My Life

 While listening to Orwell's 1984 on Audible during my commute last week, one of the things that I noticed was the use of hatred by the Party to control people. It seems to be a common authoritarian tactic. Nazis used hatred of Jews, queer people, and immigrants. I'd been taught the word "scapegoat" when I was in elementary school. It's a tactic that authoritarians use to rally support. They say such-and-such minority group is why things are so bad in our country, so give me power to exterminate/deport them. And it seems to be quite effective. I have no background in behavioral psychology. My knowledge about it is that of a layperson. So I was curious about how the emotion of hatred is at acting as a unifying force. I found this article on the matter which discusses why hope is more effective than hate. I also found a scholarly article explaining why hope is better than hate.What I understand about it from reading those is that hatred burns out quickly. It isn...

  The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command. These iconic words from George Orwell's 1984 explain the effects of propaganda on the people. In a book about Adolf Hitler, Walter C Langer said this about Hitler's strategy. His primary rules were: never allow the public to cool off; never admit a fault or wrong; never concede that there may be some good in your enemy; never leave room for alternatives; never accept blame; concentrate on one enemy at a time and blame him for everything that goes wrong; people will believe a big lie sooner than a little one; and if you repeat it frequently enough people will sooner or later believe it.  I remember reading 1984 when I was younger and being exposed to the concept of doublethink he introduced in the book--the state of accepting two contradictory statements as simultaneously true and experiencing no cognitive dissonance from it. I observed how multiple times throughout t...

 It's been over a decade, about 14 years, since I last attended church (at least regularly, I've gone for special events for family members who invited me). So I've forgotten a lot of the things I learned, the stories that we'd discuss, aside from the most common or popular ones. One story I do remember takes place in the book of Alma, the largest book within the Book of Mormon. I share this story not because I believe it actually happened but because I see a parallel with what's currently happening now in our society and the events laid out in the Book of Mormon. There were two main peoples, the Nephites and the Lamanites. At this point in time the Nephites were ruled by judges rather than kings. My best understanding of the government is that it was some sort of republic. The book continually refers to popular votes ("the voice of the people"). And apparently there are judges. I imagine it might be similar to the way we have tiered judges in our federal ...

 ICE is an agency I have long had a problem with. I do not see why we demonize immigrants and feel some strange need to expel them from our country. However, under the current administration the organization has gone from being distasteful to being downright pure, unadulterated evil. https://www.cnn.com/2025/10/03/us/chicago-apartment-ice-raid ICE raided an apartment building in Chicago yesterday. They detained every single resident of the building. This includes US citizens. They say they're going after the most violent. They say they're going after the criminals and the undocumented immigrants. That is a lie, pure and simple. They are not targeting criminals. They are not targeting undocumented immigrants. They're not even targeting immigrants. They're arresting and detaining citizens. They're indiscriminately arresting people, detaining them in facilities that they're not even admitting are detainment centers--to deny access to members of Congress, who do hav...

 I want to make my position very clear. I am anti-fascist. I am anti-authoritarianism. I am opposed to dictatorships. I am opposed to military coups. I am opposed to consolidation of power, particularly in the executive branch. I want to be clear so there is no question on my position.  In June of 2025, Trump sent national guard troops and marines to occupy the city of Los Angeles. This was against the wishes of both the governor and the mayor. During peace time, the national guard should be under the control of the governor. The president should not have power to control them. Yet, he was allowed to. The fact remains clear. This was a military invasion. It was occupying military forces sent to a US city. Trump declared war on his own people. The troops remain there still.  This month, Trump took control of the DC police and deployed the national guard in DC. They are occupying the city, armed while walking the streets. He is pressing this war on his own people. He is occ...

 I believe that it is crucial to remember what it is that we celebrate here in the USA on July 4th and why. July 4, 1776 is the date the Continental Congress formally adopted the resolution on independence from Great Britain. The draft written by Thomas Jefferson can be found here  and the revised text as adopted by the Continental Congress can be found here . For the purposes of this post, I will be pulling quotes from both versions of the document. Unless specified otherwise, all quotes in this post are taken from the Declaration of Independence.  In the Declaration, a list of grievances is given detailing why the colonies decided that it was necessary to declare themselves a new nation and separate from the British Empire. I highlight some of those grievances here in order to portray why I believe we should neither take freedom for granted nor think of July 4 as a day to celebrate independence, but rather as a day to remind ourselves of how precious and fragile freedom...