The Collective Eats Its Young

Our Past’s Future

I want to talk with the people who were born on April 25th, 1983; it’s a very important date in history. My 10th birthday fell on that “perfect date”.¹ My readers who are older than me might find little value here, but they’re welcome in the conversation.

The anniversary yesterday, November 9th, 2026, marked 37 years since the Berlin Wall fell and its border crossings opened on November 9th, 1989.² I was 16 years old, while a person born on April 25th, 1983, was 6 years old — a Massachusetts child who could know James Earl Jones as the storyteller on the Boston station WGBH’s “Long Ago & Far Away”.³ I didn’t fully understand the fall of the Wall’s significance at the time. Pink Floyd, one of my favorite bands, returned to that moment in “A Great Day for Freedom”, on the 1994 album “The Division Bell”, looking beyond the celebration toward the disappointment that followed.⁴ I was 20 years old on the U.S. release date reported by The Washington Post, April 5th, 1994,⁵ while that younger person was 10 and could be discovering Boston’s Computer Clubhouse, founded in 1993 as a place for children to create computer projects.⁶

Pink Floyd had already released its masterpiece “The Wall” in the United States on December 8th, 1979.⁷ I was 6 years old, in the year I began attending St. Rose Elementary School in Chelsea, while that hypothetical person had yet to be born. Roger Waters, who conceived the album, later brought that personal wall to Berlin for a performance on July 21st, 1990.⁸ I was 17 years old on that Saturday, while the person born in 1983 was 7 — a Massachusetts child whose summer could revolve around a swimming lesson or a stack of library books. Sudbury’s recreation program that summer offered children aged 5 through 13 swimming lessons at the Atkinson Pool, along with games, sports, and crafts. The Goodnow Library in the same town ran a summer reading program.⁹ The album’s wall grew from personal wounds; the Berlin performance brought that image to a city divided by the state.

The year imagined by novelist George Orwell in “1984”, published in the United States on June 13th, 1949,¹⁰ still lay ahead on my 10th birthday. I was 11 years old when the film opened in the United States on December 14th, 1984,¹¹ while that person was 1 year old, a toddler dependent on adults for everyday care. Prince, the musician, offered another imagined future with his album “1999”, containing the song of the same name; the album’s U.S. release on October 27th, 1982,¹² came when I was 9 years old, still attending St. Rose, and that person hadn’t been born. “Back to the Future” opened in the United States on July 3rd, 1985,¹³ when I was 12 years old and that person was 2 years old, with kindergarten still ahead. Our past’s future is behind us now; even October 21st, 2015, the destination in “Back to the Future Part II”, arrived when I was 42 and that person was 32.¹⁴ The Pew Research Center found that 64 percent of American adults already owned a smartphone in late 2014.¹⁵ The cinema’s future had become a date in an electronic calendar.

September 11th, 2001, is a date that will always be etched in my memory.¹⁶ I was 28 years old and serving in the Massachusetts Army National Guard — I was driving to my Massachusetts real estate broker class at the American Real Estate Academy in Waltham when the news first broke across WBZ Radio 1030 — while that person was 18 years old and could still be sitting in a high school classroom or reporting to work. The United States Census Bureau (Census Bureau) found that 61 percent of 18- and 19-year-olds were enrolled in school that October; a shared age left room for different responsibilities.¹⁷

A lot has happened in the world since my 10th birthday… I’m hammering dates, by the way, because history is so important to the understanding of our world, and there are some life lessons that can’t be taught by textbooks. My birthday boundary opens a conversation about disparate experiences framed in worldviews shared by similar spaces; a shared date doesn’t supply a shared experience or assign your worldview to your birth certificate.

I’m an atheist right-libertarian, and the divide between my experience and much of the politics in TikTok videos of younger people today feels HUGE. I’m not here to admonish younger people in a “get off my lawn” kind of way; my purpose is to reach across that divide and explain the history that helped form my worldview. My legitimate fear — and it is fear — concerns the leaders who turn “belonging” into obedience while simultaneously treating young people as expendable in pursuit of more power.

The Individual’s Life

I attended St. Rose Elementary School in Chelsea, from 1979 to 1985. My mother believed in “God”; her wording always felt a bit silly because it felt so distant. I never believed in God, even as a child. My younger half-brother attended St. Paul’s in Hingham in the early 1990s. My half-brother and I have a shared experience in attending parochial schools, but different mothers and different worldviews due to our age difference.

The parish histories give those school names another connection. Anthony Laurano served at St. Rose Parish from 1961 to 1966, before I was born; the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston later listed him among clergy accused of sexually abusing minors and recorded his dismissal from the clerical state.¹⁸ My attendance came later, but the parish name belongs to both histories.

John Hanlon was pastor at St. Paul Parish during the early 1990s, the period when my half-brother attended the school.¹⁹ Hanlon faced charges in June 1992, when I was 19 and the person born in 1983 was 9. Cardinal Bernard Law, the Archbishop of Boston, defended Hanlon’s record after the charges, saying, “there is nothing in his record of priestly service which would lend credence to the charges”.²⁰ Hanlon was convicted in 1994 of raping a boy in 1980 and 1981, crimes committed elsewhere.²¹ The assurance from the top of the hierarchy belongs beside the trust placed in the parish priest.

My Catholic-school years were long past when the Boston Globe’s Spotlight report appeared on Sunday, January 6th, 2002.²² I was 28 and the person born in 1983 was 18, old enough to read that account of adult authority while beginning to make decisions about work or further education. Massachusetts Attorney General Thomas Reilly’s July 23rd, 2003, report found that leaders of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston had placed institutional reputation above protecting children from sexual abuse.²³ I was 30 and that person was 20, an age when a summer shift behind the window at J.J.’s Dairy Hut in Cohasset could occupy the day.²⁴ The United States Bureau of Labor Statistics found that more than half of Americans aged 16 to 24 were employed that July.²⁵ A young adult could be learning to answer for a day’s work while reading about leaders who’d put the institution ahead of a child’s safety. The deference that treats a priest as infallible can make a child’s word count for less than an institution’s reputation; a uniform, even a priest’s collar, gives authority no exemption from scrutiny.

Veterans Day is tomorrow, November 11th, 2026, two days after the anniversary of the Berlin Wall’s fall.²⁶ As a veteran, I’m noticing now that I became less enthralled with military hierarchy after moving from enlisted service into an officer’s role in the Massachusetts Army National Guard; my responsibility grew without a real change in my authority. I felt like a cog in the wheel, even as a First Lieutenant. I considered, on September 11th, 2001, going down to Ground Zero the following day to help with the search in an engineering capacity, but I doubted my ability to effect change and worried about being superfluous. I’ve never really loved “America” in a patriotic sense, but I don’t hate it either because the alternatives are bleak.

My distrust of distant authority makes me a “localist”: I want local government to take precedence over county government, county government over state government, and state government over the national government. I call myself a nationalist when the alternative is a one-world government or a supranational authority overriding a country. My order of preference describes where I want power to rest, with the individual before any government. The patriotism that offers “thoughts and prayers” feels empty to me, while jingoism turns allegiance into the appetite for confrontation that I abhor. A flag cannot relieve a person of the responsibility to judge the government’s conduct.

I voted for presidential candidate Ross Perot twice because of his use of data and statistics. I was 19 years old on the first of those Election Days, November 3rd, 1992,²⁷ while that person was 9 — old enough to mark a classroom mock ballot, too young to cast a vote that counted toward the presidency. The National Student/Parent Mock Election reported more than 174,000 student votes in Massachusetts that year. The League of Women Voters of Massachusetts and Boston Celtics player Dee Brown were among the supporters bringing that rehearsal of democracy to schoolchildren.²⁸ I was 23 years old on Election Day four years later, November 5th, 1996,²⁹ while that person was 13 and still too young to cast a presidential ballot.

I’ve learned to abhor all forms of collectivism because a person’s life isn’t the property of a group… The politics of Ron Paul, a former United States representative from Texas, helped the tenets of libertarianism fall into place in my brain; the connection brought me a sense of peace. I don’t regard libertarianism as a panacea, but it’s the closest ideological backbone to the natural world; it mimics life. My individualism concerns a person’s life in relation to a group, with independent judgment guiding self-directed action. A distinctive personality supplies individuality; individualism concerns the right to direct that person’s life.

Ayn Rand put the target into words in her July 5th, 1936, letter about her novel “We the Living”. Rand described the novel as “not merely an argument against Communism, but against all forms of collectivism, against any manner of sacrilege toward the Individual”.³⁰ My objection reaches that same claim of ownership: a group doesn’t acquire a human being by naming a collective purpose.

A group could protect early humans from predators that an isolated person might not survive. Erik Willems and Carel van Schaik, researchers in primate behavior, identify joint defense as a plausible part of our ancestors’ survival through comparisons with other primates.³¹ I recognize the survival benefit of acting collectively; protection, although important, gives a group no right to claim a person’s life and judgment as its property.

The natural world contains competition and cooperation, with individuals pursuing interests that can conflict with a group’s direction. A study of Bechstein’s bats found that conflicting information about roosts increased temporary group splitting in one of two wild colonies.³² Edwin van Leeuwen and his fellow researchers found that some chimpanzees retained learned choices despite a majority using another equally rewarding method; in a separate test, the researchers raised the alternative reward from one peanut to five, and the animals switched for the better payoff.³³ A life belongs to the individual who lives it; individualism is natural. A human being can reason beyond the demands of immediate survival and choose a purpose beyond the group’s needs. I see the path from surviving to thriving in that freedom to pursue a life of one’s own. A group that helps a person survive has served that life; a group that forbids a person to thrive has made survival a leash.

