The Managerial Revolution stifles true humanity.

Early during the second world war, while all of Europe was locked in a death grip involving the liberal democracy of London, the fascism of Berlin, and the communism of Stalingrad, James Burnham published “The Managerial Revolution.” In it, he noticed that even though they were mortal enemies, they also shared a common, unhuman impulse.

The trend had already been working its leaven through the world’s governments for more than half a century. True to its enlightenment roots, it discounted and devalued the soul, the local, the individual and the unique. Rather than honoring these as the very heart of human existence, it saw them as irrelevant differences that could be tolerated only so long as they did not interfere with the rational uniformity imposed by the detached and scientific management of experts in increasingly specialized fields.

Stalinism imposed uniformity through a brutal centralized governing apparatus. Nazism imposed uniformity through collusion between government and business. London (and Washington) used the tools of democracy to build bureaucracies that were nominally under the control of the executive branch, but in reality, imposed uniformity through impersonal and anonymous bureaucrats.

In the fourscore years since Burnham’s book appeared, hot and cold wars between overt totalitarianism and the façade of liberalism have continued unabated—all while the managerial revolution has continued unrelentingly. Had we paid more attention to Burnham, we would have foreseen the global dominance of fast-food chains, defense industries, high finance, and big tech.

Lest I lose my reader in the weeds, it is time to cut to the chase: Our humanity is at stake. Therefore, understanding the essence of humanity is the first task in choosing sides. Can life be boiled down to adequate food, housing, and clothing? How much cultural cuisine are we willing to lose to put “a chicken in every pot”? How much should we suppress religious differences to have a “values-free” education? What free speech are we willing to silence to make everybody “nice”?

Put in these terms, the choices before us cut across political skirmish lines. This, too, is to be expected. Globalist managers vying for control know how to divide and conquer. The uniform talking points fed to media outlets keep liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans busy screaming at each other so that neither one notices that their common humanity is being peeled away layer by layer.

The 70/30 split in Wyoming politics does not have to be a death match. Neither does it have to be a bland blend or political bromide. There is a third, more humane, alternative. Vive la différence! The things that make us different don’t need to be relegated to a place of irrelevance to get along. What makes you human cannot be boiled down to mere biological needs and desires.

Basic needs are the things that unite you with the animal world. It is the soul, the local, the individual, and the unique that are the essence of your human nature. The pursuit of happiness requires cultivating these humanities—not in stamping out these differences.

Of course, Levi Strauss will not make as much money if some people prefer to wear lederhosen over blue jeans. Walmart will not make as much money if some prefer to get their groceries from a different store than the one from which they buy their tires. Taco Bell will not make as much money if some people prefer the cuisine of Mexico City while others choose the nuances of Cancun. 

A few years ago, I could not understand why my extremely liberal friend was so upset when Walmart drove our local food market out of business. Now I get it. He was reacting the same way I react to threats directed at my local parish and against our small-town culture. I should have seen then that both of us were pushing back against the inhumane homogenization of our world.

I hope that you can see it, too. Once both the hyper-conservative and the hyper-liberal understand that globalist interests are seeking to bury them both, we will be motived to unite in a struggle to preserve our humanity. Real Republicans and Democrats—the grass roots of every party—can still have vigorous discussion and disagreement on many details. But what unites us is the truth that these details matter.

Jesus asked, “Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?” (Matthew 6:25). Yes, it is. We are not cows in a feed lot, but human beings. We have souls, moral convictions, and wills that cannot be manipulated like lab rats. We seek eternal truths beyond the creature comforts. The soul, the local, the individual and the unique are not quirks to be tolerated, but the things that make us human.

Education Triangle: Parents, teachers, and the best interests of every child

Photo credit: Brad West on Unsplash.com

In the shadow of the University of Wyoming, the Wyoming Pastors Network gathered for a conference that brought together speakers David Gibbs, Bob Schaffer, and Wyoming’s own Superintendent of Public Instruction, Brian Schroeder. Its theme: Stand for Parents and Children.

