JULY 4, 2026

Still Serving

Some served beneath a distant sky,
Some sailed the sea so blue;
Some wore the nation's uniform,
Some raised a family, too.

Some healed the sick with gentle hands,
Some taught the young to dream;
Some quietly gave all they had,
Each part of Freedom's team.

We gathered here with silver hair,
Our marching days seem through,
Yet every sunrise asks again:
"What can I count on you?"

The answer need not shake the world,
Or make the headlines sing.
A smile can lift a lonely heart,
Kindness is no small thing.

Hold open doors. Be quick to laugh.
Forgive before you judge.
Trade patience for impatience,
And never hold a grudge.

Be humble when you're proven right.
Show empathy each day.
The strongest people often choose
The gentlest, kindest way.

Our nation is still blessed indeed
With freedoms few have known;
From mountain peaks to amber waves,
This land has long been home.

We're envied for our liberty,
Our welcome is warm and true,
And yes, our ranch dressing, it seems,
Has fans the whole world through!

But freedom isn't something kept
Inside a glass display.
It lives because good people choose
To guard it every day.

So when Election Day arrives,
Don't simply stay and stare.
A ballot is a quiet salute,

A way to show you care.

Our service isn't finished yet;
There's still good we can do.
Ask not what others owe to us,
Ask what we owe them, too.

Though years have slowed our marching feet,
Our hearts are standing tall.
For those who served, and those who serve,
There's room enough for all.

So here's to friends, to veterans,
To neighbors tried and true.
America grows stronger still
When I serve me and you serve you?

No, that's not quite the better way.

America grows stronger still
When I serve you,
And you serve, too.

WJS

SOCIALISM AND MORALITY

SOCIALISM, MORALITY, AND THE AMERICAN DILEMMA

For most of my life, I have searched for the principles that allow a society not merely to survive, but to flourish. The conclusion I have reached is simple: no economic system can succeed unless it rests upon a strong moral foundation. Economics follows morality, not the other way around.

In theory, socialism offers a compelling vision. It asks society to recognize its obligation to care for all its members. It seeks to reduce needless suffering, provide basic necessities, and place human welfare ahead of the accumulation of wealth. At its core lies the principle of empathy, the idea that the well-being of others matters and that a civilized society does not abandon its weakest members.

These are not new ideas. Long before socialism became a political philosophy, similar principles appeared in ethical teachings throughout history. The figure described in the New Testament as Jesus emphasized caring for the poor, helping the sick, feeding the hungry, and placing concern for others above the pursuit of wealth. Whether one accepts the religious account literally is beside the point. The moral principles themselves are clear: compassion, generosity, humility, and empathy.

Yet there is a profound contradiction in modern America.

The nation often describes itself as Christian, but much of its economic and political culture celebrates the opposite values. Wealth accumulation is treated as a primary measure of success. Competition is elevated above cooperation. Individual gain frequently takes precedence over communal responsibility. The result is a society in which enormous wealth exists alongside preventable suffering.

The problem, therefore, is not primarily economic. It is moral.

A society cannot sustain a system based upon caring for others unless a substantial majority of its citizens genuinely care about others. Socialism requires more than government programs. It requires citizens who are willing to place limits on their own self-interest. It requires empathy as a social virtue. It requires people to recognize that they owe obligations to strangers whom they may never meet.

Without such a moral foundation, socialism becomes impossible. Citizens begin looking for ways to avoid contributing. Groups compete for advantages. Corruption flourishes. Eventually, the system collapses under the weight of competing self-interests.

The same criticism, however, can be directed at capitalism. Capitalism without morality becomes exploitation. It concentrates wealth, rewards greed, and treats human beings as economic units rather than people. History shows that unchecked capitalism often leads to inequality, social instability, and political corruption.

The real question is therefore not whether capitalism or socialism is superior. The deeper question is whether humanity can develop a universal moral code strong enough to govern either system.

I have long argued that such a code already exists in rudimentary form. It is rooted in empathy and expressed through a simple principle: do no unnecessary harm. Every advanced moral system ultimately points toward that idea. Every successful civilization depends upon it.

