Overpopulation update; Existential threat assessment; etc.

There is some good news today.

The human overpopulation problem: As best I can tell, the top three urgent, existential threats that modern civilization and the human species face are (i) nuclear war, (ii) pollution-driven climate change with species extinctions, and (iii) overpopulation. Overpopulation tends to exacerbate the first two threats. Science Daily reports on encouraging data about a projected global population decline coming faster than I previously believed. SD wrote in 2020:

With widespread, sustained declines in fertility, the world population will likely peak in 2064 at around 9.7 billion, and then decline to about 8.8 billion by 2100 -- about 2 billion lower than some previous estimates, according to a new study.

Improvements in access to modern contraception and the education of girls and women are generating widespread, sustained declines in fertility, and world population will likely peak in 2064 at around 9.7 billion, and then decline to about 8.8 billion by 2100 -- about 2 billion lower than some previous estimates, according to a new study published in The Lancet.

That is solidly good news. 

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American democracy recovered: A few years ago when Trump was in power and dominant in the GOP, experts downgraded the political status of America from a democracy to an anocracy. Anocracy is a state of mixed democratic-autocratic government. After Trump faded, America returned to democracy status. The Center for Systemic Peace writes:

NOTE: The USA dropped below the "democracy threshold" (+6) on the POLITY scale in 2020 and was considered an anocracy (+5) at the end of the year 2020; the USA score for 2021 returned to democracy (+8).

That is solidly good news. It helps put the danger of Trump and the GOP in context.  

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From the doomed efforts files: From one end zone of the playing field, a federal judge has tossed a late 4th quarter hail Mary pass in defense of abortion rights to the other end zone. Yup, it's a 100+ yard pass by a little old lady who happens to be a federal judge. It will be interesting to see the Supreme Court shoot this one down with mucho gusto once the case gets there. CNBC writes: 

Judge suggests abortion might be protected by 

13th Amendment despite Supreme Court ruling

A federal judge [US District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly] suggested Monday that the federal right to abortion — which the Supreme Court overturned last year — might still be protected by the Constitution’s 13th Amendment, which abolished slavery.

Kollar-Kotelly in her order wrote that the 13th Amendment “has received substantial attention among scholars and, briefly, in one federal Court of Appeals decision” on the question of whether that section of the constitution could apply to abortion.

A 1990 paper by a Northwestern University School of Law professor found that the 13th Amendment, with its prohibition against involuntary servitude, provides a textual basis for the right to abortion.

“When women are compelled to carry and bear children, they are subjected to ‘involuntary servitude’ in violation” of that amendment,” wrote the paper’s author Andrew Koppelman, which was cited by Kollar-Kotelly in her order.

One can imagine that the forced birthers will attack this defense of abortion rights with great vigor.  Chances of this ploy surviving the radical Christian nationalist Republicans on the Supreme Court are nil.

Why are the odds so low? Because Team Christian nationalism players cheat. They freely commit holding fouls against opposing receivers. There's basically no chance of the pass being caught and the touchdown being scored, even if the ball did travel the required 100+ yard distance. After all, the Supreme Court has exempted itself from the rules and detached itself from inconvenient reason and reality.

Vox comments on the judge's interesting reasoning:

“The ‘issue’ before the Court in Dobbs was not whether any provision of the Constitution provided a right to abortion,” Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, a Clinton appointee, wrote. “Rather, the question before the Court in Dobbs was whether the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution provided such a right.”  

And that leaves open the possibility that the Thirteenth Amendment, which prohibits “slavery” and “involuntary servitude,” does forbid laws banning abortion.

That judge is a sneaky one. 

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Herbal herbs go high tech: Hemp Earth writes on advances in hemp science: 

The World’s First Plane Made From And Powered By HEMP

Hempearth Group is set to build the world’s first plane made from and powered by HEMP. Not only is the plane set to run on HEMPEARTH Hemp Jet A Bio Fuel, but it is set to be built almost entirely from HEMP. Everything from the seats, the wings, the plane walls and even the pillows are set to contain hemp composites which the company has been developing its own over the last couple of years with a Montreal and Australian company. These Hemp aviation composites are unlike anything every been done on the planet, and shall revolutionize the way many things are constructed including, aircraft, boats, cars. 

Why Build A Plane Made From Hemp? 

