Automation and People and Land

I have been seeing a lot of prognostication lately about how automation is coming and robotics and AI is going to replace a lot of jobs. I even read one article saying that the haves will become a different species. I think a lot of these such articles are missing something important. Economics.

If we automate everyone out of a job, who will buy the products? How do we take advantage of economies of scale, if the scale is a handful of super rich. If owners of companies are so rich, and everyone else is so poor, what becomes of the people? What do you do with massive populations of people who don't or can't work, due to the economic and technological realities around them? Do we get to the point that we start wholesale elimination of large populations? Undoubtedly, some will see this and the answer. Genocide of such magnitude is unprecedented, but that is where the thinking of such articles lead.

I don't think it will come to that. People will not be replaced by machines in total. Sure, many jobs and functions will be. It will be painful, but people are creative. AI is not. It is not self aware. It does what it's programmers set it up to do. Again, most programs do things differently from what the programmers intended, but they do exactly what they are told. But what if our technology does get to that level where almost all jobs are replaced?

I am not sure how this whole thing works itself out, but it will have to. To feed such masses of poor will require a significant portion of the Earth's land for their maintenance. Who will pay for it? To resolve such questions will probably get ugly in some way, and the poor will probably have the bulk of the losers. I see a variety of solutions to such a dilemma , none of which are very palatable. Most of them will be some form or another of expansion of the current welfare state. Another disgusting alternative is the re-institutionalization of slavery, based solely on economic standing. I certainly hope that no governments will reach the point of deciding genocide is a good way to go.

One of the welfare state expansions that we are beginning too see is called basic income. Many nations are beginning to experiment with this concept. This money has to come from taxes and fees. If only the rich are making money, they will be who has to pay for everyone else. Still a no-win situation. The poor get an income, but become dependent on the government. They will lose incentive to work and create and make the world a better place. It sets up continued and increased tension between the rich and the poor which will eventually come to a head. The more the poor are displace by technology, the more the rich will be taxed. At some point, the rich will resist or rebel. That would lead to one of those other nasty scenarios mentioned above.

It doesn't have to be that way. Perhaps, there may be other solutions which might be worthwhile to look into. I remember reading about laws that existed in some small island countries many years ago that each family was required to grow and preserve a certain amount of food for each family member. They were required to spend a specified amount of time working their gardens. Those that could afford it could pay others to work in their garden's for them. If we step forward a couple of centuries and add technology into the mix, perhaps we find that there may be wisdom in some of the underlying principles of self reliance. This is a variation off of the theme of distributist thinking.

The key is making sure each person has access to the means to take care of themselves. This probably means some kind of guaranteed access to some required per person amount of land and water resources. It will require people to learn to work. The government would have to create some kind of equitable way of distributing, and redistributing, and redistributing again, the land and resources. It would have to be fair, and yet still make sure everyone had their required minimum. I suppose having rules for land inheritance which are different from other inheritance might be required. At any rate, there are some uncomfortable changes which would have to be made to our policies.

The interesting thing is, if we did establish such a program to support the poor, it won't prevent those who are so inclined from setting their sights higher, and seeking more than the bare minimum. If they fail, well, what better safety net than self reliance. Those who succeed can have that benefit of having other people or machines to their work to meet the requirements of such a system. It also would still provides enough of an economic structure to ensure trade will exist and therefore the capital required to create our modern wonders will continue.

Yes, it is true, there will still be rich and poor. Many will inherit their wealth. They will still have to be taxed to pay for government. The difference is, the poor will be better taken care of, have a better safety net, and still have opportunity. The taxes would not be as onerous as in the basic income scenario mentioned previously. A land distributism program would certainly not address all the problems that exist and getting people to understand and agree on the specifics will be extremely difficult. But it will be better than either hordes of unworking being paid for by massive taxes on a few rich, or the alternatives of mass slavery or wholesale genocide of those viewed as having no economic value.

Discernment and Discrimination

Discrimination is a much maligned word. People use it most often to describe unfair or hostile treatment of broad groups of innocent people. Whole sections of our federal code address the evils of discrimination. Millions of people have been victims of discrimination when seeking employment, attending school, searching for a home, or even where they shop.

However, discrimination may not be exactly what we think it is. And, it may not be all bad. Think of a related word: Discern. What does it mean? dictionary.com say it means "to distinguish mentally; recognize as distinct or different; discriminate". There it is again. Discriminate. So what does that mean, in a dictionary sense. Again, dictionary.com says it means "to note or observe a difference; distinguish accurately". So, discrimination is when we accurately distinguish the difference between things. That doesn't sound all that bad, so where does the problem lie?

To address this, we will again go back to dictionary.com, but do another entry. It says "to make a distinction in favor of or against a person or thing on the basis of the group, class, or category to which the person or thing belongs rather than according to actual merit; show partiality;". This sounds less nice. The real problem here is the partiality, and ignoring actual merit. Our laws specifically talk about discrimination, but discrimination can be good, as long as actual merit is recognized.

We have laws that say we can't discriminate on the basis of certain group memberships. The list of groups so protected has grown, and will continue to grow. Then we have other laws saying some discrimination in favor of certain group members is required. I couldn't agree more that we should avoid discrimination against a class of people without regard to personal merit. But what about when we discriminate against that personal merit. What if we decide that the specific qualities, traits, and characteristics of a specific individual are completely unacceptable, or at least inferior to some other alternative.

I think we all must do this in some degree or another in many aspects of our life. I see this in hiring whenever I see hiring done. Companies want the best employees that they can afford. Likewise, employees want to work for the best employers. We have to make such judgement calls in many aspects of our lives. There are a few, however, that can become very controversial very quickly.

Take dealing with neighbors for example. If you live in a neighborhood, and someone moves into the neighborhood that changes the nature of this neighborhood. What if it goes from being a place you loved to live to being a place you are looking to move away from. What kind of things might this new neighbor be doing that could make such a change. What if they are dealing drugs in what previously was a very child friendly place. What if they are a hoarder that fills their yard with such massive piles of junk that you begin to have major rodent and insect infestations. What are your avenues of recourse. Do you just move away and abandon your once wonderful neighborhood and take the financial hit that comes with such circumstances.

In some places, there have been local statutes which address these issues. A common phenomenon in real estate is the use of Home Owner Associations which enforce codes, covenants, and restrictions with the ability to file leans against and foreclose on homes for behavioral problems in neighborhoods. Some cities have created neighborhood preservation services which try to regulate these problems.

But what if your neighbor is just a jerk. What do you do then. I guess you are back to moving. What if all the other neighbors feel that same way. Generally speaking they have no recourse. But perhaps they should. Now, it isn't fair to foreclose and take the property of someone just because you don't like them.

But here is a crazy idea. What if the neighbors could get together and if a high enough percentage, like, 80%, decided they wanted some other neighbor to be forced to move, they could do some kind of forced buyout? Of course, they should probably have to pay a premium for the inconvenience, like maybe 15 or 20 percent. The neighbors would have to front the cash for it. There would have to be legal protections and a very specified process to go though, but, then, the neighborhood might be able to protect itself against deterioration, even if the problem was not a health or safety issue.

Now that I have presented such a nice little fix, now lets view what are ways it could go wrong. First, lets just assume that the hated neighbor is hated only because of race or religion. Is it fair they should be kicked out of where they live just because of discrimination? Also, what about those that rent? Should they have a say? Could a landlord be forced out because of bad tenants? Should they be able to? What are the ramifications? Might we end up with completely segregated neighborhoods? Most of our neighborhoods today are quite segregated. Would it be any worse using this system? Invariably, this subject, whatever side you find yourself on, is ripe for abuse. If it were implemented somewhere, there would have to be a lot of safeguards to protect against abuse. However, by not having such a law, we do not get rid of abuse, we just make it less visible. Under such a system, perhaps, the real benefit would be bringing existing abuses and persecutions out in the open.

