Vaccination

 Sung by Dolly Parton to the tune of Jolene

Vaccine, vaccine, vaccine 

I'm begging of you, 

Please don't hesitate

If you have already had COVID should you be vaccinated?

Senator Rand Paul is a physician, an opthamologist. His position on not getting a vaccine, because he had COVID-19, is not due to a lack of understanding of the science, but more because he apparently only values User Optimal decisions, thinking of himself, as important; and sees no value in System Optimal decisions, thinking of others. 

There seems to be confusion between the virus and the disease.  There should not be.  People can have HIV, but not have AIDS,  There is a difference between the virus, HIV, and the disease caused by the virus, AIDS.

There is also a distinction between the SARS-CoV-2, the corona virus, and COVID-19, the disease. Just because one has had the disease does not mean that you can not still harbor the virus.  The immune system can work against the virus, sterile immunity, or work against the disease, immunity.  At this point, scientists believe that  vaccines confer 70% to 85% sterile immunity against the virus, and 95% immunity  against the disease, but they do not know how much time immunity lasts in either case.  Similarly if you had, and recovered from, COVID you might only have immunity from the disease, not immunity from the virus.

Given that there is a distinction between the disease and the virus, there are three possible states:

1.     NO virus and NO Disease; no transmission possible and no disease.

2.     Virus and NO Disease;  transmission possible, and no disease.

3.     Virus and Disease.  Transmission possible and disease.

There is of course a fourth state, NO virus and disease, but to the best of our knowledge this is state is not  possible.

If you have the virus then you can transmit the virus to other.  If you have the virus then you are at higher risk for the disease.  Among the outcomes of the disease is a higher risk of death. Yes, it is only a 2% risk, but if that happens you are 100% dead.

At this point it is not known if recovering from the disease confers sterile immunity from the virus or immunity from the disease.

If you place no value on transmitting the virus to others, and you have recovered from the disease, then getting a vaccine has no value. It is not possible to transmit the virus unless you have the virus, but there probably is no chance of getting the disease, if you have had the disease.  If you place a value on transmitting the virus then there is value in getting the vaccine.  What Rand Paul, and anyone who has recovered from the disease and is not getting the vaccine is saying, is that they place no value on transmitting the virus to others.

By that logic, it must also be safe to have unprotected sex with someone who is in remission from AIDS because you think that they could not transmit HIV to you.

There is a solution to people who harbor the virus but have immunity to the disease.  Those people are called Typhoid Marys, after the early  20th Century Irish cook who had immunity from disease caused by the typhoid bacteria but who harbored the typhoid bacteria. We quarantine them from society for the safety of society.  I wouldn’t use Ted Cruz as a travel agent, because I am not sure that Cancun is the right place to quarantine, but if Senator Paul will tell society where he would like to quarantine, I am sure that society will be happy to accommodate him.

Single Issue Voting

 

My Dog's Bigger Than Your Dog

My dog's bigger than your dog|

My dog's bigger than yours,

My dog's bigger

And he chases mailmen,

My dog's bigger than yours.

Is voting on only one issue ever the best strategy?

Single issue voting has long been a force in US politics.  In the past among those issues have included slavery, the gold standard, temperance, abortion, gun rights, etc.  The US electoral system is dominated by a two-party system.  According to Duverger’s Law, it will always be a two-party system.  Only one of those two parties will be in the majority at a time and only that party may have the power to take action on that single issue.  The temptation is great to use the position on that single issue to determine which individuals will be allowed in your party.

The problem is that despite the adage “The enemy of my enemy is my friend”, the enemy of your enemy might, or might not, be your friend.  You may make common cause with that individual on this single issue, but that does not mean that you will agree with them on other issues.  Once they are invited to the party on that one issue, it may be hard to get them to leave on other issues.  The Republicans in the 1860s invited those Know Nothings who agreed with them on slavery to join the Republican party, even if they might not agree with the Know Nothing position on immigrants.  It becomes more of a problem when the only value is winning, being in power.  Then you might invite people into your party, just because they can make you the majority party.  ( e.g. Nixon’s Southern Strategy).

