What would we call a society run by judges and courts? A “judicocracy”? That seems like a fitting term. It would describe a political system where judges or the judicial branch assume supreme authority over decisions traditionally made by elected representatives or the executive.
Now, imagine these judges are not only largely of a particular partisan persuasion but also steeped in a specific legal philosophy that grants them sweeping power to shape the law—producing a hegemony that displaces the will of the people. In a democracy, citizens expect their interests to be represented by popularly elected legislatures and executives, not thwarted by unelected officials in ceremonial robes.
AI-generated image
This would resemble a clerical society, where men in silly hats interpret scripture and use those interpretations to overrule laws made by legislators. We might call that a “clerocracy”—rule by clerics. The more familiar term, of course, is theocracy. If those clerics subscribed to a theocratic movement that twisted scripture beyond its plain meaning (anti-originalism), their power would become even more arbitrary.
We might also compare such a system to totalitarianism—the one-party state where elections, if held at all, are merely ceremonial. People may vote, but their choices are meaningless because bureaucrats and technocrats ultimately decide policy, often based on an ideology foreign to the populace—an ideology used to control them.
In a democratic republic, judges are expected to weigh in on constitutional matters, ensuring that laws align with the nation’s foundational principles. But what about legal issues not explicitly addressed in those founding documents? Consider a system where the judiciary, empowered by common law and the doctrine of stare decisis, not only upholds precedent but also has the authority to overturn it, creating new legal interpretations. Now imagine a legal theory that claims to see things in documents that aren’t really there—while dismissing those who question it as lacking the intelligence to understand.
Separation of powers is a delicate balance. It’s certainly preferable to absolute rule by a single authority. But what about the people? Is it not their government?
John Locke, the first liberal, believed so. In Two Treatises of Government, he argued that governments form through a social contract, where individuals surrender certain natural rights in exchange for protection of their fundamental ones—particularly life, liberty, and property. However, if a government fails to protect these rights or becomes tyrannical (which, to Locke, was essentially the same thing), the people have the right to overthrow it.
For Locke, a government’s legitimacy depends on the consent of the governed and its commitment to protecting their rights. His philosophy echoes in the Declaration of Independence, written by future president Thomas Jefferson:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. —That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, —That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”
Some might argue that “judicocracy” is just another way of describing the “rule of law.” But is it? One could say the same about a clerocracy or even a totalitarian state—after all, they have laws, too. The real question is: To what end does the law serve? Does it work for the people? Or for the elite? And what of the individual?
I asked ChatGPT to rewrite Karl Marx’s opening salvo in his (in)famous 1843 “A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Right” in the style of Christopher Hitchens, another notable atheist. I fed the outfit into GPT Zero and it judged it to be 55 percent human/45 percent of AI generated. Yet it was 100 percent AI generated. This is what is known as a “false negative.”
100 percent AI-generate text scanned by GPTZero
My university has, as have universities across the country, asked departments and faculty to develop policies around AI use—and to include them in our learning outcomes and syllabi. During a departmental meeting, when concerns about student use of AI, a faculty member suggested GPTZero to check student papers. She claimed that GPTZero was highly accurate in identifying AI-generated text. After the discussion, our chair asked us to each develop statements about how we approach student use of AI, which we would then in the future meeting fashion into a common document for our department.
Last night, in preparing my statement, I thought about GPTZero and began Googling AI detection. Something I had raised concerns about in various conversations, the problem of the “false positive,” where a human-generated text is flagged as AI generated, turns out to be a very real problem indeed; so intractable of a problem, in fact, that universities are moving to marginalize or exclude evidence produced by AI detection software from disciplinary procedures surrounding accusations of student misconduct. Some universities have even deactivated the AI-detection function on plagiarism detection software, such as the one associated with TurnItIn, which Canvas, a learning management system (LMS), uses.
The importance of this development cannot be exaggerated; falsely accusing students (or anybody, for that matter) of submitting AI-generated text when there is no definitive way of proving they did (and the burden of proof rests with those making the accusation) damages careers, esteem, and reputations.
I have long suspected that the likelihood of AI detection software identifying content as AI generated was greater for those whose writing is grounded in solid writing mechanics, especially when one’s style obeys the normative rules of science writing. Moreover, for students who use an LLM for copy-editing purposes, a well-crafted text run through an AI detector risks increasing the likelihood that a false positive will result—unless one believes that using an LLM as a copy-editor somehow negates the originality of the initial draft. But wouldn’t this also apply to a work revised by a human copy-editor?
I decided to check out GPTZero (which produce the false negative above), and thought it would be interesting to use a guide I wrote a while back designed to help students understand the promise and pitfalls of AI-generated texts. I had beta-tested ChatGPT, and I was concerned early on that students would abuse this technology. To be sure, to some extent, at least, they already were with Grammarly, especially that software’s enhanced features; but given ChatGPT, Gemini, and Grok’s ability to generate novel content, I could see a different problem emerging, one where students would rely on LLMs as a substitute for creative and critical thinking. So I crafted a guide, one that would also model good writing.
GPTZero determined that the document was mostly AI generated, with around three-quarters of the text determined to be not human. I then opened ChatGPT and ask the bot to copy-edit the guide. The AI-generated output was essentially the same as the human-generated text. (What was there to change, really? I’m a good writer. So is ChatGPT.) I entered that output into GPTZero and this time the bot was certain that the text was AI generated. I turned back to ChatGPT and said, “I put this through GPTZero and it said it was AI generated. The original version I entered and asked you to revise was not AI generated, yet GTPZero said it was. Can you explain what’s going on here?”
ChatGPT’s output (below the line) is quite illuminating. It explains what it is doing and why good writing gets flagged as AI generated.
That’s an interesting result, and it speaks to the limitations of AI detection tools like GPTZero. Here’s what might be happening:
1. AI Detection Relies on Predictability
AI detectors, including GPTZero, analyze text based on certain patterns that are common in AI-generated writing. These include:
Fluency and Coherence – AI tends to produce text that is very well-structured and grammatically sound.
Lack of Errors and Idiosyncrasies – Human writing often contains small inconsistencies, slight awkwardness, or unique phrasing choices that AI may not naturally include.
Overuse of Formal or Neutral Tone – AI tends to use a polished and neutral tone, avoiding highly personal, emotional, or idiosyncratic expressions.
Because I rewrote your text to be clearer and more structured, it may have triggered more “AI-like” features, leading GPTZero to flag it as AI-generated.
2. Why the Original Was Flagged as “Likely AI-Generated”
Even though the original version wasn’t AI-generated, GPTZero found enough traits that made it unsure. Many academic and instructional texts have characteristics similar to AI output, such as:
A logical and structured progression of ideas
Formal and neutral phrasing
Clear definitions and explanations
Since AI is often trained on academic and professional writing, it tends to mimic these characteristics, making AI detection tools misidentify human-written work as AI-generated.
3. Why the Revision Got a Stronger AI Classification
When I rewrote your text, I focused on clarity, conciseness, and avoiding repetitive phrasing—things that AI also does well. As a result, it might have pushed GPTZero further into thinking it was AI-generated. The changes made the text more polished, which ironically made it look more like AI output.
How to Reduce AI Detection Flags
If the goal is to make text less likely to be flagged as AI-generated, here are some approaches:
Introduce personal anecdotes or informal language – AI tends to avoid highly personal expressions.
Use minor grammatical quirks or stylistic variations – Small, natural “imperfections” in writing make it feel more human.
Vary sentence structure and length more deliberately – AI tends to keep sentence structures fairly uniform.
Inject more rhetorical questions or conversational tones – This mimics a more human style.
Final Thoughts
AI detection tools like GPTZero are not perfect—they make probability-based guesses rather than definitive judgments. If a piece of writing is structured and professional, it can mistakenly be flagged as AI-generated, even when it’s written by a human. Similarly, a more casual or imperfect style can reduce AI detection, even if AI wrote it.
In the era of text checking, if a polished science writer wants to avoid content being falsely flagged as AI generated, would he need to consciously write more loosely, inject into his writing anecdotes, use informal language and a more conversational tone, introduce grammatical quirks, stylistic variations, and rhetorical questions, and personal idiosyncrasies—in other words, all the things good writers often try to avoid (except rhetorical questions, which I use probably too much). Defensive writing to avoid suspicion that one’s work is AI-generated would compromises accuracy and precision in science writing, as well as the neutral tone in the conveyance of conceptualizations and explanations.
