It’s the anniversary of this blog—14 years this month (the actual date was March 4, 2011, but I was in the middle of something else last week). I often use this time to review what the Spherical Model is, which I also do at year’s end and sometimes other times. This was the end of 2024, with some links to other Spherical Model info. You can also always get a full description on the SphericalModel.com website.
In brief, the Spherical Model is an alternative way of looking at political ideas: rather than right/left, it is a three-dimensional sphere, with tyranny south and freedom to the north. (This is not to say anything negative about Australia or anyplace else in our southern hemisphere; it is a metaphoric way of showing ideas, not related to our world’s geography.) The longitudinal lines represent the level a particular issue or responsibility pertains to, from individual/family, to local community, up to county, state, region, nation, continent, on up to global. So the left-to-right movement is neutral—except that any issue should be handled by the lowest possible appropriate level. If a higher level usurps that from a lower level, that moves the placement on the sphere down toward tyranny.
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| The Political Sphere of the Spherical Model |
And the same spherical model can be overlaid with economic
and social ideas. The Economic Sphere has poverty in the south (related to a
controlled economy) and prosperity in the north (related to a free market
economy—not to be confused with crony capitalism or monopolies, which are south
on the sphere). The Social Sphere has savagery in the south and civilization in
the north. Civilization is described this way:
In the northern
circle that is the goal [above the 45th parallel on the sphere]—Civilization—families
typically remain intact, and children are raised in loving homes, with caring
parents who guide their education and training, dedicating somewhere between 18
and 25 years for that child to reach adulthood, and who then remain interested
in their children’s success for the rest of their lives.
Civilized people
live peaceably among their neighbors, helping rather than taking advantage of
one another, abiding by laws enacted to protect property and safety—with
honesty and honor. Civilized people live in peace with other civilized people;
countries and cultures coexist in appreciation, without fear.
There is a
thriving free-enterprise economy. Poverty is meaningless; even though there
will always be a lowest earning 10% defined as poor, in a civilized society
these lowest earners have comfortable shelter and adequate food and
clothing—and there’s the possibility of rising, or at least for future
generations to rise.
Creativity
abounds; enlightening arts and literature exceed expectations. Architecture and
infrastructure improve; innovation and invention are the rule.
People feel free
to choose their work, their home, their family practices, their friendships and
associations. And they generally self-restrain before they infringe on the
rights and freedoms of others. Where there are questions about those limits,
laws are in place to help clarify boundaries of civilized behavior. When
someone willingly infringes on the rights or safety of another, the law
functions to protect that victim as well as society from further uncivilized
behavior from the offender.
I tend to spend more time on civilization-related topics than actual politics or economics, although they are all interrelated (note the heading for this blog).
Last year was a very active news year. But that has shifted
into overdrive since the inauguration in January. So much so that, if there’s
not a major announcement—or two or three—in a given day, we feel like we’ve
missed something, or maybe things are slowing down.
The question is, are all these changes leading toward
freedom, prosperity, and civilization?
There’s a cohort (with friends of mine among them) that are
certain each and every change is the end of life as we know it—and they think
that’s a bad thing.
There was a piece by Robert Reich (advisor to Presidents Clinton and Obama) the other day that got passed along on Facebook. It’s too long to quote entirely; I won’t use up all my available word count on it. But a few quotes will exemplify this alternate world we’re talking about. I will note that this screed against all that President Trump has done since taking office contains no specifics of anything. We’re just supposed to see the self-evident facts, I guess, of this incarnation of worse-than-Hitler. Most of the piece is on how to cope with living under this tyranny.
Ha! We who have lived under their tyranny—and their attempts
to make that tyranny permanent—know about coping by clawing our way back toward
the Constitution and civilization.
Reich calls this a “despicable regime.” He claims, “The
choice is democracy or dictatorship. Self-government or oligarchy.” He decries
those defeatists who seem to have given up the fight: “Those in this defeatist
camp think nothing can prevent us from an apocalypse—the end of America, the
termination of civilization, the death of the planet.” And then he adds, “But
defeatism is exactly what Trump, Vance, Musk, and Putin want us to feel.”
As for details, the sum total is this sentence: “The reality
is that Trump, Vance, and Musk have done truly terrible things over the past
seven weeks that are already hurting millions of people.” The “truly terrible
things” remain unnamed, however. And a surprising 76% of those polled following
President Trump’s speech to Congress approve of what he said. So I guess the horrors
are not self-evident after all.
Among the ways to cope, Reich suggests turning to some voices
from the past:
People who lived through Hitler and Mussolini and Stalin, or
through Mao’s “Cultural Revolution” or Pol Pot’s “killing fields.” Some are
keen observers of what occurred (Hannah Arendt’s The Origins of
Totalitarianism) or historians (William Shirer’s The Rise and Fall of the Third
Reich: A History of Nazi Germany provides a chilling account that echoes
today).
