I Believe

• Should Public Money for Schools Guarantee More Than Learning?

  Should Public Money for Schools Guarantee More Than Learning?This week, the National School Lunch Program, born out of national defense, and the rise of homeschooling vouchers, where freedom meets responsibility.And next week, we’ll dig even deeper with our guest, Shaka Mitchell! But for now … the lights are dimming. Look! There's the curtain!Scene One. Frontier America, 1809 Education, even without public funds, can serve national goals like Union and Liberty.A father and mother have their second child! A boy named Abraham, born in a one-room log cabin in Kentucky. The father, a cold and stern man, had built the structure by hand. Dirt floor. No windows. A fireplace for heat and little else. The boy’s father couldn’t read. His mother knew her letters, but not much more. When she died, the boy was nine years old. He was left in the care of his 11-year-old sister.His father soon arranged a marriage of convenience with a widow who had three children of her own. When she arrived at the farm, she found his two children so filthy that the first thing she did was draw a bath for them.She was a godsend for the boy, loving him like her own children. Neighbors called him lazy because he wasn’t much for farm work, and the boy and his father had heated arguments. But his new mother saw something different. He was hungry. Yes, for food. But also for words.There was no school, so she taught him how to teach himself. She got him books, like the family Bible, but also “Aesop’s Fables,” “Robinson Crusoe,” and “Pilgrim’s Progress.” She taught him “how” to learn, to study, to chase every scrap of knowledge he could find. At night, by firelight, he copied passages onto wooden shingles with charcoal. He had no paper, no ink. He’d rub out the words, write again, and memorize them line by line. Neighbors remembered seeing him walking with a book in one hand, axe in the other, reading between swings.He left home in his young twenties to seek his fortune, but he always came back to see her every year or two. He bought some property for her to live on after his father died. The last time he saw her was in 1861, when he stopped to bid her farewell before leaving for Washington and his inauguration as the 16th President of the United States. She mourned his death in 1865, and she passed in 1869.With Sarah Bush Johnston Lincoln’s backing, the boy who copied Bible verses onto wooden shingles with charcoal grew into the man who wrote the Gettysburg Address, President Abraham Lincoln. Would we say today that Abraham Lincoln was homeschooled? Uneducated? Self-taught? However we label it, no one could argue that his lack of formal schooling limited his potential.Lincoln, self-taught in a Kentucky cabin, became a president who preserved the Union. His education, guided by a caring stepmother, shows how learning builds national strength, even without public funds. But when public money enters the picture, what ensures the child’s welfare?Scene Two. Perris, California; January 2018 — Justice and WelfareBefore dawn, a 17-year-old girl climbed out of a basement window with an old phone and dialed 911. She planned her escape for two years, practicing how to use a phone because she’d never been outside alone. Her voice shook as she tried to explain what the house looked like inside. At one point, she said, “My two little sisters right now are chained up.” Riverside County Sheriff's Deputies walked into darkness and the sour smell of waste. They found 13 siblings, ages 2 to 29. Some were shackled. Most were so thin the deputies thought the older ones were still children. Food was rationed; they only ate once a day. Showers, once a year. Teeth never seen by a dentist. Beatings and strangling as punishment. The district attorney later said the house was “foul-smelling,” and the children showed signs of long starvation and nerve damage. Seven of the captives were adults, but their bodies looked like they had been kept small. One victim, 29 years old, weighed about 82 pounds. On paper, this was a school. The adoptive father had filed a private-school affidavit with the state. He listed himself as principal of “Sandcastle Day School.” In California, that filing exempted children from compulsory public attendance, and there was no routine state inspection of such “schools.” No one looked inside for years.The girl who called 911 gave them an opening. Deputies cut chains. Paramedics carried out brothers and sisters who could barely stand. Prosecutors charged the parents with torture, false imprisonment, willful child cruelty, and abuse of dependent adults. They later added perjury against the father for lying on the school affidavits. In 2019, both parents pleaded guilty. The court sentenced them to 25 years to life in prison as part of the plea agreement. The rescue did not end the harm. Some of the younger children were later placed with foster parents who also abused them, and those foster parents were convicted and sentenced. Five years after the rescue, county officials acknowledged that the state failed to get basic services to the siblings.This case is a sinister mirror of President Lincoln’s homeschool experience. A “homeschool” on paper can become a blessing or a cage in practice. In 2018, a California homeschool hid torture behind a private-school affidavit. Public funds for homeschooling, like those for school lunches, must ensure kids are safe and fed, not starved and chained.The Test of Legitimacy — Welfare and TranquilityNow the scene is set, and we can ask our question. As states expand vouchers and tax credits for homeschooling, what obligations follow?Does accepting the American people’s money for schooling create an obligation beyond academics?Liberty in private is one thing. Liberty with the people’s money is another. Public funds carry obligations of legitimacy. These are the same assurances schools already provide: food, safety, health, and visibility.Religious liberty and government overreach are real concerns. So are child welfare checks, meals, vaccinations, and sports. We need a standard that defends liberty and protects children.We think we care about the freedom to choose how a child learns. We think we care about waste of public funds. We think we care about officials telling our children what they should know.Take a couple of examples. Some parents want physical education to mean kids running for an hour, not sitting for “health.” Others say there is no such thing as an average child, and any system built for the average will fail the real ones in front of us.These are legitimate concerns for individuals. I say again—Individuals. Parents should exercise their liberty in how they educate their children. That right stands whether or not public money is involved. And while critics point to abuse in homeschooling, most homeschoolers are not abusive. Abuse exists everywhere. Public and private schools are not automatically safer.But that is not the decisive concern. The issue is not good parents versus bad parents. It is the obligations that come with public money.The government owns nothing. Every dollar it spends is the people’s money. We pool those dollars to build what no family can build alone: roads, bridges, water systems, and schools. Because there is more to school than classes.That collective pool comes with obligations. Every day, in public or private schools, an adult lays eyes on a child. Every day, a child who needs a meal can get one.So yes, we can support individual choice with the American people’s money. But if we choose to take that money, we also choose an obligation to legitimacy.The test is simple. Education is a public function, bound by federal rights. Parents have broad freedom to educate their children, but when public money follows the child, they are spending the people’s money.No one gives you money with no strings attached. The people may ask for basic assurances: that a child is seen, safe, nourished, and protected from disease.Food as Defense — Provide for the Common DefenceLet’s think about the school lunch program.Almost every presidential administration fights over school lunches. But the political theater hides the real purpose of the program.One of the nation’s six goals is to Provide for the Common Defence. That doesn’t stop at buying tanks or building fighter jets. It also means building the human infrastructure to fly those jets and stand watch. A healthy, fit young America is part of national defense.That’s where food comes in. The men and women who step forward to serve often come from the country’s poorest households. They are America’s finest, but not our wealthiest. For many, school