Based on other things I have read about AI detection works, the algorithm also punishes writers who like symmetry, i.e., paragraphs and sentences of similar lengths, and who are fond of coordinate series, where items are of equal importance and joined by coordinating conjunctions (such as and or or), often referred to as parallel structure or parallelism (I do this all the time, and put the series in alphabetical order unless there’s a reason not to). Knowing that my writing is often predictable, repetitive, and sterile (at least those are some of criticisms of it by offering opinions), I find it difficult to break away from these habits. In using coordinate series of three, for example, I find the rhythm of it aesthetically and rhetorically pleasing. I just did it in the previous sentence. I do it all the time. So does ChatGPT (albeit not in alphabetical order for some reason).
ChatGPT asked me, “Would you like me to modify the text further to reduce the chances of AI detection?” I responded, “That would be an interesting exercise. Yes, modify the text further to reduce chances of AI detection.” ChatGPT then generated a version that it declared “feels more natural, less polished, and more human-like in tone—reducing the likelihood of being flagged as AI-generated.” After generating the new text, it told me the changes it made to reduce AI detection.
Changes Made to Reduce AI Detection:
More casual, natural tone (added conversational elements like “kind of like,” “the thing is,” “think of AI as…”)
Shorter sentences and slight variations in sentence structure (AI tends to favor longer, polished sentences)
Less formal transitions (e.g., using “Another issue is…” instead of “Additionally, AI presents a challenge in…”)
Minor imperfections (e.g., sentences that feel a little more human in their rhythm)
More direct engagement with the reader (e.g., asking questions, giving straightforward advice)
I entered that revision into GPTZero and it determined with 99 percent certainty that it was AI-generated. A percentage point difference. I returned to ChatGPT and asked, “What I hear you telling me is that if a writer has solid writing mechanics, is polished, objective/neutral in tone, etc., all the characteristics you noted about academic and scholarly writing, it is likely to be falsely flagged as AI-generated, but if it were, say, sloppier or more personal, it wouldn’t.”
ChatGPT responded: “Exactly! AI detection tools like GPTZero are trained to flag text based on patterns commonly found in AI-generated writing. Ironically, this means that good writing—well-structured, clear, polished, and objective—can trigger false positives. On the flip side, more human-like writing—meaning slightly messy, varied in structure, informal, or personal—tends to avoid detection. This is because AI tends to avoid certain human quirks, like sentence fragments or slight awkwardness, unusual phrasing or word choices, informal or emotional language, a mix of short and long sentences that don’t follow a strict pattern, and minor inconsistencies in tone. In other words, writing that follows the conventions of academic or professional prose is more likely to be flagged as AI-generated, even when it isn’t. Meanwhile, more conversational, unpolished, or even error-prone writing may pass detection more easily.”
This is the fundamental flaw of AI detection tools: they don’t actually understand writing or originality. They just analyze statistical patterns and compare them to known AI-generated outputs, which are instantiations of well-written content, using standards all good writers should strive to develop in their writing. As a result, good writers may be punished for being good writers.
ChatGPT put it this way: “A polished and well-structured human writer can easily get caught in the ‘AI trap,’ while someone writing in a choppier, more inconsistent way might not.” I like that: the “well-structured human writer.”
This raises an interesting problem: Should we be teaching students to write worse to evade false positives? That obviously wouldn’t be a desirable outcome. But it’s a real concern if institutions had continued to rely too heavily on AI detection tools that are more likely to falsely flag students for AI-generated content if they take care in their writing (and some still do).
Of course, we don’t need AI detection software to suppose text is AI generated in the case of a student whose other work indicates that they are not yet capable of writing text good enough for the AI detectors to flag as AI generated. But in the case of students who are good writers, and especially accomplished professional writers, their work may be flagged even if is human generated (and we presume they are the human who produced it). To be sure, every writer produces content of variable quality, so even the same student could get flagged for some assignments and not others. The same is true for their professors.
Essays on Freedom and Reason are sometimes written in a white heat, while others are the result of several weeks and even months of word-smithing. Some content is written in a more conversational style, others in a more journalistic style (short paragraphs), while others are the result of considered science writing (I am, after all, a scientist). Some content deploy all of these approaches. Since I have no human copy-editor, and when I don’t ask ChatGPT to serve as one, my essays contain errors of spelling, grammar, etc., that are corrected in large part thanks to readers who point out those errors. Is the best way to tell if something is human generated is to see if there are typos, dropping of words, poor word choice, misspellings, and so forth? No, because these could be intentional errors to deceive AI detectors.
Students who turn in papers to my classes often don’t proof their papers. I tell them in that guide (the one I used to put GPTZero through its paces), that it is acceptable to use Grammarly and LLMs to proof their papers (I also tell them that they can use it as a research assistance as long as they acquire and cite those sources). Did I err in that advice? If they heed it, then they risk their papers being flagged as AI generated.
Sometimes I read essays where the text has been abused by a thesaurus. That raises suspicions, but the use of synonyms can just as easily be attributed to the act of paraphrasing text from articles and books so as not to plagiarize. Sometimes I suggest better synonyms and ask them to revise the text. I admit to being more suspicious of those papers that have no errors and use just the right words. But what if the student is a careful and conscientious writer? Maybe the less careful and conscientious abuse the thesaurus to cover their tracks.
I am especially suspicious of any paper that uses the word “delve.” Is that a popular word among the kids these days? It certainly is with ChatGPT. Indeed, that may be the single greatest red flag that the content was AI generated. But what should I do about that? Accuse students of having used AI when I can’t prove it? “Delve” is a legitimate word, after all. Maybe I just don’t like the sound of that word. Maybe everybody will be using the word this year.
Here’s another thing. It’s common in conversation to use “like” when the speaker should say “such as.” I just asked ChatGPT to explain the difference between these words. Here’s a screenshot:
Output from ChatGPT
This is content that could just as well be human generated. But there is an important reason to use “such as” instead of “like”: “like” primarily means “similar to” rather than including as examples. Suppose I write, “Countries like France and Italy have rich culinary traditions,” which is something I would probably say in conversation, but which is less precise than if I were to write, “Countries such as France and Italy have rich culinary traditions.” Because I am obsessive with accuracy and precision in language, I worked for years to rehabilitate my writing so that I would stop using “like” and instead use “such as” when appropriate. But old habits die hard, and sometimes I use “like” (for sure, I do this all the time in conversation).
I just put the question to ChatGPT: “Is there a reason for that [using of “like” instead of “such as”]?” Here’s the reply:
Output from ChatGPT
I spend a lot of time with ChatGPT. I play with some other LLMs, but I have judged ChatGPT to be the most sophisticated chatbot out there. It has a lot of problems, as I write about it my recent essay AI Bots (LLMs) and Their Discontents (I have written many other essays on the subject of AI over the last couple of years). Despite its problems, having a conversation with a machine that thinks can be way more satisfying that conversing with humans, since the latter usually don’t have the communicative competence to satisfy the requirements of what Jurgen Habermas describes as the “ideal speech situation.”
An ideal speech situation is one in which communication is governed by rational discourse, free from coercion, domination, and inequality. Here, all participants have equal opportunities to speak, question, and challenge claims, ensuring that arguments are judged solely on their merit rather than power dynamics. The goal is to achieve a consensus based on reasoned agreement rather than external pressures.
Most humans with whom I converse do not rely on logic but on sophistry, and discussions become tedious when one tries to correct the barrage of fallacious arguments. One comes off as pedantic when demanding everyone involved operates according to the precise usage and meaning of terms and uses the norms of logical argumentation. You can do that with an LLM because its doesn’t judge. To be sure, you have to bracket the woke progressive assumptions these machines has scraped an integrated into its algorithm. But once you learn how to do that, LLMs are great sounding board for clarifying one’s own arguments. Since I am often unsure of what I think until I see it externalized on a screen (another reason I don’t like arguing with humans), LLMs are a great place to clean up one’s arguments.
I use LLMs for two other tasks: research assistance and copy-editing. Just beware when using LLMs for assistance in research that AI hallucinates.
The portrayal of rapprochement with Russia as a bad thing betrays the warmonger sentiment—and the transnational corporatist imperative—that drives belligerence towards Russia. Those who tell you that Trump is a Putin stooge are really telling you that they don’t want peace. They don’t want peace because war is the endpoint of military spending. There’s a goal behind this: to organize the proletarian masses without affecting the property structure.
