{"id":27169,"date":"2026-03-07T17:32:50","date_gmt":"2026-03-08T01:32:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/?p=27169"},"modified":"2026-03-09T13:36:00","modified_gmt":"2026-03-09T20:36:00","slug":"morality-war-science-persecution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/2026\/03\/07\/morality-war-science-persecution\/","title":{"rendered":"Morality, War, Science, Persecution"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li>Robert Reich on the moral basis of civilization, and how Trump is destroying it;<\/li>\n<li>And Reich on how Trump is paying for the war, and giving the rich a huge tax cut;<\/li>\n<li>More about the undermining of America&#8217;s scientific expertise;<\/li>\n<li>Hemant Mehta on the myth of evangelical persecution, at WaPo;<\/li>\n<li>How Florida is erasing mentions of racism from a sociology textbook.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div align=\"center\">&#8211; &#8211; &#8211;<\/div>\n<p>From a couple days ago.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/$s_!aDoA!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F56e9ba1f-0790-45f4-b77c-3254793020f0_1680x1120.webp\" width=\"400\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>Robert Reich, 5 Mar 2026<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/robertreich.substack.com\/p\/the-moral-basis-of-civilization\">The Moral Basis of Civilization<\/a>, subtitled &#8220;Trump is actively destroying it&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>About Trump&#8217;s Iran war, of course. What is Reich&#8217;s moral basis of civilization?<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>As I have noted before, the moral purpose of civilized society is to prevent the stronger from attacking and exploiting the weaker. Otherwise, we\u2019d be permanently immersed in a brutish war in which only the fittest and most powerful could survive.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>This reflects other comments that the Trump administration has rejected the rule of law in favor of the law of the jungle. Might makes right. They&#8217;ve said it. Or, I might add, rejecting a modern world of Enlightenment values in favor of tribalism. Reich goes on:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>This moral aspiration lies at the center of America\u2019s founding documents \u2014 the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights \u2014 although this nation has not always honored the aspiration.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s also the core of the postwar international order championed by the United States, including the UN charter \u2014 emphasizing multilateralism, democracy, human rights, and the rule of law.<\/p>\n<p>But it\u2019s a fragile aspiration, easily violated by those who would exploit their power. Maintaining it requires that the powerful have enough integrity to abstain from seeking short-term wins \u2014 and that the rest of us hold them accountable if they don\u2019t.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>But conservatives only do short-term thinking. And MAGA rejects all this in favor of worshiping Fearless Leader and getting all the brown people out of the country.<\/p>\n<p>Reich goes on about inequality and the wealth of the billionaires. Then:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>A direct line connects Trump\u2019s attempted coup in 2020 to his baseless assertion that the election was \u201cstolen\u201d from him, to his bombing of fishing boats in the Caribbean on his unproven allegation that they are smuggling drugs, his arrests and detention of people in the United States on unproven assumptions they are here illegally, the lawless cruelty and mayhem of his ICE and Border Patrol agents, his illegal abduction of Venezuelan president Nicol\u00e1s Maduro, and now his \u201cdeath and destruction all day long\u201d in Iran.<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>History shows that laws and norms designed to constrain the powerful also protect them. Without such constraints, their insatiable demands for more power and wealth eventually bring them down \u2014 along with their corporations, nations, and empires. And they threaten world war.<\/p>\n<p>Trump\u2019s blatant lawlessness will haunt America and the world \u2014 and civilization \u2014 for years to come. It is our sacred duty, to ourselves and future generations, to peacefully and legally put an end to it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>\\\\<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/reich5mar26-1.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/reich5mar26-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>And there&#8217;s this.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Robert Reich, 5 Mar 2026<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/robertreich.substack.com\/p\/how-is-trump-paying-for-his-war-and\">How Trump is Paying for His War AND Giving a Huge Tax Cut to the Rich<\/a>, subtitled &#8220;By cutting Medicaid, food stamps, and other assistance people need&#8221;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Trump has launched us into what could be another costly and deadly forever war. It is costing the U.S. at least <a href=\"https:\/\/iran-cost-ticker.com\/\" rel=\"\">$1 billion a day.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, he and Republicans are slashing taxes on the wealthiest Americans.<\/p>\n<p>How are they doing <em>both<\/em>? By making devastating cuts to food assistance programs that help millions of people \u2014 and <strong>lying<\/strong> about what these programs actually do.<\/p>\n<p>Trump\u2019s \u201cBig Ugly\u201d bill is delivering <a href=\"https:\/\/www.americanprogress.org\/article\/1-trillion-in-medicaid-cuts-1-trillion-in-tax-giveaways-for-the-richest-1-percent-the-one-big-beautiful-bills-budget-math\/\" rel=\"\">$1 trillion in tax cuts to the top 1 percent<\/a> of Americans while cutting more than $1.1 trillion from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), Medicaid, and other health programs used by the poorest Americans.<\/p>\n<p>Remember: It\u2019s not about what this country can or can\u2019t afford. It\u2019s about priorities.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>This has been going on all along.<\/p>\n<p>\\\\<\/p>\n<p>From a couple weeks ago. About the undermining of America&#8217;s scientific expertise.