lunch is the one reliable meal of the day in childhood.The modern program itself grew out of war. During World War II, the Army discovered too many young men were unfit for service, with a nontrivial share failing for nutrition-related reasons, about one in nine by some estimates. That was not just a battlefield problem. It was a factory-line problem, too.Congress answered with the National School Lunch Act of 1946. The law says its purpose, “as a measure of national security,” is to “safeguard the health and well-being of the Nation’s children” and to soak up US farm output. President Truman signed it on June 4, 1946. He praised it as “strengthening the Nation through better nutrition for our school children.” Those two concepts, national security and better nutrition, are the program’s DNA. Today, the program serves around 30 million kids on a typical school day. This is infrastructure, not charity. It is a national system that keeps children fed so they can learn now and serve and work later. In short, the American people pool our money to pay for school lunches so those kids can grow up and, in return, protect the Republic.The lunches build “human infrastructure” by ensuring future generations, often from poor households, are physically fit to serve in the military, work in defense industries, or contribute to national resilience. This directly ties child nutrition to America’s defense.The school lunch program builds human infrastructure for defense, welfare, and justice. Homeschooling with public funds should mirror this, requiring proof that children are nourished and seen, aligning with the same national goals.Parents who take public money for homeschooling aren’t just teaching math. They’re spending our collective resources. Like school lunches, which ensure kids eat to thrive, homeschoolers should show kids get enough food and regular check-ins to prevent abuse.Does Public Money for Schools Demand More Than Academics?We’ve seen what education can do without public funds: Abraham Lincoln in a Kentucky cabin, teaching himself by firelight.We’ve seen what happens when freedom without oversight collapses: thirteen children chained in a California basement, hidden under the cover of a “school.”And we’ve seen how public funds, when tied to national goals, build lasting infrastructure: the National School Lunch Program. It isn’t charity. It’s defense.So the question stands: when the American people’s money funds schooling, what are we owed in return? Is it enough to teach math and reading? Or do we, as a people, have a right to expect food, safety, health, and legitimacy?Break break.Next week, I’ll be joined by Shaka Mitchell, Senior Fellow at the American Federation for Children. Shaka is an expert in constitutional law and education. He’s helped shape voucher and education savings account debates in states like Tennessee.Our opening question will go one level deeper: Should we pay for public education at all?May God bless the United States of America.Postscript. If you read this, you might check out the audio version just for the song! Starts around 15:10. Enjoy!v/rJoelMusic from #Uppbeathttps://uppbeat.io/t/philip-anderson/new-beginningsLicense code: BHFHI0ZF5V0XVS5E Get full access to I Believe at joelkdouglas.substack.com/subscribe

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• Why Can’t I Afford a Home?

  Act 1: The Insurmountable ChallengeIn 1817, New York voted to dig a ditch. And not just any ditch. A grand canal! Dug by hand, 363 miles long, across forests, swamps, and rock. Most experts scoffed. George Washington had dismissed similar ideas decades earlier. Thomas Jefferson called it “a little short of madness.”At the time, farmers and manufacturers in the West faced a brutal choice. To reach markets, they had to send their goods down the Mississippi River to New Orleans, the country’s greatest seaport. From there, shipments went out through the Gulf, around Florida, up the Atlantic, and finally to cities like New York or Philadelphia. It was slow. It was costly. And it made western settlers dependent on a southern trade route they couldn’t control.The Erie Canal wasn’t dreamed up by powerful men in Albany. The idea came from a flour merchant named Jesse Hawley. He had a strong customer base, but to move his flour to market, he had to ship it by wagon over the Appalachian trails or float it on rivers that ran the wrong way. He went broke, ended up in debtors’ prison, and there picked up a pen. In a series of essays in 1807 and 1808, he sketched a bold plan: a canal from Lake Erie to the Hudson River. He mapped the route, described the locks, and argued the benefits. He didn’t have all the details, but he had vision, and he put it on paper.New York City mayor and later Governor DeWitt Clinton picked up that vision and ran with it. He wasn’t an engineer or a canal man. He was a politician with a sense of scale. Clinton saw what Hawley’s prison essays meant: an inland waterway would break dependence on the Mississippi, open the interior, and turn New York into the nation’s gateway.As Governor, Clinton pushed the legislature to back the canal in 1817. The cost was staggering. Seven million dollars, one state spending roughly a third of the entire federal government’s annual budget. Critics mocked it as “Clinton’s Ditch.” They predicted it would bankrupt New York. Some said it would never be finished.But Clinton pressed forward. He didn’t sell the canal as an engineering marvel. He sold it as a doorway. At the time, moving freight from Buffalo to New York City cost one hundred dollars a ton and took weeks. Clinton promised the canal would cut that to under ten dollars, and in just a few days.The Erie Canal wasn’t just a ditch. It was America’s first true megaproject, built long before steam shovels, bulldozers, or dynamite. It was the biggest engineering challenge of the 19th century.How did they dig it? By hand. Tens of thousands of laborers, mostly Irish immigrants and local farmers hired in the off-season, used picks, shovels, wheelbarrows, and horse-drawn carts. There were no roads. When they hit swamps, they laid down logs to make floating roads so carts wouldn’t sink. When they hit limestone cliffs, they drilled holes by hand, packed them with black powder, and blasted inch by inch.The canal had to climb about 571 feet from the Hudson up to Lake Erie. To solve that, engineers built 83 locks; locks are stone elevators for boats. No one had done this on such a scale in America before. They were inventing the craft as they went.But they finished it in just eight years.When water first flowed in 1825, it wasn’t just an engineering triumph. It was an economic revolution. Shipping costs dropped from $100 a ton to under $10. A journey that took weeks now took days. It made bread cheaper. It put tools in the hands of farmers. It made New York City the nation’s port. It opened the Midwest to settlement. Within a generation, roughly three-fifths of the nation’s trade moved through New York’s harbor, powered by the canal. Today, we face another insurmountable challenge: a housing crisis.Instead of a wilderness of rivers, swamps, and mountains, we face a wilderness of bureaucracy. A maze of zoning codes, permit boards, and fragmented governance. Each with its own tolls and delays. Builders spend months fighting hearings and paperwork before they ever turn a shovel, driving up costs and denying millions the chance to build equity through homeownership.Then, as now, we face skepticism from critics who believe working-class Americans aren’t worthy of bold projects. Washington dismissed it. Jefferson called it madness. The rich, who owned the existing shipping lanes, mocked the project as “Clinton’s Ditch.” Today, skeptics argue that small, affordable homes aren’t profitable or that zoning reforms are too radical. Politicians treat it as impossible.But every bold fix begins as madness.Housing is our canal. It’s not a matter of skill or resources. We have both. It’s a matter of clarity, incentives, and purpose. Just as Clinton used a bold state project to open opportunity, we could use a Small Business Innovation Research program to open the housing market.As of mid-2025, the US median home price sits at around $410,800, while median household income is estimated at $84,000. This makes homes over 4.8 times income, compared to just twice in the 1960s. A record 22 million renter households are cost-burdened, spending over 30% of income on housing, and affordability is at an all-time low. Programs like USDA’s SBIR for rural development and HUD’s $20 million innovation grants (with recent deadlines in July 2025) show the tools exist. We just need to earmark them for starter