actually help when things go wrong, whether in a medical emergency, natural disaster, or worse.

Our country would be far stronger with more trained, fit, medically capable, and responsibly armed citizens. This ideal is much closer to what the Founders had in mind than a dependent, untrained population.

The Modern Minuteman is not defined by what sits on his belt. He is defined by what he can do when it counts: stop the bleeding, move with purpose, make sound decisions under pressure, and protect what matters.

Next Steps

• Revisit any of the four foundation posts that speak to your weakest area.

• Take one concrete action this week: sign up for a bleeding control class, start a simple strength program, build your IFAK, or schedule range time.

• Download the free companion checklist (coming soon) that summarizes recommendations from the full series.

Future posts under the Modern Minuteman tag will build on these foundations with topics like integration in real scenarios, vehicle kits, family preparedness, and community resilience.

Start small. Stay consistent. Build real capability.

The Minuteman Foundations Series
So You’ve Got the Gear… Now What?
Emergency Medical Training and Equipment
Physical Fitness and Resilience
Firearms & Self-Defense Training

Modern Minuteman

Practical preparedness for everyday citizens.

Low-profile. Reliable. Quiet competence.

#Minuteman #EDC #Training #Preparedness #Mindset #Foundations

All Modern Minuteman posts

Last week I read a long Substack piece that spent 2000 words confidently declaring the author could spot AI writing from a mile away. No real method, no examples, no data. There was just paragraph after paragraph of “I can tell. I always know.” It was the literary equivalent of a guy at the range saying his gut tells him exactly where the bullet is going to hit.

So I decided to run an experiment.

I dug up something I wrote years ago, before ChatGPT, Claude, or any of this generative stuff existed. It was a straightforward piece about a massive storm hitting Western Washington. 100% human. Typed by me, edited by me, no AI anywhere near it. I pasted it into one of the popular “trusted” AI detectors.

Result? 65% AI-generated.

The tool even offered to “humanize” it for me. For a fee, of course.

That’s when I started laughing.

These detectors aren’t catching AI. They’re mostly catching competent, clear, structured prose. The kind we drilled into kids in high school with Strunk & White: tight paragraphs, logical flow, active voice, no unnecessary fluff. If I still had my old 5-paragraph essays from my 1980’s English classes, I’d bet my entire cigar budget they’d all score 70-90% AI. Same with big chunks of Robert E. Howard’s Conan stories. Howard’s stories were muscular, rhythmic pulp writing with verbose sensory descriptions and consistent energy. Detectors would flag it as synthetic in a heartbeat.

Side note: My own pulp fiction is strongly modeled after Howard and “Doc” Smith’s style. It’s probably flagged 9000 ways from Sunday as AI by now.

One pattern I’ve noticed that does feel like a more reliable tell, at least for now: the overuse of em dashes. They show up constantly across pretty much every generative model I’ve seen. Technically they’re a valid way to handle complex ideas in a single sentence, but humans rarely use them other than in very formal writing. Our high school English teachers never taught us to use them, and if we did we generally got marked down. More importantly, em dashes tend to break the visual rhythm and beauty of prose on the actual page. It’s not just the words — it’s how the text looks to the eye. AI doesn’t really grasp that aesthetic dimension yet.

Meanwhile, the same tools that scream “AI!” at clean human writing are happily sold alongside “humanizer” services that add random contractions, sentence fragments, and quirky transitions so your text can dodge the very same algorithms. The humanizer tools are not creating beautiful, human prose. They are creating crap and you’re paying for the crap. It’s a perfect self-licking ice cream cone. Create the fear, sell the solution, repeat.

I get the unease. Writing feels personal. When something new comes along that can produce decent text at scale, a lot of people reach for the pitchforks and start talking about “soul” and “authenticity.” But the detectors prove they can’t even reliably separate last decade’s careful human work from machine output.

AI is here. It’s not going away. The smart move isn’t to pretend you have a magical literary sixth sense or to outsource your paranoia to probabilistic tools that fail basic tests. The smart move is to use the new tools where they help. Generative AI is awesome at drafting, editing, research, bouncing ideas. At the same time, if you are paying attention and writing the words yourself, you will keep your own voice, experience, and judgment in the driver’s seat.