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2026\/02\/23\/multimedia\/23-Interlandi-021-lmzk\/23-Interlandi-021-lmzk-superJumbo.jpg?quality=75&amp;auto=webp\" width=\"300\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>NY Times, opinion by Jeneen Interlandi, 23 Feb 2026<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/02\/23\/opinion\/doge-hiv-funding.html\">What Happened in Chicago When Science Became the Enemy<\/a><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong class=\"css-8qgvsz ebyp5n10\">Thirteen months<\/strong> into the second Trump administration, science, medicine and public health have been hijacked by a cadre of <a class=\"css-yywogo\" title=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2023\/11\/16\/us\/rfk-jr-finances.html\">grifters<\/a> and <a class=\"css-yywogo\" title=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/06\/01\/style\/maha-motherhood.html\">ideologues<\/a> and by the politicians in obvious thrall to both. Federal institutions have been all but dismantled. Researchers have been defunded en masse and the universities that support them deliberately destabilized. Discourse on crucial scientific questions and key public health challenges has been stifled. And along the way, trust has been broken between scientists and the nation\u2019s leaders \u2014 and the people that both are supposed to serve.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Examples. Then:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Stacked against these measures, the administration\u2019s explanations \u2014 which focus on cutting waste and eliminating so-called woke politics from science \u2014 have been inadequate and <a class=\"css-yywogo\" title=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/04\/24\/us\/politics\/musk-cuts.html\">disingenuous<\/a>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Anything MAGA doesn&#8217;t like is dismissed as being woke or wasteful.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>It can be difficult to imagine a future in which American science does not prevail. But, as the president\u2019s many critics have warned, institutions like the C.D.C., F.D.A. and N.I.H. will be far more difficult to rebuild than they have been to destroy \u2014 especially if their intended beneficiaries lose all faith in them or forget why they existed in the first place.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Long piece, with examples of individual researchers whose funding was cut off. (I&#8217;ve met one such person myself, in one of my extended family&#8217;s parties &#8212; a guy working in the urology lab at UCLA, that I visited a few times 20 years or so ago; his research project was defunded.)<\/p>\n<p>\\\\\\<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve been seeing the changes in the Washington Post, just in the tone of their opinion pieces, being more and more deferential to the Trump administration.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/$s_!2e0B!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F3fe2d527-548f-4cfc-87c5-bddac5a8cac4_1400x779.png\" width=\"400\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>Friendly Atheist, Hemant Mehta, 7 Mar 2026<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.friendlyatheist.com\/p\/the-myth-of-evangelical-persecution\">The myth of evangelical persecution gets a new platform in the Washington Post<\/a>, subtitled &#8220;Aaron Renn claims Christians are shut out of elite institutions. In reality, evangelical power has rarely been stronger, and we&#8217;re all suffering as a result.&#8221;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Aaron Renn is one of those philosophers who sounds really smart to people who don\u2019t know anything. For everyone else, his most well-known ideas don\u2019t make any sense because they\u2019re grounded entirely in fantasy. Like his theory that Christians are currently more persecuted than ever before.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>This concerns an essay by Renn in the <strong>Post<\/strong> just yesterday: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/opinions\/2026\/03\/06\/evangelicals-christian-supreme-court-university-business-trust\/\">Why America needs evangelicals on the Supreme Court \u2014 and more<\/a>, subtitled &#8220;The lack of evangelical Christians at America\u2019s most prestigious institutions fuels mistrust.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>I saw this yesterday but didn&#8217;t post about it. My reaction: no, no, no. The whole problem with evangelicals is that they live in a fantasy world in which the rule of law, and the evidence of science, is subservient to their religious beliefs. Hemant makes another valuable point:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The simple fact is that evangelical Christians have more institutional power in the places that matter, and when they don\u2019t, it\u2019s largely because they spend their time trashing those very institutions. This is like when conservatives complain about right-wing professors being underrepresented on college campuses while constantly raging about how higher education (and lower education for that matter) is evil, spreading conspiracy theories that contradict what scholars in those fields say, and calling on the government to withhold funding for public schools. It never occurs to them that the field doesn\u2019t have parity because their side openly and proudly opposes what the field stands for.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>And undermining Renn&#8217;s complaint is that story from a day or two ago. There&#8217;s a video of that Oval Office event, which I can&#8217;t seem to embed here.<\/p>\n<p>\\\\<\/p>\n<p>And this goes on too. How American conservatives echo Orwell.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.joemygod.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/AnastasioKamoutsas2025-660x330-1.jpg\" width=\"300\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>JMG,<\/strong> from <a href=\"https:\/\/archive.ph\/HeD3J#selection-1829.0-1837.272\">Orlando Sentinel<\/a>: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.joemygod.com\/2026\/03\/fl-erases-racism-mentions-from-sociology-textbook\/\">FL Erases Racism Mentions From Sociology Textbook<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Whitewashing history, in favor of the current white supremacist administration. This, too, happens over and over again throughout history.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Robert Reich on the moral basis of civilization, and how Trump is destroying it; And Reich on how Trump is paying for the war, and giving the rich a huge tax cut; More about the undermining of America&#8217;s scientific expertise; &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/2026\/03\/07\/morality-war-science-persecution\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[90,41,12,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27169","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-conservatives","category-morality","category-religion","category-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27169","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27169"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27169\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27190,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27169\/revisions\/27190"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27169"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}