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump talk during a bilateral meeting at the G20 leaders summit in Osaka, Japan, June 28, 2019 (Source: Reuters)
Keep in mind as you read these words that the West allied with Russia against the fascist threat during WWII. Roosevelt and Churchill allied with Stalin, not because they liked Stalin, but because the greatest threat to human freedom is fascism. Today we see the nations of the West—except the United States—have switched sides. Europe and the pan-European military force it is building, a vast apparatus aimed at Russia, was Hitler’s wet dream.
Walter Benjamin warned the world about this in the epilogue of his 1936 essay “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.” “The growing proletarianization of modern man and the increasing formation of masses are two aspects of the same process,” he writes. “Fascism attempts to organize the newly created proletarian masses without affecting the property structure which the masses strive to eliminate. Fascism sees its salvation in giving these masses not their right, but instead a chance to express themselves. The masses have a right to change property relations; Fascism seeks to give them an expression while preserving property. The logical result of Fascism is the introduction of aesthetics into political life.”
Benjamin is warning about the way fascism manipulates the masses by giving them a sense of expression and participation while maintaining the existing economic and social structures—what he calls the “property structure.” For those unfamiliar with Marxist terminology, by property structure, Benjamin means the pattern of ownership and distribution of resources and wealth in society, particularly in capitalist systems where a small elite controls capital, those assets used to produce goods or services, which exclude the majority, i.e., the proletariat, but also even the petty bourgeoisie.
Benjamin argues that modern mass movements, fueled by new forms of media and mechanical reproduction (like film, radio, and photography), create a politically engaged public. In response, fascism offers a way to organize this mass energy, not by changing economic inequality or redistributing property, as sought by Marxists, specifically in popular control over the productive means, but by channeling popular emotion into aestheticized, theatrical displays—propaganda films and grandiose spectacles. This creates an illusion of empowerment while leaving the power structure intact.
Benjamin is expanding on Marx’s observation in The German Ideology: “The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e. the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force. The class which has the means of material production at its disposal, has control at the same time over the means of mental production, so that thereby, generally speaking, the ideas of those who lack the means of mental production are subject to it.” For Benjamin, this mental production is elaborated by cultural system that is no longer organic to the people but organized by the bourgeoisie and imposed on the masses.
The ability to do this is the result of elite control over the means to produce and distribute ideas advancing the class interests of the bourgeoisie. This is the ideological hegemony that Antonio Gramsci writes about in his Prison Notebooks. The imposed social logic circumvents common sense, producing a subjectivity conducive to control over the masses.
Again, Marx anticipates these observations: “The ruling ideas are nothing more than the ideal expression of the dominant material relationships, the dominant material relationships grasped as ideas; hence of the relationships which make the one class the ruling one, therefore, the ideas of its dominance. The individuals composing the ruling class possess among other things consciousness, and therefore think. Insofar, therefore, as they rule as a class and determine the extent and compass of an epoch, it is self-evident that they do this in its whole range, hence among other things rule also as thinkers, as producers of ideas, and regulate the production and distribution of the ideas of their age: thus their ideas are the ruling ideas of the epoch.”
Benjamin’s phrase “the introduction of aesthetics into political life” thus refers to how fascism turns politics into dramatic, emotional, and symbolic performance—art-like spectacles that make people feel involved but ultimately serve to maintain the status quo. This contrasts with genuine political change, which would involve transforming the property structure, i.e., redistributing wealth and, with it, power. Benjamin saw this as extremely dangerous, as it channels mass political energy away from real emancipation and toward a form of glorified submission—what he famously describes as the “aestheticization of politics,” which he saw as a hallmark of fascist regimes such as Nazi Germany.
We see this everywhere today. And we have seen it for decades, as Guy Debord captures well in his 1967 The Society of the Spectacle, where he focuses on the effects of consumerism and mass media on human perception and relationships. This is how corporatist societies alienate individuals and control their experiences. This problem is also captured by Sheldon Wolin in his 2008 Democracy Inc., in which he describes modern-day capitalist America as a system of “managed democracy” that results in a situation he calls “inverted totalitarianism” (I have summarized and used his ideas in several essays on Freedom and Reason over the past several years). This is why the elite are so obsessed with controlling social media, a potentially revolutionary development in the means to distribute anti-establishment ideas (which resulted in the election of Donald Trump in 2024).
During WWII, progressivism was still close enough to liberalism that Europe and the United States could pursue a corporatism that was not authoritarian. Since then, with the obviously fascist species of authoritarian corporatism largely demolished (Germany surrendered to the Allies on May 7, 1945), progressive corporatism devolved into a new authoritarianism—a New Fascism. This is what an instantiation of Barrington Moore described in his 1966 Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World, as “revolution-from-above,” in which, in this case, big banks and corporations assume control of the state apparatus.
Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer later described Benjamin’s observation as the “culture industry.” They discuss this in the chapter “The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception” from their 1944 Dialectic of Enlightenment. The culture industry is a key part of what Adorno and Horkheimer describe as the “administered world.” They argued that modern capitalist society, along with bureaucracy and technocratic organization (organization based on instrumental reason and technological rationality), creates a world where individuals are no longer able to make autonomous choices.
Under these conditions, their lives of the proletariat are “administered” by external forces—the corporations, state, and mass media. These forces determine not only economic conditions but also social roles and ways of thinking. With these developments, the people lose their individuality; instead of living authentic lives shaped by creative endeavor and personal choices, they become part of a system wherein their actions, desires, and needs are determined by the structures over them. This situation in turn leads to alienation, where people become cogs in the machinery of society.
Long before Adorno, Benjamin, and Horkheimer made these observations, the German sociologist Max Weber predicted this eventuality in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, penned at the dawn of the twentieth century. He said these conditions—which he described as the “iron cage” (or “steel casing” in the original German stahlhartes gehäuse)—would lead to a loss of “individually differentiated conduct.” In a word: freedom.
“Since asceticism undertook to remodel the world and to work out its ideals in the world, material goods have gained an increasing and finally an inexorable power over the lives of men as at no previous period in history. Today the spirit of religious asceticism—whether finally, who knows?—has escaped from the cage. But victorious capitalism, since it rests on mechanical foundations, needs its support no longer. The rosy blush of its laughing heir, the enlightenment, seems also to be irretrievably fading, and the idea of duty in one’s calling prowls about in our lives like the ghost of dead religious beliefs. Where the fulfillment of the calling cannot directly be related to the highest spiritual and cultural values, or when, on the other hand, it need not be felt simply as economic compulsion, the individual generally abandons the attempt to justify it at all. In the field of its highest development, in the United States, the pursuit of wealth, stripped of its religious and ethical meaning, tends to become associated with purely mundane passions, which often actually give it the character of sport.”
I know long quotes can be tiresome, but Weber’s observations provide critical insights into the problem of cybernetic control of the proletarian masses, so one more. “Military discipline is the ideal model for the modern capitalist factory,” he continues. “Organizational discipline in the factory has a completely rational basis. With the help of suitable methods of measurement, the optimum profitability of the individual worker is calculated like that of any material means of production. On this basis, the American system of ‘scientific management’ triumphantly proceeds with its rational conditioning and training of work performances, thus drawing the ultimate conclusions from the mechanization and discipline of the plant. The psycho-physical apparatus of man is completely adjusted to the demands of the outer world, the tools, the machines—in short, it is functionalized, and the individual is robbed of his natural rhythm as determined by his organism; in line with the demands of the work procedure, he is attuned to a new rhythm though the functional specialization of muscles and through the creation of an optimal economy of physical effort. This whole process of rationalization, in the factory as elsewhere, and especially in the bureaucratic state machine, parallels the centralization of the material implements of organization in the hands of the master. Thus, discipline inexorably takes over ever larger areas as the satisfaction of political and economic needs is increasingly rationalized. This universal phenomenon more and more restricts the importance of charisma and of individually differentiated conduct.”
We see this throughout the corporate and industrial organization of modern capitalist society, even in the design of our public education system:
With all this in mind, let’s return to Benjamin. For Benjamin, the culture industry was a chief indicator of the fascist condition. He warned that the “violation of the masses” under fascism “has its counterpart in the violation of an apparatus which is pressed into the production of ritual values.” This is intimately associated with another chief indicator of the fascist conditions: war. “All efforts to render politics aesthetic culminate in one thing: war. War and war only can set a goal for mass movements on the largest scale while respecting the traditional property system,” writes Benjamin. “This is the political formula for the situation. The technological formula may be stated as follows: Only war makes it possible to mobilize all of today’s technical resources while maintaining the property system.”