Security people, especially, should understand this. We deal in signal vs. noise every day. Right now the “AI detection” space is mostly noise dressed up as signal. It generates clicks, subscriptions, and moral grandstanding, but it doesn’t hold up when you test it against real human writing from before the models existed.

So light a cigar, relax, and deal with it. The machines aren’t coming for your soul. They’re just better at some of the grunt work. The question is whether you’re going to waste energy raging at the tool, or get good at wielding it.

I know which side I’m on.

#StayHuman #AIWriting #AIDetectors #WelcomeToTheMachine

If you’ve made it this far in the series, you already understand the mindset. Preparation isn’t about collecting toys or playing operator. It’s about being a capable, responsible asset to yourself, your family, and your community when things go wrong. A firearm is a tool, a powerful one, but it’s useless or worse without the fitness to deploy it effectively and the medical skills to deal with the aftermath.

We’re assuming here that you have zero background with pistols and defensive handgun use. That’s okay. Most people starting out are in the same boat. Here’s a realistic, step-by-step path.

1. Don’t Buy First

Do not drop $500 to $1,000 or more on a gun sight unseen just because someone online recommended it.

Most good ranges have a rental counter with a variety of pistols. Rent several in 9mm (the standard for self-defense today; reliable, manageable recoil, widely available, and effective). Spend an hour or two shooting them under basic instruction. Pay for that intro lesson if needed; it’s worth every penny.

Focus on what feels comfortable in your hand, points naturally, and that you can shoot accurately without fighting the gun. Size, grip texture, trigger feel, and overall ergonomics matter more than brand hype when you’re starting.

2. Buy Your First Pistol

Once you’ve tried several options, buy something that works well for both learning at the range and concealed carry. Do some research, remember your range time, talk to someone with experience.

We live in a genuine golden age of concealed carry pistols compared to even just five years ago. There are now dozens of truly excellent, reliable options that are shootable, high-capacity, and easy to conceal.

For years I carried 1911 type pistols, especially a Springfield Armory 1911 EMP, designed for concealed carry. I’ve been shooting and carrying the 1911 pistol for 40 years. They’re iconic, shoot beautifully, and I still enjoy them at the range. But when it came to everyday carry, I transitioned to the Sig Sauer P365XL. It’s more compact with a higher capacity in a concealable package. And it shoots well. For most people starting out, this is an excellent balance.

Other strong recommendations:

Glock 19: The gold standard for reliability, ease of shooting, and aftermarket support. Extremely forgiving for new shooters while remaining practical for carry.

Sig Sauer P365: My current EDC choice. There are a bunch of variants. If you like this option, see if you can at least handle a couple different variants at the gun store.

Springfield Hellcat Pro: Micro-compact with impressive capacity and good shootability.

Glock 43X or Smith & Wesson M&P Shield Plus: Slim, reliable, and very popular for everyday concealment.

CZ P-10 series: Excellent ergonomics and often praised as one of the most shootable compact pistols.

There are many more solid choices depending on your hand size, budget, and preferences. PSA Dagger, Canik, Walther, and many other manufacturers all have strong contenders. The key is finding one that fits you after renting and trying them.

Buy from a reputable dealer. Get a quality kydex holster designed specifically for your model (IWB or appendix carry). Skip cheap nylon or leather, neither of which is appropriate for concealed carry and self-defense situations. Add a proper gun belt that can support 4 lbs without sagging.

Priorities: Reliability first, then shootability, then concealability. Stick with 9mm. You don’t need to spend an extra $300 (or more) on an optic for your pistol, but it won’t hurt you either.

3. Build Real Proficiency

Training beats gear every single time.

Take a solid local NRA or equivalent basic pistol class. The class needs to include safety, principles of marksmanship, and range time to put the principles into practice. It should also include some fundamental basics on how to dry fire and train at the range after the class to maintain and strengthen what the class taught you.

Then it’s time to put this training into practice at home. You should dry fire every day for a few minutes. Safety note: When you do, it’s critical that you clear the pistol and leave all ammunition in another room. During dry fire we focus on grip, sight alignment, and trigger press.

