Let’s get my “news hook” out of the way: President-elect Donald Trump has been offering up names for appointments to his cabinet, and rattling a constitutional saber about using “recess appointments” to get around the constitutional  requirement that those appointees be confirmed by the US Senate.

I’m not really interested in the details of that argument here. What I’m interested in is the nearly too obvious to bother stating fact it highlights: Many Americans, of many political persuasions, seem discontent with the way “the government” “runs” “the country.”

As you can tell by the sequential scare quotes, I’ve got problems with all three implicit claims, but let’s assume that the federal government (aka “the United States”) actually “runs” (that is, dictates and enforces everything its principals declare themselves  interested in) what most people think of as “the country” (a particularly defined land mass on the continent known as “North America”).

Let’s further assume that it does so on the basis of notional authority conferred by a document ratified by a tiny fraction of a single percent of the population of that “country” circa 1787: The US Constitution.

Yes, I know, that document proclaims itself the work of “we the people,” but very few of the people supposedly living under its rule had, or have, any voice in either its framing or  its subsequent impositions.

That said, again, many Americans seem perpetually unhappy with the results. They don’t like this bill getting passed by Congress or that ruling handed down by the Supreme Court or so-and-so getting elected president. It never ends.

So, my question: When do we stick a fork in it and admit it’s done?

Second, my response to the “you can’t be serious” crowd, which I will hand off to Lysander Spooner:

“But whether the Constitution really be one thing, or another, this much is certain — that it has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it. In either case it is unfit to exist.”

He wrote that, believe it or not, in 1870.

Many Americans, including me, notice that the Constitution only seems to be obeyed when those in power find obeying it convenient.

Some Americans, not including me, fantasize that it’s not only possible to force government to obey it, but that doing so would magically solve all the problems that have them so upset so much of the time. It’s not possible, nor would it produce those results.

As Rita Mae Brown wrote in 1983 (you may have seen the quote attributed to others), “insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results.”

That’s “constitutionalism” in a nutshell.

For 237 years, politicians have pretended the Constitution “works” … and most Americans have pretended with them, even while proclaiming their unhappiness with its results in ways small and large (for the latter, consider 1861-65).

Same thing over and over.

Same results over and over.

And that’s how things are going to stay until we decide to try something different.

Thomas L. Knapp (X: @thomaslknapp | Bluesky: @knappster.bsky.social | Mastodon: @knappster) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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In the wake of the latest presidential election, it’s morning in America!

Well, maybe not, but a lot of people seem to be talking about Bluesky, which implies sun, which implies morning. OK, yeah, a stretch — the newly popular social media platform sounds more like an ELO fan site than a Reagan-era campaign slogan.

But the “newly popular” part — Bluesky launched in early 2023 as an invite-only beta, then in early 2024 to the general public — does seemingly have a lot to do with the presidential election.

My news feeds are all a-bulge this week with headlines and analyses about a “migration” from Elon Musk’s X (formerly Twitter) to Bluesky.

The evidence for such a migration: Bluesky is growing quickly, X is shrinking slowly, and many Bluesky users have been very vocal about abandoning X for Bluesky because, well, MAGA.

Nothing wrong with that, I guess. Musk has certainly gone out of his way to cater to the MAGA set, while Bluesky finds itself painted, by supporters and detractors alike, as a “safe space” for moderates, progressives, Democrats, liberals, et al.

I’m personally sympathetic to those who prefer social media “silos” curated to their own tastes. Most of us live that way in meatspace — like me, you’ve probably never invited David Duke over for dinner or signed up for a Nazi bar pub crawl — and extending that to a “there ain’t enough room on this platform for both of us” philosophy doesn’t strike me as strange or inherently wrong.

On the other hand, nearly every social media platform allows considerable self-siloing, so there really IS enough room on those platforms for various people and groups who don’t care to talk to each other.

Follow the users you like, ignore or even block the users you don’t like. “Problem” solved.

One recent teapot tempest with X came about when Musk decreed that, henceforth, blocked users may view the posts of (although not engage with) users who have blocked them. Not a biggie, in my opinion, except to those actively seeking something to get upset about. Especially since it’s always been easy to get around the “no viewing” part by using an alternate account.

If you just can’t stand the “MAGAts” on X, or the “leftards” on Bluesky, you can leave one platform or the other … or you can learn to walk and chew gum at the same time by following, ignoring, and blocking to create the experiences you want in more than one forum.

Personally, I maintain accounts on many social media platforms (including X and Bluesky). I use some more actively than others, depending on how well their functions/environments serve my purposes.

But that’s just me. There’s really no wrong answer.

Thomas L. Knapp (X: @thomaslknapp | Bluesky: @knappster.bsky.social | Mastodon: @knappster) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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Confession: I’ve just never been much of an Alex Jones fan. I never saw the value, or even very much of the fun, some of my libertarian friends found in his crazed, bombastic commentary.

Nonetheless, I’m a free speech fundamentalist  who’s appalled that the court system allowed bad actors to enrich themselves at his expense by standing atop the corpses of dead children to complain about Jones doing … well, pretty much the same thing.

Jones was sued by family members of victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre, who managed to shift legal blame for their harassment, apparently by Alex Jones fans, to Jones himself.

I was momentarily encouraged when I learned that Jones’s “Infowars” brand had been purchased at auction by venerable satire publication, The Onion. They seem well-equipped to do fun things with his crazed presentation style and eclectic obsessions.

Unfortunately, according to reporting from Rolling Stone, The Onion “also announced that it had partnered with the gun-control advocacy group Everytown for Gun Safety,” presumably to advocate for the evil cause of victim disarmament, aka “gun control.”

It’s depressing to learn that Jones’s former property will be used to promote exactly the same kind of harm done to the Sandy Hook victims and their families, in the name of “justice” for the latter and at the expense of someone who didn’t do that harm.

The United States and the state of Connecticut have, and have had for many years, plenty of “gun control” laws.

Those laws didn’t stop Adam Lanza from stealing a gun  (a crime) from his mother, murdering her with it (another crime), then violating the Gun Free School Zones act to commit 27 more murders at Sandy Hook elementary.

Those laws did, however, ensure that when Lanza arrived at the school, his victims were, by force of law, disarmed for convenient slaughter.

That kind of situation is exactly what the “Everytown” group advocates for in the name of “Gun Safety.”

That outcome is exactly what Everytown for Gun Safety and other victim disarmament advocates thought of as “justice” when they encouraged and manipulated the Sandy Hook families to pursue meritless and vexatious litigation against Alex Jones.

But while I’m sad that The Onion chose to make itself part of these vile proceedings, I remain a free speech fundamentalist and won’t support such litigation against them when the wickedness they advocate results in more innocents’ deaths.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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