The Dave Bowman Show

In the summer of 1787, the idea of term limits for Congress wasn’t seen as a necessity. So what changed between 1787 and 2023? were politicians in the early part of the American Republic somehow more virtuous or “better” than than those of today? Would introducing Term Limits on Congress today make any difference in the way we are governed by people who increasingly are “more experienced?” In point of fact, why do we associate age with the necessary experience for being a member of the political leader caste? As the call becomes louder for Term Limits on Congress, have we considered why the Framers did NOT establish them to begin with? And what has changed so that today they might be a better option? It’s the question, is it time for Congressional term limits?

I had a bunch of dental work yesterday, so sorry I wasn’t here to comment on the whole Bremerton JV football Coach situation. On the other hand, for the first time in my adult life, I made it through the entire procedure (three fillings) with (1) ZERO pain and (2) no panic attack. I was able to eat within a couple of hours, and now I am wondering what I was so worried about? One of the greatest pleasures of what I do is the random people that it brings into my life. It seems as if I have met dozens upon dozens of folks simply by being out there who have made my life interesting and better. In some cases, they have become close friends and in other cases, people with whom I have worked on projects that were enjoyable and fun. Despite the success at the dentist, yesterday was not a good day. Some years ago, one of the random people I met was a fellow blogger and also, a former sailor. He was a retired Asia Sailor, and his blog was dedicated to keeping the memory and fellowship of that special group alive. After a few months of talking and sharing together, he invited me to become a member of his private group of Asia Sailors. I told him that I have never been west of Midway Island, but he assured me that since he was in charge of the group, he was confident that I had the proper attitude and mindset for the group. Yesterday he informed us that he was making his final post. Meanwhile, I once made a friend who texted the show about a point I had made about Star Trek. we ended up meeting in person a few weeks later at the World War I 100th Anniversary commemoration. We soon became very good friends, and while we had serious political differences, we’ve never allowed those disagreements to be anything other than a starting point for long and intellectual discussion about everything from science to politics to the US Constitution. His news wasn’t great, but it is getting better… All that to say something that I have so often said after I lost a close friend in the very first week I sat behind the microphone for Afternoons Live…

There are two burrs under my saddle this morning. First… I’ve had it with YouTube. I’m sorry if you get your version of this show there, but something is going to have to change – as soon as I have the time to figure out how best to do it. Second, the State of Washington has spent more than $143,000,000 in one year to clear out homeless encampments along right of way locations. Sounds like quite the accomplishment, eh?

John Adams once said that “our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people.” Like so many of the Framers and Founders, he had a deep level of understanding that seems to have been lost today. So what exactly was John Adams’ meaning? The answer may come from a story related to us from the Midrash, when a famous Rabbi sent two of his disciples to a nearby town to inspect things. When they arrived, the asked the city leaders to show them the Guardians of their city. The Rabbis were shown the Soldiers who guarded and policed the town. “These are not the guardians of your city,” exclaimed Rabbi Asi, “These are the destroyers of your city.” Before you get all “Defund the police” on me, you need to understand the deeper meaning of what the Rabbis meant. Which, by the by, was the same thig that John Adams meant…

Who’s ready for the Presidential Campaign Debate Season? Whoo-hoo!!!! Seriously, I long ago quit watching them because – and I say this with love – they are pointless. Nothing of any substance has been discussed at a debate since 1960, and it gets worse every cycle. Today we are literally watching them not to learn anything of value, but in the hope that – like NASCAR – there will be a giant implosion on the stage that ends with a Jerry Springer-esque fight. Including the chairs being thrown and noses being broken. Now that I would most certainly watch. That said, and putting my own ideas for how to improve the debates aside for the moment, there once was a time when debates in this country meant something. When opponents actually had positions on the issues that completely differed from one another. A time when politicians were actually addressing the issues, not trying get rich at the expense of the nation. And the greatest of all these debates began on August 21, 1958 in Ottawa, IL…

A few weeks ago, I asked the question, exactly which Framers’ values and principles should we “be getting back to?” As the Convention lurched into the sixth week, and the heat in Philadelphia grew hotter, the delegates were – at least verbally – at each others throats. while the myth of unity still held in the media and even in sermons, the truth was that the convention was literally held together byt he strength of a “single human hair.” Madison thought he had an answer, and Washington fumed over “States Rights Demagogues.” Benjamin Franklin famously suggested that each session start with prayer. But it would be up to two relatively unknown delegates to change the course of history…

It is an unarguable FACT that no-one in the United States has owned a slave since 1868. As of today, that was one hundred and fifty-five years ago, or, in other terms, an average of nearly eight generations. In my case, because I am old and my grandparents reproduced young, it was four generations ago. So why is Reuters, a news agency that is decidedly NOT American, running a major article about “so many” American political elites who are “descended from slave owners?” It’s not because they see unity as a useful purpose. Nor do they seem to understand that far more Americans today are descended from those who believed in union and equality for all men…