The Shrinking World

A person can seek a life beyond the people and ideas closest to home. The means of travel and communication expanded that choice. The surviving canoe from Pesse, in the Netherlands, dates to about 8250–7550 BC, while maritime crossings preceded that boat by millennia. Robert Carter, an archaeologist, interprets a painted disc from the H3 site in Kuwait as a boat with a mast, within a site setting in the sixth and fifth millennia BC. The evidence from Egypt places sailboats within the Naqada II period, about 3500–3200 BC; humanity’s first sailboat remains unidentified.³⁴

The writing preserved from Uruk in the later fourth millennium BC made information durable; a message could travel without its author, while paper and printing later multiplied the means of carrying information.³⁵ China’s printed “Diamond Sutra” bears a date in 868,³⁶ and Korea’s surviving “Jikji” volume demonstrates printing with metal movable type in July 1377.³⁷ The Bible printed by Johannes Gutenberg followed in Europe, probably in late 1455, within a history of printing that had already crossed centuries.³⁸

The written word still needed a carrier; the wheel, the road, and the canal changed the movement of people and goods. The animals that carried burdens and pulled vehicles supplied the muscle for much of that movement. A steamship brought an engine to that work and could move against a current without waiting for a favorable wind. The Stockton and Darlington Railway put steam power to work on land when it opened on September 27th, 1825. The Suez Canal opened on November 17th, 1869, shortening the sea route between Europe and Asia regardless of what powered the ship.³⁹

The Granite Railway brought that transport history close to Boston when it opened on October 7th, 1826. The railway’s horses hauled granite about 3 miles from the Quincy quarries to the Neponset River, where ships carried the blocks to Charlestown for the Bunker Hill Monument.⁴⁰ The railway’s importance lay in that connection: a quarry, a river, and a seaport became stages of one delivery route.

Telegraph Hill in South Boston puts an earlier stage of that acceleration close to home: Jonathan Grout’s 1801 optical system relayed shipping news from Martha’s Vineyard toward Boston. The signals passed between stations within sight of one another, leaving the hill’s name as a reminder of communication before the electric telegraph.⁴¹ Samuel Morse demonstrated a different carrier on May 24th, 1844, sending his Washington-to-Baltimore message through an electric wire. The cable that reached Heart’s Content, Newfoundland, on July 27th, 1866, carried that principle across the Atlantic. Alexander Graham Bell’s March 10th, 1876, telephone experiment then carried intelligible speech without its speaker sharing the listener’s room.⁴²

Karl Benz applied for his motorcar patent on January 29th, 1886, and the car eventually gave travelers another way to choose their route. Orville Wright and Wilbur Wright took powered travel into the air with their flights on December 17th, 1903, before passenger airlines turned flight into a service. The development of jet travel accelerated those journeys across continents, while container shipping made the transfer of goods between ships and land transport more efficient.⁴³

Guglielmo Marconi’s wireless experiments in 1895 helped open the way to radio, carrying a message beyond the wire. Marconi Beach in Wellfleet bears his name; the nearby station transmitted President Theodore Roosevelt’s message to Britain’s King Edward VII on January 18th, 1903.⁴⁴ The public exchange connected the American and British heads of state decades before anyone in this comparison had been born. The British Broadcasting Corporation inaugurated its television service on November 2nd, 1936, adding moving pictures to a voice that could enter a household. The Telstar satellite carried live television across the Atlantic in a public exchange on July 23rd, 1962.⁴⁵

The Advanced Research Projects Agency Network carried its first host-to-host message on October 29th, 1969, before anyone in this comparison was born. Tim Berners-Lee, a computer scientist, proposed the World Wide Web (the Web) in March 1989, and the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) released its Web software without royalties on April 30th, 1993.⁴⁶ I was 20 years old on that release date, with a presidential vote behind me, while the person born in 1983 was 10 and could still begin a school project with a visit to the library. The United States Census Bureau found that only 32 percent of American children aged 3 through 17 had access to a home computer in October 1993.⁴⁷ The Web’s release hadn’t put a computer on every child’s desk. The combination of computing, networking, and miniaturization eventually put a telephone, a library, and a map into a pocket. A person could look beyond the voices of a neighborhood, a school, or a party without leaving home.

I remember three computer labs at the University of Massachusetts Boston (UMass Boston). My memory includes a lab in the basement of a campus building. The screens in one of those labs displayed green text on a black background.⁴⁸ The other kids seemed to be playing “Doom”, I think, against each other on different computers. I also remember an intranet, and I think we were instructed to send email.

The campus newspaper, “The Mass Media”, listed computing facilities in Healey Library on September 8th, 1992.⁴⁹ The newspaper’s September 6th, 1994, workshop notice advertised network and email instruction, when I was 21 and the person born in 1983 was 11.⁵⁰ A campus terminal could put a student in contact with someone beyond Boston.

The closer the world gets, the less tribalism we need. A book, a train, and an internet connection depend on the work of other people, yet each offers a path beyond an inherited circle. We’ve entered a post-collectivist world; collectivism has outlived its usefulness. The continuing need for cooperation gives a group no entitlement to obedience, but that group always seems to chastise members who defect from its orthodoxy. A leader can still turn “belonging” into a demand for submission; obsolescence doesn’t seem to make a large institution disappear for years, decades, or millennia.

The Collective’s Claim

The Berlin Wall stood in a world that already had airplanes, telephones, and television. The capacity to cross a distance hadn’t defeated the political power to block travel. The crowds that reached the Bornholmer Strasse checkpoint on November 9th, 1989, pressed for passage until an officer raised the barrier.²

George Orwell examined partisan blindness in his 1945 essay “Notes on Nationalism”, describing loyalty to a chosen group as a threat to judgment. Orwell’s target reached beyond allegiance to a country and included the habit of judging an act by the identity of its perpetrator; his use of nationalism differs from my preference for authority closer to home.⁵¹ Orwell’s democratic socialism differs from my rejection of collectivism, but his account of that blindness reaches directly into my concern.⁵² The internet can carry a dissenting argument across the world and carry a demand for conformity along the same connection. The person reading still has to judge the argument.

Elon Musk, the entrepreneur, wouldn’t be where he is today if he’d succumbed to groupthink. Musk has described reasoning from first principles and seeking negative feedback, a combination that gives conviction something harder to face than applause.⁵³ The price of groupthink is the discovery that never happens because agreement matters more than independent judgment.

I understand the ideal of communism: one unit that survives together or dies together. The Borg in “Star Trek” give that ideal an image; my description of the bargain is “we must assimilate”.⁵⁴ The bargain leaves the individual no room to thrive beyond the collective’s purpose. The history of communist rule includes prison, murder, and starvation for people caught beneath that authority. A person is free to choose cooperation, but a group that claims priority over that person’s judgment offers the bargain of the Borg. A leader can offer belonging, then call a question disloyalty and treat departure as betrayal. The mission creep turns people into non-player characters, or NPCs, following somebody else’s script for the leader’s gain.

The history of collectivism has more names than communism. A ruler can claim supremacy through divine-right absolutism, confessional government, or clerical theocracy.⁵⁵ My rejection reaches the claim of supremacy, even when the authority changes its name.

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels published “The Communist Manifesto” in February 1848; their program has had 178 years to confront human nature.⁵⁶ The secret police under Soviet leader Joseph Stalin issued Order No. 00447 on July 30th, 1937, turning political categories into arrest and execution quotas.⁵⁷ The classification supplied the target; the secret police supplied the gun.

Mao Zedong, leader of the Chinese Communist Party, endorsed the Red Guards’ rebellion against designated class enemies in a letter dated August 1st, 1966.⁵⁸ Mao claimed responsibility for sending workers onto campuses in his July 28th, 1968, confrontation with Red Guard leaders,⁵⁹ then called for educated youth to undergo — wink — “re-education” in the countryside on December 22nd.⁶⁰ The broader program for resettling educated youth displaced roughly 16–17 million young people between 1968 and 1978.⁶¹ I hadn’t been born when Mao issued those directives, and neither had a person born on April 25th, 1983. Mao endorsed the Red Guards, then claimed the authority to redirect millions of educated young lives.

The Red Guards also turned classrooms into places of public accusation. Youqin Wang, a researcher, documented students humiliating, beating, and killing educators during the Cultural Revolution; the “struggle session” made a person the target of a collective verdict.⁶² A teacher who had stood before a class could find that class claiming the authority to punish.

Charlie Kirk, the founder of Turning Point USA, was shot and killed at Utah Valley University on September 10th, 2025, during an event where he took questions from the audience.⁶³ I was 52 and the person born in 1983 was 42. Jeffrey Gray, the Utah County attorney, charged Tyler Robinson with aggravated murder and alleged that Kirk was targeted for his political expression; the charge remains an allegation awaiting trial.⁶⁴ I see an eerie resemblance to the struggle session in the idea that a political opponent deserves punishment, even though Kirk was taking questions voluntarily and a gunman fired from a rooftop. The comparison follows the silencing of a person; a political dispute grants nobody ownership of a life.

Benito Mussolini founded the Fascist movement in Milan, Italy, on March 23rd, 1919, becoming fascism’s political progenitor. Mussolini’s movement became the National Fascist Party in 1921 and entered government in 1922. The Fascist state placed the nation above the individual and used state corporatism, much like modern-day America, to organize economic interests.⁶⁵

Adolf Hitler led Germany’s Nazi regime, which made ancestry a condition of belonging and rights. Hitler’s government made youth service compulsory for eligible children aged 10 to 18 through the March 25th, 1939, Youth Service Regulation, with exclusions shaped by the regime’s racial rules. Hitler’s suppression of competing youth organizations helped place children’s education under his movement’s authority. Hitler’s wartime militia included boys in their early teens during the final fighting in 1945, long before anyone in this comparison was born.⁶⁶ A hungry leader’s promise of a place in history could end with a child sent into battle.

A Divine Right to Kill

The leaders of movements throughout history have swallowed young people into their causes before discarding them, murdering them, or sending them out to be slaughtered in the name of an ideology. I’m writing for younger people being pulled into that political current. I see politicians hungry for power recruiting the young to inherit those ambitions. I fear the same pattern is coming here, to America and the Western world, unless society changes course in a dramatic fashion. Veterans Day honors service; a leader has to answer for the lives that service puts at risk.

