Two nights ago, after seven hours of “public comment,” the Boston Planning and Development Agency’s Board voted — after two years and more of meetings between developer and neighborhood groups — to approve the massive — 10,000 housing units — project proposed for the Suffolk Downs site.

What, then, did the BPDA approve ? Subject to what conditions and provisos ? I give you now a list thereof, as set forth by District Councilor Lydia Edwards in her report on the details :

An increase from 13% to 20% in the total affordable housing

A $5 million housing stabilization fund independently controlled by East Boston with continued funding over the course of the project

A wider range of incomes and more family sized units

Immediate rent relief for East Boston families up to $800,000, with $400,000 coming immediately after the vote

The site will be held to the standards of the upcoming fair housing amendment to the zoning code which will ensure housing for seniors, working families, and people with disabilities at the site for generations

Publicly owned streets and sidewalks. Park space deeded to the city. First amendment protections on privately owned publicly accessible space.

A Carbon Net Zero feasibility study with a commitment to pursue funding to implement the results of the study

Updates to city zoning regarding environmental standards will apply to the site

A Belle Isle Marsh visitor impact study and funding for an additional ranger at the marsh

A Project Labor Agreement to guarantee union jobs for the construction

$1 million for workforce development and and ESL classes for East Boston families

$1 million for apprenticeship programs to get East Boston residents into the trades

Expanded vocational education for East Boston residents and priority in the hiring process

Daycare facilities on-site to support our families

$200,000 for a learn-to-swim program for East Boston children

An Implementation IAG to ensure compliance with agreements

Continuous review to ensure commitments are being met before new buildings can be built

It’s an impressive list of add-ons, and Edwards rightfully defends it as a significant achievement for what is expected these days from “community engagement.”

Yet if the objective of all this engagement is to enhance the project’;s economic end housing cost effects on East Boston, the list fails, indeed aggravates the situation.

To begin at the beginning : requiring that 20 percent of the units — 2,000 houses — be “affordable” pursuant to Boston’s “affordability covenant,” means that the buy price, or rent amount, of the other 8,000 units will have to RISE by five percent, or the investor risks a loss. That would be the case anyway, but as Tom O’Brien, the project manager, has stated that the syndicate of investors was looking for a bare FIVE (5) percent return, any pricing concessions make the investment very chancy. Granted that with interest rates at near zero, parked money earns practically nothing, a five percent, or even a four percent return looks pretty good: yet historically, real estate investors have wanted a much larger expectation because real estate is always highly leveraged. It doesn’t take a very great default rate for leveraged real estate to be a loser; and once real estate falls into the red,. its redness accelerates, sometimes to the point of bankruptcy. Thus the price jack-up to compensate for the price loss.

O’Brien told a meeting about a year ago that it costs $ 500,000 a unit to build a house in Boston. Add union labor to that cost — an add-on which I approve, for reasons I’ll give later — and the price becomes $ 550,000. Now add on the jack-up and the sale price of a market rate house starts at $ 582,500. Now add on advertising,. brokerage, and closing costs, and the sale cost rises to about $ 625,000.00. Add a five percent return, and w’re at $ 656,500. But that’s not all the costs that the compromised Suffolk project has now agreed to. What do you suppose the cost to Suffolk will be of the Belle Isle marsh impact study ? The “carbon net zero feasibility study ? Expanded vocational education for East Boston residents ? Daycare facilities on site ? Continuous review ? It won;’t be cheap. Then there’s the $ 5,000,000 housing stabilization” fund, $ 1,000,000 for “workforce development” and another one mil for “apprenticeship programs.” Add about an additional $ 30,000 to the asking price of those 8,000 market-rate houses.

Banker and Tradesman estimates that the sale price of the market rate houses will top $ 1,00,000. On what basis can I disagree ?

Doubtless that figure arises from the vast costs of lawyers, engineers, environmental consultants and more that Suffolk’s builder will have to hire to get utility lines laid, sewers installed, roads built, and landscaping scaped to the satisfaction of at least three government oversight administrators.

Nor are these the only costs that the project imposes. How about the costs to the Boston (and Revere) taxpayer ? Consider the army of bureaucrats who will have to assess the thousands of applications for purchase of those 2,000 “affordable” units. Also their supervisors. The salaries of these all are going to be paid by YOU.

Even at $ 686,000 per house — not to mention $ 1,000,000 — the 8,000 market rate homes –which are not going to be free standing but townhouse style, and maybe condominium, Suffolk’s market-rate houses will jack up the entire price spectrum of homes in a neighborhood where home prices are already much too high — after all, why the outcry for “affordable” homes if the home price was not now too high ?