You also need to go to the range on a recurring basis to shoot and apply your training and dry fire with live rounds. I recommend every two weeks, at least. During this time, your goal is shoot least 1,000 rounds downrange in your first few months.

Build a range plan and stick to it, over and over. Nothing complex, just the basics of shooting static targets at 5-10 yards. It’s like baseball; you only get better by swinging the bat hundreds of times. The same goes for shooting a pistol. Emphasize fundamentals: grip, sight alignment, trigger press, rounds on target.

Quality > quantity. Deliberate, slow practice builds skill much faster than burning through ammo.

4. Move to Defensive Training

Once you’re competent with the basics and have several hundred (ideally 1,000+) rounds through the gun, seek a quality defensive handgun course. I say 1000 rounds of shooting because that’s the minimum to build real muscle memory. And that is how you become a good marksman.

Remember the baseball bit above. You don’t get to be good at swinging a bat if you do it a few dozen times. It’s hundreds of swings to get muscle memory built, to train your body.

A good self-defense pistol course should include:

• Classroom time that addresses the law and the principles of self-defense

• Training with simulated firearms (blue guns, SIRT pistols, etc.)

• Actual live fire training to put the principles into practice under realistic conditions

Look for instructors who emphasize realistic scenarios, decision-making, draws from concealment, low-light shooting, and weapon retention. And make sure that they have a background to be a good instructor.

Only after completing this level of training should you regularly carry outside the home. Carrying a firearm is a serious responsibility; you must be prepared mentally, physically, and legally.

5. Know the Law

Firearms laws are state-specific and can change.

Many states have a law called constitutional carry, which means that you can carry concealed as long as you can legally purchase and own a firearm. The rest have a concealed carry permit requirement. Know which your state is, and what the requirements are.

Understand use-of-force laws: When is deadly force justified? Does your state law require that you retreat or is a stand your ground state? What about in your home, does castle doctrine apply?

If you are engaged in a self-defense incident, what protocols should you follow, should you call 911 (spoiler alert: yes) and should you say to 911, to other people around you, to law enforcement and first responders?

Some good starting resources include: USCCA, Handgunlaw.us, or your state attorney general’s website. There are a number of concealed carry and self-defense legal protection options (similar to insurance) and you should research those and determine if you need one.

Bottom line: Ignorance is not a defense. Know the rules before you carry. Seriously considering taking a class on law and self-defense, not just the 30 minutes you will get in a good firearms course.

Conclusion: Tool in the Toolkit

A firearm doesn’t make you the Modern Minuteman. Medical skills save lives first. Fitness lets you move, fight, and endure. Training turns the gun into a reliable extension of your will.

This is the third pillar, not the first, for good reason. Get your medical kit sorted, get stronger, then add the firearm responsibly. The goal is quiet competence; the ability to protect what matters without drawing attention.

In future posts we’ll cover integration of all three pillars, vehicle kits, family preparedness, and more.

Previous in series:

So You’ve Got the Gear — Now What?

Emergency Medical Training and Equipment

Physical Fitness and Resilience

Modern Minuteman

Practical preparedness for everyday citizens.

Low-profile. Reliable. Quiet competence.

#Minuteman #EDC #Training #Preparedness #Mindset #Foundations

All Modern Minuteman posts

This collection brings together the core essays that form the philosophical and practical bedrock of my writing. These are the pieces I consider truly essential: the clearest explanations of the Late Republic, the Fourth Branch, the Modern Minuteman philosophy, citizenship, sovereignty, and stewardship.

I will continue adding key pieces to Foundations over time. It is meant to be a permanent, well-organized resource.

In Foundations you will find the clearest explanations of:

• The nature of the Late Republic

• The role and importance of the Fourth Branch

• The philosophy and practice of the Modern Minuteman

• Deeper questions of citizenship, sovereignty, and stewardship

Think of Foundations as the essential reading list.

If you’re new to Security n Cigars, or if you want to better understand the worldview behind my writing, this is the best place to start.

Note on Subscriptions
Foundations is its own Section and has its own newsletter feed. You can subscribe to Security n Cigars, Foundations, or both. Whatever suits you. You can adjust your subscriptions at any time.