If the game is played correctly, nice guys can finish first.  Jack Warner, one of Mr. Reagan's Warner Bros. employers, when the Reagan-for-President boomlets first started, is said to have replied, ''No, Jimmy Stewart for President; Ronald Reagan for his best friend.''.  I want to live in a world where nice guys like Jimmy Stewart will be President. I don’t want to know someone’s position on a single issue,  I want to know if they are a nice guy.

 

In Name Only?

 

Wonderful of Color

There's beauty untold

That's ours to behold

In the wonderful world of color

Color, color, color

How can we describe color?

It takes only three attributes to describe a color.  By varying the intensity of Red, Green, and Blue, it is possible to describe millions and millions of colors.  This shade  of Red can be described as 235 Red, 91 Green and 91 Blue on a scale of 1 to 255.  Even if you are limited to one attribute, Black and White, by varying the intensity of Black and White you can come up with at least 50 Shades of Grey, if not a whole lot more shades.

Why then are there people who see things only as either 100% Black or 100% White.  That is not how the world works.  How can you think there is only one attribute, dimension, while living in a three dimensional world? How can you then limit that one attribute, dimension, to 100% or 0% of that one attribute.  The world is a carousel of colors to everyone except those who insist that if you are not 100% for them, you are “In Name Only”.  "There are none so blind as those who will not see.”

MTG and Nazis

What’s Going On

You see, war is not the answer

For only love can conquer hate

You know we've got to find a way

To bring some lovin' here today

Are Democrats Nazis?

Marjorie Taylor Greene said at a rally in Georgia on May 27, 2021 that "You know Nazis were the National Socialist Party. Just like the Democrats are a now a national socialist party." I hope I got this correct because Rep. MTG goes ballistic if things are misspelled.

She does deserve some credit for knowing that Nazi is short for Natonalsozialismus, which can be translated as National Socialism.  But even she doesn’t apparently know what socialism is, or what nationalism is.

First, Socialism is an economic system, NOT a political system.  Simplistically, if we say that the ownership of industries and the regulation of industries are the only attributes that will be used  to characterize economic systems, then:

·       Communism is the public ownership of ALL industries and the regulation ALL industries.

·       Socialism is the public ownership of SOME industries and the regulation  of ALL industries

·       Regulated Capitalism is the public ownership of NO industries and the regulation of ALL industries

·       Unregulated Capitalism is the public ownership of NO industries and the regulation of NO industries.

Some Democrats, and their associates, such as Representative Ocasio-Cortez or Senator Saunders might be characterized as favoring socialism as an economic system.  However President Biden and most Democrats seem to be better characterized as favoring Regulated Capitalism, not Socialism. So it is wrong to call all Democrats socialists.

Second, Nationalism does not mean love of county.  As practiced by Nazis and their ilk, it has come to mean HATRED of other countries.  If you LOVE your country, you can and do love other countries.  You just love your country more.  As an old movie buff, can I ask you to please watch this Clip from the movie Casablanca to see the difference.       

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HM-E2H1ChJM. 

Victor Lazlo, a Czechoslovakian, leads a band at an American nightclub, watched on by his Norwegian wife, joined by the audience and a Spanish Guitarist in the singing of the French national anthem, Les Marseilles.  At the and of the anthem Yvette, a French national, shouts “Viva La France,” Long Live France, not “Morte D’Allemagne”, Death to Germany.  Despite this, the Nazis are threatened.  Because they equate LOVE of any other country with HATRED of their own.  Silly Rabbits! Loving a country is NOT hating every other country. LOVE of Nation is NOT Nationalism.  To equate Democrats with Nazis is as wrong and offensive as equating mask wearing during COVID with wearing a Yellow Star because you are Jewish.

Corporate Governance

 

The Farmer And The Cowman

I don't say I'm no better than anybody else,

But I'll be damned if I ain't jist as good!

Territory folks should stick together,

Territory folks should all be pals.

Cowboys dance with farmer's daughters,

Farmers dance with the ranchers' gals!

What does sticking together mean with respect to corporate Board of Directors?