Until America embraces a moral code that places empathy above greed, no economic system will save it. Capitalism will continue to enrich a few while neglecting many. Socialism will remain politically impossible because the moral prerequisites for its success do not exist.

The future of the nation will not be determined by economics alone. It will be determined by whether we can recover the moral courage to care about one another. Without empathy, every system fails. With empathy, almost any system can succeed.

The challenge before America, therefore, is not economic reform. It is moral renewal.

William James Spriggs

AN APOLOGY OF A SLEEPING GENERATION

An Apology of a Sleeping Generation

We were not the Greatest Generation.
We were the generation that inherited the victory.

We were born into the aftermath of sacrifice. The generation before us fought fascism, endured the Great Depression, built institutions, believed in public service, funded education, defeated dictators, and constructed the strongest middle class the world had ever seen. They handed us a functioning democracy, a moral framework, and a nation capable of greatness.

And then, little by little, we let it slip away.

Those of us born around 1939 and shortly thereafter grew up in extraordinary prosperity. We saw the rise of science, medicine, technology, higher education, labor protections, infrastructure, and constitutional stability. America stood not merely for power, but for an idea that free people, educated people, morally responsible people, could govern themselves.

But somewhere along the way, we stopped paying attention.

We became too busy living our own lives. Careers. Mortgages. Vacations. Status. Consumption. Entertainment. Personal advancement. We convinced ourselves that democracy could run on autopilot, that the institutions built by our parents were permanent and indestructible.

They were not.

While we were distracted, aggressive capitalism slowly transformed from a productive engine into a predatory system. Profit ceased being a means to build society and became society itself. Corporations grew more powerful than governments. Wealth is concentrated upward. Citizens became consumers. Education deteriorated. Critical thinking weakened. Truth itself became negotiable.

And we watched it happen.

Or worse, we did not watch it happen.

We allowed public education to decline because taxes became more offensive to us than ignorance. We allowed money to flood politics because we confused wealth with wisdom. We glorified selfishness and called it freedom. We abandoned the concept of the common good and replaced it with personal acquisition.

Then came the political transformation.

What began gradually accelerated under the illusion of patriotism and “free markets.” Ronald Reagan did not create the movement, but he legitimized a philosophy that government itself was the enemy, that regulation was oppression, that greed was virtue, and that public responsibility was weakness. From there, the nation moved steadily toward privatization, deregulation, anti-intellectualism, and finally open hostility toward expertise, science, journalism, and objective reality.

We should have recognized the danger sooner.

Some did. Many did not.

And perhaps the greatest failure of all was moral complacency. We assumed fascism would arrive dramatically, with uniforms, marches, and obvious tyranny. Instead, it arrived disguised as entertainment, grievance, nationalism, celebrity worship, and resentment. It arrived through media manipulation and manufactured outrage. It fed upon poorly educated citizens whose anger had been cultivated for decades.

By the time many of us sounded the alarm,  especially around The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 and the 2024 election, the machinery was already deeply embedded.

And now we face consequences that are no longer merely political.

We face the possible collapse of democratic norms, the destruction of objective truth, runaway economic inequality, environmental instability, technological dangers beyond our control, and perhaps even threats to the survival of civilization itself. Artificial intelligence, corporate power, disinformation, and authoritarianism are converging at precisely the moment human wisdom appears weakest.

That is the bitter irony.

We achieved astonishing technological advancement while neglecting moral advancement.

And so this is, in part, an apology.

An apology from many in my generation who now understand that citizenship requires vigilance. That democracy is not self-sustaining. That freedom without education becomes manipulation. That capitalism without morality becomes exploitation. That societies collapse not only because evil people rise, but because good people become distracted.

We were distracted.

Too many of us assumed someone else would protect the republic.

Too many of us thought the Constitution was immortal.

Too many of us believed intelligence and decency would inevitably prevail.

History offers no such guarantees.

Still, perhaps there remains one final responsibility for those of us near the end of life: to tell the truth about what happened. To admit our failures honestly. To warn younger generations that civilizations, democracy, truth, and morality are fragile and require active defense.

The purpose of old age should not merely be remembrance. It should be testimony.

And this is ours.