HEMP/Cannabis, in addition to being one of the world’s healthiest, and most versatile plants on earth, HEMP is pound for pound 10 times stronger than steel. This means that it can withstand a lot more weight before and breaks, and it can bend way further than metal. Great for Aviation. 

Additionally, traditional aerospace materials are heavier than hemp and toxic and not sustainable. Most manufacturers use aluminum and fiberglass to built planes. Hemp is significantly lighter and therefore requires a lot less fuel to get up in the sky. 

Most importantly, hemp is an environmentally friendly material. Hemp requires way less water and land to grow than cotton and even puts nutrients back into the soil through a process called phytoremeditation. 

Compared to steel, which requires mining, or carbon fiber, produced from plastic, hemp has almost no environmental impact.

One can just see it now. The pilot grabs a chunk of the airplane and starts smoking it. Now that's utopia! (Is this for real or is it snarcasm?)

Jesus was a Liberal! (written by a Conservative)

 I found the following an interesting read, some might find it longwinded, but here it is anyways:

https://jackasstheology.com/2019/07/11/jesus-was-a-liberal-written-by-a-conservative/

In conservative Christians circles, a clear shot across the bow is calling someone LIBERAL. It’s a warning, like a mother giving her rambunctious child the stink eye. Watch out, or real consequences will follow!

We hear it all the time in Facebook comments on our Jackass Theology posts; as a preacher I sense it bubbling behind peoples’ questions to sermon content. It seems that to the Evangelical, the greatest fear is fear of being duped by, slipping into, or having compassion for THE LIBERAL AGENDA.

Liberals just make crap up

When someone is deemed liberal, their opinion no longer matters to conservatives, because in the mind of Evangelicals, liberals have abandoned the Bible, tradition, and orthodoxy, and now just make new crap up. So instead of patiently dialoguing, we put you in your place like a good ole’ fashioned Amish shunning, trading in scarlet “A’s” for its 21st century Conservative Evangelical equivalent, BLUE “L’s”.

When someone is deemed liberal, their opinion no longer matters to conservatives, because in the mind of Evangelicals, liberals have abandoned the Bible, tradition, and orthodoxy, and now just make new crap up.

In our experience with Jackass Theology, you are most likely to encounter this type of branding on social issues, where politics and faith collide. These hotbed topics center around class tensions, racial tensions, illegal immigration, the role of women in ministry, faith and sexuality, and the tell-tale sign that you have a serious case of the liberals: adding highfalutin words like “PRIVILEGE” to your vocab.

So I ask the question: Was Jesus a Liberal?

Was Jesus Liberal?

Of course, it depends on how you define it.

So, let’s do that. In the dictionary, liberal has a variety of meanings. So let’s walk through each of them and test if Jesus was a LIBERAL.

In his methods of Education?

Lib•er•al | adj. | 1. Concerned mainly with broadening a person’s general knowledge and experience, rather than with technical or professional training.

Most people hip slinging liberal jabs aren’t referring to Jesus’ pedagogy. But if they were, would he fit the bill?

Jesus was all about broadening experience for his disciples. As he journeyed with them through the countryside, he demonstrated compassion to outsiders. Under Jesus’ tutelage, his disciples were forced to engage the world differently, people differently, and God differently. He didn’t train them technically. He exposed them to a whole way of being and living. He asked them rhetorical questions, demonstrated love, miracles, service, compassion, he challenged their fears, and let them try a few things for themselves.

Jesus embodied a liberal arts approach to education.

In His interpretation of scripture?

Lib•er•al | adj. | 2. (esp. of an interpretation of a law) Broadly construed or understood; not strictly literal or exact

This one is tricky territory, but it is important. Conservatives link themselves arm in arm to a literal “plain-sense” interpretation of Scripture. Did Jesus use the same interpretive lens (hermeneutic)?

Jesus certainly affirms the Old Testament and its teachings. Jesus had a high view of Scripture, and he didn’t twist it to mean anything that suited his purpose, but he didn’t always stick to a literal interpretation either.

Many passages in the Sermon on the Mount are good examples. For example, “you have heard it said an eye for an eye, but I say to you…turn the other cheek” (Matt. 5:38-42). The Old Testament doesn’t say that, but Jesus does. Jesus is implying that turning the other cheek was always the heart of God, even if the law permitted otherwise. That’s a generous understanding of a fairly clear Old Testament passage. But that is what Jesus did, that is why people recognized his teaching as having authority.