homes under $150,000, tied to zoning reforms that cut red tape.This isn’t about handouts; it’s about competition driving innovation, much like Hawley’s essays sparked a revolution. Instead of a canal, let’s build a pathway to the American Dream for the working class.Act 2: The Crisis Today – Voices from the Ground(Voice: Young Homebuyer; mid-20s female, fiery with a mix of grit, sarcasm, and unshakable hope. Think a teacher who’s had it but won’t quit. Background: Gritty urban soundscape. Honking cabs, slamming apartment doors, distant subway rumble, fading in and out.)Picture me: 25, a teacher in a mid-sized city, grading papers by day, tutoring by night, slinging coffee on weekends. I’m hustling like my life depends on it...because it does. But the American Dream? It’s slipping through my fingers like sand in a busted hourglass.I’m not asking for a penthouse. I just want a home. A small one! 600, maybe 1,000 square feet. A bedroom, a bathroom, a kitchen where I can burn my first attempt at dinner. But in 2025, that’s a fantasy. I looked it up... the median income is something like 84 grand a year. Median home price? Try 420 thousand. That’s nearly five times what I make. It’s crazy! Back in 1960, homes cost twice the income: twelve thousand on fifty-six hundred. Since then, prices ran past wages and never looked back.And I hear the pushback: “Homeownership rates are fine.” Sure, overall. But at my age, it used to be higher. By thirty, nearly 6 in 10 Americans from the Silent Generation owned a home, 1 in 2 Boomers, just under half of Gen X, and about four in ten Millennials. Today, 25–34-year-olds sit in the high 30s, recently near 36%. The overall rate didn’t crash. The doorway for us did.Builders don’t touch starter homes anymore. Why would they? Land’s a fortune, materials are through the roof, and zoning boards pile on fees like they’re playing Monopoly with my future. So they churn out McMansions, the sprawling status symbols for the rich. Me? I’m left scrounging for scraps, priced out of the game before I even roll the dice.This isn’t just my story. It’s a crisis crushing millions. Over 22 million renter households are drowning, spending more than 30% of their income on rent. Twelve million are barely breathing, forking over half their paycheck. Since 2019, home prices have spiked 60%. If you’re pulling $50 grand a year, good luck! Only one in ten listings is even close to affordable.It’s like rowing upstream in a boat made of tissue paper. You paddle; work overtime, skip vacations, eat instant noodles, but the leaks keep coming. Rent. Student loans. Fees. They drain you dry before you can save a dime for a down payment.So we wait. We put off kids. We put off dreams. Some of us are still crashing in Mom’s basement, not because we’re lazy, but because the system’s rigged. We don’t need marble countertops or three-car garages. We need homes under $150,000! Twice today’s median income, like our grandparents had. Without that, the American Dream isn’t just delayed. It’s sinking, drifting downstream, out of reach for my entire generation.But I’m not giving up. There’s a way to fight back. We need to drain this bureaucratic swamp and build a bridge to ownership. We just need the right tools, the right vision, and a whole lot of grit.Act 3: Innovation – SBIR for Housing(Voice: Policy Expert – Confident male, mid-40s, professor-like with a spark of enthusiasm, like a TED Talk speaker rallying for change. Background: Subtle office sounds: typing, flipping blueprint pages, faint construction hum, fading in and out.)So, how do we pull the American Dream back from the brink? We need homes under $150,000! You've heard the grim math from our teacher in Act 2. That five-times-income ratio is a trap. But it's a trap we can engineer our way out of. It’s our Erie Canal moment, and the tool to dig it is competition.Picture this: builders racing to craft small, affordable homes. 600 to 1,000 square feet, sturdy and smart, not some cookie-cutter McMansion. The spark? A Small Business Innovation Research program, an SBIR for housing. SBIRs are America’s secret sauce, fueling breakthroughs in tech, defense, and agriculture with competitive grants for small businesses. Phase I: dream up designs, like modular units, shipping-container conversions, energy-efficient builds. Phase II: build prototypes that hit $150,000 or less. Phase III: scale the winners with private capital, flooding the market with homes for first-time buyers, not hedge-fund vultures. Really promising defense proposals go direct to Phase II to get started quicker.This isn’t a pipe dream! It’s already halfway here. The USDA’s SBIR program for rural development is a goldmine, funding innovations to lift rural America, including housing. USDA’s rural SBIR runs in recurring cycles. We need to earmark funds for starter-home prototypes. For cities, HUD’s got $20 million in innovation grants, with deadlines like July 2025 already pushing affordability. But we need Congress to greenlight a full HUD SBIR, turning empty lots, old warehouses, and dead-end parking slabs into homes for workers, not speculators.In short, SBIR is Phase I: design; Phase II: build; Phase III: scale, with prizes for those who hit price, speed, and energy targets. USDA’s rural SBIR has upcoming cycles we can earmark for starter-home prototypes; HUD has piloted innovation grants, but Congress should create a full HUD SBIR for cities.Here’s the kicker: we tie the money to slashing red tape. No zoning reform, no funds. Cities and counties need consistent guidelines: by-right approvals for small homes, no lot-size nonsense above 2,500 square feet, no parking minimums near transit, fees capped at 3% of costs. Reward builders under 500 employees (better yet, under 100) who deliver fast. Under 120 days to occupancy, and cheap, with bonuses for sub-$125k homes. This isn’t a handout; it’s a race. Just like the Erie Canal turned a bankrupt merchant’s sketch into a national artery, SBIR can turn small builders into the architects of a new American Dream.We’ve done the impossible before. We dug a 363-mile ditch by hand, no dynamite, no excuses. If we can build canals, railroads, and the internet, we can build homes for working families. It’s time to drain the zoning swamp and let innovators lead the way.Act 4: Bureaucracy Reform – No Reform, No Funds!(Voice: Builder – Gruff, hands-on male, late 30s, with a tool-belt swagger and a fed-up edge, like a contractor who’s battled city hall and won. Background: Construction site bustle. Hammer strikes, saw whirs, gravel crunch, fading in and out.)I’m a builder. I don’t wrestle swamps or blast limestone cliffs like those Erie Canal boys. My battleground’s worse: zoning codes, permit desks, and bureaucrats who think they’re gatekeepers to my toolbox. Those rules cost more than stone, and they’re crushing working families.Take “by-right approvals.” Fancy term, simple idea: if my plans for a 600-square-foot starter home follow the zoning rules, such as lot size, height, and setbacks, I get my permit, no questions asked. No six-month hearings, no neighbors stonewalling, no planning board playing king. Just a quick check by a city clerk to confirm I’m legit, and I’m breaking ground in 30 days. Projects that fit the code skip the red tape.Adam Smith nailed it in 1776: I don’t build homes out of charity, like some saintly carpenter. I build to make a living. But right now, the system’s rigged. Land’s pricier than gold, materials cost a fortune, and every permit hearing’s a shakedown. Build a 600-square-foot starter home? I’d lose my shirt. McMansions? That’s where the profit’s at. So that’s what gets built, while young folks like that teacher in Act 2 get priced out.Here’s the fix: homes should cost twice the median income, like in the 1960s. Twelve thousand against fifty-six hundred. Today, with incomes at 84 grand, that means $150,000 homes. Not subsidies, not studies; actual affordability. And the only way there? Competition, unleashed by draining the zoning swamp.Enter the rule: No reform, no funds. Want federal SBIR cash to spark those starter homes? Cities and counties sign a Housing Reform MOU or get nothing. That means: By-right approvals. Capped fees. 30-day permits. Lot sizes under 2,500 sq ft. No parking minimums near transit. Five-foot setbacks. Pattern books. 