William James Spriggs

Top of Form

 

Bottom of Form

 

RELIGION IS EVIL

RELIGION IS EVIL

Religion began as humanity’s first attempt to explain the unknown. Before science, before medicine, before astronomy, people looked at lightning, disease, drought, death, and the stars and invented stories to make terror bearable. That impulse was understandable. But what may once have served as primitive comfort has evolved into one of the most destructive forces in human history.

The problem is not spirituality, awe, wonder, or the search for meaning. The problem is organized religion: systems of belief demanding loyalty to claims without evidence, rewarding obedience over inquiry, and dividing humanity into tribes of “saved” and “unsaved,” “believers” and “infidels.” Religion has become institutionalized fiction defended as eternal truth. And when fiction is elevated above fact, civilization itself is endangered.

As God Is Not Great argued relentlessly, religion poisons everything because it inserts dogma where skepticism should exist. It teaches people not how to think, but what to think. It conditions the mind to accept authority without evidence. Once a population becomes comfortable believing extraordinary claims without proof, it becomes vulnerable to manipulation by priests, politicians, dictators, and demagogues. The surrender of critical thinking is religion’s greatest danger.

Richard Dawkins made a similar point in The God Delusion: religion survives not because it is true, but because it is culturally inherited and emotionally reinforced. Children are not born religious. They are taught religion before they possess the intellectual tools to challenge it. Faith is therefore often less a conclusion than an indoctrination.

The central defect of religion is epistemological: it elevates faith over evidence. Science says, “Show me.” Religion says, “Believe first.” Science changes when new evidence appears; religion clings to ancient texts regardless of contradiction. Science admits uncertainty; religion pretends certainty. One advances civilization. The other anchors civilization to superstition.

Throughout history, religion has repeatedly stood against human progress. It resisted astronomy when the church condemned Galileo Galilei. It resisted evolutionary biology when Darwin undermined literal creation myths. It resisted modern medicine, stem-cell research, contraception, and countless social reforms. Even today, religious extremism obstructs education, suppresses women, persecutes minorities, and justifies violence around the globe.

Worse still, religion often transforms ordinary people into moral absolutists convinced they possess divine authority. History is soaked in blood spilled in the name of God: crusades, inquisitions, witch trials, sectarian wars, terrorism, and endless persecution. No atheist has ever flown an airplane into a building because evolution demanded it. No scientific journal ever ordered the execution of heretics. Religious certainty is uniquely dangerous because it convinces people that cruelty is righteousness.

Religion also feeds narcissism. The belief that the universe was designed specifically for one species on one tiny planet, and that an all-powerful creator is personally concerned with individual thoughts, prayers, diets, rituals, and sexual behavior, is perhaps the greatest act of self-importance in human history. Many religions teach not humility, but cosmic favoritism: “We alone possess truth.” From that premise flows intolerance.

At the psychological level, religion exploits humanity’s greatest fear: death. Most religions promise immortality, reunion, reward, and cosmic justice. These promises comfort people, but comfort does not equal truth. Humanity desperately wants permanence, meaning, and continuation beyond death. Religion monetizes and institutionalizes that fear. It offers certainty where none exists.

The tragedy is that morality does not require religion at all. Human beings evolved empathy, cooperation, and reciprocal behavior long before organized theology. We know murder, cruelty, dishonesty, and betrayal are wrong not because a scripture commands it, but because conscience and social evolution made moral behavior essential to survival. A child understands fairness before understanding doctrine.

Indeed, religion often corrupts morality by replacing independent ethical reasoning with obedience. If something is “good” only because God commands it, morality becomes submission rather than understanding. History demonstrates the danger of this mindset: otherwise decent people have defended slavery, misogyny, homophobia, and violence because they believed divine authority sanctioned it.

The modern world now faces a profound choice. One path continues humanity’s long struggle toward reason, science, evidence, and universal human rights. The other retreats into tribalism, superstition, nationalism, and religious certainty. Artificial intelligence, biotechnology, climate science, and global cooperation require rational thinking on a planetary scale. Religion fragments humanity into competing mythologies precisely when collective reason is most necessary.