Would it not have been much smarter to scrap the absurd “affordability” covenant entirely, and some of the items that really have nothing to do with housing (Belle Isle Marsh ? Apprentice programs ? Vocational ed ?), set the entire project at market rate, then use the market power of 10,000 market-rate houses to peak our already overpriced real estate and perhaps lower it by five to ten percent ? At an asking price of $ 595,000 per house, 10,000 market rate houses offered would absorb more than all of current demand and might bring some market sense to what is asked. That would be an actual affordability move, rather than the government -manufactured, ersatz affordability being imposed.

Why we in our capitalist economy do not trust the market to do its work, I cannot tell. Market prices are the sum of everyone’s opinion. No method of pricing is more democratic than the market method. Yet our City’s wise ones see fit to substitute concocted detours which only add to inequities, choking off the democracy of a market, in the most important purchase most people will ever make.

Above, I stated approval of the project’s use of union labor even though it increases the cost basis of house prices. Why do I approve this cost ? Simple : it puts more money in workers’ wallets. And they will spend it into the economy. Anything that puts more money into consumers’ wallets is good — for the economy, for equity, even for the affordability of homes, obviously. But as for the rest of Councillor Edwards’s long list, I favor ripping it up and starting all over again with market embrace as the primary and absolutely vital goal.

— Mikke Freedberg / Here and Sphere

The debate over the 1619 Project, which purports to condemn as evil the founding of America, rests upon the unique character of our nation. We are an aspirational adventure.

Unlike all other nations., we are not formed by language or tribal origin, not by unities of origin at all, but by the ideals we aim for. Every immigrant who came here voluntarily, and every descendant of those who did not arrive voluntarily but who willed to stay, cherishes the ideals that our founding documents — Declaration, Constitution, Bill of Rights — assert. Other nations generate; we are a work in progress; a long journey exploring the golden rules we expect, we believe in, we will not betray.

Into this celebratory optimism comes now an opposite view : that America was founded in slavery, in “colonization,” in hypocrisy of claiming great ideals while practicing brutal oppression. It is noted that almost all the Founders owned slaves and that few had any objections to dispossessing Indians. Much is made, for example, of the “three fifths” clause of the Constitution by which the apportionment of Congress members is determined : there it is, right in the document to which we all swear an oath to defend, that slaves are counted only three-fifths of a life. It is noted that every sort of impediment, first legal, later social, to assuring Black people the full equalities insisted upon by the Declaration: and indeed, Frederick Douglass, in his great “Fourth of July’ speech, noted that to the then slave, the Declaration was a mockery. We are all aware that barely 60 years ago, Blacks in many States were denied the most basic civil rights; and that even today, many people who hold positions of power, including some police, do not value or respect, equally, the lives and dignity of Black Americans: and we are told, by hose who extol the 1619 Project, that the persistence of these inequities is built in to our founding.

That is what we re asked to accept; but should we ? I differ. What I see is that the very perfection of our ideals is their curse. Political and social aspirations cannot be beyond the talents of we who are asked to live them. The equality of all reads well, because we conclude that it applies to us. It is OUR OWN potential inequality which we object to — not so much the possible inequality of others. By nature, self-preservation — not that of our fellows — is the basic instinct. we too easily read that instinct into Thomas Jefferson’s words which were intended to shield all, not just we ourselves. It is all good to say that the good of each of us is secured best by the good of all. That is what the preamble to the Constitution says — “the general welfare,” not the welfare only of me, only of you — and we easily utter these words only to feel, afterwards, that the general welfare is actually MY welfare first.

Nonetheless, the aspirations are there. They are written down, and we take an oath to defend and advance them, no doubt sincerely when sworn to.

Even as we fall short, in practice, of the ideals we say we honor, so too do we rise above the pessimism and generalizations written by the 1619 Project. America was NOT founded in slavery nor was African chattel slavery an American invention., It existed for at least 100 years before 1619 and, indeed, had existed throughout Saharan Africa for at least a milenium. The slave trade, rightly condemned, was just as much fueled by African tribes doing the capturing as by Portuguese and Spanish slavers buying the captives. At that time, moreover, slavery systems existed almost everywhere and had so existed since very ancient times. We think of African slaves, but the word “slave’ is derived from “Slav,” because it was Slavic peoples who were most often enslaved during the Byzantine and Venetian commercial heydays (6th to 16th Centuries).