Before you freak out and maliciously infect our website with a fatal virus, please understand that I’m not suggesting that we humans should take a free and liberal interpretive approach to all of scripture. There is a difference between some dude on the street, and the Son of God. For our purposes here. I’m simply saying, Jesus does not always hold to a purely literal understanding of Scripture.

But Jesus’ liberal interpretations didn’t ever loosen our moral responsibility to love one another or him. His liberal interpretation often led to an even more stringent view of sin (more on this in the next post) and a much higher demand of love.

In his values?

Lib•er•al | adj. | 3. Open to new behavior or opinions and willing to discard traditional values.

So was Jesus willing to discard traditional values?

Regarding religious structures, Jesus was incredibly liberal. Jesus actively threatened and dismantled the existing religious structure and hierarchy. He talked about the destruction of the temple. Upon his death, the curtain within the Holy of Holies was torn in two. His harshest critiques were at the religiously minded; his life and ministry turned the Jewish religious landscape upside down. In this way, he was the most progressive of progressives regarding religion and its structures.

Regarding social norms, Jesus ate with sinners. He touched lepers. He sat with promiscuous women. He had a reputation as a drunkard because of who he hung around. In the way that Jesus engaged humans he was incredibly liberal, edgy, progressive, and revolutionary.

Regarding moral behavior, Jesus in some senses heightened and in some senses lowered expectations. Jesus said his yoke is not like the yoke of the Pharisees, his yoke is easy and his burden light. But at the same time, he heightened the expectation of commitment. He didn’t expect people to live some exteriorly perfect life, but simultaneously he did not allow anyone to follow him who wasn’t fully committed. Without parsing all this out, let’s just agree that even in morality Jesus did not hold traditional views. He challenged EVERYTHING. In that way I’ve got to say he fits the liberal bill again.

In His Politics?

Lib•er•al | noun | 4. A supporter or member of a liberal party.

Jesus famously called his followers to “render to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.” It’s basically a big shrug regarding political movements. Ruling authorities exist, but they are not the important thing in Jesus’ mind.

So is Jesus politically liberal? In the sense of joining a political party, nah. I don’t think so. Mostly because I just don’t see him putting much emphasis on the kingdoms of this world.

In His giving?

Lib•er•al | noun | 5. giving generously, (as in liberal amounts of wine being consumed)

Since liberal can be synonymous with generous, this fits Jesus perfectly. When it comes to giving, nobody out gives Jesus. He was liberal in his love. He was liberal with his life. He called his disciples to live outrageously liberal lives. He challenged a rich young ruler to sell all and give it to the poor. Jesus is generosity. 100%.

Since liberal can be synonymous with generous, this fits Jesus perfectly. When it comes to giving, nobody out gives Jesus. He was liberal in his love. He was liberal with his life. He called his disciples to live outrageously liberal lives.

What Should I Do About this?

For starters, the next time someone accuses me of being liberal, I will take it as a compliment and know my many hours at the feet of Jesus are paying off, because I’m becoming more and more like him.

News bits: Bad Dem messaging; Better Repub messaging; etc.

Dem messaging sucks: The WaPo writes:

Americans not feeling impact of Biden agenda, Post-ABC poll finds

More than 6 in 10 say the president has not accomplished much, despite the passage of numerous bills

Repubs think Biden is evil

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Repubs ramp up their messaging: The WaPo writes:

Awakening from a traditional media hibernation, House Republicans have begun to blitz the airwaves they previously shunned with brushoffs about the “lamestream media.”

But this pivot for House Republicans comes after a prolonged standoff with the more-traditional media outlets that came under attack during, and after, Donald Trump’s grievance-driven presidency.

Following his lead, some Republicans shunned those outlets under the allegation that they were biased, part of an emerging view by far-right consultants who advise candidates essentially to shun all media except friendly outlets.

IMO, it's a mistake to give radical right Repubs public exposure. What they mostly do is demagogue, lie, divide, slander and irrationally emotionally manipulate. Other than the radical right, who needs that garbage? Our media really is lamestream.