I am not saying I think this is the ideal system, nor am I saying I favor unmerited discrimination. I do not. I am just saying that the current system is not working. It would be interesting so see a city, or small state, or even a small country institute such a policy for a trial period and what it would result in. It might turn out bad, but it might actually turn out with less unmerited discrimination than we now have.

Caring for the poor. Teaching them to fish might not be enough.

We have a lot of poor people in this world. But what is meant by poor can mean a lot of different things in different places. I really don't thing anyone would disagree that a single mother in Central America that has only a piece of dirt with no electricity, running water, toilets, or even a roof overhead is poor. One of my neighbors recently went there trying to help the extremely poor, and met this woman. She has about as close to nothing as one can get. She just wanted to have enough food to keep her and her 2 year old son alive for another week. I read many articles about poor people in various parts of the world who just want food. That is truly poor.

There are other kinds of poor. We have an ongoing debate in this country on how to help the poor. Our federal government has dozens of programs to help the poor. We spend unfathomable amounts of dollars trying to address the problem of America's poor. Unfortunately, the more of these programs that get used, the fewer that do all they can to work their way up out of poverty. It doesn't seem to mater how much we give them, it doesn't raise them out of poverty.

I suspect, there are several factors involved here. The first is opportunity and it is a double edged factor. There are many in the extreme poverty that simply do not have opportunity. There are many in fact, even if they knew 'how' to fish, could not feed themselves as they have no access to the fishing waters. Before we start teaching people how to take care of themselves, we need them to have access to the means to take care of themselves. The other side of opportunity applies to those who have the opportunity to life themselves up, but who have a better opportunity to just take the hand outs and not have to work for it. I am not saying the poor in the US don't work. Many of them do, but there are those who do not. Our means testing is very imperfect, and often those who get the most help, don't need it nearly as much as those to don't get the help. I have know quite a few families over the years whose expertise covered which forms and programs to leverage to get a maximum payout from the government.

The second factor is motivation. Those extreme poor in places like Central America, Africa, an so on would do just about anything to improve their situation. They work harder than just about everybody on the planet when they have opportunity. They have motivation. They lack opportunity. They also lack skills and training. If they have the chance, the will get the skills and training. The flip side is that those with robust social programs don't seem to have the motivation to work hard to improve their situation. It isn't that they don't want better. They do. But if they get too successful and trying to improve their situation, they will reach cutoffs for the programs they are using, the their success will ultimately penalize them and leave them worse off than they were before. They are motivated, but motivated to become better at utilizing government and other programs which provide for their needs. They are motivated to avoid too much success.

It is really tragic that this dichotomy exists. We need to find a way to have programs that taper better. That don't penalize those who are finding success. And, we need to find a way to take the resources we dedicate to the problem of poverty, and use it more effectively. Whatever the solution, it should be simple to administer, and difficult to defraud. And most importantly, it should be easily copy-able by those parts of the world where the truly extreme poor and in abundance.

Is growing income inequality inevitable?

I recently had a short twitter conversation with @RepBrianKing regarding wealth and income inequality. He had posted a link to this YouTube video that discusses the subject. I had responded that "our policies that have become more slanted towards so called socialism, have made things worse not better" and later that "Income inequality is a big threat, but neither socialist nor conservative approaches will work. They both make it worse." This led him to ask the question in the title of this post, "Is growing income inequality inevitable?" Well, the short answer echos the Lorax: "Unless.". The not quite as short answer is "It will be difficult to do, and certainly not guaranteed, and will require some very new approaches to government policy." The long answer needs a lot of explanation. I will first address the problems, then the solution, and then the challenges of implementing such a program.

THE PROBLEMS. (You can skip this section if you know all this already.)

1. Wealth and income inequalities. Wealth and income inequality are not the same and often get confused, but they are both problems. They affect everyone, but not in the same ways. Extreme wealth inequality will ultimately result is chaos, civil unrest, or even war, and perhaps even widespread slavery (think Roman or Mayan empire slavery, not just revolutionary war American slavery.) This is because ultimately, all the resources of an economy become concentrated in the hands of the very few, and the entire rest of the society ceases to have any stake in it, but become serfs in a new feudalism. We are not there yet, but it can happen. One of the most significant modern implosions of a strong society was the implosion of the Argentine economy in the early 1900s. It was a very robust and powerful economy, but the wealth had become concentrated. This led to war lords and ultimately the horrors that followed under years of political purges and dictatorship. Income inequality leads to wealth inequality, but it also has some immediate problems of its own. It has the tendency to lead to vast growing over-indebtedness.  Eventually all of that debt will turn into a massive default, which will wipe out the wealth of even most of the upper class (the 10% through 2%). True, they might maintain a slight income advantage over others, but their wealth will mostly be eliminated.

2. Broken safety nets. Today, we have social safety nets that are supposed to help keep the poor from abject poverty and misery. These include social security, medicare and medicaid, welfare, unemployment, disability, food stamps, and myriads of other lesser programs. Each of these are designed to address some specific ill or condition, but often contain elements that penalize real success at getting back on their feet again. For instance, unemployment provides up to 40% of what a person made (up to a cap), but if they happen to make a few dollars doing freelance or temporary work, it takes dollar for dollar from what they would be getting. They are immediately penalized for any small success, and the only incentive the unemployment provides is to not get a job or have any outside income. Any partial success they get immediately tears into what little safety net that they have. Also, some of these programs have cliff like cutoffs. One minute you have vital help, and as soon as you get a little success, the rug gets pulled out from underneath you. Another example is the minimum wage. Raising it does seem to help in the short term, but the prices on basic items, that have the smallest margins for businesses, get raised first and hit the poor the hardest, resulting in eventually lowering their standard of living.

3. Bad socialist policies. Socialist policies of tax the rich and redistribute it to the poor don't work either. They sound great in theory, but in practice, history has repeatedly shown it doesn't work. Look at Russia. After 70 years of the most stark socialist policies in history, their income and wealth inequality are worse than ours. Their rich are richer, and their poor are poorer. The reasons for this are complex and varied, but the fact is it doesn't work. 
(Why it doesn't work: instead of better equalizing the created wealth, it reduces the amount of wealth created while the distribution of that wealth doesn't actually improve. Instead it disappears into hidden, protected, or institutional holdings, and does so at an even higher rate. The rich and powerful find ways to position themselves within an even more influential power structure, and then become untouchable overlords. They only way to apply such a system is through extreme application of force, which dehumanizes both those being forced, and those doing the forcing, and doesn't end up being successful in the long run.)
4. Bad conservative policies. Conservative policies of flat taxation and minimal government regulation have a tendency to get blown out of proportion.  They turn into a wild west type scenario with the attitude of "You have have what you can take"  and the strongest, or best armed have a tendency to turn into thugs or robber barrons and they victimize others. Again, this dehumanizes both the victims and the victimizers. The reasons these conservative policies don't work are a little more clear than the socialist policies. They don't have the negative of reducing wealth creation, and it doesn't tend to hit the middle classes quite as hard, but the results are the same in the long run and those at the top end still get richer while everyone else gets poorer.
5. Corporate usurpation. Wealth and income inequality is made worse with institutionalization of the corporate mindset: a.  Our companies are too big to fail and  b.Employees aren't even slaves, they are numbers and calculations. Corporations are generally not affected by socialist policies as they generally are able to buy themselves an exception. They wield such unbelievable power in influence by the kind of wealth they can throw around, that only other corporations stand in their way. And yet, corporations keep getting bigger and more powerful. Too big to fail. They can nearly collapse our economy, and we will bail them out and transfer their liability to us, because we are too afraid of what happens if they go away. The individuals involved are part of that 1%, and they are untouchable. They can spend money that isn't even theirs to manipulate the world around them. If they do something repulsive or vile, they can hide behind their corporations and stand blameless. Our tax policies hardly touch them.