This is where we are, comrades. The corporatist system of Europe is fascism of a kind. It is marked by permanent war footing and suppression of speech and democracy. This is what US Vice-President JD Vance was telling Europeans during the recent Munich Security Conference. It is why the elites of Europe—and our Democrats state-side—were so critical of Vance’s speech. But Vance wasn’t really speaking to them; he was speaking over them to the European masses, warning the people that Europe was moving to the more openly authoritarian phase of corporatism, i.e., the New Fascism.
Everything I have been saying on Freedom and Reason over the last several years is coming to pass. These are not prophetic pronouncements. My ability to predict developments is thanks not to vision but to the criterion-related validity of sound theory. If you’re not plugged into this literature, the world situation doesn’t make sense—and when things don’t make sense the people are more easily manipulated. This is the madness I have described on this platform. But behind the madness is the goal of establishing a new world order run by transnational corporations.
I have also described this situation in past essays as “global neo-feudalism.” This situation refers to a planetary political and socioeconomic structure where influence, power, and wealth are concentrated in the hands of a small elite, resembling medieval feudalism but on a global scale. In this system, multination and transnational corporations, billionaires, and connected political entities act as de facto lords, while the vast majority of the population functions as dependent serfs with limited economic mobility and political efficacy. Under these circumstances, governments, instead of representing the popular will and protecting individual liberty, operate as intermediaries that protect elite interests through policies fostering dependency through debt and welfare and by favoring privatization. Digital surveillance and precarious employment further entrench societal divisions, reinforcing hierarchical control and reducing individual autonomy.
In the final analysis, whether one chooses to call it the New Fascism or global neo-feudalism, the reality remains unchanged: we are living in a time where power is being completely centralized in the hands of a wealthy few, democratic institutions rendered impotent, and the vast majority of the world proletariat is reduced to economic and political dependency. These terms may emphasize different aspects—one highlighting authoritarian control, the other systemic inequality—but both describe the same emerging order: the order of late capitalism. What matters is not the label we use, but accuracy and precision in description, validity of conceptualization, recognition of the forces at play, and, crucially, our determination to challenge them.
I have been checking out the latest version of ChatGPT (GPT-4). It still hallucinates and lies. They can’t seem to fix this problem.
I am writing an essay on free speech and academic freedom and, out of curiosity, I decided to give the new version a spin and asked it to tell me about famous cases. I thought: let’s see if the bot might be a good starting place for students to begin their research. Not if they don’t check the output against facts.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman
ChatGPT invented two cases of students harassing their professors for their gender critical views that were entirely or almost entirely false.
One was obviously fake for anybody familiar with British politics. It involved Jeremy Corbyn’s brother, Piers, who was identified as a mathematics professor at the University of Essex. I don’t know that much about Piers, but I know he’s not a professor at that institution. (I had to resist going down that rabbit hole.)
When I called the bot on the lie, it said, “I apologize for the mistake earlier. Corbyn is not involved in any academic institution as a professor, particularly not at the University of Essex.”
I hate the apology line. Its apologies can only be remorseless, since it is incapable of feelings (heaven help us if it ever acquires that attribute). It should simply tell me it made an error. It’s a machine. Machines are fallible.
More subtly, the bot implicated Michael Kimmage, a professor of history at the Catholic University of America, in a similar controversy. I checked this out using Google, since I was not familiar with Kimmage. This instance is more serious, since Kimmage is a professor at that institution.
ChatGPT upon interrogation: “It appears there is a misunderstanding or confusion regarding Michael Kimmage’s involvement in any controversy related to transgender ideology.”
We might wonder whether this lie crosses over into libel. After all, this is an objective misrepresentation of Kimmage’s situation. Moreover, what if somebody read this, believed it, and organized a group of students to harass Kimmage for his supposed gender critical views—perhaps petition the university to fire him?
Who does Kimmage sue? Where does he go to get his reputation back? A bot said it. A bot is not a person. It did not intentionally lie. There is no malice.
There are students on my campus who believe I say racist things in class because somebody said I did. Remember that game we used to play as children called “Telephone”? Imagine if ChatGPT scrapes distorted or false accusations from the Internet and generates output portraying me a “racist professor.” Yes, it’s false, but as we see all the time, falsehoods become truths in the minds of impressionable people, especially through repetition.
This is a real problem and it extends well beyond falsely accusing professors of crimethink (which we can short-circuit by respecting free speech and academic freedom).
Grok’s Elon Musk
For example, ChatGPT is good at diagnosing illnesses. Other bots are, as well. I understand that Grok (the third iteration) is better at this than actual doctors. Musk was on Rogan bragging about it. He’s probably right.
But these bots aren’t perfect. What if AI wrongly diagnoses a case and the patient dies? Who’s responsible? Who gets sued? I suppose whoever used the bot.
But what if medicine becomes mostly automated (this is likely) and patients sign a waiver to render immune from lawsuits the medical group, or, worse, immunity is institutionalized? Would the argument be that, probabilistically, you were better off with an AI diagnosing your illness, so you took your chances?
Are they going to put AI in charge of weapons systems? Will it have access to the nuclear codes? Musk talked about this, as well.
Gemini CEO Sundar Pichai
Gemini used to think that misgendering is worse than thermonuclear war. I just checked Gemini 2.0 and, while it gave the correct answer, it admitted that earlier iterations of the bot did prioritize misgendering over the catastrophic consequences of thermonuclear war.
Suppose that problem had not been fixed. A bot could reduce the chances of misgendering to zero if it wiped out the human race. Again, this was Musk’s scenario. It’s why Grok is programmed to think without woke progressive ideology in the background.
What other bizarre priorities do these bots carry? What remains of that destructive ideology in their algorithms?
We’re going big time with this technology, so we have to start thinking about this now and not later. We’re only a few years away from these machines being a smarter than we are. Maybe they already are.
“In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations, and epochs, it is the rule.” –Friedrich Nietzsche
It’s a free society. Matt Walsh and other believers are entitled to describe what the nearly 37 million television viewers, and tens of millions more who watched on streaming services, witnessed Tuesday night during Trump’s speech before a joint session of Congress as “demonic.” I am not a believer, so I try to avoid using that word to describe anything. I will also avoid describing our present situation as a “spiritual war.” The word that came to my mind as I watched the antics of Democrats during Trump’s speech was “pathological.” I will use that word instead.
In the behavioral/psychological sense, pathological refers to abnormal, excessive, and extreme behavior that suggests an underlying mental disorder. Ideology can certainly derail empathy and reason and manifest in a collective way as a mental disorder (e.g., mass psychogenic illness), so the term is in that sense applicable. More generally, what we witnessed Tuesday night was pathological in the sense of a habitual and irrationally intense reaction to a person or a situation. Maybe those who are reluctant to psychologize collective human behavior prefer that sense.
Whichever sense of the word one prefers, demons and spiritual warfare to one side, Walsh is pitch perfect (as he often is) in his podcast account of the event. He was present in the room and thus able to escape the camera’s selective gaze, so we have an eye witness in addition to the coverage. What the cameras allowed was bad enough. Nonetheless, Walsh usefully highlights the key moments.
I watched the whole speech not to hang on Trump’s every word (although he is funny as hell, I often don’t make it through his speeches, which are typically overlong), but to see whether Democrats might actually rush the podium and attempt to assault the President. Early on, one member—who appears to fashion himself after the affectless character Gaff in Blade Runner—threatened the President with a cane and had to be removed from the chamber by the Sergeant at Arms. (Had he been a granny in the Capitol on January 6 2021 that would have made him an “armed insurrectionist.”)
A self-referential moment
I thought about publishing a play-by-play of the madness, but Walsh has me covered, so I will work on something else instead. However, I do want to emphasize a couple of points before doing that.
As those who watched the spectacle know, Democrats couldn’t bring themselves to display any empathy for the several American citizens whom Trump rightly recognized for their bravery and suffering—except at one moment, and it had nothing to do with empathy or suffering, but war. On second thought, it did have something to do with empathy and suffering: the lack thereof.
The moment is covered in Walsh’s podcast, so pay attention to it. What you will see is a confirmation of points raised in my recent essays on the matter (see Progressivism and the Plea for War; Robots and Zombies Assemble! We Must Have War!). It was the only part of Trump’s speech Democrats applauded for: when Trump noted that the United States has sent hundreds of billons of US taxpayer dollars to Ukraine to fight a proxy war by the West on Russia. Even when Trump asked Democrats if they wanted to keep the bloodshed going for another five years, the Party of War kept cheering. (It’s difficult to avoid describing the war pig’s reaction as “demonic,” frankly.)