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From the dark free speech files, anti-vaxxer's vicious tactics: For some people, all it takes to foment distrust, slanders and false beliefs that can kill is brazen lying. Just make stuff up out of nothing at all, and then just say it loud and proud in public. The AP writes about a current bit of anti-vaxx lies in a murderous crackpot movement called #diedsuddenly: 

Results from 6-year-old Anastasia Weaver’s autopsy may take weeks. But online anti-vaccine activists needed only hours after her funeral this week to baselessly blame the COVID-19 vaccine.

A prolific Twitter account posted Anastasia’s name and smiling dance portrait in a tweet with a syringe emoji. A Facebook user messaged her mother, Jessica Day-Weaver, to call her a “murderer” for having her child vaccinated.

In reality, the Ohio kindergartner had experienced lifelong health problems since her premature birth, including epilepsy, asthma and frequent hospitalizations with respiratory viruses. “The doctors haven’t given us any information other than it was due to all of her chronic conditions. ... There was never a thought that it could be from the vaccine,” Day-Weaver said of her daughter’s death.

But those facts didn’t matter online, where Anastasia was swiftly added to a growing list of hundreds of children, teens, athletes and celebrities whose unexpected deaths and injuries have been incorrectly blamed on COVID-19 shots. Using the hashtag #diedsuddenly, online conspiracy theorists have flooded social media with news reports, obituaries and GoFundMe pages in recent months, leaving grieving families to wrestle with the lies.

There’s the 37-year-old Brazilian television host who collapsed live on air because of a congenital heart problem. The 18-year-old unvaccinated bull rider who died from a rare disease. The 32-year-old actress who died from bacterial infection complications.

There it is. Lies that can kill and inflict senseless mental anguish. People read about all the suddenly dead people who the vaccine allegedly killed. Many of those deceived people then refuse the vaccine because they falsely think it kills lots of people. Others, like the vicious witch who publicly called Anastasia's mom a murderer, spread her baseless slander without regard for truth or how much needless pain she caused. 

Good 'ole dark free speech. The endless plague on humanity. 

I used to have sympathy for people deceived by demagoguery, lies and the like. These days, my sympathy molecules for that have mostly been used up. Spreaders if lies, slanders and whatnot dark things are adults. They morally responsible for their unjustifiable, murderous behavior. It's bad that they are not legally responsible for just about any of the harm and damage they cause.

It sad and scary that people like Elon Musk defend and enable filth like this instead of trying to tamp it down. We live in times where cruelty and viciousness are celebrated, defended and accepted as free speech that is just as good as actual honest speech. There are a lot of deeply fucked up Americans traipsing around spreading their lethal poison and killing people.

The radical right's war on democratic elections continues; Pork barrel spending returns

CONTEXT

Republican Party opposition to free and fair elections is now openly poisoning state courts. That anti-democracy mindset has poisoned the US Supreme Court (SC) for years. On June 25, 2013, the SC gutted the most powerful enforcement provision in the 1965 Voting Rights Act. The case was Shelby County v. Holder. That decision basically obliterated a voting rights law that was regarded by many as the most effective piece of civil rights legislation in American history. Within one day of the Shelby County decision, Texas announced it would move to clamp down on voting rights by imposing more stringent voter ID requirements.[1]

Killing free and fair elections

The NYT writes on how radical right hostility to free and fair elections is playing out in North Carolina:

An extraordinary pair of orders by North Carolina’s Republican-controlled Supreme Court is highlighting how the partisan tug of war has pervaded the state’s courts and, by extension, the nation’s.

On Friday, the court moved to rehear two major voting rights cases that it had previously decided, one striking down a gerrymandered map of State Senate districts and another nullifying new voter identification requirements.

Such rehearings by the court are exceedingly rare. In fact, North Carolina’s Supreme Court ordered as many rehearings on Friday as it has in the past three decades. What also made the rehearings exceptional was that the cases had been decided less than two months ago — by a court that, at the time, contained four Democratic and three Republican justices.

The court that voted to rehear the cases has a 5-to-2 Republican majority, courtesy of the party’s sweep of state Supreme Court races in November. And the potential beneficiary of those reviews is the Republican leadership of the state General Assembly, which had both drawn the political map and enacted the voter ID law that the court struck down in December.

Lawyers for those leaders asked the court to reconsider the cases in petitions filed last month.