None of this means religious individuals cannot be kind, generous, or moral. Many are. But their goodness comes from their humanity, not their theology. The best people transcend the cruelty of their religions, while the worst people often find justification within them.

Humanity’s future depends on whether we finally outgrow the childhood need for supernatural explanations and accept the harder but nobler task of confronting reality honestly. Facts are the currency of a just society, and science is the arbiter of facts. Civilization advances only when truth outranks comfort.

Religion asks humanity to kneel before mystery. Reason asks humanity to investigate it.

One posture leads backward. The other leads forward.

Top of Form

Bottom of Form

William James Spriggs

WHAT IS WRONG WITH US II?

The Slow Drift: How America Lost Its Edge, and Risks Losing Control

Sometime in the late 20th century, roughly the 1970s into the 1980s, the United States began to lose its unquestioned lead in key measures of national strength. This was not a collapse, nor even a sudden reversal, but a gradual drift. Other nations, particularly in Europe and Asia, did not stand still. They educated their populations more effectively, invested in infrastructure, built modern healthcare systems, and, in many cases, outperformed the United States in life expectancy, educational outcomes, and social stability.

Today, the consequences of that drift are visible. The United States remains enormously powerful, economically, militarily, and technologically, but it is no longer clearly ahead in the ways that matter most to its citizens' daily lives.

The question is not whether this shift occurred. The question is why.

It Was Not Simply Leadership

It is tempting to blame political leadership. Certainly, poor decisions have been made, tax policies that widened inequality, deregulation that sometimes favored short-term gain over long-term stability, and chronic underinvestment in public goods like education and infrastructure.

But leadership alone does not explain a multi-decade trend. Leaders reflect the systems that produce them. They are symptoms as much as causes.

A Systemic Set of Causes

The decline, if we are to call it that, is better understood as the result of several interlocking forces:

1. Educational Stagnation
While other nations modernized and strengthened their education systems, the U.S. system became uneven. Excellence remained at the top, but broad-based performance lagged. A society cannot lead if its average citizen is underprepared.

2. Inequality and the Hollowing of the Middle Class
Beginning in the late 20th century, wealth concentration accelerated. The middle class, the historical engine of American stability and innovation, began to erode. Economic insecurity undermines long-term national strength.

3. Short-Term Thinking
Quarterly earnings replaced generational planning. Infrastructure aged. Public investment declined relative to need. Nations that plan for decades tend to outperform those that plan for the next election cycle.

4. Cultural Fragmentation and Distrust
A shared sense of purpose weakened. Public trust in institutions, expertise, and even basic facts declined. A society that cannot agree on reality cannot effectively govern itself.

5. Market Absolutism
The belief that markets alone could solve nearly all problems led to the neglect of essential public functions. Healthcare, education, and social stability do not operate efficiently as pure markets.

None of these causes is genetic. None is embedded in “American DNA.” They are structural, cultural, and policy-driven, and therefore reversible.

The Larger Danger: Technological Acceleration Without Control

If America’s relative drift is one concern, a far more profound one lies ahead.

We are now developing artificial intelligence at an extraordinary speed. Unlike previous technologies, AI has the potential not just to amplify human capability but to operate with increasing autonomy. Systems are already capable of learning, adapting, and making decisions that are not always transparent, even to their creators.

Yet governance lags far behind development.

The global race to build more powerful systems has created a perverse incentive: move faster than your competitors, or risk falling behind. Safety, control, and long-term consequences become secondary.

This is not because people are indifferent. It is because systems, economic, political, and competitive, reward speed over caution.

The result is a dangerous asymmetry: exponential technological capability paired with linear—or even stagnant—governance.

Are We Losing Control?

It is not accurate to say that artificial intelligence is already “out of control” or that it is independently plotting human destruction. That belongs more to speculation than to current reality.

However, it is entirely accurate to say this:

We are building systems whose full implications we do not yet understand, without having first established robust frameworks for control, alignment, and accountability.

That is not a failure of intelligence. It is a failure of discipline.

A Crisis of Priorities

The deeper issue—connecting America’s drift and the AI dilemma is not technological. It is philosophical.