Two members of Wyoming’s legislature were in attendance, and we were honored to have Megan Degenfelder, Republican candidate for Superintendent of Public Instruction, with us as well. It was a joy to meet so many distinguished educators. Above all, it was extremely encouraging to see a unanimous commitment to Wyoming’s parents, teachers, and children.

David Gibbs III, President and General Counsel of the National Center for Life and Liberty, started the day with an informative survey of the constitutional rights that children, parents, teachers and citizens have at school. He helped the conferees understand how we can all come alongside teachers, administrators, and school boards in a way that is helpful, hopeful, and constructive.

Next, Bob Schaffer, headmaster of Liberty Common School (k-12) in Fort Collins, Colorado, told his story. While he served as a Colorado state senator for nine years, and a United States representative for six, the most inspiring part of his story was how an ordinary father of kindergarten-aged twins became involved in his local school and rose to the head of the most successful k-12 system in Colorado.

Bob Schaffer

By his telling, the key to successful schools is choice. When education becomes a marketplace, rather than a monopoly, every child benefits. At the same time, the rancor and bitterness of debates about public education are diminished. One of Schaffer’s most brilliant insights was the observation that when two parents disagree on how to raise their children, it is never necessary to pit them against one another. Rather, school choice accommodates both.

Take, for instance, the vitriolic opinions exchanged on this page about critical race theory. Why waste so much time and energy on forcing those who support it to submit to those who don’t? Obviously, there are people who want their children to be schooled in CRT. So, let them have a school that will meet their needs. And, let those who do not want their children to be indoctrinated with CRT have a school that meets their needs. Problem solved.

All education is religious education—even if many religions do not consider themselves religions. For instance, both sides agree that progressive Christianity is incompatible with orthodox Christianity. This, in itself, does not poison our public discourse. Rather, the use of government power and money to coerce one side to accept the religion of the other is the problem.

When we focus on the needs of parents and children, rather than the need for conformity, we are being true to American ideals.

Outgoing superintendent, Brian Schroeder, ended the day by sharing his optimistic vision for Wyoming. “According to the vision of our founding fathers,” Schroeder said, “the community schoolhouse was uniquely positioned to be an extension of and a support for the home, as well as an incubator for, and a bridge to, society.” He continued, “Wyoming, I believe, is one of the few places in our nation that still, for the most part, operates that way instinctively.” This, he believes, positions us to lead the nation in education.

Brian Schroeder

Of first priority is the triangular relationship of parents, teachers, and children. “The educational enterprise…only works well when all three work well together.”

Parents are the foundation because they are the ultimate customer of the education system. Education is always about what’s best for the child. And what’s best for one child may not be best for another. “But ultimately the parents know their kids best,” he observed, “so it goes without saying that the decision should rest with them, the parents.”

Teachers form the second side. Those who care about the proper education of children have one of “the most difficult job[s] on earth.” Therefore, we must, “thank them, honor them, care for them, support them, equip them, empower them, and pay them well.”

Children, the third leg, is what education is all about. “If this is really about our kids,” the Superintendent said, “then territorialism has no place in this equation. This is not—and never should be about public schools vs. private schools vs. parochial schools vs. home schools vs. charter schools vs. virtual schools vs. private tutoring. It is all of the above because it’s always about …what’s best for the child.”

Although duty took Megan Degenfelder away before we could invite her to our panel, we greatly appreciated her time with us. To be sure, Wyoming faces many challenges. But by working together we are very hopeful that Wyoming can lead the nation in serving the best interest of every child.

The Australian ballot comes to Wyoming

In recent months, dozens of Wyoming citizens from across the state have been denied access to public records. Many of these denials have included a reference to Article 6, Section 11 of the Wyoming Constitution. Such widespread public interest merits a closer look.

Section 11 begins, “All elections shall be by ballot.” Perhaps surprisingly, when this language was ratified in 1889, ballot elections were a recent innovation. As late as 1892, citizens in West Virginia rejected new ballot requirements and demanded a return to the voice vote.