“Quite literally the only thing that changed is the court’s composition,” Joshua Douglas, a professor and expert on state constitutions at the University of Kentucky College of Law, said in an interview. “The whole thing simply smells of partisanship.”

Conservative in NC argue that the two decisions being reheard were partisan and out of whack with existing state laws. Even if that is true, it conveniently ignores the fact that existing state laws were already out of whack with the 1965 Voting Rights Act after the five Republicans on the SC gutted it in 2013. The fact that the now Republican NC court granted rehearing is strong evidence that the Republicans will overturn the prior two decisions. 

This is what the ongoing fall of democracy and civil liberties at the hands of America's authoritarian radical right Republican Party looks like. The GOP is the enemy of democracy, civil liberties and inconvenient truth.

Footnote: 

1. The Brennan Center for Justice wrote this in 2020: 

Within 24 hours of the Shelby County ruling, Texas announced that it would implement a strict photo-ID law. In the years since, Brennan Center has consistently found that states previously covered by the preclearance requirement have engaged in significant efforts to disenfranchise voters. Our 2018 report, to cite one example, concluded that previously covered states have increased the purging of voters after Shelby when the purge rates in non-Shelby states stayed the same. 

Just this month, voters — including many voters of color — faced faulty voting machines, long lines, and extended wait times to cast their ballots in Georgia, one of the states previously subject to preclearance requirement. If Section 5 were still in effect, the state, which has closed hundreds of polling places since Shelby, would have been required to clear its voting changes before enacting them.

Chief Justice John Roberts, in his Shelby opinion, asserted that the Section 5 requirements were no longer necessary, that times had changed since 1965. “The conditions that originally justified these measures no longer characterize voting in the covered jurisdictions,” he wrote.

That those conditions — conditions of racial discrimination and injustice — persist in voting and other American institutions is clearer than ever, both from the plain evidence of Black voters braving hours-long waits in this year’s primaries to the demands for racial justice rising from the streets all over the country.

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Earmarks are making a comeback in congress: The NYT writes:

In 2020, Representative Don Bacon, Republican of Nebraska, told C-SPAN that his constituents were not in favor of earmarks, so he wasn’t either.

Two years later, he earmarked a total of $37.9 million in two separate spending bills for projects in his district.

When House Republicans voted to place their own moratorium on earmarks in 2010, Representative Ken Calvert, Republican of California, said the decision was a statement to Americans that “House Republicans are ready to lead the fight for lower spending, more transparency and responsibility in Washington.” In 2022, he secured $56.1 million in earmarks. In a statement, he said that with new, more stringent rules in place, the House was “reasserting its traditional and constitutional role in deciding how our tax dollars are spent.”

And while the House Freedom Caucus, the hard-right Republican group, called last summer for reinstating a ban on earmarks that took effect in 2011, one of its members, Representative Byron Donalds of Florida, secured $25.2 million for projects in his district. In an interview, he too said the changes put in place to make the practice more transparent had made him “more comfortable” with partaking in the age-old congressional ritual. 

The totals still pale in comparison to the heyday of earmarking — lawmakers claimed $32 billion worth in the 2010 fiscal year, before the prohibition went into effect — but the uptick reflects a bipartisan return in enthusiasm for the practice.

Republican lawmakers claimed eight of the 10 most expensive earmarks, with Representative Brian Mast of Florida, securing the largest: $447 million for an ecosystem restoration project in South Florida.  

But many lawmakers and scholars argue that earmarks fulfill a vital function of Congress, and help to grease the wheels of the legislative process by giving individuals members tangible reasons to negotiate spending deals.

“Building coalitions to get things done can often require horse trading and trades between members, and so when you have something like an earmark, it can serve that function,” said Molly E. Reynolds, a senior fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution, a nonpartisan research group.

Maybe bringing earmarks, a/k/a pork barrel spending, back will be a good thing. Some experts have claimed that the loss of earmarks led to more extremism in the House. Committee chairpersons had nothing to offer to buy votes. Earmarks used to at least partly reign in the nuttery that Republican extremists and crackpots tend to promote. Maybe there is truth in that.

It is odd that the Florida Republican got $447 for ecosystem restoration. He is in the party that constantly claims that climate change is a socialist hoax, overblown alarmism and/or not something that humans can deal with. Hypocrisy just does not faze any Republican in congress. Shameless hypocrisy is the norm for the GOP leadership.