A state can demand allegiance in God’s name; the Roman edict of 380 prescribed Nicene Christianity as imperial orthodoxy, a different act from the toleration of Christians in 311 and 313.⁶⁷ Muhammad, the prophet of Islam, migrated to Medina in 622 and led a community in which his prophetic leadership also carried political authority until his death in 632.⁶⁸ The hadith collection “Sahih al-Bukhari” records Muhammad endorsing the judgment of Sa’d bin Mu’adh, the chosen arbitrator, that the Banu Qurayza tribe’s warriors be killed and its women and children taken captive.⁶⁹ I call that societal savagery: the invocation of divine authority supplies no moral defense for taking children captive. Iran’s constitutional order after 1979 gives clerical theocracy a modern setting, with religious authority claiming supremacy in government.⁷⁰

In Afghanistan, the Taliban’s leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar, ordered the destruction of statues across the country, and the Taliban destroyed Bamiyan’s two standing Buddha statues in March 2001.⁷¹ I was 27 years old, while the person born in 1983 was 17 and could encounter the destruction as news before finishing high school. The Taliban’s religious verdict reached beyond the living, claiming authority over what later generations would be allowed to inherit.

The Massachusetts Bay Colony ordered Roger Williams’s banishment on October 9th, 1635, and Williams fled during the following winter. Plymouth Colony later directed his settlement at Seekonk beyond its jurisdiction; his search for a home crossed the boundaries of two colonies claiming religious authority before he founded Providence Plantations in 1636, on land in present-day Rhode Island.⁷² In many ways, I see Roger Williams as a New World libertarian.

Mary Dyer, a Quaker, paid for religious dissent with her life when Massachusetts Bay authorities hanged her in Boston on June 1st, 1660.⁷³ William Stoughton, the namesake of the town wherein I live with my family, presided over the court established for the Salem witch trials in 1692.⁷⁴ Massachusetts retained constitutional support for compulsory religious provision long after those trials, until its 1833 amendment ended that arrangement.⁷⁵

Power at Work

I’d support an economic system that worked better than capitalism, but I haven’t found a better alternative. Capitalism has survived because, in my judgment, it’s closer to human nature than any other offering tried over the millennia. The room to create, compete, and cooperate explains my allegiance. My defense of individualism, my primary tenet, has to reach the workplace. A corporation can swallow a person’s purpose, too; private ownership of a going concern supplies no exemption from my test.

Steve Jobs lost control of Macintosh management in 1985 and later resigned from Apple, the company he had helped create.⁷⁶ John Sculley, Apple’s chief executive at the time, described a competing pressure: delivering sales and profits for a public company.⁷⁷ Jobs described a board that sided against his vision, then left to build elsewhere; the group can harm the faceless name and swallow a founder’s purpose.

The Ames Shovel Company in North Easton, Massachusetts, brings the question of employer power close to home. The company provided housing and operated a store alongside the business that paid the workers’ wages.⁷⁸ The Easton Historical Society and Museum (the Society) dates the store to the 1820s; the entire town of Easton had only 1,803 residents in 1820.⁷⁹ The Society says employees weren’t required to shop there, but without another shop within reach, that permission would be an empty promise. Where else could a North Easton worker buy necessities in the store’s early years? My objection reaches beyond a rule requiring purchases: the employer who can also become a worker’s landlord and creditor holds more than a job over that person’s head. A company can call a choice voluntary while the price of leaving consumes the freedom to choose.

I love the idea of unions: workers choosing to bargain together when one person has little power against an employer. A mandated or required union is not “free cooperation” and a public union is anathema to the individual. A leader entrusted with members’ money has a duty to serve those members, but history prevails.

Henry Clay Green, Sr., the former secretary-treasurer of UNITE HERE Local 26 in Boston, embezzled more than $170,000 from the union for his own use. The union officials who confronted Green obtained his confession, and he pleaded guilty on December 1st, 2017, before receiving a six-month prison sentence on July 17th, 2018.⁸⁰ I was 45 years old at his sentencing, while the person born in 1983 was 35 years old, both adults in a state where union representation remained a smaller part of working life. The United States Bureau of Labor Statistics counted about 464,000 union members among Massachusetts wage and salary workers in 2018.⁸¹ Green, like other leaders, betrayed the members whose interests his office was supposed to protect.

The Human Cost of Belonging

Charles Manson, the cult leader, turned “belonging” into obedience with lethal consequences. The California Court of Appeal described Leslie Van Houten’s attraction to communal life and subsequent manipulation through isolation, dependence, and fear.⁸² Van Houten took part in the August 1969 murders, before anyone in this comparison was born; a leader’s influence doesn’t erase a follower’s responsibility for murder because an individual, and no one else, is always responsible for his or her own life.

The promise of absolution from personal responsibility makes communism and religion attractive. I’d love to be free of personal responsibility and have other people do things for me, but that’s not reality. My desire for relief doesn’t make another person responsible for my life.

The slippery slope from socialism to communism is a demand for deeper allegiance. Vladimir Lenin made that progression explicit by treating socialism as the lower phase of communist society.⁸³ The slope from devoutness to fanaticism steepens when devotion gives a leader unconditional obedience.

Jim Jones, leader of Peoples Temple, fused religious authority with socialist politics. On November 18th, 1978, the death toll at Jonestown in Guyana exceeded 900, including hundreds of children. I was 5 years old, still a child who needed adult protection, while the person born in 1983 had yet to be born. Jones presented the deaths as “revolutionary suicide”, but poisoning children wasn’t an act of their consent. Jones claimed the authority to decide that his followers and their children had to die.⁸⁴

Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), a terrorist organization, attacked the Yazidis around Sinjar on August 3rd, 2014, in a campaign that United Nations investigators identified as genocide.⁸⁵ I was 41 years old, and the person born in 1983 was 31 years old — adults in a smartphone era when news from Sinjar could reach a Massachusetts home on a phone. The Muslim Brotherhood is a distinct movement in Islamist politics with branches in multiple countries, including the Lebanese branch that the United States Department of State designated a foreign terrorist organization on January 13th, 2026. The United States Department of the Treasury designated the Egyptian and Jordanian branches specially designated global terrorists that day, citing support for the terrorist organization Hamas.⁸⁶ An individual doesn’t inherit guilt for a movement’s actions through a religious label; in layman’s terms, Muslims aren’t a monolith.

The Limits of Institutional Power

My concern about collective authority also shapes my reading of Poland’s confrontation over the Constitutional Tribunal on October 30th–31st, 2026, with President Karol Nawrocki and Prime Minister Donald Tusk each claiming lawful authority.⁸⁷ Mateusz Morawiecki, Poland’s former prime minister, condemned a forcible takeover in his October 30th post on X.⁸⁸ Ewa Zajączkowska-Hernik, a Polish member of the European Parliament, went further on November 2nd, alleging an anti-Polish agreement between Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission (the Commission), and Tusk.⁸⁹

Bloomberg reported on November 5th that von der Leyen withdrew from a news conference with Nawrocki in a gesture of support for Tusk.⁹⁰ Von der Leyen had participated in earlier summit talks and greetings; her absence concerned the joint press conference. The Commission’s chief spokesperson Paula Pinho attributed the absence to scheduling, saying that the arrangement had been communicated before Poland’s confrontation.⁹¹ I read the missed press conference as a political signal, because sharing a platform can confer legitimacy as surely as a statement of support. I believe the European Union (EU) under von der Leyen is behind a coup d’état in Poland. Ursula is also the name of Disney’s nasty sea witch, although a shared name is the least of my objections.⁹² The EU and a national government owe the individual the same restraint; a flag supplies no guarantee of individual rights, especially when a leader flying that flag wasn’t directly elected by the public, as with von der Leyen, whom the European Parliament elected.⁹³

I understand the plight of people whose labor serves somebody else’s power. The histories of peasants include freedom as well as bondage; the label alone doesn’t establish a condition of servitude. The circumstances of serfs, villeins, and helots varied across systems of subordination. The contracts binding indentured servants differed from the ownership imposed on enslaved people, but both histories concern control over a human life.⁹⁴ I’m, for one, a “wage slave”.

The government’s student-loan program gives that argument a concrete point of pressure. The United States Congress gave the government the power to collect defaulted student debt through administrative wage garnishment of up to 15 percent of disposable pay, subject to notice and hearing protections.⁹⁵ The United States Department of Education announced a delay in involuntary collections in January 2026; the statutory power remains.⁹⁶ A borrower seeking bankruptcy relief for covered education debt must establish undue hardship, a barrier that doesn’t ordinarily apply to unsecured debt.⁹⁷ The government has endorsed the idea of higher education through legislation but has unwittingly, in my opinion, turned some American citizens into “wage slaves” through its student-loan program.

The women’s-studies recruitment posters at the University of Massachusetts Boston (UMass Boston) caught my eye around 1992. I was 18 or 19 if that was 1992, while the person born in 1983 was 8 or 9 and could be heading to a puppet workshop or a book talk at the Boston Public Library, whose report for 1991–1992 described both activities.⁹⁸ I laughed because the idea of the subject sounded ridiculous. The UMass Boston archives record a longer institutional history behind those posters, dating its concentration to fall 1973 and its major and minor to fall 1989.⁹⁹ Pamela Annas, who taught at UMass Boston, recalled a political association with history professor David Hunt: “We had a group called the Socialist Column, which David Hunt brought me into”. Annas also described her classroom work: a feminist-writing course she developed in the early 1980s, cross-listed in English and women’s studies.¹⁰⁰ I firmly regard women’s studies as a communist breeding ground.