120-day to occupancy.This ain’t about gutting safety codes. Fire, seismic, egress stay tight. Fair housing rules stand. But the games? Done. Only reform zones get SBIR grants. Extra reforms, like lot splits or ADUs everywhere, earn a scoring boost, say 1.2x. We’ve seen it work: the “Montana Miracle,” where the state response limited local governments’ power to impose costly development restrictions, and Texas’ permit streamlining. Scale the concepts nationally, and we change the cost curve.Government’s job is to protect life, liberty, and property for working people. Today, that means clearing the path so regular folks can own a home, not just rent from some corporate landlord king. This is our Erie Canal. We need to cut through red tape, not rock. No reform, no funds. Let’s get to work.Counterarguments: Facing the Skeptics“$150,000 homes are impossible.”Not everywhere. Land is cheap in many small cities and rural markets. Factory-built modules, like LEGO homes, are built off-site, cutting labor and waste; new methods can trim material costs. The target isn’t San Francisco high-rises. It’s starter homes where land and rules allow them. The goal is a repeatable $150k path, not a one-off miracle.“Local governments won’t reform.”Tie money to reform and priorities move. No reform, no funds. Cities sign a Housing Reform MOU: by-right approvals, capped fees, fast permits, or they sit out. We’ve already seen states streamline reviews and allow more small homes. Put the carrots where the gates are.“This is a handout.”SBIR isn’t charity; it’s a race. Phase I designs, Phase II prototypes, Phase III scales with private capital. Builders win by delivering price and speed, not by lobbying for special favors. That’s competition with a finish line that matters.“Cheap homes will tank values and crowd neighborhoods.”Small homes done well stabilize ownership and add options without chaos. Pattern books keep design coherent. ADUs and small lots add gentle density. More neighbors, not high-rises.“We can’t afford this.”We can’t afford not to. The canal was audacious for its day; it paid for itself in growth. A national SBIR pilot is modest compared to the programs we already run, and it targets the one lever that drops costs for everyone: supply at the starter tier.Every big American project sounded like madness. Until it didn’t.We, the People – Our Canal, Our MomentWe, the People, carry a lot at once: wages trail the bills, healthcare scares the insured, debt nibbles every paycheck, childcare rivals tuition, heat and light outpace our raises.But housing affordability is our biggest opportunity. Businesses can’t pay livable wages if the cost of living keeps outstripping revenue. Workers can’t save for retirement or have babies if they can’t afford a house to sleep in. More than anything, Americans need food on the table and heat in the house.If we are to open the door to opportunity, housing is the hinge. Fix the hinge, and the door swings freely.Think of that teacher in Act 2, grading by day, tutoring by night, rowing a tissue-paper boat while the Dream drifts away. Think of the builder in Act 4, fighting fiefdoms of permits, ready to put up the homes she can actually buy.They’re not asking for favors. They’re asking for a fair doorway. Our grandparents had it: a house only twice a family’s income. Today, the ratio is more than double that. The doorway is slamming.This is our Erie Canal moment. In 1817, a bankrupt merchant’s prison essays sparked a 363-mile cut through forest, swamp, and stone, paying the nation back many times over. Now we cut through paper, not rock.The tool is competition: a Small Business Innovation Research program, or SBIR for housing, racing to deliver $150,000 starter homes. And the rule is simple: no reform, no funds. By-right approvals. Capped fees. Fast permits. Pattern books. Public trackers. Competition and conditions that support changing the market for working Americans. We dug a continent-shaping canal with shovels and black powder. We can clear a pathway to ownership with pens and political will.Housing is our canal. Open the gates. Build the doorway.May God bless the builders, the trades, and the teachers, and God bless the United States of America.Music from #Uppbeathttps://uppbeat.io/t/ceridwen-mccooey/the-peacockLicense code: PLAJBRCEHGUZQDVS Get full access to I Believe at joelkdouglas.substack.com/subscribe

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• Are We Designing Our Tools to Fail on Purpose?

  Our neighbors say they love their EVs. We take a test drive. They’re quick. They’re quiet. They’re fun!Then the facts elbow in. EVs were sold as being cheaper, but in America, they aren’t. Many lose value fast. Some models shed close to half their value in a year. Sales have flattened. They’ll likely spike before the federal credit expires September 30, then sag after.Some of us want to love EVs, but something isn’t quite right.Is it the range, shorter in winter, the waits at chargers, or that stations aren’t where we need them?Maybe none of those. Maybe the cars are designed to be replaced, not to last.So our question:Is this new tech built for my life, or for the next sale?Curtain. Scene One. The 1,000-Hour Lightbulb.Close your eyes and step onto a city street in the late 1920s. Windows glow like jewels. Streetcars hum. Night is no longer darkness. By 1930, nearly nine in ten urban and nonfarm rural homes had electricity. About one in ten farms did. Light is not a luxury. It is the texture of modern life.Enter stage left.At first, bulbs lasted a long time. Early tungsten lamps often burned well past fifteen hundred hours, many to two thousand and beyond. Families loved that. Companies that had built factories did not. In Germany, Osram’s sales fell from sixty three million bulbs in fiscal year 1922 to 1923 to twenty eight million the next year.On December 23, 1924, the leading manufacturers met in Geneva to form what we now call the Phoebus cartel. Osram, Philips, Compagnie des Lampes, and General Electric’s overseas network joined. Its global reach was unusual for the time. By early 1925, they set a benchmark of a one thousand hour life for household bulbs, down from the fifteen hundred to two thousand hours common before. Shorter than families expected, and exactly what manufacturers needed.This was not sloppy work. It was engineering with a new purpose. Each factory shipped samples to a central laboratory in Switzerland. Technicians tested life spans against the benchmark. A company paid a fine if a bulb lasted too short or too long for its class. Reliability became real, but a different kind of real. It was no longer ‘this bulb will endure.’It was equipment that reliably failed on schedule.Consumers adjusted fast. Every brand converged near one thousand hours. Burnout stopped feeling like a defect and started feeling like life. A 1927 Tokyo Electric memo to the cartel reported a fivefold jump in sales. More failures meant more purchases. The cartel redesigned the market not with a breakthrough that gave people more, but with a standard that made sure they would buy again soon.At the same time, the manufacturers claimed progress. They said shorter life meant brighter light and better efficiency. At a higher cost. The new standard raised turnover and margins and punished any member tempted to make a bulb that lasted too long.Companies got paid for replacements. They were not just selling a lightbulb. They were selling this lightbulb and all your next lightbulbs on a schedule.The world has limits. The cartel did not last. Patents expired. Members fought. World War II shattered coordination. In the United States, courts scrutinized General Electric and its partners for collusive control of the lamp business. In 1949, a federal district court found that General Electric monopolized the incandescent lamp industry in violation of section 2 of the Sherman Act.A tool’s death isn’t a breakdown. It’s the quiet moment it stops serving your life. The market plans what you will buy next. Some call that progress.We, the People, need governance to stop failure by design.When we set standards, we should ask: Is this new tech built for my life, or for the next sale?Humanity, Existence, and TimeWe miss what being is because we forget time.Life is not a thing on a shelf. It moves. Picture a clearing in a green mountain forest. We step in already involved, tools in hand, neighbors around, choices pressing in. Our kind of life is being-there. We show up to a world that already matters.Meaning comes through time. Past, present, and future braid every moment. We carry what has been, deal with what is, and anticipate what could be. A rancher does not just cut hay; they remember last year’s rain, read today’s moisture, and watch the three-day forecast. Time makes the work make sense because time sets the limits.The hard edge of time is death. Not only ours. Tools die too. Death frames our choices. Faced clearly, it does not make life grim; it makes it ours. It calls us to live with purpose.In that clearing, a tool “lives” when it disappears