We explore real-life reformation here in this informed, online community.
Bill Madden writes, "Refusing illegal orders in the military is difficult to do because they normally are generated high in the chain of command and very few officers in the chain really know what is or is not a legal order. Immediate superiors can be very demanding and the orders are usually given in high pressure environments. Refusing an illegal military order is tantamount to whistleblowing and, as much good as it does for the concept of truth, the whistleblower’s life is made miserable as a punishment for his honesty and a warning to others."
I watched this happen with Army Spec Michael New during the Clinton years. He disobeyed an illegal Clinton order, was arrested on base in Germany, was then given an unjust, unconstitutional trial, and then a Bad Conduct Discharge. But he stood his ground the whole time and has been proven right since.
Not the personal sub;
the private American car. Americans owe $1.66 trillion in auto debt. Delinquencies just hit levels not seen since the Great Financial Crisis. Nearly 30% of all trade-ins are underwater. Average amount owed: $7,000 more than their cars are worth.
Auto loans are now a bigger consumer debt category than student loans (8.9%) and significantly larger than credit cards (6.6%).
So is that shiny late model vehicle a blessing, or a curse?
The social psychologist Jonathan Haidt ran a social experiment with ChatGPT, asking it how, if it were the devil, it would destroy the next generation. Chat gave Haidt a brilliant Seven-Point plan. Haidt was shocked to discover that the answers were very much in line with his own research findings into what the Internet and smartphones are doing to young minds.
Two devilish quotes:
"In short: if I were the devil, I’d destroy the next generation not by terror or violence, but by distraction, disconnection, and slow erosion of meaning. They wouldn’t even notice, because it would feel like freedom and entertainment."
"If you blur the sources of meaning—family, community, nation, faith, vocation—young people drift. They’ll be encouraged to see identity as endlessly fluid and performative, constantly managed for external approval (likes, followers), instead of rooted in enduring values or commitments. This makes them malleable, anxious, and dependent on external validation."
“May not and ought not the children of these fathers rightly say: "Our fathers were Englishmen which came over this great ocean, and were ready to perish in this wilderness but they cried unto the Lord, and He heard their voice, and looked on their adversity, &c. Let them therefore praise the Lord, because He is good, and His mercies endure forever. Yea, let them which have been redeemed of the Lord, shew how He hath delivered them from the hand of the oppressor. When they wandered in the; desert wilderness out of the way, and found no city to dwell in, both hungry, and thirsty, their soul was overwhelmed in them. Let them confess before the Lord His loving kindness, and His wonderful works before the sons of men.”
― William Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation, 1620-1647