The Managed Life

The socialist presence in Massachusetts extends from organizations into elected office. Boston Democratic Socialists of America (Boston DSA), a chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), declares its aim to abolish capitalism; the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) maintains a Massachusetts organization and publishes contributions from its members in Western Massachusetts.¹⁰¹ State Representative Erika Uyterhoeven of Somerville describes herself as a democratic socialist.¹⁰² Cambridge City Councillor Jivan Sobrinho-Wheeler is identified by Boston DSA as a socialist and a member.¹⁰³ The labels already have a place in the politics of my home state.

The Democratic Party has made its orthodoxy another demand for collective allegiance. I call its orthodoxy around lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, and asexual identities (LGBTQIA+) a “religion” because it treats political claims as articles of faith and the Unitarian Universalist sect makes that claim concrete.¹⁰⁴ I regard that orthodoxy and its promise of “equity” as thin veils of communism.

Ayanna Pressley, the United States representative for Massachusetts’s Seventh District, gives equity a voice in Congress. Pressley defined it as “fair access to opportunities” during a September 10th, 2025, committee hearing.¹⁰⁵ Her Equity in Government Act would require equity goals in agency plans and establish advisory teams within federal agencies.¹⁰⁶ The proposal would give that promise a continuing role in the machinery of government. I want the individual protected from discrimination; a promise of fairness doesn’t entitle government to decide what a person deserves by group.

Elizabeth Warren, a United States senator from Massachusetts, takes her “progressivism” into the boardroom. Warren defended a progressive economic agenda in remarks prepared for the National Press Club on January 12th, 2026, rejecting a retreat to please wealthy donors.¹⁰⁷ Her proposed Accountable Capitalism Act would require federal charters for corporations with more than $1 billion in annual revenue and require employees to select at least 40 percent of their directors.¹⁰⁸ I’ve already objected to a board swallowing its founder; Warren would answer corporate power with a mandate from Washington. I don’t trust political management to become individual freedom merely because its advocates call it progress.

Kamala Harris, the Democratic vice-presidential nominee, discussed support for people starting from different positions and their ability to compete on equal footing in her November 1st, 2020, campaign video, then said, “Equitable treatment means we all end up at the same place”.¹⁰⁹ I was 47 years old and the person born in 1983 was 37 years old, both well past the minimum voting age. My objection falls on the promised destination: a political authority setting an outcome for everybody places individual choices beneath its design. The ambition to manage everyone’s destination is another thin veil of communism. I won’t accept “equity” as a cudgel against straight White men; equal rights leave room for people to choose different purposes and reach different results.

The Small Business Administration (SBA) gave that language a test in its Restaurant Revitalization Fund. Isabella Casillas Guzman, the SBA administrator, said in the agency’s April 28th, 2021, announcement, “And we are committed to equity…”, explaining the aim of reaching smaller and underserved businesses.¹¹⁰ The program gave 21 days of priority to restaurants at least 51 percent owned and controlled by women, veterans, or people qualifying as socially and economically disadvantaged. Antonio Vitolo, a White restaurant owner, and his Hispanic wife each owned half of Jake’s Bar and Grill; their equal ownership left the business outside automatic priority based on race or sex. A divided panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, on May 27th, 2021, enjoined the use of race and sex to put his application behind others, while leaving the preference for veterans intact.¹¹¹ I was 48 years old and the person born in 1983 was 38, both old enough to be running a business whose survival depended on the order of that queue. My objection has a name and a consequence: the government used identity to decide which struggling business owner had to wait.

Ayn Rand wrote in “Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal”: “The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights, cannot claim to be defenders of minorities”.¹¹² The communist who claims to defend an oppressed class while denying its members the right to dissent has already abandoned the people behind the label. A system that imprisons people for dissent has no business preaching liberation.

Russell Brand, the British comedian and commentator, was sentenced on November 9th, 2026, to 10 years and 6 months in prison after convictions for rape and sexual assault.¹¹³ I regard his prosecution as politically motivated, part of what I see as the United Kingdom’s rapid descent toward communism. His individuality is one thing; my political concern is the freedom to exercise independent judgment, including judgment that infuriates the people in power.

Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), leads a union with political commitments of its own. The AFT’s delegates ratified an endorsement of Harris on July 22nd, 2024,¹¹⁴ while Weingarten’s 2021 speech about teaching advocated civics work that paired policy advocacy with the aim of students reaching their own conclusions — a promise of independence I regard as nonsense.¹¹⁵ I believe the lessons of history are being obfuscated by a cadre of high school teachers with a growing leftist bent. I regard Weingarten’s political leadership as part of that problem. A classroom that trains children to repeat a party line is a recruiting office, making me want to scream Pink Floyd’s line from “Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2”: “Hey, teacher! Leave them kids alone!”¹¹⁶

The Lessons Inherited

The Democratic Socialist Labor Commission and the Young Democratic Socialists of America spell out a strategy for workplace and union organizing in “Why Socialists Should Become Teachers”.¹¹⁷ Derek R. Ford, an education scholar, develops a communist approach to education itself in “Communist Study: Education for the Commons”, issued in a second edition on January 15th, 2022.¹¹⁸ Ford’s “Encountering Education: Elements for a Marxist Pedagogy”, published that spring, makes the political destination explicit by connecting educational practice with establishing the “dictatorship of the proletariat”.¹¹⁹

Stoughton High School had brought the argument about achievement close to home before the television discussion that brought me back to this subject. The school stopped reporting each student’s rank as a number for the 2026–2027 school year, a change reported on September 30th and documented in the Stoughton School Committee’s October 13th packet.¹²⁰ I was 53 and the person born in 1983 was 43, adults watching a school change how it described a student’s place in the class. The school cited stress and competition among its reasons while retaining grades, transcripts, and graduation honors. The performance still counted; the exact position within the class disappeared from the report.

Bill Maher, host of “Real Time with Bill Maher”, brought my concern about history and schools back into focus during his November 6th, 2026, discussion with writer Coleman Hughes on the show’s “Overtime” segment. Maher and Hughes discussed socialism, communism, and school accountability.¹²¹ The 2022 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) found that 40 percent of eighth-graders scored below its Basic level in United States history; the result measures achievement without identifying its cause.¹²² Gallup’s 2026 survey offers a different measure: 57 percent of adults aged 18 to 34 viewed socialism favorably, a result about that label rather than a measure of support for communism.¹²³ George Santayana, the philosopher, supplies the warning: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”.¹²⁴

My objection follows the demand for obedience across party lines; President Donald Trump’s Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement has swallowed people who put loyalty to its leader above their own judgment. Greg Jacob, who served as counsel to Vice President Mike Pence, testified about President Trump’s pressure on Pence over the January 6th, 2021, electoral count and Pence’s refusal to change his position.¹²⁵ The demand that Pence surrender his judgment is the danger, even though Pence refused; a leader can generate hysteria without winning every act of submission.

Trump’s reaction to the November 3rd, 2026, midterm losses put that demand for loyalty on display. Trump called Texas Governor Greg Abbott “an exceptional Governor and man” that morning. That night, Trump claimed that his presence on the ballot would have produced a landslide, then blamed Abbott’s reported defeat on becoming a “RINO”, a Republican in name only, and blamed Fox News for airing the opposition.¹²⁶ I see a leader who claims the victories and makes somebody else’s disloyalty explain the defeats. The leader’s tantrum becomes the follower’s explanation; my concern reaches the first lessons a child learns about authority.

A Life of Your Own

I suspect that some children understood the September 11th attacks through the logic of parental punishment: America must have done something wrong. The mistaken logic is familiar: punishment follows wrongdoing, so an attack must be punishment. Al-Qaeda’s murderers didn’t acquire moral authority by attacking America. National Students for Justice in Palestine, a campus activist organization, called the October 7th, 2023, attack led by the terrorist organization Hamas a “historic win for the Palestinian resistance” in its “Day of Resistance Toolkit”.¹²⁷ I was 50 and the person born in 1983 was 40, old enough to see the difference between defending a people and cheering an atrocity.

I refused to lump an individual into a group when libertarianism first took hold in my thinking, because no group is a monolith. My attraction to Ross Perot’s data and my defense of individual judgment meet here: collective statistics can reveal a pattern without assigning it to every person. I can distinguish “some Black mothers” from “Black mothers” and still find myself called racist or sexist, but that’s okay with me because I lead with data and statistics.

I would defend the First, Second, and Fourth Amendment rights of people whose politics oppose mine, including their speech and religious liberty, their right to keep and bear arms, and their protection against unreasonable searches and seizures, but I can see that many collectivists see past them as nothing but old words scribbled on older paper.¹²⁸ The Fourth Amendment’s protection of private papers matters to me because a person’s private life cannot belong to government by default. My political ideal extends to private transactions — they’re of paramount importance — without government interference.

I honestly fear that my three daughters could become victims of neo-communism… My oldest daughter is thriving in school and in her dancing, signing, and performing lives; she works so hard, but she’s got such a good attitude. My two youngest daughters, born in 2019 and 2020, are just budding into life. The freedom I want for my daughters has to include the freedom to reject my politics. I love all three of them more than you could imagine.

Miss Rhode Island chose April 25th in “Miss Congeniality”, and Roger Williams found a home in Providence, which means “divine care”, and I believe, like the Sikhs, that we are all divine individuals.¹²⁹ I didn’t understand the Berlin Wall’s significance at 16 years old. I now see a difference between a community that earns allegiance and a state that keeps people from leaving. My daughters deserve the freedom to choose a purpose, and I want to make that case to other parents, including those who reject my politics. A cause has to earn your allegiance; it has no ownership of your life.