In macroeconomics, a production equation is a function of capital and labor, which is a recognition that it takes both to produce value.  Corporations are chartered by society.  A Corporation’s Board of Directors sets policies for how the corporation operates.

At present, corporate boards represent shareholder, i.e. capital, interests.  But capital is only part of a production function, and also this does not consider the fact that corporations are chartered by society.  Shouldn't seats on the Boards of Directors represent all three interests: capital, labor, and society. 

Corporate Board of Directors in many European countries are already required to provide seats to employees of the corporation, i.e. labor.  Employee-owned companies, as opposed to publicly traded companies, by definition, have seats that represent both labor and capital, because employees ARE the labor.  Corporations are often the subject of lawsuits because they are operating at odds with society.  Rather than lawsuits or union battles, it would seem reasonable that capital, labor and society all have seats on a corporation’s Board of Directors.  Then the operations of a corporation would not just represent one interest, i.e. capital, and perhaps then those corporations will be friends.

The Capitol Riot Commission

 Branded 

Branded!

That's not the way to die!

What do you do when you're branded?

Can you live with a lie?

And wherever you go

for the rest of your life

You must prove ...

You're a man!

Have the  Republican Senators who voted against the Jan 6^th Commission Branded Themselves? 

Branded was a TV Western, starring Chuck Conners, that was about an Army Officer who accepted being court-martialed, branded, rather than tell the truth about the officer who was actually responsible and died in a massacre.  He accept being branded not for himself, but for one who died.  Those Senators who voted against the January 6^th Commission may have branded themselves, but they did it for their own good, not for the good of others.   When the truth comes out, as it is inevitable, may we remember this as the day that Republican Senators Branded themselves.

Tough but Fair beats Always Being Nasty

 

The Games People Play.

Whoa, the games people play now

Every night and every day now

Never meanin' what they say now

Never sayin' what they mean.

If people are playing games, what is the best strategy for winning those games?

One of my favorite discussions of the Prisoner's Dilemma from Game Theory is in the book Golem in the Gears by Pier Anthony.  The audio of that book can be found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VhajFda83hQ.  The scene on the Prisoner’s Dilemma begins at the 8-hour 21-minute mark in that link.   It describes  how a strategy it calls "Tough but Fair", merely repeating tactics of your opponent from the previous round but otherwise always being nice, will be a winning strategy in the long run.  Tactically it will lose every match but will win the game. e.g. the war.  This same strategy was introduced as "Tit for Tat" by Anatol Rapoport, in which each participant in an iterated prisoner's dilemma follows a course of action consistent with his opponent's previous turn.  The Bible in Exodus would call this strategy “An eye for an eye”. The intent was not to say that  one should not retaliate, but that you one should not over retaliate, i.e. extract vengeance.  The intent behind the principle was to restrict compensation to the value of the loss. And vengeance is up to the Lord.

The law of retaliation, lex talionis , can be traced back to the Code of Hammurabi.   Most of the major religions, e.g. Judaism, Christianity, Islam, etc. promote this strategy. A return to this in our daily lives would honor these religions and be a winning strategy for us in the long run.

Private Property or Framework for Human Behavior III

 

Why Don’t We Do It In The Road?

No one will be watching us
Why don't we do it in the road?

Is the fact that people will be watching us the only reason why we don’t do it in the road?

I have previously proposed three attributes as a framework for human behavior: Rights vs Duty; Nature vs. Nurture; Reality vs. Fantasy.  To these I would suggest one additional attribute: Public vs Private Property. Economists have also described Public Goods versus Private Goods.  Private Goods have a price, i.e. are rival, and are exclusive ( i.e. no on can use those goods while someone else is using those goods). Public Goods have no price, i.e. are non-rival and non exclusive (each person’s use of a good does not prevent another person from also using that good. E.g. sunlight.)  The problem is that most people are not economists and view property as being owned by an individual or owned jointly. There are goods that most people agree are individually owned, private property.  The disagreement appears to be in whether public property is owned by the public as a sovereign individual or are owned by all of the people in common.  Not everyone can be considered to be the sovereign at the same time.  We the people “ in order to form a more perfect union, etc.” are the sovereign in the United States.  Each person is not the sovereign and does not own this property jointly with all other people. The elected government of the people is the sovereign and owns this public property.

