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"The big joke on democracy is that it gives its mortal enemies the tools to its own destruction."

Josef Goebbels, 1939

America-watchers around the world must be shaking their heads and wondering what the flock is going on here.

For the last four years, the basic institutions of American democracy—the stability of which most of us (and let this be a lesson to us) have taken utterly for granted—have been systematically dismantled by a corrupt and honorless cadre of strongmen who care only for power at any price, backed by their dupe-army of fetus-worshipers and White Power malicious...um, militias. For all their rhetoric, the Opposition are the ones now revealed as the true Haters of America.

Now, when the Super-spreader-in-Chief loses the election—which he will—some are predicting blood in the streets and, in essence, Civil War II.

Is America falling apart?

Well—for what it's worth—I, for one, don't think so. The fact that American checks and balances have survived the current mis-administration at all is a testimony to their institutional resilience, and to the creative brilliance which envisioned and created them in the first place.

Meanwhile, what do we do while waiting for trumpocalypse?

What does it mean when political extremism becomes normalized? Does the media accurately convey the seriousness of climate change to the public? And what's driving conflict between Nepal's native Sherpas and foreign climbers in the Himalayas? It's Fiery Tuesday, our weekly segment about political and societal news from around the world. It's all this and more for the Pagan News Beagle!

I closed the second of my open letter to Pagan libertarians with a few comments as to what is right about libertarianism. Since discussing the issue continues on this site, I want to explore libertarianism’s positive dimensions a little more. This is complex because the good is interwoven with the not very good, and the interweaving is hidden by popular words covering both, such as “individualism” and “private property.” 

Along the way I will also try and make clear where we Pagans have something important to add in enriching libertarian thinking. 

Reading is as necessary to my life as air and water. I read lots of different genres, but one that's captivated me the last several years, in part because of the genealogical research I've been doing, is history, American history in particular. I read history in order to understand humanity and the way we humans have organized ourselves, intentionally or not, into tribes, states, nations, even neighborhoods.

I also read to try to understand the lives, the circumstances, and the motivations of my ancestors. As Samhain approaches I reflect upon the lives of some of my ancestors. For instance, my maternal grandfather's grandfather, William H. Van Tine, (pictured here) served in the Pennsylvania 58th Infantry and was killed in April 1863 in a battle in New Bern, NC, so I've been reading some Civil War history. Another ancestor, my grandmother's grandfather, The Rev. Alpha Gilruth Kynett, was, among other things, a founder of the Anti-Saloon League. His brother Harry, a medical doctor, served on the U.S. Sanitary Commission in the state of Iowa. The Sanitary Commission was a private relief organization created during the Civil War to care for sick and wounded soldiers, the precursor to the Veterans' Administration.¹