In the context of “the United States,” what exactly is a “State?” Today, it seems obvious to us, but remember that in 1776 there were “States” that shared their governor. At least one of the “States” technically wasn’t a State at all, but rather a dubiously area of leased lands, that while it had its own legislative body, it was only because the State that “owned” the land didn’t like the people who lived there and didn’t want them voting in their elections and legislature. In June of 1776, the leased lands fixed that by declaring their Independence, three weeks before the entire nation did the same thing. At any rate, the whole question of new States would vex the nation from the very beginning. By the middle of July in 1787, there were two distinct schools of thought about the concept of adding new States to the Union. They can be briefly summarized as follows: One side said, “DO NOT add new States.” The other side said… “DO add new States.” And while many of the Philadelphia convention delegates leaned into the second thought, there were others who acted to make certain that the second way of thinking would prevail…

Every now and then, I have one of those… moments when I think to myself, “Is that really what I mean when I say that thing? Many anthropologists and archeologists bemoan the fact that we have little understanding of the Yucatan peoples of the pre Columbus era. But you almost never hear a discussion of WHY we lack that understanding. As it turned out, the Mayans were quite literate and wrote down much of their history and theology in various forms. But… as you know… people with a different god and a different belief system came to the Yucatan in the 16th Century. And, on July 12, 1562, an man with what was called, monomaniacal fervor, destroyed a almost all of the history and religion of the Mayan people. Are there lessons from that incident for today? Of course there are. But how do we have that discussion in a way that doesn’t spend ,st of the time in criticism and complaint rather than application for today and tomorrow? My original thoughts for the day were far too much of the former and almost none of the latter. So I shelved it and went full Buffalo Alice 314 on myself…

I freely admit that I am a skeptic when it comes to the news. In fact, before I read any article, I check the “About” section of the articles host site. far more often than you would expect, it becomes very obvious that the site is “questionable.” That aside, a lack of source materials, links, footnotes and so on, always make me suss about a given article or report. Oddly, one of the effects of the news being less trusted by the general public, is that science has suffered a similar fate. I have a theory as to why that is so, despite the efforts of scientists (of all disciplines) to share their information. And in one of the most surprising turns of events, because of those issues, we don’t even know what it means to be “dead” anymore…

Remember when the joke was actually a joke and everybody knew that it was a joke and even if you didn’t like the joke you still understood that it was a joke and so you just let it go? Yeah…that’s not the country we live in anymore. Now if you don’t like the joke, you go on the air and bitch about it until the worlds biggest entertainment corporation gives in to your little temper tantrum and changes a beloved fairy tale to fit your world view. And then one of them shows you his nipples…

Everybody knows *that* guy. You know.. the one who has to keep asking weird questions or making absurd pronouncements when the meeting is wrapping up and everybody wants to leave. It’s almost like they are utterly oblivious and definitely not reading the room. It terms of the Constitutional convention, *that* guy is named George Mason. And while the Convention has a scheduled eleven day break, starting as soon as the day ends, he wants to bring up a bunch of obtuse points. Right Now…

Over the weekend, Cami was asking me if I was worried about the future of the country. I mean… yes, I am. I also tend to take the Mickey Rivers approach to life, which means that generally speaking, I try not to worry about things over which I have no control. Of course, that is counter-intuitive, as in a government of, by and for the people, I should have some control so now I am back to wondering what, if anything, I could actually do about things? Part of me thinks that everything is going to hell in a hand basket, while another part of me says that this kind of worry has been going on for a long, long time…

As a general rule, I oppose the impeachment of elected officials (appointed officials are a different matter). The recent conventional thinking is that – in general – it’s a waste of time as neither side has the actual votes to impeach a given President. That did not stop Trump from being twice impeached, but, and I think that this is important, those were political moves that were less about Trump than they were about control of the House and Senate. When debating the Presidency during the Philadelphia Convention, there were two main points of consideration. First, HOW to elect the President? And while those discussions could occupy us for many hours, of equal if not quite as debated issue was how to get rid of a President that was not up to standards? Benjamin Franklin suggested that there were really only two options, first and easiest, was simply to assassinate a bad leader. But that comes with other obvious issues. So another method was needed, and borrowing from the British legal system, impeachment was adopted. What wasn’t done was adding a specific definition as exactly what “high crimes and misdemeanors” actually means? It’s kinda like porn. Nobody can actually define it, but we all know it when we see it…

Teenagers, man… Last night Ben and I took a walk. He has become quite the young man. He is smart, energetic and he has a lot, and I mean a lot, of opinions about the world and how things ought to be. And for really the first time since he became a teenager, he and I had a long conversation about the things that matter so deeply to him and to me. I rmemeber being a thirteen year old opiniionated know-it-all, so certain in my beliefs that nothing was going to change my mind. Maybe that’s the way of youth. But I like to think this morning, that last night’s walk and talk had the effect I hope that it did…