It's odd that he’d think people who lived through such
regimes would approve of Biden’s lawfare, censorship, propaganda, corruption,
and warmongering and would instead disapprove of Trump’s corrections of those
tyrannical things.
So, what has been happening, and, maybe, where would such
policies be placed on the Spherical Model?
Cabinet
President Trump’s cabinet and leadership team are now fully
assembled. [Full list here.] To name a few:
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Marco Rubio, Secretary of State
·
Tom Homan, Border Security
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Pete Hegseth, Secretary of Defense
·
Pam Bondi, Attorney General
·
Kash Patel, FBI Director
·
Robert F. Kennedy Jr, Secretary of Health and
Human Services
·
Tulsi Gabbard, Director of National Intelligence
·
John Ratcliffe, CIA Director
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| Trump Cabinet and Officials images assembled from Wikipedia |
On Friday, March 14, speaking at the Department of Justice, President Trump said that people ask him what he’s done about all the problems, and he said he’s appointed the right people, who will do the job of making things right.
As I was watching the speech online, an ad came on, a Democrat
candidate, saying “Trump doesn’t want to lead this country; he wants to rule
it.” That seems to be the propaganda line they’ll keep going with, regardless of reality.
The amount of alarm from the opposition to any given leader
is an indicator of their likely effectiveness. So far, in just a few weeks,
border crossings have dropped 90%, without any change in law. That means the
flood of illegal immigrants under Biden was intentional. As President Trump
quipped, “All we needed was a change in presidents.” And a very stern Tom Homan
is helpful too.
Keeping our border secure is one of the essential duties of
our federal government; it’s about time.
We see some evidence of improvement in law enforcement from Pam Bondi and Kash Patel,
but we haven’t yet seen all the file dumps we have been anticipating. We’re
waiting and watching. The opposition claims they are going to weaponize the
judicial system. No. That’s what the previous administration was doing. What we
want is transparency and accountability. If people did illegal, unethical,
corrupt acts, we want to see the evidence publicly, and we want them held accountable.
That isn’t a matter of revenge; it’s a matter of deterrence. If they get away
with what they’ve done, they and others will keep trying to do those things. I believe we’ll
see what we’ve been promised.
RFK Jr is just getting started. But we’re looking forward to better
information, no more government-controlled propaganda and censorship. We’d like
to see more real science, instead of claims that “the science is settled” and “I
am the science!” BTW, we’d like to see the octogenarian Fauci held accountable
for COVID deaths, for the shutdown and masking, for forced vaccinations, for
deaths by Remdesivir, and a full list of his crimes against humanity. I expect God will take care of final justice, but for this life maybe RFK
Jr can send that evidence over to Pam Bondi.
All of them (including the couple of former Democrats mixed
in there) are more capable and more trustworthy than anyone from the Biden
administration. We’re definitely moving northward on the sphere, away from tyranny and toward freedom, prosperity, and civilization.
DOGE
You may have noted that Elon Musk was not on the list above.
That is because he does not hold a cabinet-level position. He was tasked with
heading DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency), an existing department that
used to be called United States Digital Services (USDS), and comes under the authority
of the President, directed by the White House Chief of Staff (which is Susan
Wiles, by the way). He and his team have access to digital information made
available to them, with which they look for waste, fraud, corruption, and
possible savings. Then they make recommendations.
There have been a lot of recommendations. And a lot of money
we can save going forward. Musk does not fire workers in various other
departments; he makes recommendations, mostly in general rather than specific
individuals. And then the head of the targeted organization makes the
authorized decision on hutting workers or programs. If the head of the
organization is not convinced by DOGE’s evidence, they don’t have to follow the
recommendations. So those clamoring
about Musk not being duly authorized are either misinformed or, possibly, in
favor of (benefitting from) the waste, fraud, abuse, or corruption that has
been uncovered.
Musk is working as an employee—although, as is the
President, he is doing it without compensation, which he does not need.
Is there reason to be suspicious of Musk? Maybe. He’s very
rich, which, in his case, seems to draw the ire of the opposition. I wouldn’t
offer the same trust to Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg, or a number of others. Musk
isn’t what I’d call a Constitutional Conservative. But he is smart, and
effective, and has a good track record.
And I think his purchase of Twitter (now X) was a turning
point; government shouldn’t be censoring a free-speech platform. Maybe, now
that he has accomplished so much in his life, he’s interested in doing the good
that interests him, and that he’s particularly well-suited to do. I think he’s
enjoying himself.
What he is not doing is setting up shell corporations and
law loopholes to enrich himself later. I think—and I believe he thinks—that enriching
will come naturally, for him and the rest of us, when the waste, fraud, abuse,
and corruption are excised. I don’t see that leading toward fascist tyranny. If
we get rid of enough of the corruption—and enough of the anti-constitutional
regulatory state—we’ll move solidly northward on the sphere.