A public road in the United States still has an owner of record.  It is owned by a unit of government: e.g. a town; a city; a county; a state, etc.  It is not owned by each person jointly.  Those governments can, and do, control who and how that property can be used. An individual can not say that this property is controlled by the people, and I as an individual am one of those people, and thus I am free to use that property by my individual rules, not the rules that the government has imposed.  That person has effectively said that there is no public property and that all property is private but jointly owned and that he is a co-owner of all property considered to be the public’s.  Thus grazing rights on public land could be ignored, or restrictions on access, of the U.S Capitol are meaningless, because that property is “co-owned” by the parties who are choosing to ignore any restrictions. However the property is not owned jointly by all people.  It is public property and its used can be controlled by the rights of the people.  Property owned jointly,  in common,  can not be controlled by the public since its does not actually own that property.  To avoid a tragedy of the commons, public property is not owned in common.  It is owned by the public acting as  a sovereign.  You don’t own the road, and the people who might be watching can dictate its use. So the fact that no one will be watching you does not mean that the owners of that property, the public, can not tell you that you can do it on their roads. If you believe that there is only private property, then you are trespassing because you are not the owner of that property.  You might get away with trespassing but that does not mean that you are not guilty of trespassing. If you believed that there is public property then you must believe that the public has a right to control the use of that property, even if that use prohibits your use.  You might be a member of the public, but in this matter, you are not the public as a sovereign.   So the fact that no one will be watching you does not say mean the owners of that property, the public, can not tell you that you can’t do it in their roads. Whether because are the owners, and you are not, or because you have no claim to the that property.

Greater Idaho?

You're Nobody 'Til Somebody Loves You

The world still is the same, you'll never change it
As sure as the stars shine above
You're nobody, nobody till somebody loves you
So find yourself somebody to love.

Oregon counties are looking to love Idaho.

Disgruntled Oregonians in five counties have voted in favor of joining Idaho.  Are they sure they understand the implications?  It sounds like a five-year-old running away from home but asking for a ride from their parents.  If these counties join Idaho, the number of states stay the same, the number of Senators stay the same, the balance in the Senate will be the same.  The house seats apportioned to Idaho and Oregon will change, but apportionment of seats is based on population,  not land area.  Idaho will gain more land than it does population.  Each state gets at least one representative, but Idaho already has that seat.  With all of the problems in our country, those counties in Oregon are worrying about the table at which they will be seated?  Talk about rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. 

I am sure that the temptation is to say “Don’t let the door hit your backside on your way out” is great, but that also won’t change things.  Most states have a split between rural areas and urban areas.  If the rural areas all banded together, and the urban areas all banded together, but the number of states remained the same, that would not change things.  It would emphasize that we are polarized, but we already knew that.   If these counties want to change things, they might want to secede from the United States, but they should remember that this was tried before and it did not work out so well for those who tried to secede.  Aside from finding someone new to love, the world will still be the same.  Maybe these counties need instead to spend some time on working loving the neighboring counties in their own state before they look for love elsewhere. 

Trends

 

She’s Like A Rainbow

She comes in colors everywhere

She combs her hair

She's like a rainbow.

What if everyone could see rainbows everywhere?

People are hard wired to see and use straight line, trends, or what mathematicians would call a slope. But a slope can only properly be defined for the points that are known. A problem is when people make predictions by using trends.  E.g. Beanie Babies will ALWAYS increase in value.  The Yankees will never LOSE.  London will be BURIED in horse manure by 1944. 

The problem is when we forecast using straight lines. Life doesn’t always follow straight lines, even if we think following a straight path is considered good and following a curved, crooked, path is bad.

There is nothing wrong with straight lines.  Isaac Newton developed calculus by examining the behavior of infinitely short straight lines.  But the end result of calculus was a way of dealing with non-linear equations, i.e.  equations that are not  straight lines.  Because that is the way the world works.  Newton’s Law of Gravity can be used to describes the flight of a projectile firing upwards as following Gravity’s Rainbow.  