We have prioritized:

• Speed over reflection
• Growth over stability
• Competition over cooperation
• Power over wisdom

These priorities have produced remarkable achievements, but they also carry risks that compound over time.

What Comes Next

The situation is not irreversible. But correction requires clarity.

America does not need to rediscover dominance. It needs to rediscover balance:

• Investment in people, not just markets
• Respect for facts as the foundation of decision-making
• Long-term planning alongside short-term performance
• Governance that matches the scale of technological change

And with respect to artificial intelligence, the imperative is clear:

Development must be matched, step by step, by serious, enforceable efforts to ensure control, safety, and alignment with human values.

Nations do not decline because of fate or genetics. They decline because of choices, accumulated, reinforced, and left uncorrected.

Likewise, technologies do not destroy civilizations on their own. They do so when developed without foresight, restraint, or responsibility.

The United States has not yet fallen irretrievably behind. Humanity has not yet surrendered control of its creations.

But both are at a point where complacency is no longer an option.

The drift can still be reversed.

The question is whether we will choose to reverse it.

William James Spriggs

WHAT IS WRONG WITH US?

The Slow Drift: How America Lost Its Edge, and Risks Losing Control

Sometime in the late 20th century, roughly the 1970s into the 1980s, the United States began to lose its unquestioned lead in key measures of national strength. This was not a collapse, nor even a sudden reversal, but a gradual drift. Other nations, particularly in Europe and Asia, did not stand still. They educated their populations more effectively, invested in infrastructure, built modern healthcare systems, and, in many cases, outperformed the United States in life expectancy, educational outcomes, and social stability.

Today, the consequences of that drift are visible. The United States remains enormously powerful, economically, militarily, and technologically, but it is no longer clearly ahead in the ways that matter most to its citizens' daily lives.

The question is not whether this shift occurred. The question is why.

It Was Not Simply Leadership

It is tempting to blame political leadership. Certainly, poor decisions have been made, tax policies that widened inequality, deregulation that sometimes favored short-term gain over long-term stability, and chronic underinvestment in public goods like education and infrastructure.

But leadership alone does not explain a multi-decade trend. Leaders reflect the systems that produce them. They are symptoms as much as causes.

A Systemic Set of Causes

The decline, if we are to call it that, is better understood as the result of several interlocking forces:

1. Educational Stagnation
While other nations modernized and strengthened their education systems, the U.S. system became uneven. Excellence remained at the top, but broad-based performance lagged. A society cannot lead if its average citizen is underprepared.

2. Inequality and the Hollowing of the Middle Class
Beginning in the late 20th century, wealth concentration accelerated. The middle class, the historical engine of American stability and innovation, began to erode. Economic insecurity undermines long-term national strength.

3. Short-Term Thinking
Quarterly earnings replaced generational planning. Infrastructure aged. Public investment declined relative to need. Nations that plan for decades tend to outperform those that plan for the next election cycle.

4. Cultural Fragmentation and Distrust
A shared sense of purpose weakened. Public trust in institutions, expertise, and even basic facts declined. A society that cannot agree on reality cannot effectively govern itself.

5. Market Absolutism
The belief that markets alone could solve nearly all problems led to the neglect of essential public functions. Healthcare, education, and social stability do not operate efficiently as pure markets.

None of these causes is genetic. None is embedded in “American DNA.” They are structural, cultural, and policy-driven, and therefore reversible.

The Larger Danger: Technological Acceleration Without Control

If America’s relative drift is one concern, a far more profound one lies ahead.

We are now developing artificial intelligence at an extraordinary speed. Unlike previous technologies, AI has the potential not just to amplify human capability but to operate with increasing autonomy. Systems are already capable of learning, adapting, and making decisions that are not always transparent, even to their creators.

Yet governance lags far behind development.

The global race to build more powerful systems has created a perverse incentive: move faster than your competitors, or risk falling behind. Safety, control, and long-term consequences become secondary.

This is not because people are indifferent. It is because systems, economic, political, and competitive, reward speed over caution.

The result is a dangerous asymmetry: exponential technological capability paired with linear—or even stagnant—governance.

Are We Losing Control?