THE SOLUTIONS (Read carefully)
These solutions are NOT a cafeteria plan. Only a few will be effective without the others, and then, not very much. They all need to be there in support of each other.
1. We need a fair wage act. This act would replace our current wage laws. It is focuses on real earnings of employees in an organization. Organizations with employees generate wealth, and those involved in generating that wealth need to share in that. Organizations (companies, non-profits, government agencies, etc) should be subject to a policy that can be expressed as: the highest compensated individual's total pay can not exceed the organization multiple of the lowest compensated individual's total pay. The organization multiple is determined by organization size. The penalty could be a fine, a corporate tax, or whatever would incentivize organizations to follow the policy. In order to be effective, private contractors would have to be included in these calculations, and total pay would have to include bonuses, commissions, benefits, stock options and any other compensation that has monetary value. The only thing not included in this is dividends paid to stock holders. That is covered later.
2. A better Fair Tax. You may have heard of the fair tax. It is mostly backed by a bunch of tea-partier, anti-IRS types. Sometimes I wonder if they really understand what it is they claim to support. Anyway, they have several things right, and understanding why those are right, and how to use them is important. On the other hand, they have several things wrong, which would make things worse if not addressed and corrected. Things they have right: First, a prebate that is equal across all registered citizens and residents and their dependents which can make even the worst regressive tax system progressive. In fact, if done right, it can be the first tier of a safety net that doesn't penalize success. Second. Taxing income only serves to perpetuate the income divide. Those at the top of the wealth scale don't make income. They make dividends and capital gains, but not income. And often they can offset those by so-called loses. Taxing consumption can be applied more universally, with less tax evasion, and is effective at taxing even those who get around the income tax. It makes shifts foreign trade vastly in our favor, without subsidies or tariffs. Things they have wrong: They want to exclude education and investments. Having worked in the education industry for years, it is an industry. It needs to be taxed just like everything else. It spreads the burden more evenly, and takes away the advantage of those who can afford much better education without paying part of the tax burden. Even more so, investment has to be taxed. It is the primary method of perpetuation of wealth without paying their fair share. The tax level should not be so high as to destroy investment, but if they can pay 5 percent broker fees, surely they can afford to pay tax. They don't have to pay taxes on the gains, just on the investment. It becomes part of the cost of investing. By taxing everything, including education and investment, we can provide a larger prebate, maybe to double what they are currently proposing. That large of a prebate would act as a first safety net buffer to those who are poor. It could greatly improve their financial situation. For those who make more, they still get the prebate, but it is much less significant to them.
3. 20% Accounts. These accounts take care of a large portion of the rest of the social safety net. They are the first tier of unemployment. They help employees feel a little less trapped, and give them a fallback when the worst comes. They are funded by the employer as a 20% match for all compensation for all employees. Who manages them is less important than the fact that they are there. They could be managed by the individual, by investment professionals, or even government agencies. Also, regardless of who manages it, it needs to limit risk for the bulk of the principle while still trying to have some growth. These accounts are generally not tap-able unless the person is unemployed, retired, or in special circumstances as determined by regulation.
4. Inheritance and Gift limits per recipient.  Those with vast wealth perpetuate others with vast wealth. They may have earned it, but they don't help society by creating an upper echelon of society who become untouchable 1%'s. But, what if they were limited in how much they could give to any one person. It could be enough that the recipient could do anything, but not enough to do nothing, or enough to usurp control and power over society. Those with vast wealth would have to spread their wealth out enough to cause it to re-enter the economy. Those who inherit such large amounts might be able to repeat their progenitors success, or they might just live the high life. Either way, the wealth gets spread out, and directly affects wealth inequality for the better.
5. Corporate size and influence limits. We need to make sure no corporation is too big to fail, or even big enough to establish a non-competitive environment. There are many ways to do this. One way would be to limit the number of locations a company can have. This would not limit franchises, as those are generally owned by others, but it would keep them from getting too big. There are other ways to limit the size and scope of corporations, but their size needs to be vastly limited. Some few corporations are of a nature that their size would still surpass reasonable levels, and those should be subject to very rigid restrictions that keep them from engaging in anti-competitive or undesirable behaviors.
6. Self sufficiency programs. It is in individuals', society's, and the government's best interest for communities, families, and individuals to be as self sufficient as possible. This reduces dependency on both society and the government, increases self worth, creates a more stable economy, and improves the overall desirability of the American life. At the same time, self sufficiency is highly dependent on individual attitudes. Attitudes can not be legislated or even regulated. But they can be affected with public service campaigns, and it is well within the scope of government in all but the most minimalist libertarian schemes to perform public education and service programs. Additionally, government can inspire and help develop programs to facilitate the success of those who have this attitude.
7. Limited scope additional safety net programs. There are still those who will be subject to extreme circumstances that prevent them from living at an acceptable level. They will need additional programs for things like disabilities, catastrophic medial conditions, or natural disasters. These programs should be designed, where possible, to help people get back on their own feet as quickly as they can, and should be very carefully monitored and regulated so as to not become abused or ineffective.

THE CHALLENGES ()

Obviously, it is easy to miss potential challenges. This list is certainly not exhaustive, but these are definitely some of the challenges.  It will take a lot of effort to overcome just these.
1. Entrenched Ideologies. The first challenge exists because we as a nation and culture have taken our eyes off of what we hope to ultimately achieve. We instead focus on pet issues, programs, and platitudes that have little real chance of reaching those goals. Each political party and faction has these sacred cows, and anything but their way is considered unacceptable. There is a lot of momentum in these false hopes, and to get people to stop and think, and to realize that the status-quo is quickly tearing our country apart, will take a lot of effort and self control to break from the fixed mindset we are currently in.
2. Educating the populace. Our populations are pretty ignorant of how government really works and affects their lives. Most of our people can quote campaign slogans, but have no idea how those would translate into whatever they think they are voting for. Except for the politically active, very few have taken the time and effort to understand much about these processes. Worse yet, they don't even want to know. Getting them to understand that these things will help them will take a lot of effort and patience.
3. Getting the idea out. Before we can address entrenched ideologies or ignorant populaces, first we have to get the idea out there. It will take a lot of people who really believe these policies will work and that these are problems that must be addressed.
4. Finding effective evangelists. Not everybody is equally effective at spreading the word. There are those who, by means of charisma, or public presence, or fame, or some other factor, are much more effective than most at getting others to both listen to what they say and to believe it. It will be critical to find those public opinion leaders who can help establish an effective movement for these proposals.
5. Critical mass. As with many things, there will probably be some sort of critical mass. Once enough espouse these ideas and policies, there will be a landslide to follow. Unfortunately, where that critical mass is and how to get there is generally unknown.
6. Vested interests. Obviously, if you are in the top 1%, these policies do not benefit you. You are powerful and influential and are going to do your best to see that these things never see the light of day. If you are not in the top 5%, chances are these polices will benefit you. These ideas are not designed to punish success, however, and getting those who are in the other 4 percent to see that will be difficult. Still, under these policies everyone can still enjoy the benefits of their success, but will not be able to just pass it on to create a dynasty. The top 1%'s kids will probably start off with a moderate competitive advantage, but not an insurmountable one. They will have to work for their own success just as their parents did.

In summary, these problems are serious and will destroy us as a nation and a culture if not effectively addressed. I have been thinking about these issues for years and have come up with the what I feel is the best policy proposals to address these things overall. Not being a very effective evangelist, I have been called everything from communist to robber baron to fascist when describing these ideas to people. I hope I have done a better job of describing these this time. These ideas are formulated for effectiveness, not for selling. They pass the economic, psychological, sociological, historical and mathematical evaluations I have tried them against. Having said that, these are new ideas, and implementation rarely mirrors theory. Even if implemented, there are likely to be many pitfalls in the way, but in years of searching for solutions to these problems, I haven't seen anything else which seems likely to work.