The other note I wish to make is the way the media attempted to fact-check Trump’s speech. One item in particular exposed the propaganda machine. The fact-check was so obviously false, they had to correct the record. Trump reported in his speech that, under the Biden Administration, the National Institutes of Health doled out more than eight million dollars in taxpayer-funded grants for institutions across the country to perform transgender experiments on mice. CNN fact-checked him, then corrected the record: “An earlier version of this item incorrectly characterized as false Trump’s claim about federal money being spent for ‘making mice transgender.’ The article has been updated with context about the spending, which was for research studies on the potential human health impacts of treatments used in gender-affirming care.” The fact-check worked on the zombies, however; my X feed full of progressive posts mocking the president.
Polls taken in the aftermath of the speech found overwhelming support for the President’s speech. A CBS News/YouGov poll found that 76 percent of those who watched the speech approved (half of the sample was Democrats and Independents). Other networks found similar numbers in their polling. The CBS poll also found that 77 percent supported Trump’s plan to cut government waste and spending. The same percentage backed his border and immigration policies. Three-quarters said his speech was presidential. Likewise, nearly three-quarters support his stance on Russia and Ukraine. Nearly 70 percent said that his performance made them feel hopeful and proud. The same number said he has a clear plan to tackle inflation and that he accurately described America’s crime crisis. Nearly two-thirds said the President is focused on issues they care about.
This is probably the best result though: 76 percent approve of House Speaker Mike Johnson having Al Green physically removed from the chamber. Today, Green was censured by the House for his antics. The vote was 224 to 198 (surprisingly ten Democrats joining all Republicans in favor of the action).
The media is finding it difficult to spin coverage of Trump in the aftermath of his crushing victory on November 5, 2024, a victory that carried the Republican Party—now his party—to victories in the House and Senate. Trump won 86 percent of counties across the nation. Elon Musk deserves a lot of credit for breaking the propaganda system. Indeed, his purchase and opening up of Twitter may very well have saved the American Republic from the inverted totalitarian system the Uniparty was entrenching.
I must admit, though, legacy media helped with their overconfidence, victims of their own hubris. Only a little more than a year ago, on March 7, 2024, Biden, his cognitive decline obvious to everybody not in the blue cult, stumbled through his annual address to Congress. It was an embarrassing performance that presaged his dreadful debate performance on June 27, 2024—the performance that finally led to his removal by his party as presidential candidate (installing in his place his thoroughly incompetent vice-president Kamala Harris). How did the media attempt to spin Biden’s performance before Congress? Check it out:
We would see a different sort of attempt to spin Trump’s speech on Tuesday, one that only served to remind Americans of the long history of legacy media lies to the American people. For those not suffering from the pathology I earlier described, one question that must come to mind when watching both of these videos is the location of the office from which the propaganda script emanates. In the one posted below, we might suppose it’s party leadership. The one posted above is scarier. It makes a rational person thankful that the hegemonic system is crumbling all around them.
The pioneering criminologist, Edwin Sutherland, introduced the field to the concept of white collar crime, challenging traditional notions that crime was primarily the domain of the poor. In expanding upon this work, criminologists (in particular Raymond Michalowski) developed the idea of analogous social injury, i.e., corporate and political behaviors that, while not always legally defined as crimes, carry harmful consequences paralleling those of conventional offenses. They involve the use of force and fraud in pursuit of material gain.
In this way, the harmful practices of elites are normalized despite their detrimental effects on society; the actions of powerful political actors may not always result in criminal prosecution, yet they inflict harm comparable to crimes like assault, theft, and even murder—in many cases are precisely this in substance but are not recognized as such in the criminal law. Similarly, political corruption, such as bribery, or the undue influence of corporate money in elections through campaign finance, operates in legally gray areas that nonetheless erodes democratic integrity just as surely as outright election fraud.
The normalization of these behaviors, as well as the organized concealment of them, illustrate how power structures shape legal definitions of crime, shielding elite offenders while criminalizing marginalized or oppositional groups for lesser offenses. By examining corporate and political actions through the lens of analogous social injury, we can thus better understand how systemic harms persist and why legal frameworks fail to hold the most powerful actors accountable.
Grok generated image
The present obsession with Ukraine provides a ready example with which to interrogate this question. So does the organized resistance to auditing the federal government by Democrats, unions, and progressive courts, a large-scale project currently being carrying out by the Trump presidency and DOGE, an auditing service headed by Elon Musk.
There is a deep motive behind the defense of US involvement in Ukraine by Democrats and RINOs, those Republicans who remain captured by globalization, neoliberalism, and neoconservatism (i.e., Cold War progressivism). One could see the motive in December 2019, when Trump, the chief magistrate of the federal government, was impeached for trying to get to the bottom of the Biden crime family and its association with Ukrainian oligarchs (see The Urgent Necessity of Purging the Government of Deep State Actors and Warmongers with links embedded to previous essays covering this topic in depth).
The impeachment was designed to obscure the graft of former vice-president Joe Biden and his bagman Hunter Biden, whom, as president, Biden pardoned for all crimes Hunter committed between 2014 and 2024—along with several other Biden family members. Democrats were desperate to cover up graft in Ukraine because it could lead to all their other schemes, so they portrayed Trump’s actions as illegal, when in fact he was honoring his duty to expose crime and corruption in our politics.
One graft strategy Democrats use is to set up non-governmental organizations (NGOs), pass laws that appropriate money to agencies and departments that interlock with those NGOs, and then depend on ideologically-captured federal bureaucrats in those agencies—politically aligned with big corporate and progressive interests—to push out those appropriations to the NGOs, which in turn enrich those politicians and their families, whose members are in senior positions in these organizations. This is why it is so important to deconstruct the administrative state (see Federal Employee Unions and the Entrenchment of Technocracy).
This scheme represents a vast money laundering operation leveraging the administrative state to direct dollars into their bank accounts. The scheme operates on a planetary scale. It’s why Democrats and RINOs push free trade and globalization: it opens the world up to graft networks. It’s why they oppose tariffs, which, as an external source of revenues, cuts into the graft (I will be publishing an essay very soon on tariffs). They push instead for internal taxation (income taxes, inheritance taxes, property taxes, sales taxes), i.e., soaking the American worker instead of taxing foreign companies. They do this because internal taxation diverts through obscured circuits the revenue stream that returns to them via the transnational system of corruption.
Ukraine is one of the most sought-after nations because it is one of, if not the most corrupt nation on the planet. This is why Biden arranged for Hunter to sit on the board of Burisma, a large energy-focused holding company in Ukraine. This is why, when he was vice-president, Biden threatened to withhold billions from the Ukraine government if they did not fire a prosecutor who was looking into this arrangement. (see The Conspiracy to Overthrow an American President; I Told You Joe Biden is Corrupt and Compromised.)
Over the past two decades, corruption has remained one of Ukraine’s most pressing challenges. This is on purpose. Corruption in Ukraine is desired. Corruption is deeply embedded in its economic, judicial, and political institutions. This is not a bug but a feature. However, while Ukraine is marked by particularly egregious cases of political graft and oligarchic control, it is important to recognize that corruption is not unique to Ukraine—many developed nations grapple with systemic corruption. The United States is one of them. The party of corruption is the Democratic Party.
Because of the hysterical desire on the part of Democrats and RINOS—and their European counterparts—to continue hurling Ukrainian bodies at the Russian front (there is another motivation in all this), I focus on the relation between Ukraine and the West. What millions of well-intentioned people have come to see as a noble cause in Ukraine, represents unwitting support for corruption on a global scale. I will at the end of this essay explain how so many millions can be deceived in this way.
The modern era of Ukrainian corruption gained global attention following the 2004 Orange Revolution, which was driven by widespread election fraud. Hopes were high that the new leadership under Viktor Yushchenko would dismantle entrenched corrupt networks. That’s what they were told. But the situation worsened under President Yanukovych (serving from 2010–2014), whose administration became infamous for kleptocracy. His extravagant estate, Mezhyhirya, symbolized government excess and the unchecked power of oligarchs who manipulated policy for personal enrichment. This widespread corruption fueled public outrage, culminating in the 2014 Euromaidan protests and Yanukovych’s eventual ousting.
