Where will presidential excesses stop?

Two questions inspired by Abraham Lincoln’s 1858 query, “I should like to know, if taking this old Declaration of Independence, which declares that all men are equal upon principle, and making exceptions to it, where will it stop?”

I should like to know, if majorities in both houses of Congress stand by while the President of the United States, acting outside “his exclusive constitutional authority” (Trump v. United States, slip op. at 21), starts and escalates a war without a Declaration of War by Congress (Const. Art. I, sec. 8), where will it stop?

I should like to know, if majorities in both houses of Congress stand by while the President makes threats to bomb Iran “back to the Stone Ages” and the Secretary of War threatens to show “no quarter, no mercy” and not to follow “stupid rules of engagement”, which threats are “plainly illegal”; see When War Crimes Rhetoric Becomes Battlefield Reality: The Slippery Slope to Total War on Iran, M. Donovan and R. VanLandingham, Lt. Col. USAF (Ret.); where will it stop?

 

Published on Substack as "Where will it stop?"  

An homage to Nathan Hale

When my time is up, I aim to repeat what my mother said were my very first words - "Lee happy" - and to have no regret that, having only one life to give to my family, my community, my country, and humanity, I gave less in that service than the best I was given to see to do.

War, dictatorship, and American voters' choices

Four days ago, without a Congressional declaration of war (Constitution Art. 1, Sec. 8, clause 11), the Trump Administration joined Israel in starting a war against Iran. The U.S. government provided the location of Iran's brutal Supreme Leader so that Israel could assassinate him. Simultaneously, the U.S. began to destroy Iran's military infrastructure.  As well stated by nuclear policy analyst Joe Cirincione in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, "This is not how democracies go to war. It is how dictatorships do."

We can criticize President Trump, and I do every day. But voting Americans - almost 50% of those who voted - legally elected this aspiring "I alone can fix it" strongman a second time in 2024. (Over 1/3 of citizens of voting age left the voting to others.) More, majorities of us around the country elected the members in both houses of Congress who have enabled this President by practically never challenging him.

To paraphrase Prof. Timothy Snyder, many Americans like the idea of strongman rule.  But that idea is based on the fantasy that the strongman will be good for the nation, or at least for those who believe that he will honor his office and the people and legal process that put him there. History teaches us that the strongman does not well serve, let alone unite, the nation.  He becomes a bully - a dictator.  He foments distrust between groups in society. He sows fear by false claims that some groups of citizens are criminals or traitors; by using the vast power of government in heavy-handed, even illegal, ways; and by vengeful treatment of dissenters.

Rejecting the rule of law, common civility, and citizens' criticisms of his actions, the dictator focuses on advancing his personal interests and making up justifications for doing so which he is confident his subordinates will praise and defend, his supporters will believe, and his adversaries will be too few, weak, divided, and slow-acting to challenge effectively. He will measure himself not by the integrity of his administration or the reputation, power, security and wealth of the nation, but by his own power and wealth, and that of other dictators.

The 2026 congressional elections will be crucial for the future of our nation. Life, as ever, is choices - individually and collectively. Will those of us who hold the office of citizen love our nation enough to treat our fellow citizens as we would like to be treated, to support the next generation of civic leaders, and to persevere in educating ourselves on the issues, current events, and the Trump trajectory?  Will we vote?  Will we actively urge our fellow citizens to vote and defend their right to do so without new barriers?  Will the majority of us say, by our daily actions and our votes in November, that the Trump administration and its supporters in Congress are representing us as we wish - or that we will tolerate neither a dictator as President nor his enablers?

Honoring our own experience

In religion, politics, public policy, ethics - any realm where one's point of view or personal history might filter one's lived experience - we may believe someone who tells us they had an extraordinary experience.  However, when another's experience is inconsistent with our own experience, respectfully accepting another's reality does not require us to discredit our experience.

Nuclear war - acting now to prevent it

About the risk of nuclear war, I exclaim - what have we humans done regarding the future of our species, our planet, and countless other living things?!

A tiny number of people in a tiny number of nations have the power to decide on short notice, inevitably on incomplete facts, whether and under what conditions humanity - including people they claim to represent - should attempt suicide by nuclear war.  For a reminder, see https://preventnuclearwar.org/beginners-guide/ or https://preventnuclearwar.org/fact-sheets/ 

This has happened by election in nations with free and fair elections, and elsewhere by dictators' disenfranchisement. (In the U.S.A., Congress has the exclusive power to declare war, but has practically declined to defend that power.)

Will we do nothing about this?  Please, no!  We must act in whatever ways are available to us - at least by active support of legislation and treaties which take humanity back from the brink of nuclear war, by supporting candidates who have actively worked, or will actively work, for such legislation and treaties; and by voting - to reduce the power of any individual or small group of individuals to make the decision for all humanity to use any nuclear weapon.

One way to act on this is to urge Congress to stop neglecting the dangers - and huge expense - of nuclear weapons and to elevate the national priority given to international reduction in the number of nuclear weapons, and to join me in encouraging American voters to do so.  Appropriate resolutions - H.Res 317 and S.Res 323, “Urging the United States to lead a global effort to halt and reverse the nuclear arms race" - have been introduced in both houses of Congress.  See H.Res. 317, sponsored by Rep. James McGovern; 51 co-sponsors as of 2/18/26; S.Res. 323, sponsored by Sen. Ed Markey; 8 co-sponsors as of 2/18/26.

 "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."  Margaret Mead.

What will we do today to raise awareness of the ongoing risk of nuclear war and to diminish that risk so that perhaps our children or grandchildren may eliminate it?

Resisting the virus of entitlement

There's nothing wrong with entitlement as a legal construct or as a broad premise of individual rights in society: we are all entitled to life and liberty - except as they may legally be undone by our actions - and the pursuit of happiness.

However, the feeling, including the unconscious belief, that we are entitled to something more or different than what we have can be pernicious, personally and culturally.  The trouble is magnified by our human inclination to self-justify.  Entitlement has gone viral here in the U.S.A., fanning flames of anger, resentment, blaming, shaming, racism, misogyny and, generally, the self-righteousness that so divides our nation.

I cannot stop that epidemic.  I cannot cure that virus.  But by consciousness of exposure and of my own susceptibilities, I can do my best to strengthen my immune response to it and to give the antidote - love - to people I meet who seem to suffer from it.  And you can, too.

Enough

I am enough.  I don't always feel that way.  And I hope to keep growing.  But my whole self, including my personality and my conscious and unconscious values, priorities, anxieties, and drives, are enough for the present moment - come what may - and the choices I make in it.

So it is for anyone reading this. For what moment are we not prepared to do the best we can see to do in that moment?

I have enough, too.  I often want more (cue unconscious impulses), but I do have enough.  This is objectively true in my case, but it helps me to focus on my blessings and cultivate gratitude for them.

Alas, many, many people do not have enough.  In my country and around the world, accidental and inflicted misfortunes, and violent conflicts, hunger and oppression driven by greed, hate and self-righteousness are innumerable.

To steward the gift of Life in a constructive way - to enjoy grace, peace and justice when they come; to do what we can to have them come more often to others; and to experience Life as a gift just the amazing and awful way that it is - is to realize that part of being enough is sharing enough.