into the work. It “dies” when it fails our project and forces itself into attention. Philosophy calls the first ready-to-hand; the second is an object in the way.A tool is alive for us only while it supports our next possibilities. It may not die in a crash. It dies when it stops supporting our lives. Some would schedule that death and call it progress. That is why we need rules that resist quiet, coordinated failure.In tech, death is not when the device stops working; it is when it stops working for you. So, what does this philosophical lens reveal about our devices today?Curtain. Scene Two. Apple and Failing BatteriesWinter 2017. Your phone feels slower. Not creek-dropped slow, just sticky. Screens load like they are pulling a sled. Benchmarks confirm what our thumbs already know. Older iPhones with worn batteries run below design speed and perk up after a battery swap. A developer posts the charts. The story catches fire.Enter stage right.Earlier that year, Apple pushed a software update that changed how the phone handled power. When a battery aged, or when cold or a low charge cut peak power, the system quietly managed performance to prevent sudden shutoffs. No pop-up. No heads-up. A rule under the hood to smooth over an old battery’s limits. Later, Apple explained the machinery and added a setting so the user could see it and choose to turn it off or replace the battery.One version of the story called this protection. Better a slower phone than a dead one in your pocket. Another said it felt like a schedule, set without consent, that made aging devices feel obsolete. Apple apologized, cut the out-of-warranty battery price from 79 dollars to 29 for 2018, and promised more transparency. They added battery-health readouts and a switch to disable the slowdown.Regulators and courts weighed in. In France, consumer authorities fined Apple 25 million euros for failing to inform users that a software update could reduce performance. In the United States, 34 states reached a 113 million dollar settlement over alleged misrepresentations about batteries and slowdowns (without admitting wrongdoing). A federal class action settled for up to 500 million dollars on related claims (again, without admitting wrongdoing).This is not an attack on Apple. Here is what matters for our piece.A battery is mortal chemistry. In the cold, it cannot deliver the same peak power. With age, it cannot hold the same charge. The software’s job was to stretch usefulness. Keep the tool “alive” for your day by preventing blackouts.But the choice was hidden. People felt like their tools were dying because they no longer supported the day’s work. Only after the controversy did Apple present the controls and the explanation. Starting in 2018, Apple and its customers quietly renegotiated the tool’s life.A tool dies when it stops serving you. We need governance to stop failure by design. When choices are hidden, tools die for us. Is this new tech built for my life, or for the next sale?Curtain. Scene Three. The Electric Vehicle. Combustion vehicles age as a negotiation.Yes, parts wear. But you can rebuild, swap, and refresh. Engines come out. New rings go in. Transmissions get replaced. That is why Americans keep vehicles so long. The average age is nearly thirteen years, and many go far beyond that with routine upkeep. With maintenance, a truck that is twenty years old can still deliver the same range and near original power. The fuel tank did not shrink. Compression and fueling are serviceable systems. Keep the machine fit and it keeps carrying your life.Electric vehicles age as a countdown.EVs run on two clocks. First, the seasonal clock. In real cold, range drops because the cabin needs heat and the chemistry slows. Controlled tests around twenty degrees Fahrenheit found some EVs lost roughly forty percent of their range with the heater on. Reporting from recent cold snaps shows a 10 to 36 percent hit depending on model and use. Preheating and heat pumps help, but they don’t erase the penalty. When spring returns, most of that loss is temporary.Second, the chemical clock. Lithium ion packs fade slowly. Large fleet datasets put average loss near two percent per year, and many packs are usable for twelve to fifteen years in moderate climates. Most makers back this with eight year, 100,000 to 150,000 mile battery warranties that guarantee about seventy percent capacity within the term.Many owners, especially those who live in warm climates, will never hit a hard stop. Average degradation is slow and largely predictable, and mild winter penalties are manageable with preheating and heat pumps.A combustion engine is an open ended project. Repairs may stop penciling out at some point, but the owner has the choice.An EV is a timed performance. One day the battery will no longer support a trip across the state in the cold. You might be able to replace the pack, but depending on model and supply, it can take weeks or months. Unlike the secret cartel of the 1920s, today’s EV countdown isn’t an illegal conspiracy. It’s a design trade-off. But the choices nonetheless steer consumers toward the next sale.Some argue that mandating longevity and a ‘right to repair’ for a nascent technology like EVs would be a catastrophic mistake. It would saddle innovators with the burden of supporting old models, lock in today’s inferior battery chemistry, and dramatically raise the upfront cost of vehicles. But if that argument is true, we shouldn’t be nationally trying to transition to this nascent technology, and there certainly shouldn’t be federal incentives trying to push us in that direction.This is not a choice between longevity and innovation. Our goal is not to freeze technology in place, but to make it modular. We should favor swappable, upgradable battery modules intended to achieve a durable chassis that serves a family for twenty years, and a battery system that can be renewed with the best technology available a decade from now. It aligns innovation with ownership as well as sales.Neither is morally better. A tool dies the day it no longer supports your being. For combustion, when the repair math fails. For EVs, when winter, aging, and route outgrow the pack you have, unless you choose to reset the clock.If aging becomes a schedule, choose renewal over replacement. Is this new tech built for my life, or for the next sale?And That Brings Us To GovernanceHere’s the transparency. The federal clean-vehicle tax credits end after September 30, 2025. Expect a rush before the deadline and a sag after.So what should We, the People ask for next? Tools die when they stop serving us. We need governance that stops failure by design and points incentives at renewal, not replacement.First, make a right to repair for every car, combustion or electric. Owners and independent shops need parts, tools, and software to keep vehicles alive. States are already moving: Massachusetts’ 2020 law is cleared to be enforced after a federal court dismissal, and Maine voters approved a repair law in 2023. Lock this in nationwide.Second, write longevity into EVs. Require clear battery-health readouts at sale and resale, enable module-level repair with transparent parts pricing, and set minimum parts-availability windows. If the battery is the heart of an EV, policy should make a heart transplant possible without games.Third, pursue and deter quiet coordination. The lesson of the 1,000-hour bulb is simple. When firms profit most from replacement, innovation masks decline. Antitrust scrutiny and transparent standards are pro-durability, not anti-business.Finally, fix the incentive mix. Replace the purchase credit with longevity credits. Support certified battery refurbish or replace programs. Reward vehicles that hit durability milestones with verified pack health. Seed a secondary market for factory-remanufactured modules. Tilt progress toward renewal and individual choice instead of the next sale.The success of this policy could be measured by a 15% increase in the average age of EVs on the road within a decade, and the emergence of a secondary market where refurbished battery modules cost less than 50% of a full pack replacement. If, after 10 years, the average EV lifespan hasn’t increased and module repair remains niche and expensive, the policy has failed to achieve its goal.Right now, Americans are asking. Is this new tech built for my life, or the next sale?Let’s champion the ability for individual Americans to choose a tool that supports their lives.May God bless the United States of America. Get full access to I Believe at joelkdouglas.substack.com/subscribe

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• Is a Sustainable Environment a Human Right?