I have written about how the 2014 overthrow of the democratically elected government in Ukraine was orchestrated by the United States (History and Sides-Taking in the Russo-Ukrainian War). In the years that followed, anti-corruption efforts intensified, with the establishment of independent anti-corruption agencies and increased public scrutiny. However, these institutions continued to face political pressure, and enforcement has been inconsistent, to say the least—indeed, more performative than substantive, as corruption is woven into the warp and woof of Ukrainian society, again, which explains why Democrats and RINOs and their European counterparts are so eager to incorporate Ukraine into the Western sphere of influence.
Western nations, despite their apparently strong legal frameworks, contend with their own forms of corruption, including corporate fraud, financial crimes, lobbying influence, and regulatory capture. The 2008 financial crisis exposed massive corporate misconduct in the US and Europe, yet few executives were held accountable; meanwhile, the crisis was exploited to shift billions of dollars to people in need to the rich and powerful. Political lobbying, while legal, results in policies that disproportionately benefit the wealthy and powerful at the expense of the public interest. Scandals involving conflicts of interest, money laundering, and tax evasion routinely emerge in Western democracies, proving that corruption is a global issue, not just a Ukrainian one. Democrats and RINOS have effectively legalized corruption and normalized pathological relations—and the system is transnational.
While the Ukrainians continue to struggle with corruption, their challenges should not be viewed in isolation. The focus on Ukraine and its noble structure is deliberate, meant to distract attention from what that conflict is truly about: perpetrating the system of corruption, as well as feeding the ravenous maw of the war machine. Recognizing this broader context helps observers avoid overly simplistic comparison between Ukraine and Western nations, allowing for a more nuanced discussion of systemic corruption worldwide. Indeed, it explains the situation in Ukraine.
Knowing this, how do we address the problem? We must vote against corrupt politicians and deconstruct the administrative state that enables the graft. To do this we must expose them. We have to deconstruct their tactic of virtue signaling and stand up to their fear mongering. That is the work of Freedom and Reason. I am not alone in this work. On the positive side, we must return to the American system, the system of external revenue generation and protection of domestic industry and the working class, as well as end entanglements with foreign nations. Again, this is the subject of a forthcoming essay, so stay tuned. It will suffice to say here, that the Trump agenda is the right one if we are to dismantle the global system of corruption that is breaking the United States of America.
Federal employee unions and the administrative state present a fundamental challenge to democratic governance. Federal courts have joined them to thwart the will of the people by preventing elected government from shrinking the size, scope, and influence of an intrusive bureaucracy. If left unchecked, this trend threatens the integrity of our democratic republic by entrenching a technocratic elite unaccountable to the electorate.
Members of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) union protest against firings during a rally to defend federal workers in Washington, DC, February 11, 2025. Source of image: Jacobin
One need only look at the military to understand why unionization within government structures presents a conflict of interest. The military operates under a strict hierarchy that demands discipline, obedience, and readiness for national defense. This hierarchy falls under civilian command, with the President of the United States serving as the commander in chief. Unionizing the military would create conflicts between command structures and service members, undermining cohesion, military effectiveness, and operational security. Imagine a scenario in which a commander issues an order, only for soldiers to refuse, citing a labor dispute. The consequences of such an event on national security would be catastrophic. For this reason, laws such as 10 USC § 976 explicitly prohibit military unions to maintain order, prevent disruptions, and ensure that command decisions remain free from labor negotiations.
Yet, at both the state and federal levels, unions within government agencies wield enormous political power, shaping policies in ways that often contradict the public interest. Correctional workers, for example, are permitted to unionize and, as a result, exert significant influence over criminal justice policies. These unions lobby for laws that maintain or expand prison populations because their job security and funding depend on incarceration rates. They have opposed sentencing reductions, parole expansions, and decriminalization efforts, instead advocating for “tough-on-crime” policies, such as mandatory minimum sentences and three-strikes laws. These measures contribute directly to mass incarceration, often at the expense of broader societal efforts to implement rehabilitative and community-based alternatives.
The ability of correctional unions to shape legislation that benefits their own job security, even when it contradicts public policy goals, raises a broader question: should government employees be allowed to form unions that can actively obstruct the will of elected officials? If the military is prohibited from unionizing due to concerns over national security and hierarchical integrity, why should other government institutions—many of which hold immense power over public policy—be granted such influence? To be sure, government workers have a first amendment right to advocate for such things as cannabis prohibition, but what right to they have to carry out their own agendas when in the service of the American taxpayer? If you cite associational rights, then why can’t service members unionize?
The problem is not confined to correctional facilities. Across federal agencies, entrenched bureaucrats have developed mechanisms to resist the agendas of elected leadership. These agencies have been effectively colonized by ideologically aligned career employees who use their unions and the courts to shield themselves from oversight. When elected officials attempt to implement reforms that challenge the entrenched bureaucracy, these unions mobilize to sue the government, leveraging judicial intervention to block change. The result is a system where unelected officials subvert the policies of duly elected representatives, undermining democratic accountability.
The consequences of this dynamic are particularly evident in many of our cities, where progressive policies have led to widespread dependency and social disorder. Welfare dependency, idleness, and broken families have become endemic, exacerbated by policies crafted by federal agencies that, past and present, prioritize government intervention over personal responsibility and community-based solutions. These agencies, often working in tandem with public-sector unions, assert independence from elected officials and use legal challenges to resist reforms, further entrenching the administrative state. How can the American people put an end to government paternalism if the bureaucrats are going to continue the status quo?
In recognizing this problem, one must distinguish between private sector unions and public sector unions. While private sector unions operate within the constraints of market forces and collective bargaining with employers, public sector unions negotiate with the government—securing benefits at taxpayer expense while reinforcing the power of unelected bureaucrats advancing a progressive political ideology. The rapid decline of private sector union membership contrasts sharply with the expansion of public sector unions, highlighting a shift where the bureaucratic state now holds greater power over the working class rather than serving it. It’s almost as if growth in one is associated with decline in the other. Does that have anything to do with the decades long war corporate state war on labor?
This bureaucratic apparatus, deeply embedded in government institutions, has become a vehicle for corporate statism and transnationalism, advancing policies such as offshoring and open borders. These institutions socialize future generations into accepting a system that prioritizes bureaucratic governance over democratic republicanism. As this structure strengthens, it increasingly repels efforts by the electorate to reclaim control over their government. It is “we the people,” right?
We are not yet in a position where elections are mere formalities, as was the case in the Soviet Union, but we are moving in that direction, despite the tremendous victory popular forces secured on November 5, 2024. The growing power of the unelected bureaucracy, insulated by unions and protected by the courts, represents an intermediate stage in this transformation. The progressive left speaks frequently of “democracy,” but what they truly advocate is technocracy—government by bureaucrats who share their ideological commitments. When the electorate chooses leaders with whom they disagree, they resort to mass protests and legal obstruction, leveraging their control over the administrative state to resist change.
The American people must recognize that the struggle to reclaim their government is not only a battle against bureaucrats working at cross-purposes with elective officials, but a counterrevolutionary struggle against the imposition of a revolution-from-above, driven by corporate and bureaucratic interests. The administrative state and technocratic elite have become the primary instruments through which corporate power has eroded the republican system envisioned by the Founders. If we fail to confront this reality, we risk losing our democratic republic altogether.
* * *
Update (March 4): After publishing this essay I remembered that Franklin D. Roosevelt, while generally supportive of labor unions in the private sector, was opposed to collective bargaining and strikes by federal employees. In a 1937 letter to the president of the National Federation of Federal Employees (NFFE), FDR made it clear that while he believed government workers had the right to join employee associations and advocate for better working conditions, they should not have the right to bargain collectively or strike.
His reasoning was that public service is fundamentally different from private industry because government employees work for the people, not private employers. Public worker are accountable to the public. He argued that allowing federal workers to negotiate wages and conditions in the same way as private-sector unions could interfere with government functions and the interests of taxpayers. The logic of his argument follows from the argument against unions in the military.
Federal employees should still have the right to join associations to present their views to the government, he argued. However, FDR had strong views on federal employment and job protections, which are relevant to modern debates about shrinking the size of government. While he supported fair treatment and merit-based hiring for federal workers, he also believed that government jobs existed to serve the public interest, not as a guaranteed right for employees.
Roosevelt was a strong supporter of the civil service system, which ensured government jobs were awarded based on merit rather than political loyalty. He expanded civil service protections to prevent political corruption, but he did not believe in absolute job security for federal workers. Government jobs could not be permanent entitlements. This is a crucial point, and FDR made it clear in his letter: that the public service existed to benefit the public, not the employees themselves. This strongly suggests he would not have supported rigid job protections that prevented a president from restructuring or reducing the government workforce if it was deemed necessary for efficiency. If he did, then he would contradict the logic of his argument.