People get euphoric when they are on the upwards part of a trend (e.g. slope greater than one). They  think that things will only get better and their bubble will never burst.  People panic when they are on the downward part of a trend (e.g. slope less than one). They think that things will only get worse and will never hit bottom. The problem is that neither forecast is probably true.  We need to realize that we are on a rainbow ( non-linear curve) and just because we are going up now, it doesn’t mean that we won’t be going down later, and vice versa. If we can agree that we are on a rainbow shape, maybe then we can see the colors of the rainbow too!

Certainty

 

Impossible

Impossible, for a plain yellow pumpkin to become a golden carriage,
Impossible, for a plain country bumpkin and a prince to join in marriage,
and four white mice will never be four white horses.
Such fol-de-rol and fiddle-dee-dee of course is
Impossible.

Do scientists ever say that something is impossible?

People crave certainty.  They want to know that an answer is 100% right, or 0% right, with nothing in between.  This appears to be true in many cases in science.  What a scientist is actually saying is not certainty, but the probability of an event occurring within known physical laws.  When scientists say that there is a 0% chance that something will fall up, they are saying that it there is 0% probability of something falling up in the domain constrained by Newton’s Law of Gravity.  They are not saying that it impossible, just that in this domain there is a zero percent probability of something falling “up”. 

The problem occurs when the constraints of the domain are not well understood, it may appear to people that scientists are not certain.  The fact is that scientist are never certain.  They only state a probability of an event.  When the probability is rounded, it may appear that there is certainty, but that does not mean that there is certainty.

A coin flip is said to be fair if it is 50% heads and 50% tails.  This is because the probability of heads or tails are being rounded.  In fact, for an American nickel flipped on a flat surface, there is a 1 in 6,000 chance that the coin will end up on its edge.  The true odds are thus 49.9992% chance of heads, a 49.9992% chance of tails and a 0.0016% chance of it ending on its side.  It is common to round this to 50%/50%/0%.  Scientists are not saying that it impossible for a coin to land on its side.  They are saying that the probability is so small that it is typically ignored.  While scientists may appear to be certain, they are rounding probabilities and constrained to a known domain.  If the rounding is not ignored, and the constraints of the domain are not known, then they will not appear to be certain.  But they were never certain in the first place, it is just that non-scientists are ignoring the rounding and the knowledge of the constraints.

That is also why there is confusion about what constitutes a scientific theory.  A theory might explain 99.9999% of all cases, but since it can never explain 100% of cases it is called a theory.   A theory has been tested, explains almost all cases, but calling it a theory only acknowledges that there might be some small chance that it might not explain everything, is impossible.  After all the only certainty is death and taxes, not science.

Worker Shortage?

Maggie’s Farm

I ain't gonna work on Maggie's farm no more

No, I ain't gonna work on Maggie's farm no more

Well, I wake up in the morning, fold my hands and pray for rain

I got a head full of ideas that are drivin' me insane

It's a shame, the way she makes me scrub the floor

I ain't gonna work on Maggie's farm no more

The problem with a shortage of workers may NOT be the unemployment “benefits.”

Many Republican led states are terminating pandemic related unemployment benefits because of a concern by employers that people are unwilling to work because those unemployment benefits are so "great".  That pre-supposes that wages are the only reason that there is a difficulty in finding workers.  It couldn’t be job safety, health benefits, working conditions, nature of the work, etc.😉  If the only reason that people work is because of what you pay them, then perhaps those employers are correct. However there might be another reason that they don’t want to work on your farm no more.  Just because you want someone to work for you without benefits and at low wages, doesn’t mean that you can expect to fill that job.  The old saying that “If wishes were horse, then beggars would ride’ applies to those employers who are acting like beggars.

Minimum wage, maximum hours, child labor, safety laws, etc. exist for a reason.  It is not only to protect your workers, but also to protect you as an employer from competitors who may be willing to provide less than a fair wage, etc. to their own workers.   A floor exists to keep everyone out of the basement. Otherwise the most successful employers will be the ones that are willing to race to the bottom and don't mind living in the basement. Bob Dylan, the Nobel Prize laureate, might be onto something.   It isn't the pay for working on Maggie's Farm, it is a lot more than that.