Let it simmer.

I am a politics junky. No this isn't about politics (mostly), it is about me and thinking and keeping myself from doing stupid things I end up regretting later. I have seen a variety of comments that are quite similar in many ways, but the basic gist is, when something happens, and you have a reaction that is closely coupled with emotion, it is often good personal policy to sleep on it. Give it a night, or better yet, a full 24 hours or more. Let it simmer and see if you still feel the same way about it. Make sure what you are going to do is the best course of action and not just the passion of the moment.

So, how does this apply to politics? Well, being the political junky that I am, I really wanted Obama to not be re-elected. Yeah, much more that than Mitt Romney being elected. I think Obama is the worst president we have had since Woodrow Wilson. Yeah, Wilson was effective, but he was also un-American and wanted to throw out the constitution. Interestingly enough, The next worst president in my lifetime in my opinion, was not Jimmy Carter, but George W Bush. Between Obama and Bush, they have shredded our freedoms, the constitution, and our economy. So, all of this fitting in with me being a political junky, I tend to react quite strongly with happenings related to elections. I could see early on that the night was not going the republicans' way. Quite the opposite.

My reaction of course was to start thinking of rash and extreme courses of action that of course I would regret as soon as I did, but this year, I purposely tried to gear myself up for the possibility that the night would go that way. I purposely made myself go to bed once the outcome was pretty much decided, or, at least, I tried to. I am afraid my anxiety over the whole affair infected my children, but at least getting them to go to bed took me away from the over-programmed news feeds.

The next day, I made myself stay as neutral as possible, which for me is still hyperbolic, but I tried to keep my most extreme thoughts and reactions bottled up, and try to express rational, moderate thinking. I still read the news feeds, which for the most part were either democrats being poor sports, or republicans being poor sports, but occasionally were something that tried to be reconciling in nature. I have noticed a very small undercurrent in those more moderate voices. While it is true that the divide in america is very stark, and that there is a gap between the sides, what they are really fighting over, for the most part anyway, is not that hugely inseparable between the sides. (There are a few issues that I think really do provide a true irreconcilable difference between the sides, but that is another post.)

So, since this seemed to be such a big deal election, I made myself wait a couple of weeks before posting much about it. And hey, you know, all those topsy-tervy emotional knee jerk reactions and radical thoughts boiled down into some really interesting food for thought. I still don't like many of Obama's policies, but I am much more clear on what I feel and why, and what I can and can't do about it.

So, the next time you get your dander up, sleep on it. Don't do anything until you have given yourself enough time to really boil it down into some more rational course of action.

The Logic of Religion

I have been thinking about what people believe religiously and how logic fits or doesn't fit. Now, I know, there are some of you folks out there who swear there is no connection between logic and religion, but atheists and fanatics aside, how does logic fit with our religious beliefs?

First, I guess you have to decide if you believe there is a God. There isn't a lot of hard evidence one way or another (Well, actually, there is, but you have to dig and spend a lot of time working to understand the meanings and possibilities and ramifications. You have to be open to any possibility before you can effectively use Occam's razor anyway, otherwise, you bias the outcome.). Atheists will say a lack of evidence indicates lack of existence, and a lot of other people will say faith doesn't need evidence. Whatever you believe, still, I think the application of logic can only be helpful.

Second, assuming you decide you believe in a God, you need to decide what are the characteristics of that God. What would that God's motives be, and are they consistent with the commandments and teachings he has sent forth (Again, assuming you believe he has sent some forth. If you think there is a God who doesn't get involved or doesn't care, well, then you have a lot less to go on, but, if you remember the evidences I mentioned above... lets just say He has send forth both commandments and teachings.)

One thing to consider is the consistency of teachings and doctrines professed by a variety of religions. I am going to mainly focus on Christianity today. Lets say you are part of the Catholic Church. They say God is loving, just, and all powerful, but if you are not baptized in the Catholic Church, you get to spend eternity in Hell. What about those who have never heard of Christ, or that never heard the Catholic version. Well, too bad, you lost the genetic lottery and you get to go to Hell without being able to do anything else about it. A God that arbitrarily sends a major portion of his Children to hell just because of where they were born doesn't sound loving or just. OK, so, sorry Catholics, you fail the logic test. Unfortunately, many Christian churches have the exactly the same problem.

Here is another one. Lets say you belong to a christian church that doesn't have this problem because you say that everyone gets saved. There are no requirements. Ok, so what the heck is the point of your church in the first place if I don't have to do anything to get to heaven. Another Fail.

OK, lets look at the whole concept of heaven. Many Christian churches, and Jewish, and Muslim for that matter, have this outlook that if we do what is required here, we get to go to heaven and be happy forever with nothing to do, except sing in a heavenly choir (the Muslims get their 72 virgins, but I am not sure how they reconcile the lust involved with their other teachings, not to mention the denigration of females that is required). Now I like to sing. I even met my wife in a choir. But I don't think I want to spend eternity just singing. But, I have heard some say that is all there is. God just wants this one big choir singing his praises forever more. Man, that sounds vain. Now, don't get me wrong. God is beyond great, and should be praised, but not because he can send me to hell forever, but because he is perfect and loving and not selfish. The personal choir praising just himself forever sounds pretty selfish. There has to be more to it. Otherwise, this one doesn't do all that well on the logic test either.

So, now you see what the logic test is in religion. Go ahead. Try it. See if your church or religion measures up. Just keep in mind, everything must be included. The personality of God, his teachings, his commandments, who we are, who we can become, what the outcomes for us are, why we are here, etc. I personally think the church I belong to passes this test on all counts. It does say that it is the only true church. If that is the case, well, then everyone else has to be wrong. But, that doesn't make it fail the logic test. Go ahead. take the test, write it down, and see if what you find is what you expected.

What to do when a whole state goes traitor.

I recently read news reports about the Eugene Oregon city council voting against the Pledge of Allegiance. My first reaction was, if they do not support the country they live in, perhaps they should not be allowed to stay. Then, there has been a lot of news about gay marriage and ongoing efforts to remove God from our society in various regions of the country. These things led me to think about what our country is and what our government is based on. I finally read a chapter in the Book of Mormon this morning about those who would not support the cause of freedom were put to death. I realized the problem, and the solution (it doesn't involve killing).

I believe the Americas are a special place. I believe God made them that way. The Book of Mormon tells us that if any nation upon this land were to choose iniquity, that when it is fully ripe, it would be destroyed. I believe God inspired our constitution, and that this is a fundamentally Christian Nation. If we choose to worship anything else than God and His Son, we are becoming fully ripe. Of course, there are those who say they don't worship anything, but what they really mean is they worship themselves.

I see our current problem as certain regions doing their best to become fully ripe in iniquity. All they have to do is get rid of the few remaining good and righteous people who live there, and zap, or boom, or something, and they will be destroyed. The problem is that they are so tied to us. There are certain states dragging down the rest. The worst offenders are in New England. The West Coast is almost as bad. Perhaps we should start by kicking those states out of the Union. New England already has it's own name. We just draw a line at the Hudson River, and everything east of it is out of the country. They can have their own country. They can even have their own bastardized version of the Constitution, that won't plague us anymore. 

As for California, well, they have wanted to be their own country since before they were part of this country. Time to let them. And Oregon, and maybe Washington, they can go with them. Hawaii should never have been overthrown, and it should be it's own country again too. As for Alaska, well, we paid for it, but I figure it is up to Alaskans if they want to stay.

How would all this happen. Well, all the states could have referendums that if enough states passed it, could allow some states to vote to leave the Union. Yeah, I know, pretty soon you have 50 independent countries. Well, probably not. Can you picture Delaware or Rhode Island trying to operate independently as their own countries?