Slavery nowhere was declared illegal until Massachusetts did so in its 1780 Constitution. Abolition of slavery arose, as a goal, during the rise of industry : slave labor was incompatible with industrial work. At the same time that slavery began to look infeasible economically, so did its moral injustice discomfort many; and Bishop William Wilberforce in England and Unitarian preachers in New England contemporaneously condemned it.

Abolition arose here, in America, and though a minority opinion, it built sufficient political and moral force to secure slavery’s end as a Civil war goal. That our founding documents echoed their equalities in our ears was not incidental. They were, in fact, vital to the political success that abolition finally won after decades of failure. Nor dare we overlook that the Founders, who mostly owned slaves in an era when slavery was common everywhere, were troubled by it and sought its end, albeit by voluntary means — several freed their slaves, and almost all wanted it phased out. Phase out is actually in the Constitution: the slave trade was to end in year 1808.

The much-maligned “three-fifths” compromise was in no way a backsliding. It was, in fact a major step forward. No slaves had ever before been counted as persons before the law., now they were accorded three-fifths enumeration, and their number was included in the most vital of political arrangements, the number of elected representatives given to a State. Those who decry the devaluation, compared to enumeration of white residents, argue backwards.

The question I now want to ask is, why has slavery had such vast political consequences in America when it had none in any European nation ? Including Spain and Portugal, the creators of Transatlantic slavery trade and for centuries its dominant practitioners ? First, for European nations,. almost all the slaves were imported into New World colonies, not the home country. Yet even there, emancipated slaves were accepted into society fairly readily. Tensions there were, and are; yet nothing like the hundred fifty years of opposition to equality in society that has occurred in the USA.

Second, the end of slavery was imposed here by a conquering army and its government. Acceptance by the conquered would have been difficult in any case, and with universal suffrage, everybody’s resentment found sanction in votes cast at elections. Yet I think we cannot dismiss what I said at the outset : our nation has founded itself upon the noblest of aspirations, from which we cannot help but fall short, even as the people of Israel — so we are told — constantly backslid from the Ten Commandments and honoring God. Set yourself goals almost beyond human capability, and you set yourself up for a fall.

Which is what we have done, for better or worse, by creating an America dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal and have certain unalienable rights….

We did in fact found such a nation — not in slavery but in its opposite — and have to live with the consequences.

I think often of Solon, the great Athenian magistrate, who when asked by a foreign king whom he visited, did you give the Athenians the best laws, answered, “I gave them the best laws that they would accept.”

That is the way that prevailed all over Europe. it is realistic. It defers to human capability. It is NOT the way that we in America chose. We want the best laws, whether our people accept them or not. And many do not.

— Mike Freedberg / Here and Sphere

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On the November ballot as Question 2 will be a voter question : should Massachusetts adopt the “ranked choice” method of voting ?

We urge a NO vote.

Here’s why :

First : ranked choice will cut in half the power of your vote. As we vote today, with two major candidates on the ballot, we vote for one and not for the other. This is worth TWO votes. Because if you take one vote away from candidate A and give it to candidate B, you change the result by two, not one.

Under ranked choice, you give first choice to A but second choice to B. Your second choice vote for B gets added to her first choice votes. Which means that A, your preferred winner, gets only a slight bump instead of the equivalent of two votes. I doubt this is a result most of us want to see happen to our vote.

Second : ranked choice empowers organized activists far more than ordinary voters. Ordinary voters don’t organize campaigns. They only vote. But organized activists do organize campaigns, and in a ranked choice system, they can put five, seven, nine, or fifteen candidates from their group onto the ballot. They then give each of these a rank vote, where a non-activist candidate gets only ordinary votes, the activists blanking him. Count up the activist candidate votes, and the ultimate winner far outvotes the sole non-activist, who receives no activist ranking.

This situation actually just happened in the 4th Massachusetts Congress District, where a non-activist candidate won with 25 % of the vote, the activist candidates splitting the other 75 percent. Had ranked choice been operative, an activist candidate would easily have won. Why so ? Because activists know not to give any rank vote to the non-activist, where ordinary voters, offered a rank vote, would almost all use it.

Not surprisingly, the 4th’s activists, having lost, now want to change the rules. I think we know why.

Third : ranked vote reduces the power of your single vote by giving you a number of votes, each less powerful, than the one you already have, but in total, amounting to more than your one powerful vote. I doubt that any of us is entitled to more than one vote, no mater how weak the plural votes may be. With one vote, you use it or you don’t. With plural voting, some have an opportunity to vote more than others. Do we rally want to empower this sort of inequality ? I hope not.