Paper ballots, in fact, were at the heart of election reforms across the globe. In 1856, Australia first enacted the so-called secret ballot. As similar laws were enacted from London to Cheyenne they were known as “the Australian ballot.” These reforms were designed to counteract the widespread practice of voter intimidation. 

Robber barons, bosses, and corrupt politicians had learned to game the system. It was common to demand that employees or tenants vote a certain way, under threat of being fired or evicted. Observers at the polling place would enforce this intimidation either by eavesdropping on their voice vote or by observing which ballot was cast into the box.

At that time, ballots were printed by political parties and given to voters in advance of election day. They were easily identifiable by shape and color. So, it was nearly impossible to vote free of external pressures. The Australian ballot countered this with four specific reforms. 

• First, every ballot listed all candidates running for office, and not only one party’s slate.
• Second, instead of each special interest printing its own ballot, the Australian ballot was standardized and printed at public expense. 
• Third, ballots could not be distributed outside of the polling place, or before voting day. Thus, fraudsters could not pressure voters to mark ballots before coming to vote. 
• Fourth, polling places supplied a privacy booth to prevent fraudsters from observing how voters marked the ballot.

After the presidential election of 1884, all American states rapidly adopted the Australian ballot. Kentucky was the last to implement it in 1891. Wyoming’s constitution was ratified during this time and Article 6, Section 11 enumerated all four elements of the Australian ballot.

It says, (1) “all candidates… shall be printed on the same ballot,” (2) “at public expense,” (3) “and on election day [the ballot shall] be delivered to the voters within the polling place,” and (4) “All voters shall be guaranteed absolute privacy in the preparation of their ballots.”

Provisions one and two are relatively non-controversial. But early voting conflicts with our third provision. And the fourth provision recently has been stretched beyond recognition. 

“Preparation” is what happens before the ballot is cast. That is where privacy is guaranteed. But public record requests to look at ballots after they have been cast are being denied based on this sentence: “All voters shall be guaranteed absolute privacy in the preparation of their ballots, and the secrecy of the ballot shall be made compulsory.” 

The secrecy guaranteed here is in the voter’s preparation and in the ballot itself. It is a guarantee that anyone who looks at the ballot will not be able to identify the voter. Secrecy is secured not by hiding ballots from some while allowing others to inspect them. Rather, it is secured by preventing anyone who looks at them from being able to identify a voter. 

Monique Meese

So, who is saying otherwise? The former communications director for the secretary of state, Monique Meese, testified before the Corporations Committee (August 25, 2022): “I should read this sentence as broadly as I can because I want to protect my office from someone who is upset or might have a claim of action against my office for giving out information that’s constitutionally protected.” 

Two things should be said about this claim. First, the job of the Secretary of State’s office is faithfully to interpret the constitution. It is not to protect his office by stretching the words of the constitution “as broadly as I can.”

Second, the constitution demands that the ballot itself be made secret. If the Secretary’s office has not ensured that the ballot is secret so that anyone—from the county clerk to the janitor—might be able to identify the voter, the secretary has failed in his constitutional duty. But if the secretary meets his constitutional obligation, no one can be identified. And so, no one can be “upset or …have a claim of action.”

For the entire history of Wyoming millions of ballots have been inspected by clerks, election judges, and election observers. Every single one of them is a direct refutation of Meese’s novel interpretation. After 133 years of constitutional precedent, even statutory enactment of this interpretation would be hard-pressed to survive a constitutional challenge. Much less should it survive as a bureaucratic dictum.

Post Script:

• The Reporters' Committee for Freedom of the Press has done a state-by-state analysis of which election records are publicly available. Colorado, Georgia, Texas, Vermont, and West Virginia explicitly permit public inspection of ballots. Many other states have not addressed the issue. The report concludes: "All election records of a county [in Wyoming] are public unless specifically exempted."
• Texas attorney general, Ken Paxton, issued an August 17, 2022 opinion stipulating that both legislators and the general public have the right to inspect secret ballots.
• To varying degrees, states and counties throughout the United States have already set precedents by treating paper ballots, ballot images, and cast vote records as public records. In one example, Maricopa County, Arizona made 2.1 million available for public inspection in 2021.