Well, perhaps we need some sort of movement to approve succession of states or regions. At the very least some formal process of succession. I know that the whole civil war was about succession, but really, did it solve that much. It created a hundred years of hostility and anger, not to mention poverty. It did end slavery, but I think that might have been ended anyway, after time and economic pressure. What the civil war really did was strip states of sovereignty. Prior to the civil war, both the states, and the nation were sovereign. Not anymore. I think it is time to give the states back their sovereignty. Time to give them the right to succeed. While we are at it, lets kick the bad news states in New England and the West Coast out of the Union so that we can preserve the Union. After all, "If your right hand should offend you, cut it off. Better to lose a hand then be dragged soul and body into hell."

The Rebirth of Feudalism

Yesterday, I was talking with my dad, and he was complaining about the economy and how the rich and the mega corps keep getting bigger while hurting everybody else. He talked about some statistic (that I have no idea where it comes from) that 60% of the used real estate purchases are now done with cash. It is the rich buying up the world, and making the little guys pay for it. He made the comment that soon the only thing that would be an option for the little guy is a small dive and a dead end job.

I thought about how, if everything is owned by a very small elite group, and there is no social mobility, and that we are basically locked into doing things they way the big guys dictate, that is very similar to what happened at the end of the Roman Empire and at the start of the Dark Ages. In fact, that was the condition that perpetuated the dark ages for so long. What really broke the back (and the repression) of the dark ages was the discovery of the new world. There was frontier where those who wanted an out could go. And what did they do with it. They built America and the United States.

We don't have any more frontier. There is no way to end a new dark ages if it happens, and it seems there are many forces in power that are intent on seeing that it happens. If we don't stop it before it gets too far, the only way to end it is the kind of war that kills 99% or more of the population and destroys all the environment. We could stop it now. They way to do so is to tax wealth instead of income; to break up the monopolies and massive corporations, and prevent the buildup of super powerful political, economic, and social elites; and to give people the freedom and opportunities to do as they please without having to pay the living life tolls that the big corporations have established for us.

Freedom, Democracy, Capitalism, Religion, and where the world is going

I read 3 articles in the a while back, that really got me to thinking about where we are, and where we are going as a country, as a world, and as humanity. I started a blog post about them, but then life happened. Now I am finishing the post. These articles, while all different, all talk about related subjects, and taken together, perhaps say more than they do individually.

These articles are Democracy, Prosperity, and Religion by Clayton M. Christensen, The Rise of the Hans by Joel Kotkin, and Dependence Day by Mark Steyn.


The first take-away I got from these articles are about the nature of the rise of America and our modern civilization. Something happened in Europe in the late middle ages, which led to the Renaissance, and ultimately to the rise of the English empire. I believe that something was related to the printing press, but also to the translation of the Bible and the rise of the protestant churches. People really believed. The choose to be good and expected everyone else to be good at the same time. Their definition of good was based on the understanding of right and wrong as defined in the Bible. Part of that understanding led to the concept of God given and unalienable rights. This led to the philosophies that built up and strengthened the rise of the United States of America.

These traditions of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, as well as all the other rights that are so often claimed by much of the world, but most especially those who live in the Anglosphere, are a direct result of these happenings. Somehow, with the creation of the Magna Carta and the split off of the Church of England, the attitudes and expectations of rights and freedoms became ingrained in the mindset of the populace. When England refused to extend these same rights and freedoms to the colonies, that led to the American Revolution. Of course, the US Bill of Rights was vital in formalizing these rights.

At the time of the revolution, and in the several decades that followed, there was a major resurgence in religiosity in America. Not everyone participated, but it was the general trend. People did what was right because it was right. In Great Britain and its colonies, they soon afterward followed with the Victorian Era with a heightened sense of propriety.

The resulting heightened moral norms had a very strong effect on the strengthening of both democracy and capitalism. Since those in industry and society were expected to be good, and there was significant social consequences for failure to meet these heightened norms, even those without authentic belief generally did what they could to conform.

Over time, there were those without that sincere belief that learned they could have their cake and eat it too. These individuals found a place in the rise of American Industrialization. Opponents of organized religion also have targeted the values that were espoused. The principles that were only enforceable by self restraint became things to be avoided by many. While still, America is the most religious of the modern developed world, those who are actively religious are only around 50%. Dishonesty and underhandedness are no longer justification for social rejection, but expected behavior.

Our current trajectory is a society that is slowly, but systematically, tearing itself apart. It does it culturally, spiritually, economically, politically, and economically. I don't know what we might employ to stop this trend. Perhaps the consequences of our society's actions and choices are inevitable at this point. Some might say they are the judgments of God. I believe that God set this world up so that consequences can be delayed, and even avoided with adequate course correction, but otherwise, they will come. His judgments are often self inflicted by the recipients.

What will the result be? Well, once society gets to the point that force and inertia are the only things holding it together, it is short hop to either totalitarianism or anarchy. If force wins out, it is totalitarianism, but if the inertia of our corrupted behavior wins out, it becomes a anarchic battle to the finish. Neither option sounds very appealing to me. I just don't know what we can do to alter the outcome at this point. So, what about it? Are we too far gone as a society to be saved?

Conservative politics - big business capitalism = ?

With all this federal shutdown garbage and now the debt limit crisis and the completely unreasonable and unmoving positions of our elected representatives in our federal government, and in state governments across the country, I have been doing a lot of thinking. I totally agree with the whole fiscal conservatism thing, living beneath our means, paying off the debt, and limiting government... to a point. I completely disagree with subsidies of any kind, apart from the prebate in the FairTax. That should be the primary equalizer our government provides. Oh, and the prebate should be twice as big as in HR 25, and education should be fully taxed, and investment should be taxed on the public exchanges. Well, it should be taxed any time it is required to be registered with any public agency, whether publicly traded or not. I also think we should be transitioning away from Social Security and Medicare and the other social programs.

But, and here is where I part from the traditional cut and slash crowd, I think turning any of this over to big business is a huge mistake. Big companies should be automatically excluded from government contracts and prohibited from buying out smaller companies. Too big to fail is too big to be allowed. We need another round of trust busting, and it should hit any company with revenues over a billion, which means a lot of them. Ok, yeah, some companies by their natures will be bigger than that, only have1 product, and make tons on that 1 product. Great, they need to stick with that 1 product. Companies exist to provide service to the greater good, not for enriching the pockets of investors. I know, sounds really like I am off my rocker. I am all in favor of small business. With this caveat: Businesses of all levels need to be responsible contributors to society and provide solid and fair jobs for their employees. Wages should represent contributions of effort and skill. This whole executive pay garbage where they are making millions and tens of millions, and even sometimes hundreds of millions of dollars, all while paying employees less than subsistence level wages is criminal. And should be treated as such.

Businesses of all level should be highly regulated. Not burdened, but regulated in a way to keep the playing field level and make sure they are being good citizens. I feel that most of our current regulation is either ineffective, or misdirected. Corporations, well, all registered businesses for that matter, should have to regularly report on their activities. Maybe if they cannot show they are being good corporate citizens, then they could be entered into receivership, and possibly dissolved and the liquidated assets distributed to creditors and shareholders. The only question is, how do you keep the regulatory environment from being a bully, and limit interventions to only the truly problem companies?

So, as you can see, conservative politics minus big business capitalism equals ... what? I don't know. Maybe the regulation I dreamed up here as I typed is a bad idea. But, would it be any worse than becoming economic slaves to the Fortune 500?

Need we say more.

There has been much made of the Tea Party movement and the influence they have been having in this last election cycle. There is a lot of anger out there, but it isn't all being directed at the same things. Neither is there any kind of real leadership of this movement, but there is a somewhat commonly held set of beliefs and feelings that most involved share. I haven't seen anyone articulate it really well in recent days.

