- Five ideas to tell when America has become a dictatorship;
- A Jesus and Mo cartoon that reflects my discussions of secular awe and religion;
- Phil Zuckerman on how social justice is secular;
- Short items about worries of American’s impending population collapse, national emergencies and election fraud, the firing of the commission on design, how Musk’s project is cribbing from Wikipedia, and yet another example of conservative bigotry and nonsense.
Slate, Herb Bowman, 29 Oct 2025: How Will You Know That America Has Become a Dictatorship? After 20 Years Living in One, I Can Tell You.
It’s hard for most Americans to imagine what it would be like to live in a society without the rule of law protecting them. I spent more than 20 years leading U.S. government–sponsored justice projects in countries with weak to nonexistent democracies, including Albania, Mongolia, China, Cambodia, Vietnam, the Republic of Georgia, and Armenia. Those of us who have worked in nations like these don’t have to imagine what it looks like when a place’s leaders demonstrate no regard for the rule of law. What we’ve seen overseas looks a lot like what we’ve started to watch unfold in this country over the course of the past 10 months. Some of these experiences abroad, when we see them happen here, offer the biggest clues that our own democracy is beginning to slip away.
I’ll just list his points. They could well serve as categories for most of the political items I compile here.
- The Government Uses Law and Legal Institutions to Intimidate Critics and Silence Free Speech
- The Courts Are “Captured” by the Government and Operate First and Foremost as Tools of the Government
- Corruption Becomes Ordinary and Accepted
- Law Enforcement Operates With Impunity
- Everyone Is Afraid
The writer, of course, gives current examples of all of these.
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I’ve written a couple times lately about the distinction between transcendence experienced in nature, and the faux-transcendence that people search for and sometimes find in their self-flattering religions. That was on the 23rd and the 24th.
Sometimes coincidences can be taken as synchronicity. There’s a long-running comic called Jesus and Mo, one four-panel issue per week, which depicts Jesus and Mohammed sitting a bar and talking or debating while an unseen barmaid offers (atheistic) rejoinders. Wikipedia indicates it’s been going since 2005. Jerry Coyne reposts them on his site, so I’m assuming it’s OK for me to repost them too. Today’s happens to be on the same topics I discussed recently, as if the J&M read the same pieces I did — but no, Jerry indicates that it’s a “resurrection from 2009.” Anyway.
You see the point.
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On an analogous point, an essay today.
OnlySky, Phil Zuckerman, 29 Oct 2025: The leading edge of social justice is secular subtitled “As the world gets less religious, it also becomes more moral.”
These are familiar themes, since Zuckerman has written books like LIVING THE SECULAR LIFE (my review here) and WHAT IT MEANS TO BE MORAL. Still, his ideas are worth repeating, especially in light of current events. He opens:
As Israeli soldiers and settlers continue to brutalize, humiliate, and kill Palestinians with impunity, there is one major human rights organization in Israel documenting and protesting these crimes: B’Tselem. Given that B’Tselem is a humanitarian organization dedicated to fighting for justice, human rights, and the alleviation of suffering, you might think it is a religious organization, right?
Wrong.
The most devoutly religious people in Israel either turn a blind eye to the suffering of Palestinians or actively promote and celebrate that suffering. B’Tselem, by contrast, is a decidedly secular organization, founded by Hiloni (secular) Jews, with members motivated by humanist values of empathy and compassion.
This is not some aberration: In the broader Israeli society, secular people are typically much more willing to see the humanity of Palestinians and defend their rights than religious people.
Secular Israelis evincing more compassion than their religious peers is consistent with a much larger pattern: throughout the democratic world, on issue after issue related to well-being, equality, and morality, secular people are more likely to come down on the side of social justice than the religious.
That last para and this next one are the key to Zuckerman’s point.
Given the pervasive misunderstanding that the religious among us are the moral ones, while the secular are immoral, the truth needs to be trumpeted—if not tromboned and bassooned—that reality tends strongly in the opposite formation.
And then he examines the secular/religious divide along several issues: gay rights; women’s equal rights; transgender rights; concern for the climate; the death penalty; and several others.
Concluding:
To be sure, the world is far more messy and complex than captured in the simple religious/secular divide presented here. Many highly religious people of color have a strong social justice bent. And many famous secularists, to say nothing of inhumane atheist dictators, have been strongly opposed to social justice and human rights. Additionally, correlation is not causation, and there are certainly many factors accounting for the relationships and averages presented in this article that transcend the narrow confines of these variables.
But the overall pattern is still robust. Secularism is highly correlated with a social justice agenda. And a social justice agenda is all about increasing human dignity, promoting fairness and equity, and ameliorating oppression and suffering. This is where the moral heart of secular humanism resides, and the world is better for it.
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As it happens, I began work yesterday on a summary review of Sam Harris’ THE MORAL LANDSCAPE, which makes some similar points, especially how society gives free pass to any group claiming some kind of morality, even if it involves sexual mutilation of women or excuses for the abuse of young boys. Some people claim all moralities are equal and cannot be criticized; Harris disagrees, that’s what his book is about. I would have finished that write up today — I hope to finish tomorrow — had I not had a doctor’s appointment and a chore to do for Locus Mag.
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Short items.
- The Atlantic, Idrees Kahloon, 29 Oct 2025: America’s Impending Population Collapse, subtitled “This year, for the first time in nearly a century, more foreign-born people will likely leave the United States than will enter.” –A huge, complex, topic. America has dominated the world for a century or more by encouraging immigration. Be careful what you wish for.
- Media Matters, 28 Oct 2025: Right-wing figures and Trump allies are calling for Trump to declare a “national emergency” to prevent supposed election fraud — Once again, ginning up an “emergency,” even if scant evidence for election fraud exists.
- CNN, 28 Oct 2025: White House fires commission charged with advising the president on design as Trump pushes construction projects — Of course he did. Trump doesn’t need advice. He’ll do whatever he wants to do!
- RawStory, 27 Oct 2025: Elon Musk’s version of Wikipedia is ‘cribbing’ information from the real one: report — Well of course he did.
- JMG, 9 Oct 2025: Newsmax Host: People On SNAP “Weigh 300 Pounds” — More conservative bigotry and nonsense.