Source Notes

1. April 25th / Miss Congeniality. In Miss Congeniality (2000), Cheryl Frasier identifies April 25th as her perfect date. ABC News, “’Miss Congeniality’ stars Heather Burns and more celebrate ‘April 25’ day”. ↩︎
2. Berlin Wall border opening. Border crossings opened on November 9th, 1989; removal of the city-center Wall continued in 1990. State of Berlin, “Opening and Fall of the Berlin Wall”. ↩︎2 ↩︎
3. WGBH’s Long Ago & Far Away. GBH’s history dates the James Earl Jones storytelling series to January 1989. GBH in the 1980s. ↩︎
4. A Great Day for Freedom. David Gilmour linked the song’s subject to hope at the Berlin Wall’s fall and subsequent disappointment in Eastern Europe. The song appears on The Division Bell. Gilmour’s Guitar World Interview; Pink Floyd Album Record. ↩︎
5. The Division Bell: U.S. album release. Contemporary U.S. coverage gives April 5th, 1994; Pink Floyd’s archived timeline gives April 4th in the United States and March 28th in Britain. The conflicting U.S. dates remain unresolved. Los Angeles Times, April 5th, 1994; Washington Post, March 16th, 1994; Pink Floyd’s 1994 Chronology. ↩︎
6. Boston’s Computer Clubhouse. The Computer Museum and Mitchel Resnick of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology established the program in 1993. Janet Littell’s 1997 account describes children directing computing projects; the essay supplies a possible childhood setting, not a particular person’s attendance. MIT News, September 17th, 1997. ↩︎
7. The Wall: studio album. Pink Floyd’s chronology gives December 8th, 1979, for the U.S. release and November 30th for Britain. The band describes an autobiographical conception involving personal wounds and alienation. The later Berlin performance supplies a separate historical connection. Pink Floyd’s 1979 Chronology; The Band’s Album Account. ↩︎
8. The Wall: Berlin performance. Roger Waters led the Berlin benefit performance on July 21st, 1990. The event is distinct from the studio album and subsequent live recording. Getty Event Caption; The Scorpions’ Participant Account. ↩︎
9. Sudbury summer 1990 and library program. Sudbury’s annual report describes swimming lessons at Atkinson Pool and recreation programs for children; Goodnow Library records a summer reading program. These document local opportunities, without establishing any individual child’s participation. Sudbury 1990 Annual Town Report. ↩︎
10. Nineteen Eighty-Four: novel. The U.S. publication date is June 13th, 1949. Cambridge University Press Chronology; First-Edition Catalogue. ↩︎
11. Nineteen Eighty-Four: film. The film’s U.S. opening was December 14th, 1984. Box Office Mojo Release Record; British Film Database. ↩︎
12. Prince’s 1999 album. Prince’s official discography establishes the 1982 album and title track; licensed Apple Music album metadata gives October 27th, 1982, for the album. This is not the separate single’s release date. Prince Official Discography; Apple Music Album Record. ↩︎
13. Back to the Future. The first film opened on July 3rd, 1985. Official Film Record. ↩︎
14. Back to the Future Part II. October 21st, 2015, is the sequel’s fictional future destination. It is distinct from either film’s release date. Universal Pictures Home Entertainment Announcement. ↩︎
15. U.S. smartphone ownership. Pew reported that 64% of U.S. adults owned a smartphone in late 2014; the survey appendix identifies the interview windows. Pew Chapter; Survey Dates/Method. ↩︎
16. September 11th attacks. The attacks occurred September 11th, 2001; Jonathan’s memory and National Guard experience provide personal testimony. National September 11 Memorial & Museum FAQ. ↩︎
17. School enrollment in 2001. Census October 2001 data show nearly all 7–9-year-olds enrolled, compared with 61% of 18–19-year-olds. This describes groups, not the circumstances of a hypothetical individual. U.S. Census Bureau Table. ↩︎
18. St. Rose parish and Anthony Laurano. The Archdiocese’s public record lists Laurano at St. Rose, Chelsea, from February 14th, 1961, to June 6th, 1966, and records his 2007 dismissal. This is a parish connection before Jonathan’s attendance, not evidence of school employment, contact with Jonathan, or a St. Rose school-specific offense. Archdiocesan record; The Pilot on dismissal and pending charges. ↩︎
19. St. Paul’s school, parish, and John Hanlon. The school identifies its parish relationship, and both contemporary accounts and the Archdiocese place Hanlon at the parish in the early 1990s. The Archdiocese’s 1978 assignment start conflicts with contemporary and appellate accounts placing his arrival in 1985; administrative leave began in June 1992, so a formal 1993 end date doesn’t prove uninterrupted ministry. School history; Archdiocesan assignments. Contemporary arrival account; Appellate account. ↩︎
20. Law’s defense of Hanlon. Victoria Benning’s June 26th, 1992 Boston Globe report records the indictment that Monday, arraignment on Thursday, administrative leave, and Law’s quoted statement. BishopAccountability preserves the newspaper text; the statement establishes Law’s public assurance, not its truth. Victoria Benning, “Clergy Answer Charges: Hingham Priest Pleads Innocent to Boy’s Rape,” The Boston Globe, June 26th, 1992, preserved by BishopAccountability. ↩︎
21. Hanlon’s conviction. The Massachusetts Appeals Court’s May 21st, 1998 opinion describes the 1994 convictions and the charged 1980–1981 assaults at a cottage in Scituate. Those events aren’t school-specific offenses at St. Paul’s; no contact with Jonathan’s half-brother is asserted. Commonwealth v. Hanlon, 44 Mass. App. Ct. 810, 810, 812 (1998), opinion reproduced by Syfert. ↩︎
22. Boston Globe Spotlight. The January 6th, 2002, report documented the Archdiocese’s reassignment of John Geoghan despite known allegations. It dates a public report, not the first abuse or disclosure. Boston Globe, “Church Allowed Abuse by Priest for Years”. ↩︎
23. Massachusetts Attorney General report. The July 23rd, 2003, investigation found Archdiocesan leaders prioritized reputation over protecting children; its findings are not convictions of senior management. Massachusetts Attorney General, The Sexual Abuse of Children in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston, July 23rd, 2003, opening letter. ↩︎
24. J.J.’s Dairy Hut. The business dates its Cohasset establishment to 1956. Jonathan selected the stand as a possible summer-work setting; the passage doesn’t claim that he or the hypothetical person worked there. Business history. ↩︎
25. Youth employment. In July 2003, 58.3% of the U.S. civilian noninstitutional population aged 16–24 was employed; retail and leisure/hospitality included possible counter-service settings. The figures describe employment patterns and possible job settings. BLS, Employment and Unemployment Among Youth, Summer 2003. ↩︎
26. Veterans Day. Veterans Affairs records the observance on November 11th. U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, “History of Veterans Day,” updated June 10th, 2024. ↩︎
27. The 1992 presidential election. The Federal Election Commission dates the general election to November 3rd, 1992, and records Perot’s candidacy. Federal Elections 92. ↩︎
28. 1992 Massachusetts mock election. The National Student/Parent Mock Election reported more than 174,000 student votes in Massachusetts; the League of Women Voters and Dee Brown were among supporters. The report documents the statewide vote total and its supporters; it does not establish that any particular student cast a ballot. Congressional Record, April 25th, 1994, pp. 8438–8439. ↩︎
29. The 1996 presidential election. The Clerk of the House records the election on November 5th, 1996. Official Presidential and Congressional Election Statistics. ↩︎
30. Ayn Rand’s July 5th, 1936, letter. Rand’s letter describes We the Living as opposing communism and every form of collectivism. Ayn Rand Institute Reproduction and Context. ↩︎
31. Joint defense inference. Comparative primate responses support the inference that joint defense may have contributed to Homo ergaster social organization. This is an inference from present-day primates, not direct observation of ancestral human society. Erik P. Willems and Carel P. van Schaik, “The Social Organization of Homo ergaster: Inferences from Anti-Predator Responses in Extant Primates,” Journal of Human Evolution 109 (August 2017), 11–21, published online June 7th, 2017; PubMed Record. ↩︎
32. Bechstein’s bats. Conflicting information about roost suitability increased temporary group splitting in one of two wild colonies. The effect varied between colonies and does not measure human political individualism. Gerald Kerth, Cornelia Ebert, and Christine Schmidtke, “Group Decision Making in Fission–Fusion Societies,” Proceedings of the Royal Society B, published online July 25th, 2006, issue November 7th, 2006. ↩︎
33. Chimpanzee choices. With equally rewarded alternatives, five analyzed minority subjects generally retained a trained token-exchange strategy despite seeing more demonstrations of the majority alternative; a separate test increased an alternative reward from one peanut to five and produced switching. The two experiments had different reward conditions. Edwin van Leeuwen et al., “Chimpanzees Flexibly Adjust Their Behaviour in Order to Maximize Payoffs, Not to Conform to Majorities,” PLOS ONE 8, no. 11, e80945, November 27th, 2013; DOI 10.1371/journal.pone.0080945. ↩︎
34. Boats and navigation. Early Sahul crossings imply water travel but no identified first boat; the surviving Pesse canoe dates circa 8250–7550 BC; H3 evidence is an interpretation of a mast-bearing boat; Egyptian sailboat evidence is assigned to Naqada II, circa 3500–3200 BC. Michael I. Bird et al., “Early Human Settlement of Sahul Was Not an Accident,” Scientific Reports 9, 8220, June 17th, 2019; Drents Museum, Pesse canoe collection record, undated webpage; Robert Carter, “Boat Remains and Maritime Trade in the Persian Gulf during the Sixth and Fifth Millennia BC,” Antiquity 80, no. 307 (2006), 52–63; Samuel Mark, “The Earliest Sailboats in Egypt and Their Influence on the Development of Trade, Seafaring in the Red Sea, and State Development,” Journal of Ancient Egyptian Interconnections 5, no. 1 (March 2013), 28–37. ↩︎
35. Writing and paper. The Metropolitan Museum describes early writing at Uruk and the durable transmission of information. The Library of Congress describes paper as a writing surface and a material necessary for printing. Metropolitan Museum, “The Origins of Writing”; Library of Congress, “The History of Printing in Asia According to Library of Congress Asian Collections – Part 1”. ↩︎
36. The Diamond Sutra. The printed scroll carries a colophon dated in 868. International Dunhuang Programme. ↩︎