The establishment clause should be rightly understood

Many who watch political discourse have noticed an alarming trend. Increasingly, pundits and policymakers paint an opposing position as “religious” and then dismiss that position out of hand—as though the position itself violated the so-called “separation of church and state.”

This attitude stifles public discourse. Not only is the “separation of church and state” an extra-constitutional dogma. It misinterprets the legitimate and necessary distinction between church and state. Worse, it disrespects fellow citizens at the very core of their being—their deepest identity.  

This trend was on full display last March when the “trigger bill” (HB 92) was being debated on the floor of the senate. It also appears regularly in anti-religious screeds on the opinion page—often, but not always, in connection with abortion. There are three things seriously wrong with such arguments. 

First, the claim that a child in the womb is a living human being, protected under Article I, Section 2 of the Wyoming Constitution, is not a religious claim. It is a medical claim. You can test it by checking to see if the DNA is human. You can test it by looking for signs of life—like a heartbeat. You can test it by seeing if a separate and unique individual exists.

None of these medical markers requires an act of faith. What requires an act of faith is to believe that a living human being does not merit full protection in law. Usually, this claim is connected to “personhood theory.” This dogma holds that not every human life is equal, but that there is an unseen and uncertain quality that some people have that makes them full persons under the law. 

The Supreme Court recently pointed out, in Dobbs v. Jackson, that it is unacceptable to “impose on the people a particular theory about when the rights of personhood begin” (p. 38). This—and not the demand for equal protection under the law—is tantamount to the establishment of religion.

Second, the U.S. Constitution was written precisely to allow people of all religions to participate in public discourse and to hold public office without discrimination. Since ancient times, governance and religion were joined at the hip. Only adherents of the dominant religion could have any say. Before Constantine, governing privilege required public adherence to the Roman gods. 

After Constantine, sometimes the Christians were in power and sometimes their pagan counterparts. Eventually, governance stabilized around Christendom until the Reformation of the 16th century. That made some governments Catholic, others Reformed, and others Lutheran. 

But America’s founders changed course entirely. They explicitly invited every person to use the power of persuasion to convince fellow citizens of the rightness of their beliefs. Quaker, Episcopalian, Catholic, or Jew—every citizen could enter public office without first passing a religious test (U.S. Constitution, Art. VI).

The assumption was that each citizen would fully represent his or her religion in the public square and build consensus on the basis of commonality. Nobody thought that religious people had to hide their deepest and most meaningful thoughts to be taken seriously in policy debates. The ideology of “Secularism” was not even invented until George Holyoke introduced the term in 1851. 

Third, religious neutrality is a lie. Every assertion is, ultimately, a religious statement. It rests on unspoken assumptions about the nature of the universe. Even the statement, “two plus two is four,” assumes that “is” means “equals,” and not merely “similar.” It assumes immutability—that it will always equal the same amount. It assumes that language has actual, objective meaning. These assumptions are unapologetically religious.

All public discourse is religious. It’s time to stop pretending otherwise. Secularist claims should not be privileged over Christian claims. The only privilege any claim merits is the power of persuasion. 

That was the foundational idea of America. People are not excluded from the debate because they refuse to expunge God from their vocabulary. Claims about the nature of life, marriage, family and citizenship can, and should be, debated in the public square. We owe that courtesy to our fellow citizens.

It is legitimate to question beliefs and challenge fellow citizens to defend their beliefs in the court of public opinion. Faith, after all, is adherence to the truth. It does no one good to outlaw the testing of truth claims. But it is a disservice to public discourse to disallow an otherwise true argument just because it has religious adherents. Let’s talk.

Ballots, or ballot images? Which is it?

Photo credit: Brett Jordan on unplash.com

Last week’s meeting of the legislature’s Joint Corporations, Elections and Political Subdivision committee crackled with controversy. 