However, I have seen it articulated almost perfectly by someone over 200 years ago. That someone was Thomas Jefferson. Here is some of what he said.

"When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become as corrupt as  Europe."

"The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not."

"It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. A principle which if acted on would save one-half the wars of the world."

"I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them."

"My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government."

"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms."

"The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government."


"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."

"To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical."

"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around the banks will deprive the people of all property - until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered."

While the statements above are not any officially recognized platform, the message is clear. From what I can tell, it is a good representation of the motives behind the Tea Party movement. What else is there that needs to be said.

Who's In Control

I am a control freak. I hate control freaks. Ok, maybe that isn't quite accurate. I hate being a control freak. The problem here is that just about everyone is a control freak some of the time. What I mean by control freak is that we want to control what is going on, and freak out when it isn't going our way. This might only apply to ourselves, which, if that is the only way you are a control freak, you are doing way better than most of humanity.

Often, control freakishness manifests itself way stronger in parent/child relationships. I look at my own relationships with my children and can see a lot of instances where I get bent out of shape over issues of control. Of course, that isn't what I am thinking at the time. It might be that they aren't "listening" to me, or that they haven't done what I have told them to do. When boiled down to it's essence, it is me freaking out over not being in control. I know from experience that things work much better when I calmly and maturely sit down and discuss an issue with my children, help them see their choices and the attached natural consequences, and then empower them to make their own choice. I feel better about it, they feel better about it, and more often then not, choose to do what I would otherwise have been telling them to do, with the significant difference that they typically do it better and faster if they are the one who made the decision.

I also see control freakishness happening on larger scales, in institutions, and in communities and societies. Most of the laws in the world are about some individual or group telling some other individual or group what to do. Our institutions, specifically our government, rarely, if ever, has that mature conversation where it helps us see the options and natural consequences and lets us make the choice. Instead, it is all about pressure and force. "You have to do it this way or" ... insert some form of either social condemnation or physical force.

My religion teaches that before we were ever born, we once had a choice between two ways.

The first way is that we would be given agency to decide for ourselves and be free to make choices, being responsible for our own actions. Because of the nature of mortal existence, we would all sin, but would be able to repair the damage of our sins and bad choices (repent) through an atonement for our sins. If we chose to repent, we would be able to continue to progress and become more like God. The primary advocate of this plan is Jesus Christ, who held the responsibility of performing that atonement for our sins.

The second way is that we would be forced to do what is right, and that we would not have the ability to choose otherwise. The consequence of that would be that no-one would ever sin, but that our progress would be damned. The leader and major proponent of this way was Lucifer, who we now call Satan.

We are taught that those who chose the first way got the opportunity of receiving physical bodies and continuing our progress in this mortal life. Those who rejected the first way and chose the second became damned in their progress and got kicked out of heaven. They are left to tempt us to make bad choices, which includes trying to get us to follow their plan in practice instead of following the one we originally chose to follow.

We all can fall to temptation and try to control others. In fact, we often do, in part because we fail to recognize the long term consequences really fall short of what we typically really want. Agency, or the freedom to choose for ourselves, is the most important thing each of us has. Efforts to limit or take away our agency are contrary to the nature of the plan of Jesus Christ. I guess that means that those who try purposely try to limit the agency of others are Antichrists. I surely don't want to be an Antichrist. Do you?

Economic Justice and Mercy

"It's Not Fair!"

How many times do we hear that phrase in the course of our lives? Surely the average for each of us has to be somewhere between once a month, and perhaps, once an hour. Those with young children, such as between the ages of 5 and 25, probably hear it more than others.

Do we ever stop to think about what Fair really means? If life were truly fair, we would all start out the same, with the same parents, culture, language, talents, and access to wealth and opportunity. If that really were the case, think how boring life would be. Same interests, same abilities, same - same - same. Not that it wouldn't be fair, just not desirable.

At the same time, it isn't desirable either to have huge disparities between individuals that prevent happiness in some, and condescension in others. This leads to all sorts of negative emotions, and for every individual that somehow overcomes a really bad starting place, there are many who become bitter, hateful, or full of despair.

The ideal is that despite our many differences, if we have equal access or near equal access to opportunity and life is what you make of it, then we can all thrive to the best of our abilities and interests. Unfortunately, the ideal is generally not reachable. Ever. There are some things that can at least move toward the ideal though. We can make sure everyone gets a chance at a good education. Well, no, we can't. There are no public schools that provide what I would call a truly "good" education. In fact, there really aren't private schools that do either.

We can try to balance the playing field economically. Usually this is done through taxation. It gives money to those who don't have it, and takes from those who make it. Those who have amassed huge fortunes, however, somehow seem pretty immune to it, since it only taxes earnings, but not if those stay invested. So much for balance. But, aren't we in a country were we are proud of our imbalance? We love our capitalist system. You know how this works. "Those who have the gold make the rules." "It takes money to make money."

Ok, so perhaps not all of us like our system, but it is what it is, and it isn't likely to change any time soon. So, what we have, at the moment, is economic Justice. Certainly not the same as economic balance. Those who start in a good place have all the advantages. Those who start with very little, have a very hard time making progress. But, what each of them do results directly in the natural consequences of their actions. Cause and effect. That is justice, and when you start imbalance, it takes extraordinary effort for the guy on bottom to get on top, and extraordinary bungling for the guy on top to end up on bottom.

What the people who complain about the system usually want (what they call 'fair') is mercy. It has nothing to do with fairness, and everything to do with compassion and kindness and love for ones fellow man. More fortunate people give, help out, or provide opportunities to those who are less fortunate because they care or because the think it is the right thing to do. This usually comes from the Christian ethic of mercy taught by Jesus Christ. None of the other major religions teach about mercy in the same way. It says we are all indebted to Christ for his atonement for our sins. If we want mercy, we have to give mercy. If we give justice, or demand justice, we will get justice, and pay for our own sins.

So what does money have to do with this? Scripture talks about the city of Enoch and about the followers of Christ after the day of Pentecost sharing everything and having no poor among them. The didn't do it by force, but by choice. It wasn't based on law, but upon mercy. If we have mercy economically, we do what we are able to help all those around us who are less economically fortunate than ourselves. If we have economic mercy, the poverty problem around us will be solved.

Unfortunately, the real disparity between rich and poor is a sad and indicator of the lack of mercy in the American economic system. We don't give unless we have to. We are focused on ourselves and how we measure up to either our neighbors, various celebrities, or some ethereal standard of success, and we never look outside ourselves and think of those in need who are constantly around us. We each need to re-examine our economic values. Perhaps the success and happiness of our fellow man should factor in just a bit more.

Seatbelts and Freedom

I wear my seat belt when I am in a car. I think you should wear your seat belt when in a car. But I don't think I have the right to tell you to do so. In our country, and across the world, we have a lot of concerned individuals. They, like I, think it is just tragic when someone dies or is badly injured when it could have been easily prevented. However, are we going too far in making every safety precaution a legal obligation? Benjamin Franklin is known to have written "They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."

This is exactly what is going on. We decide that we need temporary safety when we get in a car, so we mandate that individuals no longer have the choice to use a seatbelt, but that they have to or else... (they get fined, etc.). They now have temporary safety. What they have given up is freedom. According to Dr. Franklin, they therefore deserve neither. Is freedom really that important. History has shown that without it you get tyranny and oppression in unequaled severity. Is that what we are heading for. As a student of history, I have to conclude that yes, we will get to that point. Sure, it probably won't happen overnight. But it will happen.