37. Jikji. The surviving second volume was printed with metal movable type in July 1377. UNESCO’s Jikji Record. ↩︎
38. The Gutenberg Bible. The Library of Congress dates the Bible probably to late 1455. Library of Congress Exhibition. ↩︎
39. Wheels, pack animals, steam transport, rail, and canal. Archaeological evidence supports early wheeled vehicles; donkey load use is evidenced around 3000 BC; Fulton’s regular commercial steamboat line began in 1807; Stockton and Darlington Railway opened September 27th, 1825; Suez Canal opened November 17th, 1869. Wheeled Vehicles Study; Donkey Research; Smithsonian on Steamboats; Railway History; Suez Canal Authority History. ↩︎
40. The Granite Railway. National Park Service documentation dates the opening to October 7th, 1826. Its account of the Bunker Hill Monument describes granite moving roughly 3 miles by horse-drawn railway from Quincy to the Neponset River, then by ship to Charlestown. The commercial achievement was the heavy-freight connection between quarry and coastal shipping. Earlier American tramroads make an unqualified first-railway claim too broad. National Park Service, monument construction; National Register documentation; Library of Congress railway history. ↩︎
41. Telegraph Hill, South Boston. The National Park Service’s Dorchester Heights cultural landscape report identifies operators on the summit in Jonathan Grout’s 1801 optical semaphore network carrying maritime news from Martha’s Vineyard to Boston. The report does not establish the form of a tower at Dorchester Heights; this is distinct from the later signaling history of Telegraph Hill in Hull. National Park Service, Cultural Landscape Report for Dorchester Heights/Thomas Park at Boston National Historical Park, volume I (2020), 136, note 11. ↩︎
42. Telegraph and telephone. Morse demonstrated the Washington–Baltimore telegraph May 24th, 1844; the Atlantic cable reached Heart’s Content July 27th, 1866; Bell’s March 10th, 1876, experiment carried intelligible speech between rooms. Library of Congress, First Telegraphic Message; IET Transatlantic Cable Archive; Library of Congress Bell Papers. ↩︎
43. Motorcar, flight, jet service, and container shipping. Benz filed the motorcar patent January 29th, 1886; the Wright flights occurred December 17th, 1903; BOAC Comet passenger service began May 2nd, 1952; the Ideal-X voyage in 1956 was a container-shipping milestone. Mercedes-Benz Archive; National Park Service First Flight; RAF Museum Comet; Smithsonian Container History. ↩︎
44. Marconi Beach and the Wellfleet station. The National Park Service identifies the beach’s namesake and the station on the nearby bluffs. Its station history dates the public Roosevelt–Edward VII wireless exchange to January 18th, 1903; the detailed history distinguishes earlier transatlantic tests from this public exchange. National Park Service Marconi Beach; National Park Service Marconi Station Site. ↩︎
45. Radio, television, and satellite. Marconi’s 1895 experiments; BBC television service inaugurated November 2nd, 1936; Telstar enabled a live transatlantic television exchange July 23rd, 1962. Museo Marconi; BBC 1930s History; NASA Telstar Chronology. ↩︎
46. ARPANET, Web, and CERN release. ARPANET’s first host-to-host message was October 29th, 1969; Berners-Lee proposed the Web in March 1989; CERN released Web software royalty-free April 30th, 1993. SRI ARPANET History; CERN Web History. ↩︎
47. Home-computer access in October 1993. Census reported home-computer access for 32 percent of U.S. children aged three through seventeen in October 1993. The retrospective report was issued in October 2005; 2003 in its title identifies its main survey period. Census Bureau, Computer and Internet Use in the United States: 2003. ↩︎
48. The remembered labs, displays, and game. Jonathan remembers three labs, one below ground and one with green text on black screens; he has not identified these as the same room. The October 4th, 1994 Mass Media, printed page 9, lists several DOS, Macintosh, and VAX facilities in Healey Library. Its named Green lab was a DOS facility; the screen color does not identify that room. Digital Equipment Corporation’s January 1992 VT420 Service Guide lists green-screen terminals, while IBM’s 1981 technical reference also documents a green-display PC monitor. Neither manufacturer record identifies Jonathan’s equipment. His tentative Doom identification would place the game scene on or after its December 10th, 1993 release, within the later part of his June 1992–December 1997 window. Lab schedule; DEC guide, printed page 58; IBM technical reference, printed page 2-43; Bethesda release retrospective. ↩︎
49. The campus computing setting. The September 8th, 1992 Mass Media, printed page 4, identifies DOS, Macintosh, and VAX facilities on Healey Library’s Upper Level. These are three computing environments, not a count or identification of Jonathan’s remembered rooms. Jen Rozler’s October 10th, 1996 article directs students down from the second-floor catwalk to that level, but this does not identify his basement lab. The August 28th, 1997 notice also offers VAX/email instruction. September 1992 notice; October 1996 directions, printed page 14; August 1997 notice, printed page 12. ↩︎
50. UMass Boston computing instruction. The September 6th, 1994 Mass Media, printed page 19, advertises local-area-network, VAX, and Internet workshops, including email instruction. The 1992–1994 catalog describes public labs and the campus Internet connection; these establish a contemporary environment without identifying Jonathan’s particular class. Newspaper page; University catalog. ↩︎
51. George Orwell’s Notes on Nationalism. The 1945 essay examines allegiance to chosen groups and partisan distortion of judgment. Orwell Foundation Text. ↩︎
52. George Orwell’s Why I Write. The essay, published in Gangrel in summer 1946, identifies opposition to totalitarianism and support for democratic socialism as aims of Orwell’s political writing. Orwell Foundation Text. ↩︎
53. Musk’s public method. A TED report records Musk advising first-principles reasoning and attention to negative feedback. These remarks describe a method without establishing that he consistently follows it. Helen Walters, “Transforming transportation: Elon Musk at TED2013,” TED Blog, February 27th, 2013. ↩︎
54. The Borg. Star Trek’s fictional Borg demand assimilation. Jeff Terich, “A Field Guide to Alien Greetings,” StarTrek.com, November 21st, 2023. ↩︎
55. Divine-right absolutism. Bossuet’s account supplies a primary example of royal authority presented as sacred. The essay’s classification of such authority as collectivism is its political interpretation. Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet, Politics Drawn from the Very Words of the Holy Scripture (1709), excerpt in James Harvey Robinson, ed., Readings in European History, volume 2 (1906), 273–277. ↩︎
56. Communist Manifesto. Marx and Engels’ Manifesto first appeared in February 1848. Marx–Engels Archive; Prefaces. ↩︎
57. NKVD Order No. 00447. Yezhov signed the July 30th, 1937, order; a scholarly account dates the operation from August 5th, 1937, to November 17th, 1938, and distinguishes planned quotas from realized executions. Order Translation Reproduction; Nicolas Werth, “The NKVD Mass Secret Operation n°00447 (August 1937 – November 1938),” Mass Violence & Résistance, May 24th, 2010, section A, paragraph beginning “Ukraine had a quota,” and section C, paragraphs 1–2. ↩︎
58. Mao’s August 1st, 1966, letter. Mao endorsed the Red Guards’ rebellion in this letter. Translated Letter. ↩︎
59. Mao’s July 28th, 1968, dialogue. The dialogue records Mao’s intervention with Red Guard leaders and his responsibility for sending workers onto campuses. Translated Dialogue. ↩︎
60. Mao’s December 22nd, 1968, directive. The directive called for educated youth to receive re-education in the countryside. Translated Directive. ↩︎
61. The sent-down youth program. The estimate of roughly sixteen to seventeen million concerns the broader 1968–1978 resettlement program; it is not a count of Red Guards killed. Alexander Lee, Weihong Qi, and Dehua Sun, “State mobilization and political attitudes: the legacy of maoist rural resettlement in contemporary China,” Political Science Research and Methods 14, no. 4 (October 2026), 1306–1325; published online November 12th, 2025. ↩︎
62. Red Guards and attacks on educators. Youqin Wang’s research draws on interviews concerning 96 schools and documents public humiliation, beatings, and killings in 1966. The historical collective is normally called the Red Guards; Red Guard also functions as an attributive form. Youqin Wang, “Student Attacks Against Teachers: The Revolution of 1966,” Issues & Studies 37, no. 2 (March/April 2001), abstract and PDF page 2. ↩︎
63. Charlie Kirk’s killing. The FBI identifies September 10th, 2025, as the date of the fatal shooting at Utah Valley University in Orem. The prosecutor’s charging document describes the question-and-answer event and the rooftop firing position; the essay’s comparison with struggle sessions is Jonathan’s analogy, not a claim of organizational continuity or a literal forced confession. FBI Salt Lake City, “Reward of Up to $100,000 for Information Leading to the Identification, Arrest of Individual(s) in Murder of Charlie Kirk,” September 11th, 2025; Utah County Attorney’s Office, Information, State of Utah v. Tyler James Robinson, authorized for filing September 16th, 2025, probable-cause statement, pages 4–5. ↩︎
64. The charge against Tyler Robinson. Utah County Attorney Jeffrey Gray’s September 16th, 2025 charging document alleges aggravated murder and targeting based on Kirk’s political expression. The defendant remained untried at this November 10th, 2026 revision; an Associated Press report on November 9th described a trial scheduled for 2028. Utah County Attorney’s Office, Information, State of Utah v. Tyler James Robinson, authorized for filing September 16th, 2025, pages 1–2; Associated Press, “Judge sets summer 2028 trial for the man accused of killing Charlie Kirk,” November 9th, 2026. ↩︎
65. Mussolini and Fascism. Mussolini founded the movement in Milan on March 23rd, 1919; it became the National Fascist Party in 1921 and entered government in 1922. The doctrine places the state above the individual and organizes interests through the state. Doctrine of Fascism; USHMM Fascism. ↩︎
66. Nazi youth. A March 25th, 1939, regulation required eligible youth service for ages 10–18, with exclusions under racial rules; USHMM documents suppression of competing youth groups and wartime use of boys. German History in Documents and Images Regulation; USHMM Hitler Youth. ↩︎
67. Roman edicts. The toleration measures of 311 and 313 differ from the 380 Edict of Thessalonica, which prescribed Nicene Christianity as imperial orthodoxy. Fordham Primary-text Translations; Cunctos Populos Text and Translation. ↩︎