Observers were troubled by the ranked-choice voting scheme proposed to strip our political parties of the power to put their own candidates on the general ballot. 

Committee members pushed back against the secretary of state’s novel, and overly broad interpretation of Wyoming’s Constitutional provision for “secrecy of the ballot” (Art. 6, Sec. 11). 

Senator Nethercott’s motion to draft a bill that codifies federal guidelines for certification of election equipment raised concerns that Wyoming election law would dance to the constantly changing tune of the Election Assistance Commission.

Committee Chair, Dan Zwonitzer’s, motion to remove election oversight from the secretary of state’s office seemed to thumb a nose at 76,000 voters who resonated with Chuck Gray’s calls for increased election integrity. 

All of these issues merit the careful attention of Wyoming citizens. Each, in its own way, has the potential to erode further the power of our vote to express the consent of the governed. 

But the part of the meeting that most piqued my interest happened in the opening ten minutes. State election director, Kai Schon, gave a brief report on the August 16 primary election. Generally speaking, things went very smoothly. For that, we thank him for his good work.

Kai Schon, Director of Elections

He ended his report by touting a post-primary audit that went above and beyond the requirements of state law. He explained, “We want to look at the ballots that are actually being voted and see how our tabulators are adjudicating ballots.” In that sentence, he captured the mood of a strong majority of Wyoming voters.

Schon described reaching out to professor, Ken Gerow, director of UW’s statistics program, to help determine a statistically significant sample for the audit. He then reported triumphantly that the roughly 3,000 ballots of this random sample, distributed across 23 counties, matched exactly with the Cast Vote Records (CVRs).

If this report were exactly true as worded, voters around the state would have good reason to, in his words, “put to bed,” concerns about the trustworthiness of Wyoming’s ES&S voting machines. But Schon’s description was different from the Uinta County clerk’s description of the event. According to that website, they were comparing “ballot images and cast vote records.”

Audit observers in Uinta, and several other counties, did not carry out the stated intent of the director of elections to “look at the ballots that are actually being voted.” Instead, they looked only at the “ballot images.” There is a significant difference between the actual ballots and their “ballot images.”

Ballot images are photos that the machine takes of the ballot. They are produced by the machine, not by the voter. So, the audit conducted in Uinta County only compared one product of the machine (the ballot image) with another product of the same machine (the CVR, or cast vote record.) Nobody in Uinta County has looked at the actual ballots. 

Sheridan and Natrona counties both promised a “Post-Election Ballot Audit…in accordance with and as required by the Wyoming secretary of state policy (dated June 29, 2022).” Was this different than Uinta county’s audit? Or did all of Wyoming’s counties look only at the ballot images? Did the secretary of state’s June 29 policy require a look at the ballots, or only at the ballot images? (Public Records Request, pending).

Lawmakers should ask Mr. Schon these questions. Either Uinta County defied the SOS’s requirements, or Mr. Schon’s language before the Elections Committee was sloppy and misleading to the Wyoming people.

Some might scoff at this question as the mere splitting of hairs. But in this day of computer wizardry, it is a matter of night and day. Images can be altered in the blink of an eye. Paper ballots cannot. The smartphone you have in your pocket has the capability of instantly editing any photograph. It can automatically erase unwanted pixels, like red-eye, and insert new pixels, like stars and dog noses. More sophisticated programming can do even more.

Computer experts that examined the CVRs and ballot images of the machines in Mesa County Colorado raised precisely this possibility. They demonstrated on-screen how the hand-blackened ballot oval in front of one candidate could be cut out and replaced by an empty oval, and how that hand-blackened oval could be pasted in front of a different candidate—altering the ballot image to contradict the actual ballot. (See [s]election.code at the 48:00 mark)

Nobody is alleging that such fraud happened in Wyoming. But the director of Wyoming’s elections should recognize that words matter. If the ballot audit actually audited the ballots, Wyoming voters should know it. But if the ballot audits only audited ballot images—as happened in Uinta County—public testimony that omits that detail degrades voter confidence.