That sounds bad, but if we shouldn't mandate intelligent behavior, what then can we and should we do? Also, what is appropriate in terms of laws so that our society functions. Since we are using traffic laws as an example, lets continue with them. Should we have speed limits? Why or Why not? What about required stops at stop signs and stop lights? How about lane changes? What should we do about them? Obviously, there has to be some kind of regulation to ensure that our traffic system functions, but does that logically extend to forcing people to wear their seat belts? Perhaps we call out the difference in that it doesn't affect other drivers or passengers in other cars if I don't wear my seat belt, so therefore, it shouldn't be a law.

Seat belt usage still is desirable, though, cause it certainly has a positive outcome for society. So what should be done about it? How about public education and encouragement programs? How about seat belt billboards quoting the smartness of it, or the statistics of how smart it is? I think much of our mandated laws could be converted to educational programs. No force, but it would be something that people would know. Then we could have both freedom and safety, and be deserving of both.

Fundamental Flaws in American Education

Public education is one of the things that made America great. It surely wasn't the only thing, but it was a huge factor in America becoming the "Land of Opportunity". Unfortunately, any time something becomes institutionalized, it also becomes a target of political, social, and economic forces who view it as a short cut to achieving their goals. Education is even more so a target due to the effective of having nearly all of the very malleable minds in the country captive and required to participate in the activities. Education in America has become a battle ground between opposing sides in far too many wars. Conservatives and Liberals, religious and anti-religious, business versus... well, business fights well enough by itself, call that the civil war of business philosophies, and many other sides fighting to influence the collective minds of American youth. The casualties in this war too often end up being the students who are supposed to be served by education, and instead they become cynical, bitter, and/or hateful. Doesn't matter which of the various sides they end up on, they are given disservice by this situation. At the same time, there are a few who make it through this maelstrom who are highly enabled to thrive in life.

There are a few things that could be changed about our educational institutions which would greatly expand the number of students who are able to greatly thrive as a result of their education. The first thing has to do with those sides. The ability to lobby and influence education is strongly related to it's centralized nature. The solution then would appear to be the decentralization of it. However, there still need to be standards, and those standards are where the various sides will try to attack or influence our youth. Our youth are not stupid, and we should stop treating them like they are. They are inexperienced, and we should try to help them understand the challenges they will face because of that inexperience, but we should do so in a respectful and supportive manner. If there is a side of something presented, then any other side of that issue should also be presented, regardless of how unpopular it might seem. If you don't want certain sides of things presented, then just define that there is an issue, and inform the kids they will have to ask their parents or research it on their own. Also, when an issue with it's various sides is presented, the alignments and history of those sides should be presented, but no side should be favored over another.

Sounds pretty lofty, doesn't it. I know it is possible, cause I had a professor in a philosophy class that did it with such exactness that none of us could guess or even come close to what his personal philosophy was. He ended up being pretty normal.

The next thing that needs to change about education is that we need to stop limiting the growth and progress of some students in order to keep them at the same place as their slower peers. In fact, we need to change our whole approach to education from a group based progress, to individual progress in a structured, yet self paced, environment. There are several forms of this. Some of the older forms often are used in independent study programs, but there are much better scaffolding programs that can incorporate both the independence of the individual as well as social learning and support structures. In this way, each student could progress at a rate where they felt comfortable and could best succeed at.

Thirdly, and there will be many who will think I have political motives here (I really don't. Read carefully and you will see what I am getting at.), we need to change how education is funded. I recognize that if we removed government involvement that we would just be favoring the upper classes over the lower classes. This is not intended, nor desirable. The government has a very important role in the funding of education, as well as in the standards that are set for it and in making sure that it is not abused. However, creating a big bureaucracy and turning over a major portion of each state's budget over to that bureaucracy is worse than most other ways you could go about it. I recognize that any effort to standardize or support or govern education will require government funding, but those funds should be completely separate from the funding of the actual education. The parents should determine which qualified school or teacher should receive the funds paying for their child's education. I am not saying just open up the funding spigots and dump it on private schools. On the contrary, if a private school wants to be eligible to receive public education funds, they should have to meet the standards attached to receiving those funds. In this way, there becomes more of an economy around education, which will help maintain the quality of education.

One last thing, and perhaps this would never fly, but a parent should be required in every class that is conducted. Just to sit in and listen, and they could help if they and the teacher agreed on it. Just one parent. Assuming that each class has 20 students, and half the students have both parents at home, each parent would only have to go to every 30th class. The point here is that the parent is the consumer. They are the customer. They need to know what is going on, and far too many parents are complacent to just ship the kids off and not look into the quality of the education again until report card time, and sometimes, not even then. Would this create an additional burden on parents? Sure it would. And for those who have a lot of kids, even more so. If you have that many kids, you need to be involved. I suppose you could designate someone else such as a grandparent, or some other responsible adult relative, and meeting the requirements should be somewhat flexible, but a parent needs to be there. The result this would have would be better performance by the teachers, the students, and most especially, the parents.

Scary, isn't it. But, it would work. I am sure of it.

Lemmings and Christianity

So, last time, I wrote a post about lemmings. Lemmings, for those of you who don't know it, are those cute little rodents rumored to practice mass suicides periodically when their population grows. Ok, so truth be told, that better describes humans then lemmings, but it makes a great metaphor. Anyway, in discussing human lemming behavior, someone mentioned that people will say that Christians are lemmings. Well, lets think about this. The classical human lemming behavior (as opposed to the actual lemming behavior) is a mindless following with dogged determination to keep going without any thought of the consequences, especially the long term consequences.

Now, lets start with religion in general. Do most people who espouse a religion do so from human lemming behavior? Well, from one perspective they might, but I think in general they are applying forethought to their decision to follow that religion out of concern for the long term consequences. So, according to that definition, they are not being human lemmings. Now, obviously, with all the different religions out there, they can't all be right. However, I think those who vigorously follow a religion and try to live all of their lives according to its precepts can not be accused of being lemmings if they are doing it for real belief and not for social standing or position.

That brings us to the question, "Are there those that are human lemmings when it comes to religion?" and "If so, when?" I can think of the following examples, with exceptions to each. First there are the social lemmings. The society they are primarily concerned with will vary widely, from family society, to neighborhood society, to just the society of specific influential individuals such as religious leaders. They might also be trying to appease a powerful social faction or even government regulation where there is an official religion or regulation enforcing religious practice. Now, one might argue that practicing a religion in order to follow a regulation might be in fact non-human-lemming behavior in that it looks to the long term of preserving one's legal status. While that might be true, it doesn't make a person a believer.

I would like to be able to apply this discussion to all the major religions, but I don't have that much space in one post, as I would be typing forever, so I am only going to briefly compare it to Christianity.

Of course, Christianity is more than a single belief system but a group of belief systems with a single common attribute, which is belief in Jesus Christ as the Savior of mankind. Now, "What is meant by 'mankind'?", "What are they being saved from (usually sin, but not always)?" and "What is the long term goal?" varies greatly from sect to sect. I guess it really gets to the real long term, like, the eternal term, when I ask what makes sense. Lets start with the end.

What is the point of living a good christian life and doing all that you are supposed to do? Well, I have heard some say that the point is to be able to always worship God. Ok, and..... and then what? Well, you will just be in a wonderful place where you will live forever and sing in the choirs in heaven. Um, ok, I admit it, while I love to sing and have been more choirs than most people, but singing in choirs all the time sounds pretty boring. So, what is the point? What is the motivation? Not just for the followers, but for God, since he has gone to the trouble of setting this whole thing up? Well, that is where I think most Christians fall short. They can't explain the motivation. So, why would we be here? Some say God was bored, or needs worshipers, or was lonely. Um, sorry, just doesn't add up.