  Belief vs. Biology: Is a Sustainable Environment a Human Right?This week, the world’s highest court spoke. The United Nations’ top judges issued a sweeping opinion: nations might violate international law if they fail to act on climate change (Associated Press, July 23, 2025, Molly Quell and Mike Corder reported). The International Court of Justice (ICJ) opinion posited that a sustainable environment is a human right. And that nations harmed by climate change might be entitled to reparations. The ruling came in response to a campaign by Vanuatu, a small island nation slowly sinking beneath rising seas. The court’s word carries no binding weight. No country must follow. No law compels it. No court can enforce it. It levies no sanctions, no penalties, and no compliance demands. Though not binding, ICJ opinions shape international norms and give weight to future legal and diplomatic efforts.The ICJ argued that inaction threatening human health, safety, or survival could violate international law. It cements the idea that environmental protection is a human rights issue. Court President Yuji Iwasawa called climate change ‘an existential problem of planetary proportions.’The big idea is simple: if clean air, a livable climate, and ecological stability keep us alive and dignified, then they are human rights.…This ruling feels detached from reality. We need to dig deeper.So this week’s question: Is a sustainable environment a human right?We Have to Start at the Beginning. What is it to be “Human”?Before we decide whether a “sustainable environment” is a human right, we need to ask a deeper question.What is it to be human? A courtroom will tell you a human is a natural person, Homo sapiens, endowed with dignity and moral status. That’s just a shallow definition. Strip it away, and the reality is older and harder.A human isn’t a symbol or a legal category. A human is a biological creature. We arrive slick with blood. We hunt, dig, plant, and tear up what we need to live. We kill both plants and animals to survive. When our crops fail, we raid new ground. When danger comes, we fight or we flee. That instinct carried us through ice ages, famines, and wars. It still drives the hand that guides the harvester combine or closes a factory gate against cheaper imports. Biology never rests.No matter how much philosophy or law we try to layer on top, we can’t escape that fact.But we’re also unlike any other animal. We believe. We invent things no other animal can imagine: laws, borders, rights, money, marriage. Those beliefs let strangers cooperate by the millions. We write constitutions, build courts, and carve order out of chaos. But belief is fragile. When enough people stop believing, currencies collapse, treaties shatter, and thrones fall.These two forces share the same skull. Biology pushes us to survive at any cost. Belief tells us to restrain that push for the greater good. Sometimes they align. Often they clash. The International Court of Justice calls a “sustainable environment” a human right. That is a statement of belief, not a law of nature. It says humans must throttle back the internal engines that feed, warm, and defend us. On paper, the duty sounds noble. But in the flesh, it hits every nerve wired for survival. Humans haven’t been here long in Earth’s timeline. Yet we survived ice ages, famines, and wars by adapting and producing. By overwhelming problems with force. Not by scaling back.If the obligation demands we shrink the engines that power modern life, the conflict isn’t legal. It’s primal. We are watching belief walk into the ring with biology. The court asks us to trade proven tools of survival for a moral blueprint still waiting on bricks and rebar. That trade is not impossible, but it will not be easy, and biology will keep the score.So let’s test this idea against history, starting with the Marshall Plan.The Marshall PlanThe United States launched the Marshall Plan in 1948. After World War II, Europe lay in ruins. Factories were silent, currencies worthless, and cities hollowed out. Communist parties gained ground, and Washington saw the danger. We poured more than $13 billion, over $130 billion in today’s dollars, into Western Europe. The program remains a rare case study of large‑scale aid that actually worked: it restored stability, jump‑started shattered economies, and lowered the risk of renewed violence. But the motive was not ideology alone. The United States also needed solvent trading partners to buy American goods and help anchor a fledgling rules‑based order.Europe needed security; we needed industrial muscle. America cranked up production of steel, food, fuel, and machinery at a pace that could hold the continent together. The emissions were massive, but the overriding question was survival, not cleanliness. We had to build fast enough to keep Europe from falling apart.Look at the Netherlands. German fortifications and Allied bombing leveled whole districts of a city named The Hague and displaced more than 130,000 residents. After the war, America churned out the steel and cement that rebuilt the city, and the smokestacks poured emissions into the sky. Today, The Hague is the home of the same International Court of Justice that ruled a sustainable environment is a human right. Marshall Plan funds of about $1.1 billion, the highest per‑capita aid in Western Europe, paid for coal, cement, and specialized equipment to the Netherlands. We rebuilt ports, factories, and housing stock. Within a decade, the city had gone from “largest building site in Europe” to a functioning capital again.Would we generate more industrial and manufacturing capability to rebuild The Hague today, if necessary? Absolutely, yes. Even though the court that sits there ruled that the resulting emissions might violate international law. The Marshall Plan demonstrated what happens when biology takes precedence over belief.But of course, nothing is black and white. The ICJ opinion looks forward, not back. It doesn’t punish the Marshall Plan or any past policy. Let’s look at another story.The Right to Clean Air: Delhi, India, 2019In 2019, the air in Delhi turned poisonous. Schools shut down. Authorities grounded flights. Visibility dropped to near zero. Emergency rooms filled with children who couldn’t stop coughing. Construction halted. People wore masks long before COVID made it normal. The Indian government called it a public health emergency.This event was the predictable result of crop burning, unchecked industrial pollution, vehicle emissions, and seasonal weather patterns that trapped smog like a lid over the city. It happened every year, and every year, people died.Then, inside India, in one of the most polluted cities on Earth, belief overruled biology in court.Biology said: Adapt or suffer. People were coughing blood. Kids were developing lifelong respiratory damage. Entire populations were living in a toxic cloud, and from a purely biological standpoint, they should have either fled the region or accepted the toll as the cost of living.But they didn’t. Citizens sued.In 2021, the Indian Supreme Court ruled that the right to life included the right to clean air as a binding constitutional right. The court ordered governments to coordinate, enforce pollution controls, and protect public health. For India, this point wasn’t woke ideology. It was survival. No emissions cuts would fix it overnight, and Delhi still struggles with pollution, but the ruling forced governments to act. Environmental collapse became a human dignity violation, not a policy failure.Follow-up data show that the ruling was more than symbolic. Since the court’s directives and India’s National Clean Air Programme kicked in, Delhi’s air is about fifteen percent cleaner today. Still triple the safe limit, yes. But every fraction means fewer asthma attacks, fewer cardiac emergencies, and thousands of school days reclaimed each winter. Belief did not cleanse the air overnight. But it forced measurable gains. It’s proof that a legal idea tied to enforcement and money can