USAID
There have been other targets of DOGE, but USAID (United
States Agency for International Development) has been hit hard. It is not, as
the acronym implies, foreign aid; that is handled entirely separately, by the Office
of Foreign Assistance, which also comes under the State Department. USAID has
been used, frequently, as a means of changing policies—and even regimes—in other
countries. And the policies it was intending to change to coincided with the
Obama-then-Biden regimes: DEI, ESG, LGBTQ, and also a lot of old fashioned
money-laundering schemes. DOGE is finding those things, following the money
trail. Will there be some errors, some things recommended to be cut that were
maybe doing some good? Maybe. If we find those things, they can be corrected
later—assuming those things qualify as constitutional.
The opposition has been straining to find examples of
mistakes, in an effort to claim the whole of what DOGE is doing is just
unjustly flexing power, or something.
As an example—this one from NIH, not USAID—there was
something about transgenetics that got interpreted as “transgendering” mice;
the explanation was supposed to be that it was about genetic therapy research. However,
a fact check showed that the experiments were not aimed at making mice transgendered per se;
they were about studying various effects of gender-affirming hormone therapy,
and using mice (and probably other animals) in those experiments. Some of the
outcomes seemed to show harms from the hormone therapies, and that might be
worth knowing. But if the purpose was to assume gender-affirming hormone therapy
as a societal good, then we’ve still got a problem. So, we’ll see.
But I think we’re still going to have trouble with paying
our tax dollars for a transgender opera in, say, Peru, or for Sesame Street in
Iraq. Getting rid of these ridiculous drains on our prosperity—and on our
morality—will definitely move us northward on the sphere.
Ukraine
and Russia
Things are serious in international diplomacy. What we have is
a hothead, installed, dictatorial president of Ukraine demanding (and so far
receiving from the Biden administration) $350 Billion to fight an unwinnable
war, because the bad guy Russia invaded. In other words, you’ve got two bad
guys. Ukraine is definitely the underdog. In a civilized world, Russia would
not have invaded. But in a sane world, you would not have the US tossing out
NATO memberships to Russia’s close neighbors, against our word.
And that $350 Billion? That amount—close to half of the entire
US military budget for a year (including underpaid troops)—has disappeared,
quite probably to oligarchs and other corrupt actors, including Zelensky
himself (I don’t have the receipts; I’m just repeating what I’ve heard). I have
sympathy for the Ukrainian people. I’d like to see them liberated.
President Trump has brought the two leaders into
negotiations. Peace would be best for both. Neither will get all that it wants.
But Russia is likely to get the ethnically Russian portion of land taken, plus
a promise that NATO will not expand to threaten Russia, which will mean no
Ukraine in NATO. Ukraine will stop losing its male population and get peace. It
may also get protection through complying with the US’s desire for rare earth
mining. We’ll see.
The opposition will call this colluding with Russia. But let’s
remember: the whole Russian collusion hoax was a product of the Hillary Clinton
campaign and the DNC; they were charged and convicted—but only fined, which is
why they’re willing to keep using that line. They think it works. And, on those
who already assume Trump is evil, it does work.
As of Friday, Putin and Zelensky have agreed to a cease
fire. I don’t know how this will turn out. But seeking peace and negotiating
for fairness seems to at least move us northward on the sphere, away from
tyranny, which would benefit all involved.
Israel
What we know is that Israel was mostly peaceful during the
first Trump administration, and surrounding countries were signing on to
treaties. We got the Hamas attack of October 7, 2023, because a weak Biden was
in office.
Trump has offered suggestions. About rebuilding Gaza from
scratch—which would require neighbors to take in refugees, something they’ve
been unwilling to do for many decades. This would eradicate Hamas from Gaza.
There’s certainly something to be said for that outcome.
Department
of Education
The Dept. of Ed put out an announcement on Tuesday of a 50%
reduction in force. That’s a start. For those gasping that Trump is against
education, I remind you that since its inception in the Carter administration,
education levels have been in decline. We didn’t need it before, but it hasn’t
been improving things.
As we often say at the Spherical Model, whenever government
attempts to do something that is not the proper role of government, there will
be unintended consequences, and they are likely to be the exact opposite of the
stated goal of the policy. So, if we want a good education for the upcoming
generation, government taking that on is a pretty sure way to interfere with
that goal.
The opposition is panicking nevertheless. But the press release included a response to most of their fears:
The Department of Education will continue to deliver on all
statutory programs that fall under the agency’s purview, including formula
funding, student loans, Pell Grants, funding for special needs students, and
competitive grantmaking.
Getting rid of the entire department—eventually—will be
better. But a 50% cut in the first two months of the administration is a good
start. At least there’s a level change from nation to state. The closer we get
to local community and family, where this responsibility belongs, the better
our education will be.
In summary, we’re moving northward on the sphere, away from
tyranny, not toward it. That might be shaking up some would-be tyrants, but the
rest of us can be happy at what we’re seeing so far.
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