68. Muhammad and Medina. The traditional chronology places Muhammad’s migration to Medina in 622 and death in 632. Suzan Yalman, based on original work by Linda Komaroff, “The Birth of Islam,” Metropolitan Museum of Art, October 2001; James Dickins and Janet C. E. Watson, “The rise of Islam,” Standard Arabic (Cambridge University Press, 1999), 96–115; online May 28th, 2018. ↩︎
69. Banu Qurayza in the hadith account. M. Muhsin Khan’s English translation of Sahih al-Bukhari 3043 in Sunnah.com’s undated online edition describes a judgment to kill the tribe’s warriors and take women and children captive, which Muhammad endorses; 4121 identifies Sa’d bin Mu’adh. This is a later transmitted account, not a contemporary administrative record. Neither passage supplies an exact event date or casualty count. The surrounding tradition places the episode in a military conflict, not punishment solely for religious belief. Hadith 3043; Hadith 4121; Collection and translation. ↩︎
70. Iran. The 1979 constitution, amended in 1989, gives religious criteria and leadership a defined role in the government. This is about this constitutional order, not Muslims generally. UNHCR Refworld Translation. ↩︎
71. Bamiyan. The March 1st, 2001, appeal by the International Council on Monuments and Sites and International Council of Museums identifies Mullah Mohammad Omar’s order to destroy statues and its reversal of a 1999 preservation commitment. UNESCO records the Taliban’s destruction of the two standing Buddhas in March 2001. The month does not supply one completion day. Jonathan was 27; the hypothetical person was 17. Contemporary appeal; UNESCO site record. ↩︎
72. Roger Williams. Massachusetts Bay ordered Williams banished October 9th, 1635; he fled in winter 1635–36, first settled at Seekonk in Plymouth territory, then founded Providence in 1636 after crossing the river. NPS, Massachusetts Bay and Plymouth; Banishment Record Reproduction; NPS, Founding Providence. ↩︎
73. Mary Dyer. Massachusetts Bay authorities hanged Dyer in Boston on June 1st, 1660. Massachusetts Archives on the Quakers. ↩︎
74. William Stoughton and the Salem court. Stoughton presided over the court established for the 1692 witch trials and is the namesake of Stoughton, Massachusetts. Massachusetts Archives Court Records; Stoughton Historical Society. ↩︎
75. Massachusetts religious provision. Amendment XI, ratified in 1833, ended the earlier constitutional arrangement for compulsory support of religious instruction. Massachusetts Constitution. ↩︎
76. Steve Jobs on Apple. Jobs’ Stanford address recounts the board’s support for the other side of the management dispute and his subsequent departure. Stanford’s June 2005 Address Transcript; Computer History Museum Chronology. ↩︎
77. John Sculley on Apple. Sculley’s oral history discusses management, sales and profits at a public company. Computer History Museum Interview. ↩︎
78. Ames employment, housing, and store. The Easton Historical Society and Museum’s finding aid dates the store to the 1820s and says employees were not required to patronize it; the public also shopped there. Its housing history preserves a 1931 company account that includes tenants employed elsewhere. A permission to shop elsewhere does not establish that another shop existed within reach. The sources do not establish forced credit, wage deductions, or debt bondage. Ledger finding aid; Housing history and company account. ↩︎
79. Early Easton retail and population. The town’s 2008 preservation plan reports 1,803 residents in 1820 and 1,756 in 1830; these are whole-town totals, not a North Easton village census. William Chaffin’s 1886 history places the Easton Manufacturing Company’s store at the later Ames site and identifies Lincoln Drake’s store in Furnace Village by July 24th, 1841. Those records complicate the early ownership sequence and do not establish a North Easton retail monopoly. No named independent North Easton retailer in the 1820s–1830s was established by this bounded search. The question in the body remains open; the 1889 grocery evidence belongs to a later period. Town plan, printed page 22; Chaffin, printed pages 593–594, 661–665. ↩︎
80. Henry Clay Green. Former UNITE HERE Local 26 secretary-treasurer Green pleaded guilty to taking $171,455 and was sentenced to six months in prison on July 17th, 2018. DOJ Plea Announcement; DOJ Sentencing Announcement. ↩︎
81. Massachusetts union membership. BLS estimated about 464,000 Massachusetts wage-and-salary workers were union members in 2018. Membership differs from representation coverage. BLS, Union Members—2018. ↩︎
82. Manson and Van Houten. The California Court of Appeal recounts Van Houten’s attraction to communal life, manipulation, participation in the 1969 murders, and later acknowledgment of responsibility. In re Van Houten. ↩︎
83. Lenin on transition. Lenin describes socialism as the lower phase of communist society. This is evidence of his theory, not a universal causal law connecting all socialism to dictatorship. The State and Revolution, Chapter 5. ↩︎
84. Jonestown. FBI history records the November 18th, 1978, killings, Jones’s order to consume poison, and more than 900 deaths at Jonestown including children; archival tapes preserve his “revolutionary suicide” framing. This does not support calling children’s deaths voluntary. FBI History; SDSU Archive Q1016; Q042 Archive. ↩︎
85. Sinjar/Yazidis. UN investigators found reasonable grounds to believe ISIS/ISIL committed genocide against Yazidis following the August 3rd, 2014, attack. UNITAD Investigation; Public Report. ↩︎
86. Muslim Brotherhood branch designations. On January 13th, 2026, Treasury designated Egyptian and Jordanian branches as SDGTs; State designated the Lebanese branch as an FTO and SDGT. The release is branch-specific and cites alleged conduct; it is not a designation of all Muslims or the entire worldwide movement as one FTO. Treasury/State Announcement. ↩︎
87. The Polish Constitutional Tribunal confrontation. The presidential office’s November 2nd, 2026, account challenges the legal authority for the change in control; the prime minister’s November 3rd account defends the newly elected judges and accuses the president’s side of force. These are competing official accounts. Presidential Chancellery, “Sytuacja w TK. Konferencja prasowa ministrów KPRP”; Prime Minister’s Office, “Bezpieczeństwo Polski nie może być przedmiotem politycznej gry”. ↩︎
88. Mateusz Morawiecki, October 30th, 2026. The former prime minister condemns force and describes a forcible Tribunal takeover. “Impasu w wymiarze sprawiedliwości nie da się rozwiązać…”. ↩︎
89. Ewa Zajączkowska-Hernik, November 2nd, 2026. The Polish MEP alleges Commission support for the Tribunal takeover and an anti-Polish agreement between von der Leyen and Tusk. This is her accusation. “🚨 Maski opadły❗ Komisja Europejska oficjalnie wsparła…”; European Parliament Profile. ↩︎
90. Poland: Bloomberg’s November 5th, 2026, report. Bloomberg characterized von der Leyen’s withdrawal from a news conference with Nawrocki as support for Tusk. “Ursula von der Leyen has pulled out of a news conference…”. ↩︎
91. Poland: the Commission’s scheduling explanation. Interia reports that von der Leyen attended earlier summit talks and greetings but missed the joint press conference. Its response from chief spokesperson Paula Pinho attributes the absence to scheduling communicated before the Polish confrontation. The reported omission doesn’t establish operational direction of the Tribunal confrontation. Jakub Krzywiecki, “Konferencja z prezydentem Polski bez szefowej KE. Bruksela wyjaśnia,” Interia Wydarzenia, November 6th, 2026. ↩︎
92. Ursula wordplay. Disney identifies Ursula as the sea witch in The Little Mermaid. Disney Video, “Meet the Villains: Ursula,” undated webpage. ↩︎
93. Von der Leyen’s selection. The European Parliament elected her Commission president on July 18th, 2024, with 401 votes in favor. That was an indirect parliamentary election, not a direct public vote for the office; unelected would erase the documented election. European Parliament result. ↩︎
94. Different histories of dependence. The United Kingdom Office for National Statistics distinguishes freeholders and unfree peasants in its account of medieval surveys. Bedfordshire Archives reproduces records of villeinage and serfdom and stresses variation across place and time. The Foundation of the Hellenic World distinguishes Spartan helots from privately owned slaves. The Maryland State Archives describes indentures as obligations to work for a specified term, including contracts that could be sold, and also records coercive routes into servitude. Survey history; Bedfordshire records; Helots; Maryland indenture records. ↩︎
95. Federal student-loan garnishment. Federal law provides administrative garnishment authority for covered defaulted debt, capped at fifteen percent of disposable pay and subject to procedural protections. 20 U.S.C. § 1095a. ↩︎
96. Education Department’s collection delay. The department announced a delay in involuntary collections on January 16th, 2026. The announcement is separate from the statutory authority to collect. Education Department Announcement. ↩︎
97. Student debt in bankruptcy. The undue-hardship exception applies to the education debts covered by the statute. 11 U.S.C. § 523(a)(8); Department of Justice Guidance. ↩︎
98. Boston Public Library 1991–92. The report records puppet workshops and book talks during its reporting year; it is not a full calendar-1992 schedule. BPL Annual Report, PDF. ↩︎
99. UMass Boston Women’s Studies chronology. The university’s finding aid dates the concentration to fall 1973, the degree approval to 1989 and departmental status to fall 2006. Women’s Studies Department Records, Historical Note. ↩︎
100. Pamela Annas’s oral history. Annas recounts joining the Socialist Column through history professor David Hunt and developing an early-1980s feminist-writing course cross-listed in English and women’s studies. The transcript opens with August 13th, 2025, and Pamela; the page header instead gives January 17th, 2023, and Susan. Her account identifies a network and course; it doesn’t document the recruitment posters remembered in this essay or measure recruitment across women’s-studies programs. Radical Teacher, “Pam Annas”. ↩︎
101. Socialist and communist organizations in Massachusetts. Boston DSA identifies itself as a socialist organization and a DSA chapter, and its bylaws state an aim to abolish capitalism. Its FAQ distinguishes a membership organization from a political party. CPUSA lists a Massachusetts contact; a July 2nd, 2026, contribution carries the Western Massachusetts CPUSA byline and the site’s disclaimer that contributors’ opinions need not represent the national party. Boston DSA Bylaws; Boston DSA FAQ; CPUSA Contact Directory; Western Massachusetts CPUSA Contribution. ↩︎