bend biology in the right direction.But Now, the Brutal TruthEven if America reduced its emissions today, would climate change stop? No. Even if we cut all emissions to zero tomorrow, the planet wouldn’t stop warming. Not right away. Not for decades.Carbon dioxide stays in the atmosphere for hundreds of years. What we’ve already emitted, along with China, India, Europe, and the rest, is already baked in. That legacy carbon keeps trapping heat, melting ice, and driving storms, no matter what we do now.And we aren’t the only emitter. We are currently responsible for about 13–15% of global emissions, depending on how you count. China emits more than double that. India’s emissions are rising fast. Developing nations, in total, now emit more than developed ones. And we are improving. We’ve cut emissions from electricity production by 35% since 2007.But even if the United States went to zero, the warming would continue. Sea levels would keep rising. Places like Vanuatu would still drown, just more slowly.That’s not an excuse for doing nothing. But we need to be honest.Cutting emissions isn’t a rescue plan. It’s a brake. It slows the damage. It might help future generations, but it doesn’t undo the past. And it doesn’t save the people standing in the water right now.If we’re serious about survival, emissions cuts aren’t enough. We need adaptation. We need infrastructure. And we need to stop pretending courtroom declarations can replace concrete, steel, and hard physical work.We survive by adapting, producing, and overwhelming problems with force, not by scaling back. Countries like Vanuatu need our help, not promises made in cities we rebuilt with industrial might that pumped emissions into the air.What’s It Going to Be?We began with a court opinion and a question of rights. We trekked through biology, belief, wartime industry, and Delhi’s burning air to see how those rights collide with reality. Now the path loops back to you, the listener.Here is our problem, simplified: believing that a stable climate is a human right does not cool a single degree of ocean or raise a single stretch of road. Biology will continue to test us, and belief alone will fail that test.Our solution is equally plain: we need to turn belief into infrastructure. We need to cash our chips out as reinforced coastlines, relocated villages, cleaner grids, and resilient economies. Engineers first, lawyers later.Every nation, especially the ones with means, has a choice. We can cling to declarations and watch biology take its toll, or we can pick up the tools that have saved us before and aim them at the new threat. History will judge us by reformed infrastructure, not by the eloquence of our court filings.Belief may bind us together, but it will not overcome biology. Belief sets the goal. Biology will keep the score and decide the winner.So this week’s question stands: Is a sustainable environment a human right? And if we say yes, what will we build to prove it?May God bless the United States of America. May we find the resolve to build the consensus to adapt.Music from #Uppbeathttps://uppbeat.io/t/soundroll/tactical-approachLicense code: KTT8RMR85MWMPE5V Get full access to I Believe at joelkdouglas.substack.com/subscribe

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• What Would It Take to Make State Government Matter Again?

  State Government Funding Is a ParadoxState governments do important work, but too often, they’re boxed in. If we want better roads, stronger schools, and healthier communities, we don’t need to cut federal support. We need to change how it works.Fragmented control kills leadership and accountability. Federal and state officials often share authority with different priorities. That overlap creates seams: delays, miscommunication, and gaps where problems fall through. Even an imperfect decision-maker, if clearly responsible, can move faster than a tangle of agencies working at cross purposes. Clarity beats complexity.Effective leadership means guidance, resourcing, results, and accountability. To orient in the right direction, there’s one mission, one leader, one line of authority. State power hasn’t been lost in a courtroom or an election. It’s been hollowed out by how the money works. Federal grants now pay for most of what states do, including roads, education, agriculture, healthcare, and law enforcement.That might sound like help. But if we look closer, we see that money comes with strings, and those strings are a leash. Voters elect one set of leaders. Then a second, unelected set inside federal agencies writes the rules through grant conditions, deadlines, and compliance forms. The people don’t know who to hold accountable.So this week we ask: What would it take to make state government matter again?After all, We the People was never meant to describe a bureaucracy. It was a declaration of self-government. Government of, by, and for the people. Not federal control, but local judgment. Not compliance. Purpose.The Problem: Compliance Masquerading as GovernanceEvery year, taxpayers send vast sums to Washington. That money returns to the states, but not freely. It comes with instructions: mandates, formulas, eligibility rules, and layers of accounting. States must apply for federal grants, and they don’t always win. In theory, it’s a partnership. In practice, it’s a transaction with terms that limit what states can do.State leaders don’t really govern under this model. They implement. Legislators may pass budgets, but terms are set in federal agencies. Local needs or voter demands don’t shape priorities. Instead, federal guidance, often years in advance, sets the conditions.This isn’t always malicious. The intent is to standardize, promote fairness, and ensure funds are spent wisely. But good intentions don’t guarantee good outcomes. Over time, this system rewards compliance over creativity, and risk avoidance over responsiveness. Innovation dies in the red tape.Federal power expands under the banner of help; state autonomy shrinks under the burden of compliance. What looks like governance is just administration. What looks like support is control.The Slow Death of Local JudgmentState governments must be able to set their own priorities, shaped by the needs of their communities. For a long time, they did. As examples, education, transportation, and agriculture were handled almost entirely at the state level. States had less money, but more authority.Before the 1960s, states ran their own public schools with minimal interference. That changed with the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, which expanded the federal role. The funding helped rural areas, but it came with strings. Testing mandates and performance targets now shape classroom policy, but national academic outcomes haven’t meaningfully improved, especially in reading and math.Transportation followed the same pattern. After the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956, federal funding brought federal design standards, environmental review processes, and route constraints. Local projects came to depend on federal approval. States could no longer freely set priorities.Agriculture shifted, too. Local extension offices once worked directly with farmers to adapt to local conditions. That changed with the rise of USDA-administered programs. Now, farmers make decisions based on eligibility for crop insurance, conservation compliance, and commodity subsidies.One of the clearest effects? Instead of a variety of food crops, the Midwest now grows mostly two: corn and soybeans. Neither is meant for direct human consumption, but they’re the safest bet under federal policy. The heartland used to grow more vegetables; food for people, not for fuel or feed.To sum up: kids don’t run in PE because they’re prepping for federally required benchmarks, but math scores didn’t go up.Most roads got safer, but Wyoming got the Snow Chi Minh Trail. It’s I-80’s scenic southern route, built against local advice, now one of the windiest, snowiest, most shutdown-prone highways