There is an old saying in the Civil Service: Never believe anything, until it has been officially denied. As the Biden Family crime story seems to be moving faster and faster every day, one of the things being postulated is that the President could issue a pardon for his son, Hunter. In fact, there are more and more people who are coming to believe that the President may have to issue one. And now that it has been officially denied, the maxim tells us that it is more than likely true. Yes, it would be political suicide for the President. But the consequences of not doing it – if a new sweetheart deal isn’t reached and approved quickly – could be even more devastating and for far more people than just the Biden’s…

By now you know that either Barbie or Oppenheimer, or possibly both, are the greatest movies ever created in the history film. Already people are talking about follow up films to tell what are known as “origin stories,” but frankly I couldn’t care less about the back-story of Barbie or Ken, or even for that matter Robert Oppenheimer. That said, there would never have been a film on Oppenheimer if two men, joined by other scientists, hadn’t written letters to President Franklin Roosevelt. One of those letters was delivered to him this week (August 2) in 1939. It was that letter that alarmed Roosevelt and the US Government so much, that a crash program, which would be led by Oppenheimer, began to go critical…

A recent tweet by Rob Reiner… yes… “Meathead”… reminds me that somehow or another, the meaning of words, or at least the understanding of those words, has been surreptitiously modified. This was followed by a Tick Tock user explaining to me that anybody who is NOT mentally ill under a capitalist system, is de facto a fascist. But that’s not the actual definition of the word fascism. Or is it? In my own backyard, the recent controversy over whether high school students who were wearing tee shirts that read “There are only two genders” has launched a similar debate. Now… there is plenty of discussion to be had here, but at the end of the day, has the newer understanding of the meaning of the word “fascist” so infiltrated the contest that free speech has been displaced?

I grew up with Star Trek as my inspiration for… well… pretty much everything. Yesterday I even got into a discussion about the ways that Star Trek has inspired much of my learning. in one of the climatic moments, Captain Kirk explains to the crew that “risk…. is, our, business” (you have to say it like Shatner). That said, when is risk too much? As AI looms and robots become more and more capable, doe it even make sense to risk a human life to take on the unknown frontiers? Or, does it make any sense to take money from people to take them on an adventure?

Not that long ago, I was driving across North Dakota on I-94. At Mile 314, there is an exit sign that caught my attention. I don’t really know why. It just seemed to me to be the embodiment of being… well… normal. As we watch the circus that is our Congress and political system, maybe it’s time to take that exit?

The founder of OceanGate is on record as having said that he did not want to hire a bunch of “fifty-year old white guys” because we are “not inspirational.” He was specifically referring to submarine qualified people who know more about submarines than he ever wil. And far more than he ever imagined about how to safely operate underwater. I have said this before and I will say again… the ocean is ALWAYS trying to kill you. And if you are disrespectful, careless, presumptuous, over-confident or even just sloppy, it will kill you. Painfully, without mercy, without remorse and without any way to stop it.

Perhaps the best known Framer/Founder these days is Alexander Hamilton. But, as the case may be, not for the reasons for which he would have liked to had remembered, or had sung about in a Broadway musical. Hamilton had been one of the men who had pushed hard for the Philadelphia Convention. He had also fully expected to be one of its leaders (a story oddly absent from the musical). What he had not expected was to be a third wheel on the New York delegation, constantly thwarted by the duo of Clinton supporters who disagreed with him on pretty much everything, putting New York firmly in the camp of the small States who were opposing the Virginia Plan. This week, he makes the fateful decision to do something about his inability to get any points across. He will give a four hour speech (again, not in the musical) which will all but end his career…

If there be those who would not save the Union, unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. – Abraham Lincoln, August 22nd, 1862 While Lincoln wrote those words in 1862, following them up with his Emancipation Proclamation, the reality was that he had no viable way to actually enforce them. Days earlier, the Union had “won” the Battle at Antietam Creek, although “win” might generous. On the bloodiest day in American history, the Army of the Potomac had blunted Robert E Lee’s army’s advance into Maryland. Alas, it had failed to win a decisive victory, or to follow up on the matter. The battle had been just enough to give Lincoln the opening he needed. Believing that the nation needed a better reason to continue the war, he saw the permanent end of slavery as that reason. On January 1, 1863, the Proclamation went “into effect,” although, as noted already, the Union had almost no power to enforce it. Although the Proclamation had virtually no effect initially, more and more slaves heard of it. But it would take two and a half long years before the last group of now free men heard the news. But that September day, would be the last day of slavery. Nearly three years later, the last slaves held in the United States would at last learn that they were free at last.

There came a time when the political system was unable to deal with the pressures brought on it by the political differences which divided the nation. By April of an election year, there were men who had decided that the moderate course which had guided the nation for four score and four years was no longer acceptable to them. In the arena of politics, calculations were made, votes were counted, and positions were staked out. The people of the country were not willing to believe that the extremist on either side were really willing to carry out their threats. Their leaders knew this, but when power is at stake, the will of the people is one of the last true considerations…

What is “blue?” Now… before you answer that question, think for a moment about it. Ask yourself, what if there was no “blue?” And if there was no “blue,” what would change for your understanding of how to describe things? Is it possible to destroy words in such a manner to change human thought and understanding? Or… has it already begun?