→ Visit the Foundations collection here:
https://securityncigars.com/s/foundations

I will continue adding pieces to this collection as I write new foundational essays. It is meant to be a permanent resource — a place you can always return to for the core ideas.

#Foundations #LateRepublic #ModernMinuteman #FourthBranch

I started this over on Glenn Reynold’s most excellent post about Elon and the SpaceX IPO … and when I was 5 paragraphs in, I realized this deserved its own post. So, here we are.

Politicians worth hundreds of millions of dollars lecture him about giving his wealth to the government. Influencers demand that he feed the entire continent of Africa. It is only a matter of time before the ladies on The View condemn him again.

What these jealous critics miss, or perhaps understand but will not admit, is simple: hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of people live better lives today because of what Musk has built. One clear measure of this impact came yesterday: more than 4,000 new millionaires were created by the SpaceX IPO alone.

Elon Musk has single-handedly changed large parts of the modern world, and he has changed most of it for the better. We use his creations every day, often without realizing it. The internet we browse, the electric cars we drive, the batteries that power them, and the electronic payment systems we rely on all bear his mark.

He founded Zip2 in 1995. That company eventually became AltaVista after Compaq bought it. AltaVista was once a major search engine and a serious competitor to Google. Though it no longer exists, its technology lives on inside HP. Next came X.com, which merged with Confinity and became PayPal, a name everyone knows.

After those early successes, Musk could have retired comfortably. Instead, in 2001 he invested roughly $300 million, nearly everything he had, to found SpaceX. From there came Tesla, Neuralink, The Boring Company, Starlink, xAI, and now a SpaceX valued at over $2 trillion. As a side project, he bought Twitter and ended the left’s monopoly on narrative control. It is entirely possible that without that move, Donald Trump would not have won in 2024.

Musk also made the modern electric vehicle market viable. Electric cars existed before him, but he made them practical, gave them real range, and pushed hard on self-driving technology. He created the first truly reusable orbital rockets, slashing the cost of launching a ton of payload from around $50 million to less than $7 million. He built Starlink, which delivers high-speed internet from orbit. And xAI has become a powerful tool for engineers, writers, artists, and students.

It is easy to forget how difficult simple things once were. Twenty years ago, sending money to a friend or family member meant writing a check, withdrawing cash, or arranging a wire transfer. Today you can send money in seconds from your phone using PayPal, Venmo, Zelle, or similar services. Those tools now underpin entire industries such as Uber and countless small businesses.

Musk’s companies currently employ more than 160,000 people worldwide. These are real jobs that did not exist before he founded those companies. The median non-CEO salary across his enterprises is about $62,500 per year, plus benefits and stock options. That adds up to roughly $10 billion in annual wages for positions that simply would not be here without him.

And from what we can see, he is only getting started. Everything to this point has been preparation for turning SpaceX into a true interplanetary company.

Observations from the Late Republic

Examining the decline, the decay, and the quiet resistance in late-stage America.

#Observations #LateRepublic #ElonMusk

All Observations from the Late Republic posts

Many brands offer legitimate military, veteran, and first responder discounts — but finding the good ones and actually using them can be a pain. I’ve done the legwork and put together the best current options below.

Pro Tip: Set up ID.me and GovX once. Most programs use one or the other, and you’ll save money for years.

1. Verification Providers

2. Top Brands & Discounts

GOVX as a Platform
GOVX itself remains an excellent overall store with discounted tactical gear, apparel, and outdoor equipment for verified military, veterans, and first responders.

Bottom Line
Take a couple hours, verify on ID.me and GovX, and you’ll easily save hundreds (if not thousands) of dollars per year on gear you were already buying.

If you have a favorite program I missed, drop it in the comments — happy to add it.

Stay frosty and shop smart.

#Minuteman #VeteranDeals #ProDeals #FirstResponderDeals #LEODeals

You’ve got this Substack thing and it’s supposed to magically make you money through subscriptions. Okay, great. But how? And is that really why you’re here?

I spend easily 20 hours a week on two different Substacks. This one and one where I write fiction. I’d love it if you subscribed to either. For free. I’ve committed to a different model: one that builds community instead of chasing paid subscriptions.