Ranked choice voting is bad idea. It devalues your vote, empowers special interests, and creates inequality in voting. IT MUST BE REJECTED.

—- Mike Freedberg, for the editors at Here and Sphere

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Yesterday, City Councillor Michelle Wu announced her candidacy for Mayor of Boston. Wu, a Roslindale resident, spoke thus :

““We’re in an unprecedented time as Boston faces a pandemic, an economic crisis, and a national reckoning on systemic racism,” Wu said. “To meet this moment, we need leadership that matches the scale and urgency of our challenges.”

The thrust of Wu’s candidacy will be familiar to many. She doubled down on it, too :

“The Boston we love is a city that takes care of each other, where hard work meets big dreams with grit and resilience. But for too many — during this pandemic and well before — it’s been impossible to dream when you’re fighting to hold on.Fighting to afford to stay. Fighting for our kids. Fighting a system that wasn’t built for us, doesn’t speak our languages, doesn’t hear our voices.I’m running for Mayor because Boston should be a city for everyone. Now’s the time for bold, urgent leadership.“

It’s nothing unusual for a challenger to appeal first to those who are, presumably, an existing opposition to the incumbent and his record. That’s what Wu is doing here. She is betting that the black lives matter activists (“systemic racism”) are opposed to Walsh; assuming, too, that voters for whom English is a difficult second language (“system that doesn’t speak for us, doesn’t speak our languages…”) are opposed. She also sees a mood of “crisis,” voters who want “urgent” change — a variation on the “change can’t wait” theme that Ayanna Pressley wielded so successfully in 2018.. Lastly, she mentions “fighting to afford to stay” — a pitch to the many voters who are not happy at being priced out of the City by the development boom.

All of these are sensible voter interests for a challenger to reach out to. So will it work ? Depends on the accuracy of her reading the moods of Boston voters and also on her math: how many voters are there in the interests she is reaching for ?

As to the mood of Boston voters, is it still 2018 ? A year in which being an aging, white male incumbent was a ticket to defeat ? Had the Mayor election come in 2018, or even in 2019, I think Wu’s shot would have hit the target. Congressman, District Attorney, District 5, 8, and 9 Council, and 15th Suffolk State Representative all saw a change from male incumbents to challengers of color, four of them female.

In 2019, Wu, seeking Council re-election, won EIGHTY percent (!!) of the vote in the precinct cluster around her Roslindale home (she lives in Ward 18, Precinct 10, for those who follow these things.) I can’t recall if I have EVER seen a Councillor win that huge a share, not even when running city-wide, where voters have four votes to give. The most I can recall is about 66 percent. Even that is rare. Wu had a wave to ride, and she surfed it like a boss.

But next year is not 2018-2019. The mood of our voters has shifted. On September 1, credible challengers from Wu’s political direction sought State Representative seats in Charlestown, Allston, and Roslindale-Readville-Hyde Park. All three seats were won by candidates very likely to be Mayor Walsh allies. No win was bigger than the one that encompasses Wu’s home : the 14th Suffolk District that will now be represented by Rob Consalvo, whose 5484 to 3292 win over Gretchen van Ness, a very credible opponent and Wu ally, was larger than anybody anticipated. In 2018, long time incumbent Angelo Scaccia had eked out a win over van Ness, garnering barely 38 percent in a four-way contest. Consalvo running in 2020 won 53 percent in a three-candidate race.

Different contest, different candidates, to be sure. Yet I think Walsh has to like having Daniel Ryan, Kevin Honan, and Rob Consalvo representing three crucial parts of Boston than had their opponents won. Better still, he has to like that in this primary, the turnout of voters was immense, where in 18 it was much smaller. Activists — which is who Wu is appealing to — are far fewer than ordinary voters. If Walsh can turn out ordinary voters in anything like the numbers who voted on September 1, he is likely in good shape.

Lastly, he has to like the shape of the primary vote : for stability, not change. Voters have had enough “shaking up” in the past four years to last them a lifetime. What most of us want now is some quiet — political quiet. Governor Charlie Baker is as popular as he is because he epitomizes political quiet and stability. Baker moves the State forward, maneuvers it through bad weather without shipwreck, without breaking the furniture. Walsh can’t duplicate Baker’s helmsmanship because Boston is as stormy a sea as every big city. Boston quakes with big changes : development, immigration, identity clashes, economic displacement, hurry and more hurry. Wu is not wrong to see voters beset by the dizzy whirl of big Boston.