102. Erika Uyterhoeven. Her Interview; Massachusetts Legislature: Representative, 27th Middlesex. The office named in the body is her current House service; no Senate term is advanced to this date. ↩︎
103. Jivan Sobrinho-Wheeler. The chapter supplies the political identification; Cambridge supplies the current office. Boston DSA: Endorsed Socialists in Office; Cambridge City Council, 2026–27 Committee Assignments. ↩︎
104. Unitarian Universalist principles and the author’s critique. The Unitarian Universalist Association’s published principles include equity as well as freedom of conscience and a search for truth; its legal counsel’s June 22nd, 2024 opinion preserves the distinction between association policy, congregational self-government, and individual belief. These sources establish the institution’s own descriptions, not a communist identity or uniform beliefs among adherents. Published principles; Counsel’s Article II opinion. ↩︎
105. Ayanna Pressley on equity. Her office published the September 10th, 2025, hearing transcript on September 12th. The definition concerns opportunity; it is distinct from Harris’s outcome language and establishes no socialist or communist membership. Pressley Hearing Transcript. ↩︎
106. Pressley’s proposed Equity in Government Act. The July 24th, 2025, announcement and accompanying draft describe agency goals and equity advisory teams. The body describes a proposal, not an enacted requirement or proof of a concealed party affiliation. Pressley Announcement; Bill Text, Sections 2–3. ↩︎
107. Warren’s progressive agenda. Her campaign reproduces remarks prepared for January 12th, 2026; this is a prepared text, not an independently checked recording of delivery. Her defense of progressive economic policy does not establish communist or socialist membership. The Big Tent. ↩︎
108. Warren’s proposed corporate-governance rules. The December 11th, 2024, reintroduction describes the revenue threshold and employee selection of directors. Her public position also defends markets operating under rules; the criticism in the body addresses the proposed mandate. Senate Announcement; Official Bill Summary; Warren’s NHPR Interview. ↩︎
109. Harris 2020 video. In a campaign video posted November 1st, 2020, Harris discusses different starting positions and says, “Equitable treatment means we all end up at the same place.” This is a dated campaign statement, not a quotation from a current platform. “There’s a big difference between equality and equity.”; Harvard Law School, Martha Minow’s “Equality vs. Equity”. ↩︎
110. The SBA’s equity statement. The agency’s archived announcement displays April 28th, 2021, although its URL contains April 27th. Guzman connects equity with access for smaller and underserved businesses. The ellipsis marks the excerpt’s continuation. The announced program separately prioritizes women, veterans, and socially and economically disadvantaged owners; it is not a categorical exclusion of all White men. SBA announcement. ↩︎
111. Vitolo v. Guzman. The May 27th, 2021, divided appellate decision granted an injunction pending appeal for Vitolo’s application, finding the race- and sex-based priority unconstitutional. The 51-percent ownership threshold and racial presumptions explain the couple’s position. The court preserved priority based on veteran status. This was not a damages verdict or proof of discrimination based on sexual orientation; the case alone does not measure an increasing national pattern. Sixth Circuit opinion, pages 1–3 and 15. ↩︎
112. Ayn Rand’s minority-rights passage. The Ayn Rand Institute reproduces the passage under Minority Rights, citing America’s Persecuted Minority: Big Business in Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, page 61. Ayn Rand Institute, “Minority Rights,” undated Lexicon entry, citing “America’s Persecuted Minority: Big Business,” in Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, 61. ↩︎
113. Russell Brand’s sentence and the author’s allegation. The Crown Prosecution Service records a November 9th, 2026 sentence of ten years and six months for one count of rape and three counts of sexual assault against four women, committed between 2004 and 2009. Jonathan explicitly characterizes the prosecution as politically motivated; the sources reviewed here don’t establish that motive or imprisonment for political speech. CPS sentencing statement; Metropolitan Police account. ↩︎
114. AFT’s Harris endorsement. Delegates ratified the endorsement on July 22nd, 2024. AFT Announcement. ↩︎
115. Randi Weingarten’s 2021 TEACH address. The address describes civics work, advocacy and students considering perspectives and reaching their own conclusions. It states an educational position without measuring classroom implementation or outcomes. AFT Speech Transcript. ↩︎
116. Pink Floyd and the classroom lyric. The quoted refrain belongs to “Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2”, from “The Wall”. The word is them, not those; Hey belongs to the repeated refrain. The band’s album page identifies the track, Amazon Music’s licensed text preview supplies the wording, and the publisher-authorized score credits the music and lyrics to Roger Waters. Punctuation represents the quoted delivery. The album and single are distinct releases. Pink Floyd, The Wall, official album and track-list record, album released November 1979; undated webpage; Amazon Music, “Another Brick in the Wall, Pt. 2,” The Wall, track metadata dated November 30th, 1979; licensed text preview; Roger Waters, “Another Brick in the Wall,” publisher-hosted score, undated edition, PDF page 1. ↩︎
117. Why Socialists Should Become Teachers. The Democratic Socialist Labor Commission and the Young Democratic Socialists of America advocate entering teaching for workplace, union, and community organizing. The pamphlet does not establish what is taught in any particular classroom. Democratic Socialist Labor Commission and Young Democratic Socialists of America, “Why Socialists Should Become Teachers,” undated digital pamphlet; NYU Archive, Captures Beginning in October 2018. ↩︎
118. Derek R. Ford’s Communist Study. The DePauw University repository identifies the second edition of Communist Study: Education for the Commons, dated January 15th, 2022, and describes study as a component of communist political practice. DePauw, “Communist Study: Education for the Commons, 2nd Edition”. ↩︎
119. Ford’s Encountering Education. The institutional abstract for the spring 2022 book explicitly connects educational practice with establishing proletarian rule and a classless society. This describes the book’s program, rather than the measured practice of schools generally. DePauw, “Encountering Education: Elements for a Marxist Pedagogy”. ↩︎
120. Stoughton class-rank reporting. The official October 13th, 2026 packet contains an undated “Update to Class Rank Reporting” memorandum on PDF page 23. It ends exact numerical rank reporting for 2026–2027 while retaining GPA, transcripts, graduation honors, and counselor-provided percentile information; the September 30th news report establishes that the change was public before November 6th, without dating an adoption vote. Official packet; Boston 25 report. ↩︎
121. Maher and Hughes on Overtime. The discussion is associated with the November 6th, 2026, Real Time episode. The official Overtime upload carries automatically generated captions. HBO Episode Listing; Official Overtime Upload. ↩︎
122. NAEP U.S. history. In 2022, 40% of eighth-graders performed below NAEP Basic; average scores fell five points from 2018. The assessment does not measure all historical knowledge, high-school curricula, political causes, or teachers’ motives. NAEP U.S. History Highlights; Interpretation Guidance. ↩︎
123. Gallup socialism survey. In August 2026, 57% of U.S. adults aged 18–34 viewed socialism positively; the question measured attitudes to the label, not support for communism. Gallup Results; Questionnaire and Tables. ↩︎
124. George Santayana’s historical warning. The quoted sentence appears in The Life of Reason, volume I, Reason in Common Sense, chapter XII, Flux and Constancy in Human Nature, in a discussion of retaining experience as a condition of progress. George Santayana, The Life of Reason, vol. I, Reason in Common Sense (1905), chapter XII, “Flux and Constancy in Human Nature,” subsection “Continuity necessary to progress”; Project Gutenberg eBook 15000, released February 14th, 2005, updated March 10th, 2021. ↩︎
125. Greg Jacob testimony. Jacob’s congressional testimony describes Trump’s pressure on Pence concerning the January 6th electoral count and Pence’s refusal to change his position. It is an actor-specific account, not evidence about all Trump voters. U.S. House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, hearing of June 16th, 2022, Serial No. 117-4, printed pages 18–19. ↩︎
126. Trump after the midterm losses. The American Presidency Project reproduces his November 3rd, 2026, posts: Abbott praise at 8:19 a.m. Eastern; a hypothetical landslide at 10:37 p.m.; the Abbott denunciation at 11:35 p.m.; and blame directed at Fox News at 11:52 p.m. The text attributes the election claim to Trump and does not treat his explanation as evidence of why anyone lost. Presidential Posts and Original Links; Morning Abbott Post; Night Abbott Post; Fox News Post. ↩︎
127. National Students for Justice in Palestine’s words. Its “Day of Resistance Toolkit” is reproduced in the annex of Gunther Jikeli and Daniel Miehling’s Indiana University report “Anti-Israel Campus Groups: Online Networks & Narratives”, printed page 50. The reproduced text supplies the quoted characterization; the report dates publication to October 8th, 2023. The attack occurred on October 7th; the toolkit itself uses an erroneous October 8 attack date. The national organization’s language does not establish the beliefs of all its chapters, college students, or Palestinians. Both reference ages were 50 and 40 on October 7th and 8th. Report and primary-document annex. ↩︎
128. The Bill of Rights. The National Archives transcription supplies the text of the First, Second and Fourth Amendments. National Archives, “The Bill of Rights: A Transcription,” undated webpage reproducing Congress’s 1789 joint resolution. ↩︎
129. Divine presence and personal meaning. The Sikh Coalition describes the Divine as equally present in all people and connects that belief to human equality. Jonathan’s language about divine individuals is his personal philosophical use, not an assertion that Sikh theology is atheistic or identical to his individualism. Sikh Coalition, “Beliefs,” undated webpage. ↩︎