The Irony Of Life As Once Envisioned

By Joseph Carvalko | 31 August 2025
Church and State

(Credit: Joe Carvalko)

As we come upon this Labor Day holiday in the U.S., I think about the day we set aside to sit back, to relax, to enjoy a day off from the usual grind. The founders of our country expressed this idea upfront in The Declaration of Independence, which categorically states the ideal of “living in tranquility” indirectly through its emphasis on securing certain unalienable rights, including “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” It asserts that governments are instituted among people to secure these rights, deriving their powers from the consent of the governed, aiming to effectuate the “Safety and Happiness” of the people. And when a government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right and duty of the people to alter or abolish it to protect their future security.

But my fellow Americans, we are living in an era of irony, after irony in an America that rarely celebrates peace and tranquility. Rather, we celebrate violence and disruption. We are bombarded by news about violence, here and abroad. Weekly it seems we hear about a mass murder (and do nothing to abate its killing of innocents, especially children), daily we hear reports of civilians being massacred in Gaza or the Ukraine. And we have a president who doesn’t have a clue how to end it without betraying his fealty to international war criminals, Netanyahu or Putin. Television and social media forces us to follow Trump’s every hostile move against the workers who run the government, our universities, and private institutions such as the media.

It’s not all Trump’s reality show, but he is the ring leader at the center of much of this, as he politically capitalizes and fetishizes force as witnessed by his obsession with deploying armed troops, inward, aimed at American cities, claiming to keep us “safer,” all while he unleashes masked blackshirts only to terrorize and arrest hard working honest immigrants. We see TV spots where his Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth uncontrollably gesticulates, pointing his finger, shouting into the wind, “lethality, lethality!”

Make no mistake all this is emblematic of a broader shift in tone and policy by a Trump Administration that claims it wants to return to a nostalgic MAGA past but is determined to create a dystopian future where the word “lethality” has become a rallying cry under Hegseth’s leadership, a cry that may well turn inward into an America we no longer recognize. Back in the day before we had MAGA hacks and wannabe TV talk show hosts, running the country, I served with the Strategic Air Command whose motto, ingrained into each of us, was “Peace is Our Profession.” Some would obviously see satire here as well. But today, ironically, Hegseth shouts “lethality,” not exclusively against foreign enemies. What one finds chilling is, against just whom does he level his rant? It appears as least against we the people as he deploys Marines and National Guard into our cities. It’s unlikely he did not know what SAC stood for, certainly his boss, the draft dodger, didn’t.

While the Declaration itself does not use the exact phrase “living in tranquility,” the concept is closely related to the idea of securing safety, peace, and happiness, which imply a state of social and political tranquility free from tyranny and oppression. What, at its heart, does Labor Day means? It stands for the pursuit of a stable, just government to ensure safety and happiness, and to encompass the ideal of living in peace and tranquility. Look around America, today we have lost the very ideals our framers sought to create and preserve.

Joseph Carvalko is an American lawyer, who for over four decades has represented numerous organizations and individuals, from billionaires to indigents. He has been actively engaged in organizations such as Amnesty International, as its Legislative Coordinator for the State of New Mexico; the Sioux City American Indian Center, board member/activist; and Chairman, Technology and Ethics Working Research Group, Interdisciplinary Center for Bioethics, Yale University, and Adjunct Professor of Law at Quinnipiac University, School of Law, teaching Law, Science and Technology. He has also worked as a technologist, where he’s been awarded 18 patents in various fields. Carvalko has authored over twelve books which include novels, poetry, law, science and the humanities. His articles appear regularly in a variety of publications and blogs. He lives on the U.S. east coast and in the New Mexico mountains.

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