Now, when you add His Son into it, that gives more factors that need to be accounted for. Why did he come? What did he come for? "He paid for our sins." they say. Ok, why did he do that? Why did he need to do that? Well, a little more long term thinking here. There are eternal consequences for things. Everything has its consequence, and then the state it is in due to that consequence persists until it is acted upon from an outside source. This is called Justice or "cause and effect". (Its part of the laws of physics, in case it seems too foreign.) He paid for our sins because the effect of paying for our own leaves us eternally miserable. He could do it and not be miserable because He is perfect. He has unlimited ability to pay.

He did it because He loves us. And not just because we belong to Him or that He created us. I made a really neat desk that I just love, but I think the relationship I have with God should not be that of a piece of furniture or even some kind of pet. He loves us because we are His family. God calls us his children. I think that is literal. I think that just like our children grow up to be like us, we can grow up to be like God. I am not talking mortality here. We all die long before we get it right, but he didn't expect us to get it right here. That is why He sent Jesus Christ. All you other religions... sorry, you have no way to address the demands of Justice, but Christ can. It's the only way. We have to meet His demands, and He pays for our mistakes, and He doesn't expect us to be perfect, just trying our best.

So, if you really believe and your belief system really can satisfy the hard questions, then you may not be a human lemming. Everybody else... would it make any difference if I told you there was a cliff up ahead?

Lemmings

So, last night, my kids were asking kid questions (What is this?, What is that?, How does .....?) and the subject of lemmings came up. They were somewhat incredulous that lemmings would be so stupid as to all kill themselves. Then my wife mentioned that sometimes people are guilty of lemming behavior. At first she indicated political lemming behavior, but then we also noted a lot of other lemming type behavior. Whether it be political lemmingness, or if it's fashion, substance abuse, gang behavior, career paths, or any of a large variety of consumerism behaviors, it is far too reminiscent of a bunch of lemmings hurtling down a path with no sense of awareness or concern that they are about to go over a cliff to their deaths.

Really folks, aren't we more capable than that? Are we so perpetually comatose that we don't even think about our actions ahead of time? How about a little more than that, perhaps we could even contemplate the short term consequences for our actions. Ok, and I know this is a stretch, but how about going a little further to mid term consequences. Ok, yeah, I know, pretty painful there, but we are going to stretch you even more. Now we are going to think about long term consequences. Now that is raw agony, isn't it? But wait, can you see that? Most of the stupid things we do in our culture are really dumb in the long term. Better not to do it at all. Man, if we all thought things through, things might get down right nice. But then, think how boring it would be with out all those lemming problems.

Public Spectrum WiMax Mesh

Ok, I have held onto this one for a while, but I have talked it around, and even got a wireless services guy at AT&T to listen to it. His objective was that it wouldn't fit the business model, even though it would work and be awesome. He also said that their investment into their current technology was far too high to want to try a different approach. His last objection, although, he wanted this off the record, was that AT&T would view this as a big potential loss of control and don't want people to have options cause they wouldn't make as much.

Well, this one is good enough that we don't need a big brother type company to implement it, but whoever did would make bank on it cause the mentality of all the other players would keep them out of the market for too long.

The idea is that we use WiMax or some similar wireless broadband technology, but configure it to use public spectrum and build low cost wireless repeater mesh units to provide internet connectivity to anyone wanting to participate. Now, it would be best if there was some kind of backbone access control system that made sure that every so often, one of these repeater units was plugged into a fiber line. Otherwise, likely there would be too many freeloaders wanting free access, but really, once figured out, one of these units should be able to be made for less than a couple hundred dollars, and the cost would really come down over time.

Naturally, the repeater density in metropolitan areas would greatly exceed that in suburbs and rural areas, and, there might be a slightly higher cost per user in rural areas, but I can picture that monthly internet access could easily be as low as 10 to 15 dollars for near unlimited access. (Oh, sure, I can also picture a bandwidth cap or a tiered system, but for most of us, like, 99% of us, we would be on the bottom tier, cause we just don't use that much.)

How about it people, should we do this? It would take some time and resources, but it would be a great solution. (I can picture all the neighborhoods and HOA's out there providing this as part of their services). Once it started becoming common, all the devices would start being made with the capability built in. Then, we really could get great access from everywhere, and the money grubbing, control freak big brother companies like AT&T could be gone, and we wouldn't miss them one bit. How great would that be?

Sharing ideas

I have lots of ideas. I always hope my ideas can somehow be of some value to me. I think, for the most part, I have to limit which ideas I keep for myself. I guess that means I need to share my ideas with the world, and let them do what they will with it.

Well, this morning, I have a few ideas I am going to share. I long have been displeased with the way our modern world works. It isn't that I don't like modern technology. Quite to the contrary, I love modern technology, but I don't like how it is limited to the benefit of the few and the expense of the many. And the truly have-nots are excluded from it.

I think technology is there to bless the lives of everyone, regardless of country, region, religion, race, or social class. I think my biggest gripe is how the utility companies work. Sure, they have to make a profit, and they provide a service that is of great value, but they do their best to limit options and punish anyone not wanting to play their way. I would also extend that to the oil companies. They don't have to do it that way. They could still be wildly profitable and give lots of options to everyone. Sure there would be those who don't want to play that way. I just think they are corrupt, selfish, and devilish in their mentalities and methods.

My next couple posts deal with what I see as systems that should be developed and used where ever possible.

Local Economies

I read an article about Walmart today that kind of surprised me. I have been in the anit-Walmart camp for quite a few years, but I have not been so rabid that I don't shop there. I have a brother who won't shop there if it kills him. Anyway, Walmart is a big corporation focused on it's profits and whatever effects it has on the individual, it generally doesn't care about. It really isn't all that different any other major corporation. The difference is, when it puts its stores in small towns, it decimates their economies, and puts lots of people out of work. It gives people a dead end existence, and leaves no capacity for the local economy to support itself. The small towns then are completely dependent upon large employers, most often multinational corporations such as Walmart and it's most major suppliers.

Some might say, "So, what is that problem with that? It is just capitalism at work." Well, the problem is that it ties these small economies to the downs of the global economy. Due to the nature of multinational corporations, the end production workers and the towns they live in do not benefit from the ups of the global economy, but they are the first to feel the effects of the downs. In the past, if one local economy was badly affected by some economic or environmental event or condition, the effect was limited in its scope. A local economy that was well run and whose participants were wise and careful could almost always ride the ups and downs of larger economic cycles, with the exception of extreme events of nature.

Now, all of our economies are tied to each other to such an extent, that it is almost impossible to run a local economy well enough to be not hammered when the global economy turns bad. It doesn't matter how well the local businesses are run, and how good the decisions made by the local participants are, the bad decisions made by individuals and groups in other locations ultimately lead to the natural consequences of bad decisions and drag the whole economy down, including those of well run localities. Talk about killing incentive for making good business decisions. Take your quick profit now and run. It encourages us all to be unethical and immoral.

Enter Walmart. Well, I guess I should say, Re-enter Walmart. They have this program that is encouraging local production of certain types of produce. Not that produce and food is the core of a local economy, but it has always been a vital component. Now Walmart has learned they can get better goods going to the local economy for things. Not everything mind you, but as much as makes business sense. I realize this is a fragile step in the right direction, and could easily be undone, but encouraging nonetheless.

Ok, here is the thing and a piece of advice to Walmart. Take this approach further. Take a little time to develop the means for a small community to produce a much larger percentage of what they consume. I am not just talking food. This could mean textiles, toys, electronics, tools, personal products. Once you figure out the basic components for local production of each class of goods, don't just push your way into all the towns, co-venture. Take a page from the Leavitt Group of insurance companies. They have tons of insurance agencies, each one operated locally, with policies and support from the parent company, but with a significant, albeit minority, ownership stake by the local operators. Just think Walmart, you could be the primary owners of the majority of production companies in the whole world. The local economies would be much more resilient against outside economic conditions. And, to say the least, your profit would come out smelling like roses, year in and year out. Pretty hard to beat that.