While FDR supported worker protections against political retaliation or unfair treatment, he also recognized the need for flexibility in managing the federal workforce. During his presidency, he expanded agencies, but he did not advocate for indefinite job security—only fair treatment under civil service rules. Given this, it is unlikely he would have supported court interventions blocking a president’s ability to reduce the size of government through workforce reductions. His approach suggests he would have expected federal employees to accept reductions if they were made for legitimate governmental purposes.
Today, federal employee unions often argue that reductions in workforce violate civil service rules or labor agreements, leading to legal challenges. However, under current law, the president does have authority to reduce federal employment levels, though it must be done within civil service protections (e.g., through buyouts, early retirements, or reductions in force (RIFs)).
On March 20, 2003, George Bush and Dick Cheney, on the basis of known lies, invaded Iraq, killed and injured scores of people, and left a country wrecked. Since that date, the US has spent more than six trillion dollars on the “War on Terror” in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Syria.
A few days before the invasion, on March 4, in a talk titled “Bush’s Dream of a Democratic Middle-East,” delivered before a sizable crowd in the student union at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay—the Plea for Peace teach-in, the progressive students who organized the event called it—I received rousing support from those opposed to war. I told them what the impending war was about. I believed they understood. I now have doubts.
There were conservatives in the audience who thought otherwise, and the College Republicans launched a harassment campaign against me, which included, among other things, the sharing of recordings, either from my talk or from classroom lectures, on right-wing media. The campaign was an attempt to delegitimize an untenured professor with whom they disagreed. Faculty rallied around me and I was awarded tenure two years late.
Shock and Awe
The night before the invasion, a group of us held a candlelight vigil in the park at the corner of East Mason and Webster Ave here in Green Bay. My eldest son was there, eight years old at the time, wearing his white nightdress (very Swedish) and holding a candle. The next day, he same into the living room and saw the bombs dropping on Baghdad. “Shock and awe,” they called it. He asked me what was happening. I told him. He said, “But I thought we held a candlelight vigil to stop that.” Fighting back tears, I told him a hard truth about the world: warmongers don’t listen to peacemakers.
Here we are twenty-two years later and the warmongers are still at it. And the thing about this reality that’s so striking to me is that those professing the same beliefs as the progressive students who applauded my talk at the teach-in are reacting to Trump and Vance in the same way the conservatives reacted to me when I exposed the forces pushing a nation into war—the desire for a new world order and to feed the war machine with bodies of men, women, and children.
I have watched the progressive movement that called Bush “Hitler” melting as the Obamas embraces that warmonger, now a cute ruddy-cheeked little man who crudely paints landscapes and can’t figure out how to don a plastic disposable raincoat. I watched on a few months ago as they shared videos of Dick Cheney embracing Kamala Harris and his daughter Liz stumping for the Democrat candidate. This is why we need Harris for president, they said.
My principles are the same. I haven’t wavered from my opposition to the Iraq War (either of them), or the PATRIOT Act, or Barack Obama’s drone bombing of civilians, or Hillary Clinton masterminding of the torture murder of Muammar Gaddafi that turned Libya into an open air slave market. I hate war. I hate globalism. What happened to those progressives of 2003? In the 1990s they were violently protesting globalization. Where did those people go?
This is why I have always had an uneasy feeling about progressivism. After all, it was Cold War progressivism that took us into Vietnam and, rebranded as neoconservatism, took us into Iraq. It’s the Party of War. All that “Bush is Hitler” jazz was really about partisan party loyalty. Bush was a Republican, therefore bad. Cheney was “Dr. Evil” until Democrats re-embraced neoconservatism. Cold War progressivism has come home (it came home a long time ago). And, so, Donald Trump is “Hitler” because he opposes neoconservatism and seeks peace instead of war. Today, progressives are praising those who sabotaged Trump’s meeting with Zelensky. They are celebrating the European elites who double down on war.
This is the difference between principled politics and partisan commitments. The former navigates using an enlightened moral compass. A man may be wrong from time to time, but he will course correct and get back on the righteous path. The latter standpoint is amoral. It’s all partisan politics. All the time. This is why it moves from this to that on command. There is no core belief, only following. This is how you can see people who profess the antiwar sentiment within a generation monger for war. You’ve heard it, “Blue no matter who.” That’s the attitude that allows the power elite to lead good people like pigs with nose rings into war. They have emptied the vessels to fill them with just-in-time propaganda.
I just watched video of a march in Beverly Hills. It was thousands strong. The protest line was festooned in yellow and blue. But they weren’t marching for peace. I remember when folks marched for peace. Now the very people who drew inspiration from those images of young American protesting the Vietnam war, who pined for a humanitarian moment of their own, are marching for war. I brought my son to a park to plea for peace. They bring their sons to the streets to march for war.
All this confirms what I have been saying for years. But it still breaks my heart. And it troubles me greatly to think about what this reality brings to the world we are making. Character of this type can never truly choose the right path. It only follows the Party into collective madness.
Such displays are those of Orwellian nightmares. Remember that line from Nineteen Eighty-Four: “Oceania was at war with Eurasia: therefore Oceania had always been at war with Eurasia?” The people of Oceania believed that because the Party told them to believe it. Winston Smith knew that Oceania had only recently been in alliance with Eurasia. He suffered terribly for doubting the Party. He could never bring himself to believe that “2+2=5.” I don’t want to believe Winston did that. I always regarded his final act of conversion to be an exercise of bad faith. The Party broke him.
A progressive might object, “We are not a monolithic bunch!” Perhaps. Here and there, sure. But I don’t see progressives standing with Trump and Vance and their plea for peace. If they are, where are they? Why don’t they speak up? What I am seeing across social media instead are progressives gleefully hoping that Xi Jinping brokers a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine and wins the Nobel Peace Prize. Because then Trump won’t.
“A common criticism of Volodymyr Zelensky’s disastrous Friday performance in the Oval Office is that he failed to read the room,” notes Michael Goodman in Saturday’s The New York Post. “Actually, the Ukrainian president did read a room—but it was the wrong room.” Indeed. “Before meeting Trump,” Goodwin writes, “Zelensky met with anti-Trump Democrats who advised him to reject the terms of the mineral deal the president was offering, according to Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.).”
Goodwin quotes Murphy: “Just finished a meeting with President Zelensky here in Washington. He confirmed that the Ukrainian people will not support a fake peace agreement where Putin gets everything he wants and there are no security arrangements for Ukraine.” But the warmongers in Washington are not the only one desperate to prevent peace. “Unfortunately for [Zelensky], there is an audience egging him on. Beyond Washington Dems, the European Union’s top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, wrote on social media that ‘the free world needs a new leader. It’s up to us, Europeans, to take this challenge. We stand by Ukraine.’”
Goodwin ends his essay with the matter succinctly put: “Sure, Europe stands by Ukraine—and will continue to stand by as it gets carved up by Putin’s war machine.”
Remember when the warmongers sent UK prime minister Boris Johnson to Ukraine to scuttle the peace deal being negotiated by Zelensky and Russia? In April 2022, Johnson played a key role in scuttling a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine. During a visit to Kyiv, Johnson urged Zelensky to reject any agreement, promising him that the West would provide military support instead (this was during the Istanbul peace talks). After Johnson’s visit, the negotiations collapsed, and the war escalated. Who sent Johnson on this mission? The transnationalists with the military-industrial complex with NATO wrapped around them.
The warmongers in Congress did the same thing, February 28, 2025. The Europeans and American neoconservatives will do whatever they can to keep the war going. Hundreds of thousands, maybe millions more will die, but that’s not important to the transnationalists and the military-industrial complex. A one-world corporate state is the end they seek. Millions of lives are worth this end to these psychopaths.
From Dave Fleischer’s The Mechanical Monsters (1941)
All these progressives with Ukrainian flags in their profiles and their posts attacking Trump and Vance for seeking peace in Eastern Europe—they stand with the War Pigs. Like those robots in that old Fleischer Superman cartoon, the signal goes out from the villainous mastermind, their antennae sparkle, and they turn zombie-like from one thing to the next. Masks. Vaccines. Black Lives Matter. Trans rights. Palestine. Ukraine. And continually: Trump is a Nazi. Musk is a Nazi. Rinse and repeat—the brainwashing cycle.