Yet I have thousands of subscribers and followers. I enjoy writing and sharing with them, and some have become genuine friends. That’s my reward. You need to figure out your own reward, your Thing 0.

Meanwhile, here are some thoughts about how to make Substack work for you, whatever your motivation is.

A key thing to remember is that Substack is basically 2003 blogging updated for 2026. Back in 2003, blogging was rarely a quick path to money. Most writers published because they loved thinking and sharing ideas in public. Audiences grew slowly through genuine connection. Income, when it came, arrived later through books, speaking, consulting, or loyal supporters. Substack revives that spirit with better tools, but the underlying truth remains the same.

Here is the foundational advice, rooted in that old-school authenticity:

1. Write for Yourself First
Substack hosts a broad range of authors: fiction writers, opinion essayists, advice columnists, historians, cultural observers, and many more. Know what kind of writer you are.

Treat your Substack like a public notebook. Explore ideas deeply in your own voice, without chasing trends or clickbait. The writing and thinking itself should be the primary reward.

2. Find Your Voice and Stick to It
Authenticity was the moat in 2003, and it still is. Let your unique perspective, tone, and curiosity shine through. Readers starved for substance will find and stick with the real you.

3. Be Consistent on Your Terms, and Communicate Honestly
Early bloggers posted on a rhythm they could sustain and did not overpromise.

Here is my example of how to invite someone to subscribe by telling them exactly what they are getting:

“You will get at least 1 essay (and usually 3) on Rome, the American Republic, current culture and politics, or how to be a Modern Minuteman every week. Plus irreverent memes and fun life notes. Oh, and cigars!”

This clarity and personality is powerful. This tells someone subscribing to your newsletter that they are getting something they value. Or not. And then it is their choice.

4. Engage Like It’s 2003
Old-school bloggers treated comments as the heart of the experience. They replied thoughtfully and turned readers into conversation partners.

On Substack: Unless you are one of those rare writers with 50K+ subscribers, commit to responding to every single comment.

Your subscribers value this direct connection. Thoughtful replies build real community and loyalty. That community will recommend you, restack you, and help you grow.

Use Notes to share excerpts or questions from your longer pieces. Think of them as your front-porch conversation next to the deeper living-room essays.

5. Own Your Space and Build Slowly Through Generous Recommendations
Early bloggers used blogrolls and outgoing links to send readers to writers they respected. It was not transactional. It was about supporting good work.

On Substack today: Recommendations are one of the most powerful growth tools.

Actively recommend writers whose work you genuinely admire. Do it with zero expectation of return. Give freely because building a community is about helping others.

The beautiful irony is that you often receive strong recommendations in return. For many writers this becomes the single biggest source of new subscribers, all without begging.

Make your About page a clear promise. Treat your archive as a digital garden worth exploring. Let generous recommendations do much of the heavy lifting.

6. Monetization: Rethink It Entirely
Very few newsletters with under 10K subscribers achieve real financial success. At a typical 2-3% conversion rate, a 10K list might yield only 200-300 paying subscribers. That is roughly $1,000 to $1,500 per month, which is rarely enough to sustain serious long-form writing.

To reach life-changing income you generally need the 50K+ range.

The wise approach: Treat monetization as a happy side effect, not the goal. Write first and foremost because you love the process. The clarity, ideas, and connections that come from it are the real reward.

7. Ignore the Noise and Focus on What Lasts
Forget obsessing over analytics, charts, and growth dashboards.

Engagement is the real key to building community.

Post in Notes every day (or as close as you can). Share what is happening in your life, irreverent memes, questions for your community, or interesting Substack pieces you discovered. Your Notes must be engaging, not preachy.

Most important: Always deliver on whatever you promised when people subscribed. Protect that commitment. Trust is everything.

Final Encouragement
Write the piece that matters to you right now. Publish it. Tell people exactly what to expect. Reply to every comment. Post Notes that invite real conversation. Recommend others generously. Keep money and metrics secondary to the love of the work and the community you are building.

Substack is the closest thing we have to a true 2003 blog that can actually reach an audience. Approach it with authenticity, consistency on your terms, real conversation, generous recommendations, and love for the work. You will build something rewarding for years to come.