Yet my guess is that, if Boston whirls like one of those superheroes people like to adore, Walsh is up to the challenge. If Boston is Goliath, Walsh is David : he holds all the reins of power, he controls the budget — anybody who doubts that should recall the 8 to 5 vote by which the Council, Wu’s Council, rejected Wu’s budget proposal and backed Walsh’s — and he controls all of city administration., Chiefest of these in today’s climate of street protest is Police Commissioner Bill Gross, a Walsh appointee who is nobody’s puppet and who speaks for the vast majority of Boston voters in insisting on police primacy. Walsh has made it very clear that he will not tolerate, in Boston, what has been allow to happen in some other cities (and Walsh as Governor Baker to backstop him, and Baker has done so).

When I think about Walsh’s budget command, and about Bill Gross’s street command, and when I factor in September 1’s vote for legislators of stability,. I think Wu has a very weak hand to play — a hand which was strong two yars ago, and last year, but that has lost strength since then. I know that Wu cares deeply to be a fighter for justice. She is not a faker at all. But as caring as she is, she may find that she has missed the political bus.

—- Mike Freedberg / Here and Sphere

On September 1st Massachusetts held its State Primary. Almost 1,600,000 voters participated,. and the results show a change of voting trend that few have remarked.

With the exception of Senator Ed Markey’s defeating Joe Kennedy’s challenge, it was very much a victory day for moderate Democrats and even for moderate Republicans. Let me now itemize.

Congress : in the First Massachusetts District, incumbent Richard Neal, chairman of the House ways and Means committee, turned back “progressive” Alex Morse by 59 percent to 41 percent. This result is the exact percentage opposite of “progressive”
Ayanna Pressley’s beating (less progressive ?) incumbent Mike Capuano in 2018 in the 7th District.

in the Eighth District, incumbent Stephen Lynch, the most conservative Democrat in our House delegation, easily disposed of “progressive” Robbie Goldstein by about 66 to 34.

in the Fourth District, moderate Jake Auchincloss won a nine-way primary over eight “progressive” rivals, winning over his nearest rival by 25 percent to 23 percent. (true to form, the District’s “progressives” now seek to change the voting rules)

State legislature — the House :

2nd Suffolk : moderate incumbent Daniel Ryan easily defeated “progressive” Damali Vidot Rosa by 4195 to 3093.

4th Norfolk : incumbent moderate James Murphy crushed “progressive” Melissa Smith — 6357 to 3099.

5th Middlesex : incumbent moderate David Linsky walloped “progressive” Jaymin Patel, 9243 to 2341.

6th Norfolk : incumbent moderate William Galvin defeated “progressive” Tamisha Civil by 5866 to 3238.

10th Middlesex : incumbent John Lawn, one of the most conservative Democrats, beat back a more progressive Allison Leary 4060 to 3624.

14th Suffolk : open seat. moderate Rob Consalvo easily defeated “progressive” Gretchen Van Ness. 5484 to 3292. (there was a third candidate on the ballot. He drew 1488 votes.) Consalvo was supported by Governor Baker.

Consalvo’s big win might be more significant than for only his District. More about this below.

12th Suffolk : open seat. moderate Brenda Fluker Oakley bested two rivals, 4074 to 3144 and 2237.

12th Norfolk : moderate incumbent John Rogers defeated “progressive” Michael Dooley 6451 to 3001.

16th Suffolk : open seat — moderate Jessica Giannino defeated “progressive” Joe Gravallese by 3770 to 2396.

17th Suffolk : long-time incumbent Kevin G. Honan, a moderate, defeated “progressive” Jordan Meehan 4260 to 3598. (Meehan had help from Ayanna Pressley’s husband, Honan was supported by Governor baker.

24th Middlesex : incumbent Dave Rogers turned back “progressive” Jennifer Fries by 7540 to 5858.

35th Middlesex :” incumbent moderate Paul Donato defeated “progressive” Nichole Mossalam by 5227 to 4161.

Moderates did suffer one loss : Vann Howard defeated incumbent David Nangle in his long-held Lowell seat., But Nangle was beset by m any well-publicized ethics issues. Howard’s win may, however, equally be attributed to demographic change : she is of Cambodian origin in the State’s most Cambodian city. (Lowell now has two State Representatives of Cambodian origin, the other being moderate Rady Mom.)

Republican primary : voters nominated for US Senator the candidate by far more reasonable, Kevin O’Connor, over the clownish Shiva Ayyadurai, by 59 to 41 percent. Turnout exceeded 250,000.