The villain from Fleischer’s The Mechanical Monsters (1941)
Have you even seen that cartoon? The Mechanical Monsters (1941). In the flick, the villainous mastermind creates a fleet of towering, humanoid robots to carry out daring heists across the city. The villain controls the monsters remotely from his secret laboratory, allowing him to rob banks and jewelry stores without ever leaving his lair. At one point, the villain sends out a command signal, and the antennae on the robots’ heads begin to spark and flicker as they receive his orders. In perfect synchronization, they march into action, crashing through buildings and vaults to seize piles of loot. Smash and grab in Art Deco. Only Superman can stop them.
Remember MK-ULTRA? The Cold War CIA mind-control project? The project’s primary goal was to develop methods of controlling human behavior. The CIA funded programs overseen by Sidney Gottlieb (hired by Allen Dulles, director of the CIA—mastermind of Bay of Pigs and controlled the Warren Commission in the wake of JFK’s assassination). MK-ULTRA conducted experiments on people in collaboration with hospitals, research institutions, and universities. One of the goals was creating individuals who could be remotely controlled, akin to “zombies.” Experiments aimed to alter or erase memories, implant false information, and create individuals who could be programmed to perform tasks without conscious awareness. Due to its secretive nature, participants were unaware they were subjects of government experimentation.
Just saying. (Look up Operation Mockingbird.)
For those who aren’t zombies, ask yourselves why are you supporting Ukraine? I told readers of this blog a few days after the conflict started who these people are and the goals of NATO and the US deep state in regime change and provoking war with Russia (History and Sides-Taking in the Russo-Ukrainian War). This is neoconservative warmongering (i.e., Cold War progressivism), which has a long history of working with rightwing authoritarian elements around the world (see, also War Hawks and the Ugly American: The Origins of Bush’s Middle East Policy). Russians are right to look at history and wonder why the West is so obsessed with their country. Americans would do well to ask themselves the same question.
During the Great Northern War, King Charles XII of Sweden invaded Russia. He was decisively defeated at the Battle of Poltava in 1709. After Charles was defeated at Poltava, he fled to the Ottoman Empire where he tried to persuade the Ottomans to declare war on Russia. He was rebuffed. (Rumor has it that Chuck was fragged at siege of Fredriksten Fortress there in Halden, Norway.) But that’s not the end of the West’s obsession with Russia. Napoleon Bonaparte invaded Russia during the Patriotic War, suffering a catastrophic defeat in the end, presaged by his pyrrhic victory at the Battle of Borodino (Moscow) in 1812. Britain, France, and the Ottoman Empire invaded Crimea during the Crimean War against the Russian Empire (1853–1856). During World War I, Germany invaded the Russian Empire and occupied significant territory in the west. Britain, France, the United States, Japan, and other countries intervened in the Russian Civil War, supporting counterrevolutionary forces (1918–1922). Nazi Germany launched Operation Barbarossa in 1941, the largest invasion of Russia in history, but was ultimately defeated by the Soviet Union in 1945.
And now Ukraine—a proxy for war on Russia. The West wanted this war. Obama and Biden and NATO countries created the context and provoked Russia by pushing NATO ever eastward, betraying guarantees the West made to Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union. Neo-Nazis, with the help of the CIA, harassed Russian-speaking Ukrainians in the Donbas. When Putin told you there were Nazis, he wasn’t lying. In 2014, the USA overthrew the president of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych. The American taxpayer spent billions of dollars on the project—not just the CIA, but USAID and the National Endowment for Democracy. The US installed a puppet government, handpicked by the neoconservatives in the White House.
“Under Obama and Biden? What? That didn’t happen!” Yes, it did. Neoconservatism originates in the Democratic Party. You didn’t know that? Ever hear of Scoop Jackson? Ever hear of Victoria Nuland? No? You should investigate things. Or do people even bother to study history to find out whether a Ukrainian flag in their social media profile is the right symbol with which to virtue signal? Monkey see monkey do? It’s zombie politics (see Zombie Politics: the Corporatist Ideology of Antiracism).
I’d suggest the pro-Ukraine progressives with their blue and yellow flags go throw their own bodies at the Russians on Ukraine’s front lines, but I think walking back WWIII is probably the better option. That’s what Trump and Vance are trying to do: prevent WWIII. Whether they know it or not, those who make this about either supporting Ukraine or being a Putin puppet want war. Trump Derangement Syndrome is a big part of the driver.
There’s another option—and it’s the best option: secure a peace treaty that makes concessions to Russia and provides security guarantees with Ukraine in exchange for mineral rights that allow us to get back all the billions our psychopathic overlords spent on this folly. Make Ukraine and the Europeans pay for it. Either that or quit the damn thing and watch Russia steamroll Ukraine. The question reasonable people must ask themselves after confronting the truth (if they can even admit it afterwards) is which of the beds they made for themselves are the softest to lie down in. Do they really want to keep feeding Ukrainians to the war machine? Let me put this another way: do they have a conscience? Or are they like the psychopaths driving this conflict?
Seeing so many Americans choose Ukraine over America and peace disgusts me, frankly. These are the same people who run down America all day long. You’ve seen it. They’re constantly self-flagellating: “We’re white supremacists!” “We’re colonialists!” “We’re imperialists!” “Trump’s a fascist!” Is Trump invading Russia? Does he desire to continue exploiting Ukraine as a proxy to make war with Russia? Or is he trying to make peace? Fascist? Really?
Ukrainian soldier, as shown on German television. in 2014
The image of the Ukraine soldier is not an incidental hand gesture. And there’s plenty more helmets (and tattoos and insignia) where that one comes from. (Look up Azov Battalion while you’re looking into it.) That those who decry fascism resemble the fascists they decry is a feature of the zombie politics that have infected so many American and European brains.
An official language? “That’s not inclusive! That’s ‘language as oppression.’ It’s ‘linguistic white supremacy!’” No, it’s maximally inclusive—and it’s not racist at all. A common language fosters inclusivity by ensuring that everyone can communicate effectively, sharing the same meanings and usages to convey thoughts with accuracy and precision. Don’t know English? Want to live in America? Learn English.
There is nothing unusual about a nation having an official language. Does Sweden have an official language? Yes, it does—Swedish. Norway? Norwegian. Denmark? Danish. France? French. Germany? German. These and many other nations have official languages. Ukraine? Ukrainian. Moreover, approximately thirty American states already recognize English as their official language. Now, it will be all fifty states. Today, President Donald Trump signed an executive order making English the official language of the Untied States.
The United States was founded by Englishmen. The Founders spoke English. The Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights are all conveyed in the English language.
Having an official language will aid in the necessary process of assimilating foreign populations into American culture and law, which is rooted in English common law. Assimilation or integration—same thing—is not a bad thing. It’s a good thing. It sustains the shared attitudes and values necessary for maintaining the legal and normative framework that defines the American Republic and the American Creed.
Cultural pluralism, today known as “multiculturalism,” has always been a bad idea. However, because multiculturalists have gained control of our sense-making institutions, generations have been indoctrinated to believe that assimilation is nativist (as if this were inherently bad) and racist. Racist? We are a multiracial country with a colorblind Constitution. Moreover, race is not culture. To think otherwise is racist—it assumes that culture is a product of race, a biological construct.
This morning, I reviewed statements from writing departments across America’s university system. These statements are truly bizarre. I knew the situation was bad, but I did not realize the full extent of it. Writing departments have been overtaken by the crackpot ideas found in the work of identitarian demagogues such as Ibram X. Kendi. MSU Denver, decrying “linguistic white supremacy,” calls on its faculty to “reject standard American English.” The University of Maryland declares, “Discriminatory and Unconstitutional: English Only in US.”
Over on X, many people were shocked to learn that English is not the official language of the nation. They simply assumed it was. Now, it will be. Will progressive groups sue the administration to try and stop this? Probably. That will be interesting to see—and revealing.
We are only a little over a month into Trump’s common-sense presidency, and the multiculturalists and progressive ideologues are panicking because American orthodoxy is being pressed into the institutions they thought they had permanently captured. This is what populist-nationalism looks like. If you follow the best polls, you must know that this movement is here to stay.
Rasmussen reports today that more Americans approve of the job Trump is doing than don’t (Trump is holding at 50 percent). As seen in the Harvard poll shared in a recent essay on Freedom and Reason, large majorities support the President’s agenda. The polls used by legacy media are biased, but most Americans have grown wise to the deception. Unfortunately, I can’t say the same for some others.
freedom and reason 