If the USA had universal health coverage for all its citizens, the costs of that care would eventually drop dramatically. It would not happen immediately, or even quickly, but it would happen. The primary reason for that is because the profit motive would be entirely removed from medical care.

This essay is a follow-up from the previous essay, Hyper-Capitalism or Socialized Capitalism. Its thesis implied, but did not emphasize, that countries whose economies are based on socialized capitalism readily accept higher taxes in the upper income brackets as a means of distributing wealth to all the people, and not just to the wealthy.

Hyper-capitalism wants as much financial and legislative support from government as possible with the least government interference as possible. Historically, therefore, “conservative” politicians have tended to promote hyper-capitalism while “liberal” politicians have attempted to promote as much reasonable capitalistic regulation as possible, while still nurturing the obvious advantages of capitalistic enterprise.

Long before communism was even thought of, and ever since the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, capitalist plots have been hatched on a predictably unjust basis. When any individual or corporation tried to form a monopoly, it was truly a capitalist plot. When anyone attempted to overthrow or subvert a patent, it was a capitalist plot. When a manufacturer created a product but did so requiring that other products had to be purchased in order for it to operate at maximum efficiency, it was a capitalist plot.

It is painfully disheartening to me that only 5% of Americans prefer to read news in vetted written form: newspapers or news magazines. They are the only media that truly give thorough coverage of any news stories, yet 95% of the American public prefer brief, less detailed information about what is happening in the world. They want it kept simple.

If anybody wants to communicate anything to anybody on a cell phone, why don’t they dial a phone number on their cell phone to communicate it? Why text it, for heaven’s sake? Texts are so cold, so impersonal, so 21st century-technological! Why not just phone somebody with what you want to say, for heaven’s sake? God did not invent the telephone expecting people never to use it, for heaven’s sake!

Ferguson postulates there are four pillars which explain the dominance of western economies over the past several centuries. They are representative government, the free market, the rule of law, and civil society. It seems to me that much of what he says about each pillar is valid and virtually irrefutable. His primary concern is that too many western governments have acquired too much national debt, which he thinks may well doom succeeding generations to institutional and personal poverty. He may be correct, although I think and hope not.

For the first time in more than a year, it now looks as though the U.S. is turning the corner in the battle against our epidemiological enemy. President Biden has just announced that everyone who agrees to be vaccinated can be vaccinated by the end of May. This is far sooner than practically every expert had been forecasting. Thus we are confronted by a major social dilemma. For the sake of caution, should we continue to wear masks and socially distance ourselves well after the mass vaccinations have been completed, or should we soon terminate the cautionary measures we have been following for more than a year? Which is more harmful to American society: continued caution or sociological liberation?

The Republican Party is faced with an enormous challenge in the next federal election. What has transpired in the Grand Old Party during the past four years, and especially since the Capitol Assault on January 6, necessitates some major decisions by the Republican leaders in Congress, the National Committee, and by the Republican organizations in all fifty states.

Every year in December, Time Magazine names its Person of the Year. I am convinced that person can be named in January, and she is Stacey Abrams of Georgia.

As time has gone on, presidential honeymoons have gotten shorter. Probably no president will ever have a shorter honeymoon than Joe Biden. His “grace period” lasted all of twelve hours. It went from noon on Inauguration Day until midnight.

Religion and politics are essential to every culture and society that has ever existed. Furthermore, by happenstance I have been vocationally involved in religion for my entire adult life, and I have always had a powerful avocational interest in politics as well. However, we must ask a question about each of these vital social activities. Do they exist for their own sake, or are they intended to serve a larger purpose than their own perpetuation? Are they means to an end, or are they an end in themselves?

The older I get, the more powerfully am I struck by how my memory, which was never outstanding, is failing me. I can’t decide whether it is simply an issue of aging or the onset of some form of demented memory-shredder, especially the dreaded “A.” One thing I don’t forget, however, is the lyrics to various choral musical compositions. For me, words set to music etch themselves into my always-faulty memory bank better than any other words, whether in poetry or prose.

The salaries of each of the top hundred head football or basketball coaches with the top athletic rankings ordinarily exceed the salaries of the presidents or chancellors of those institutions by a factor of two to six or eight times as much. Their salaries are usually the highest for any public official in their state, including the governor. That is scandalous. As much as many Americans love sports, and I am one of them, it is a travesty that so much money is poured into college athletics compared to what goes into the education those colleges were established to provide. Too many universities and colleges are widely known for the quality of their sports programs rather than their academics.

Not being certain about anything that is likely to occur over the next few months, and finding everything that is currently happening too dismaying, and feeling it is therefore a waste of your time and mine for me to write anything about anything worth reading about, I am going to cool my scribal jets for a while. I could write about matters other than politics or Covid-19, but present circumstances in the US of A have left me too disgruntled even to do that. However, I have no doubt that innumerable other pundits and/or prophets will be available to you.

I am very discouraged about what Trump will do before, on, and after Jan. 20, and therefore I am discouraged about what Joe Biden and Congress will be able to do because of Mr. Trump’s relentless obstructionism. Should both Democratic candidates for the US Senate win in Georgia on Jan. 5, things would look up considerably, but still no one can honestly have any idea of what would transpire after that. That is because of the always-unpredictable and irascible Donald J. Trump.

Christians have always been unified on some issues but are noticeably diversified on other issues. Thus there is no “Christian” position on many facets of Christianity. For many contemporary Evangelicals, however, their position, in their minds, is the definitive Christian statement. It isn’t. It may be a definitive statement of a majority of Evangelicals, but it is not the official position of all Christians, because such a thing does not now exist nor has it ever existed. Christians are too disparate for all of us to agree on everything, or even perhaps anything.

This short essay was initiated on Nov. 4 at 9:30 AM. I am not at all encouraged by the optimism of newscasters on CNN and MSNBC that Joe Biden may pull a rabbit out of an as-yet unseen hat. If he doesn’t, and if Donald Trump is again victorious, over the next four years hundreds of thousands of very bright young American scientists, engineers, MBAs, entrepreneurs, and innovators will leave the USA.

The Social Gospel is the concept that the Church should try to convince both itself and the larger society to effectuate principles that Jesus taught, especially in his teachings in the Sermon on the Mount. Thus there should be institutions established to assist the poor to escape from their poverty, shelters for the homeless, hospitals for the sick, educational programs to lift people out of menial jobs, and so on.

When the death of Ruth Bader Ginsberg was announced last evening, September 18, Senator McConnell brashly declared that a vote on her replacement in the Supreme Court will be taken as soon as possible. If that happens, all Republican Senators will be thrown into a maelstrom of soul-searching in the next few days. McConnell’s rush to enable Donald Trump to nominate his third Supreme Court justice in less than four years is an exercise in outrageous political extortion.