Thus we see that a very large turnout aides moderate candidates generally. Progressives have long numbered about 22 percent of Massachusetts Democrats, and though 2018-19 saw them advance to many unlikely wins (Rachel Rollins over Greg Henning for Suffolk District Attorney being perhaps the most unlikely), voter preference momentum seems reverting to moderates.

I think much of this primary’s moderate triumph has Governor Baker as its impetus. Baker’s success managing our response to COVID-19 — and his cautious attention to his job, free of all the performative drama that seems to afflict most politicians these days — has won him the respect of almost 90 percent of Democratic primary voters (according to recent polls). Certainly that respect affected how Democratic primary voters approached the decision who to vote for for Congress and the state legislature. I think that the overwhelming majority of participant voters has had enough of drama, of “shaking things up,” of being treated as if they are benighted bigots. Nor can I overlook the non-union, even anti-union lean of upper-income progressives. Unions are the bulwark of ordinary workers’ advancement in life., The well off may not appreciate unions or relate easily to union people, but the average Democratic voter sure embraces them. As does Governor Baker.

Union-endorsed candidates had a very good day on September 1st. Much better a day than they had in 2018 and 2019 elections here in this State. Unions had no bigger win than Rob Consalvo’s in the 14th Suffolk. Almost every union in Boston that endorses at all endorsed Consalvo. Thus his win affects more people than only the voters of his District. And not only union members. Consalvo has spent the past few years as chief of staff for Boston Public Schools — appointed by Mayor Walsh, for whom he has worked since shortly after losing the 2013 Mayoral [primary (in which he placed fifth but won big in District Five, whose Councillor he had been. Consalvo is likely to be Walsh’s chief voice in the House, and as he defeated an opponent who was a member of the Ward 18 Committee slate pushed by Councillor Wu — who is now running for Mayor — and which defeated Consalvo’s Ward Committee slate back in March, his big win has implications for Wu right on her own home ground. Consalvo will be Wu’s Representative, after all; and Wu’s chief of staff, Dave Vittorini, was Consalvo’s chief of staff back when Consalvo was a Councillor.

This plot has not only thickened, it has hardened.

Will the moderates (and union endorsed) continue to win in November and on into 2021 and 2022 ? We will soon find out. The choice is clear : stability or instability. I know which one I will support for at least the next two election cycles.

— Mike Freedberg / Here and Sphere

How dare you ….. presume to know me ?

How dare you block streets and highways — which we all use — for your own selfish grievance ?

How dare you break the law and then try to justify it by pointing to some other breaking of the law ? What-about-ism ain’t a good look.

How dare you presume upon taxpayers’ money for your project that you cannot afford ?

How dare you, indeed.

How dare you presume which opinions merit being cancelled ? Who made you the judge of anyone else’s conscience ? Be careful that your opinion isn’t canceled next.

How dare you call for boycotting ? Do you not realize that a boycott hurts only the ordinary stiffs ?

How dare you invade somebody else’s personal space ? In restaurants. At their homes — sometimes at 6 am ? Do you not realize that violating people’s space is a good way to make them a sworn enemy of you and your smelly little orthodoxy ?

How dare you call yourself a queen ? A king ? America doesn’t have queens or kings. (gay slang excepted)

How dare you not be humble ?

How dare you not obey the Rule of Hillel the Elder : “whatever is hateful to thee, do not do to your fellow man. This is the whole Torah, the rest is explanation.”

How dare you oppose racism with racism ?

How dare you trample upon somebody else’s grass ? Green, or spiritual, all grass matters.

How dare you scream “f**k the police” and then call for police assistance when your own pride is invaded ?

How dare you judge anyone — anyone, and I do mean anyone — guilty on account of viral videos that always tell only part of the story ?

How dare you not honor the jury trial system ? It’;s in the Constitution !

How dare you swear to uphold and defend the Constitution, against ALL enemies, foreign and DOMESTIC, and then not do so ? Even support those who violate it ? how dare you do that ?

How dare you say “very fine people on both sides”when in fact there are few fine people on either side of a shitshow ?

How do you carry a rifle into a shitshow and not expect to get shat on? How dare you ?

How dare you not ask the question of yourself : how dare I ?

Answer every one of these questions humbly and without knowing that you are always fright — because chances are you are rarely right, and when you are right, you probably won’t realize it and might even think yourself wrong. Answer them before you set this column aside. You may even thank me.

— Mike Freedberg / Here and Sphere