Dynasties

 

This Ain't Dallas

This ain't Dallas and this ain't Dynasty
This is a real-life two job working family
And I ain't J.R., you ain't Sue Ellen
We're just a man and a woman holding things together

While he might like the TV Series Dynasty,
former President Trump appears not to like political  Dynasties.

Former President Trump appears to have a special contempt for Bushes, Romneys, and Cheneys.  This is hardly surprising .  No matter how hard he tries, he will always be a Trump and not a Bush, Romney, or Cheney.  He also famously clashed with the Manhattan dynasties as an outsider from Queens.  He does not have a problem with exclusive clubs or class systems.  He just has a problem with not being the highest ranking member of any exclusive club.  He doesn’t seem to have a problem with Donald Jr., Eric, Ivanka, Jared Kushner, Laura, Kimberly Guilfoyle, etc., so clearly he isn’t opposed to dynasties, as long as it is his dynasty.

If you are opposed to dynasties like the ones above, or to Clintons or Kennedys in the Democratic Party, then shouldn’t you be opposed to any dynasty, even those named Trump? If you don’t, then your problem is not with Dynasties, but that you are not in those Dynasties

Framework for Human Behavior II

 

Both Sides Now

I've looked at clouds from both sides now
From up and down, and still somehow
It's cloud illusions I recall
I really don't know clouds at all

What if that is because there are more than two sides?

In previous blog posts, I have discussed classification systems.  https://dbeagan.blogspot.com/2017/06/the-blind-men-and-elephant.html, and https://dbeagan.blogspot.com/2020/06/horse-in-striped-pajamas.html. As I paraphrased Mark Twain,   “There is only ONE TRUE classification system, in fact there are SEVERAL of them.”  A basic feature of all of these classification systems is that they are typically not equal except at the most detailed level, and use more than 2 attributes.  If your classification system is only sizes of round holes, remember, square pegs don’t fit in round holes.   Physicists say that there are four forces: gravity, electro-magnetism, strong nuclear, and weak nuclear.  Physicists also classify matter as having mass, charge, and spin.  Economists describe goods by attributes defined as rival and exclusive.  The Meyer-Briggs personality test uses four attributes.  Hogwarts sorted  students into four houses.  The number of classifications, aka sorting bins, is the number of attributes squared.  Liberal and conservative is only a one dimensional classification.  Liberal and conservative are only extreme values of the same attribute.

This was prompted by a  recent article that claimed that Rep. Elise Stefanik used to be a moderate.  That is based only on grading how often a vote was characterized as conservative or liberal.  Grading someone on only one characteristic, liberal or conservative, misses nuances .  If  more than one attribute had been used, what had been classified as moderate, might have been different if more attributes had been used. In a previous blog post, https://dbeagan.blogspot.com/2020/06/a-framework-for-human-behavior.html , I proposed a framework for human behavior that classified individuals based on two attributes that could be characterized as: Rights versus Duty, and Nature versus Nurture.  I would like to amend that framework to add a third dimension, attribute, to my proposed framework: respect for the truth, facts, reality.  By that I mean real facts, not alternate facts.  That means that there are nine sorting bins for human behavior: formed by various combinations of  Rights vs. Duty; Nurture vs. Nature; Reality vs. Fantasy.

By respect for truth, I don’t expect that anyone will always speak the absolute truth. Sometimes they may tell a little white lie, but they still respect the truth.  But those who believe that they can create their own truth, believe that their lies are the truth.   This may explain why it is so difficult to debate policies if the opposite side does not agree to use facts. A debate between opposing policies requires different interpretations of agreed upon facts.  If one side makes up facts, there can be no debate.

Opinions

 Crazy

Crazy

I'm crazy for feeling so lonely

I'm crazy

Crazy for feeling so blue

So how crazy are you?

