This is a time of great risk. In the words of Benjamin Franklin "We have a republic if you can keep it". It only survived the January 6th, 2020 insurrection because a few key individuals refused to go along with the insurrectionists and sided with the Constitution. The insurrectionists, who fomented the unsuccessful coup, know why they failed and plan to launch a second coup in 2024. Second coup attempts succeeded for Hitler, Castro and Chavez. My concern is being able to keep our democratic republic.

We have a lot to lose. How we live is very different from how people have lived, and now live in strong-man, autocratic, kleptocrat governed nations -- almost all other nations everywhere on earth. Autocratic male governance, usually with a theocratic foundation, has been dominant as long as there has been recorded history.

All one has to do is compare how we live here to how people live elsewhere to see visible proof that our protestant work ethic based democratic republic government is superior to all other forms of governance.

We are not perfect. Americans used to be hopeful life would be better for their children and they would eventually be able to retire. Rapid changes in technology and the economy have made financial security more tenuous and few Americans now have an employer funded pension. There are more mass-shootings in America than there are days in the year every year: The above are especially strong indictments of our polarized government's inability to solve horrific problems. Loss of hope has left some Americans responsive to messages from leaders who cater to their rage.

Many Americans are angry. Emergence of mass malcontent mirrors incessant use of Smart Phones and Social Media. We are social creatures. Instead of meeting with friends and acquaintances we now communicate in short impersonal text message bursts. We can become depressed by comparing ourselves to the social media images and videos posted by people who appear more perfect than ourselves. There is no substitute for sitting next to, and sharing conversation with, other attractive human beings.

Church used to be where people connected but attendance has declined across America. Public schools were where everyone got to know everyone else was a human being just like them. Children now attend schools that are segregated by subject, race, income, college prep versus vocational curriculum and religion. College was where young adults from all walks of life got to know and appreciate the beauty of other persons of sexual reproductive age regardless of their race or ethnicity. College has become so expensive only young adults who have someone else to pay for their board and tuition can afford to attend; where anyone with less than an upper middle-class income must take on crippling unforgivable debt to attend. We crave human contact.

Religious zealotry is dangerous. The Republican Party has been taken over by authoritarians who are using a coalition of politically innocent "True Believing" fundamentalist Protestants and Catholics, to impose their personal amoral ways of living onto all Americans. Traditional Republicans invited them in to gain enough votes to win elections and these naive newcomers are now the party "base". It is their intent to turn their versions of "scriptural capitalism" into laws governing all Americans. It is their amoral leader's goal to attain unquestioned power and access to the public treasury.

The Klu Klux Klan (KKK) used populist tactics to seize control of Indiana, Colorado and Oregon in the early twenties. The Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement is using updated versions of the same tactics in an attempt to seize control of the entire United States of America and replace our democratic republic form of government with an autocracy with them in power.

That could happen here, if we elect amoral leaders instead of the patriots who refused to abandon our Constitution, and elect useful fools who replace our democratic republic with an autocracy.

While the compass of religion, and control of law are both essential, neither is sufficient alone. Civilized people need Religion to guide relationships and Law to peacefully settle disputes. Societies fail when citizens lose focus on having a healthy community that is unable to guarantee the safety and well-being of themselves and their families.

Religion civilizes the human desire for status, money and sex making it possible for people to live together in peace. Law regulates how humans react to injustice and humiliation. Without the rule of law unchecked rage for revenge leads to violence that can cascade into chaos.

We are improving. Few of us would now laugh at Ralph Cramden's 1950's "to the moon, Alice" threat to hit his wife. Cultural and racial diversity is now a fixture on billboards and television commercials. We are becoming more inclusive which released the potential of an American woman at the University of Arizona to do the wonderful thing of creating a camera that sends back perfect pictures from a million miles in space. I crave a society that offers much more individual freedom, especially for women and minorities and for the rest of us too.

Not everyone considers the above progress. Some people clearly hate the complex, diverse nation we have become and crave the simpler purer nation of their memory. They would prefer a society with more traditional social relationships and more people practicing the traditional forms of religion that existed in their youth. That's a mirage. I lived the 50s and it wasn't that great.

There's no place like home. Marylyn and I have traveled a lot and while everyplace visited was special we have never wanted to live anywhere else. The United States of America, with its protestant work ethic based democratic republic governance, really is the land of opportunity.

Many of us take what we have for granted. College educators for several decades it was our experience first generation immigrants are much more aware of opportunities that exist here than are entitled students who were born here. Immigrants know the difference between here and where they came from and appreciate an opportunity to attain "The American Dream".