in America.And all our food now contains federally subsidized corn sugar. A 2016 study in JAMA Internal Medicine found that Americans whose diets were highest in subsidized calories had significantly higher rates of obesity, high blood sugar, and inflammation.None of this is inherently malicious. Some of it works. Some doesn’t. But the pattern is clear: as federal dollars expand standardization, local authority shrinks.The First Stand for States’ RightsThis tension isn’t new.June and July, 1798. The Fifth Congress of the United States, under President John Adams, passed a series of four laws that became known as the Alien and Sedition Acts. Congress claimed the laws were meant to restrict the activities of foreign residents and silence dangerous speech.In reality, they made it a crime to criticize the federal government. If an American wrote something unflattering about the president or Congress, they could be fined or jailed. This wasn’t a fringe proposal. They passed and became law. And people were actually arrested, including congressmen, newspaper editors, and publishers.Now imagine you’re a state leader: a governor, a legislator. You’ve just joined this new American experiment. The Constitution is still fresh. The idea of a federal government this powerful is still new. Suddenly, it starts to look a little too much like the old one you just fought a war to escape. The kind of federal control that reminds you why we added a Second Amendment in the first place. Even Thomas Jefferson, the man who wrote the Declaration of Independence, and James Madison, the principal author of the Constitution, started to worry. And they didn’t just stand by.Jefferson drafted the Kentucky Resolutions in October 1798 and quietly passed them to political allies George Nicholas and Wilson Cary Nicholas in Kentucky. The legislature adopted them on November 16.A few weeks later, Madison followed suit. He drafted the Virginia Resolutions in secret and worked behind the scenes to move them through the legislature. They passed on December 24, just in time for Christmas.Both men kept their involvement quiet. Jefferson was Vice President. Madison was still in Congress. They knew that open authorship could trigger political backlash, or even charges under the laws they were challenging.Their resolutions argued that the states had created the federal government, not the other way around, and therefore retained powers not explicitly given away. They claimed the states had both a right and a duty to declare federal laws unconstitutional if those laws went too far.The resolutions didn’t carry legal weight, but they planted a seed that grew into later doctrines of nullification and state sovereignty.They weren’t perfect. The resolutions were later cited by those pushing secession at the onset of the Civil War. But in the moment, they were a clear stand for state autonomy against federal overreach.Most states rejected the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions. But the ideas stuck, and they helped carry the next Democratic-Republican candidate, Thomas Jefferson, into the presidency. When Jefferson took office, he let the Alien and Sedition Acts expire and pardoned those who had been convicted under them. He even returned some of the fines. He erased the laws and made sure their damage didn’t linger.Today, federal control looks different. It doesn’t come through dramatic laws. It comes through funding and the rules that come with it.Some of that funding does real good: roads, hospitals, schools. But the more Washington funds, the more it dictates. And the more it dictates, the less space state leaders have to lead.Federal agencies don’t see day-to-day realities clearly. They’re too distant to make the right call, but they still write the rules.Maybe there’s a better way.A Better Way: Fund Goals, Not ControlWe need a better way to structure federal support. One that honors constitutional balance, improves real-world outcomes, and respects state autonomy. A model built on four principles: guidance, resourcing, results, and accountability.Guidance doesn’t mean silence. Congress should set national priorities through laws and budgets. But those broad directions often get buried in red tape, splintered into grant conditions, reporting mandates, and timelines divorced from local realities.Instead of prescribing how to act, guidance should focus on what we aim to achieve. That means setting shared outcomes, not universal methods, and trusting states, with their varied geographies, cultures, and capacities, to chart their own course. Federal oversight still matters, especially to protect civil rights and prevent abuse, but oversight is not the same as control.Federal agencies don’t need to vanish. They need to collaborate. Agencies and state leaders should jointly define goals and align their work to meet them. A federal office doesn’t have to report to the state, but it should recognize the state’s voice as legitimate within its borders.Missouri and Illinois might pursue different agricultural policies. California and Nevada may diverge on environmental rules. Different is okay. A joint state and federal agency team making progress and achieving the goals matters more than methods. The goals are the decisive element.…ResourcingGoals without resources are empty. If states are going to lead, they need the tools to act: funding, usable data, and flexibility. Resourcing isn’t about writing checks. It’s about building capacity and letting strategy guide how dollars are spent instead of bureaucracy. In a better system, as long as states pursue the shared goals, they should be free to reallocate resources as needed. Leadership works adaptively, not by spreadsheets. …ResultsPeople don’t care if a program met its compliance checklist. Not how many forms were submitted, or whether a benchmark was technically met. They care about bridges and infrastructure, if the ER had a doctor, and whether the school taught their kid to read. Measuring results is harder than measuring process. It requires trust, collaboration, and the humility to admit when something isn’t working. It takes courage to admit we don’t achieve a goal, because it makes us accountable.Still, we have to measure results against the goals we set. Not because data is perfect. But if we don’t ask whether we succeeded, the system becomes self-justifying.…AccountabilityIn sum, we have the decisive element in place: shared goals. We have the resources to achieve those goals and the flexibility to move them as needed. We have the courage to admit when we succeed, and when we don’t. We have set the conditions for accountability. When a program fails today, no one knows who to blame. States point to federal rules; agencies point to state mismanagement. When authority aligns with responsibility, voters know exactly who to hold accountable.Simply Saying We Believe in States’ Rights Isn’t Good EnoughWe started with a paradox. State support has become federal control. But the solution isn’t less support; it's smarter support. Support that restores autonomy, honors local judgment, and delivers real outcomes.We can’t just say we believe in states’ rights. We must prove it. Set goals. Trust states. Measure outcomes. Then hold leaders accountable. Only then will state government matter again.Government of the people means trusting local judgment more than distant control.At the same time, federal agencies bring expertise and capability that states don’t have. Rather than cutting federal agencies that seem to be underperforming, we need to reorient our approach. Set joint goals. Trust states. Measure what truly matters. Demand accountability. What would it take to make state government matter again?May God bless the United States of America, that government of the people might once again serve the people. Music from #Uppbeat https://uppbeat.io/t/hartzmann/next-focusLicense code: YZCVYFK6RPF9FAHD Get full access to I Believe at joelkdouglas.substack.com/subscribe

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