It is not accurate to say that artificial intelligence is already “out of control” or that it is independently plotting human destruction. That belongs more to speculation than to current reality.

However, it is entirely accurate to say this:

We are building systems whose full implications we do not yet understand, without having first established robust frameworks for control, alignment, and accountability.

That is not a failure of intelligence. It is a failure of discipline.

A Crisis of Priorities

The deeper issue—connecting America’s drift and the AI dilemma is not technological. It is philosophical.

We have prioritized:

• Speed over reflection
• Growth over stability
• Competition over cooperation
• Power over wisdom

These priorities have produced remarkable achievements, but they also carry risks that compound over time.

What Comes Next

The situation is not irreversible. But correction requires clarity.

America does not need to rediscover dominance. It needs to rediscover balance:

• Investment in people, not just markets
• Respect for facts as the foundation of decision-making
• Long-term planning alongside short-term performance
• Governance that matches the scale of technological change

And with respect to artificial intelligence, the imperative is clear:

Development must be matched, step by step, by serious, enforceable efforts to ensure control, safety, and alignment with human values.

Nations do not decline because of fate or genetics. They decline because of choices, accumulated, reinforced, and left uncorrected.

Likewise, technologies do not destroy civilizations on their own. They do so when developed without foresight, restraint, or responsibility.

The United States has not yet fallen irretrievably behind. Humanity has not yet surrendered control of its creations.

But both are at a point where complacency is no longer an option.

The drift can still be reversed.

The question is whether we will choose to reverse it.

William James Spriggs

KEVIN CAN WAIT

“Kevin Can Wait”

Most of us are familiar with the phrase “Heaven Can Wait.”
It suggests that life is still worth living, that there is still something important to do before we go.

But here at Merrill Gardens, perhaps we need a new phrase:

“Kevin Can Wait.”

Whatever Kevin represents, the television, the daily routine, the distractions, the news of the day, all of that can wait.

What cannot wait is something far more important.

Each of us here carries a lifetime of experience. Each of us has lived through decades of changes, wars, prosperity, hardship, technological revolutions, personal triumphs, and disappointments. Each of us has learned something about life that younger generations cannot yet know.

In other words, every resident here has wisdom.

And that wisdom deserves to be passed on.

Walk down any hallway at Merrill Gardens, and you pass a lifetime of stories. There are lessons learned in business, in raising families, in love, in loss, in courage, in failure, and in resilience. These are not small things. These are the hard-earned insights of lives well lived.

But too often, those stories disappear.

Many of us were not given the gift of recorded wisdom from our parents or grandparents. They lived remarkable lives, but they rarely wrote things down. They rarely recorded their experiences. When they passed, their wisdom passed with them.

How often have we thought:

"I wish I had asked him about that."
"I wish she had told me more."
"I wish I knew what they learned."

We have the opportunity and perhaps the obligation to change that.

Passing on wisdom does not require writing a book. It does not require literary skill or technical expertise. It can be simple.

Write a letter to your children.
Record a short video.
Write down a few life lessons.
Tell the story of your greatest mistake, and what you learned.
Explain what mattered most in your life.

These do not need to be perfect. They only need to be honest.

Sometimes the simplest wisdom is the most powerful:

• Be kind, it matters more than you think
• Time moves faster than you expect
• Relationships matter more than possessions
• Courage is often quiet
• Integrity always matters

These truths come only with time. And younger generations need them.

Here at Merrill Gardens, we are uniquely positioned. This is a community of experience. A community of reflection. A community filled with people who have finally gained perspective.

Imagine if a groundswell began here, a quiet movement of residents deciding to record their wisdom and pass it on. Not for fame. Not for publication. Simply for family. For grandchildren. For the future.

What a remarkable legacy that would be.

It does not need to be formal. It does not need to be long. It just needs to exist.

Because time does not wait.

Each of us has at least one thing worth saying.
Most of us have many.

So perhaps the gentle challenge is this:

Write it down.
Record it.
Pass it on.

Because someday, someone you love will be grateful that you did.

And that is why, here at Merrill Gardens, we might say:

Heaven can wait.
But wisdom cannot.
And Kevin… can wait.

William James Spriggs