“All Democrats are insane, but not one of them knows it; none but the Republicans and Mugwumps know it. All the Republicans are insane, but only the Democrats and Mugwumps can perceive it. The rule is perfect: in all matters of opinion our adversaries are insane.”- Mark Twain

Plus ca change, plus ca la meme chose.  Mugwumps are no more. They often switched party affiliations between Republican and Democrats, but the United States will eventually revert to a two-party system, and the Mugwump factions were absorbed into the  parties that we have today.  But otherwise what was observed to be true by Twain long ago is still true.   In all matters of opinion our adversaries are insane, at least that seem to be the standard today.

But this only covers opinions.  As Sen. Moynihan famously put it, “You are entitled to you own opinions, (as insane as I and Twain might think they are), but you are not entitled to your own facts.”  Opinions are differing interpretations of facts.  “Opinions” based on things that are not facts, also known as lies, are worthless and can not, and should not, even  be considered to be opinions.  There was a fairness doctrine that used to require the airing of all opinions.  However no “fairness” doctrine could ever be assumed to cover lies.  Just because you call it an “opinion” does not change the fact that it is a lie.  If differing opinions are insane, how bad is claiming lies to be “opinions”?  Claiming the earth is flat in NOT an opinion, it is a lie.  Claiming that it is an opinion does not make it an opinion, any more than calling a dog a cat makes that dog a cat. It just means that you are crazy.

Qualified Immunity

 

I Fought The Law

Robbin' people with a six-gun
I fought the law and the law won
I fought the law and the law won
I lost my girl and I lost my fun
I fought the law and the law won
I fought the law and the law won

But what is the Law?

The Law is the word of the sovereign.  In absolute monarchies, the Law is the word of the monarch acting as the sovereign, (i.e. L’etat, c’est moi).  In democracies the people are the sovereign, and the people speaking through their legislature, are the Law.  It is not possible for the sovereign to act against the law.  For example,  under the current law an action may be illegal. If the sovereign knowingly takes that action , that may be violating the CURRENT law, but since the sovereign’s word is the law, that action is the NEW law. The sovereign is thus considered to be immune from existing laws.  However if the sovereign himself is considered to be subject to the laws of another, for example, the Divine right of kings, then his actions may violate the Divine laws of his Divine sovereign.

A sovereign can not be expected to enforce all of his laws.  Officers of the sovereign, the law, may be required to carry out their commands, laws.  When they do, they are acting as agents of the sovereign, and if their actions are in conflict with the current laws, those actions may have qualified sovereign immunity.  Police officers are considered to be agents of the sovereign.  When they are enforcing the law, their actions may have sovereign immunity, if those actions can be qualified as actions of the sovereign.

Thus a police officer who commits murder in the course of his actions has qualified immunity only if the actions that led to that murder can be considered to be the actions of the sovereign.  If those actions are not considered to be the actions of the sovereign, then qualified sovereign immunity does not exist. 

That is the reasonable doubt that must be considered by a jury.  If the actions of an officer of the sovereign, e.g. force in apprehending a suspect, led to the death of that suspect, the question is whether it was reasonable to consider that force to be the action of the sovereign.  If that force was consistent with the actions of the sovereign, then, even if that force resulted in death, that action has sovereign immunity.  But those actions are qualified.  If those actions can reasonably be considered to exceed the actions of the sovereign, then they are not covered by qualified sovereign immunity.

There is a difference between being an agent of the law and the law.  You can’t fight the law, but you can fight agents of the law, when they are not acting as agents of the law.

 

Apportionment II

 I'm A Loser

I'm a loser
And I lost someone who's near to me.
I'm A loser
And I'm not what I appear to be

There is a way to apportion congressional seats such that no state is a loser.

The Founding Fathers carefully drafted the US Constitution to prevent a Tyranny of Majority.  They did not want a majority to control the government such that the values of that majority could be imposed on a minority.  To this end they carefully split powers among three branches of government and required certain actions to only be possible by a super majority of the voters: 3/4 of the states to amend the constitution, 2/3 vote of Congress to override an executive veto, 2/3 vote of the Senate to enter into a treaty, etc.  The Bill of Rights were amendments to the Constitution to ensure that the majority could never remove those rights.  The Framers of the Constitution would be disappointed if an apportionment resulted in a Tyranny of a Minority.

The number of seats in the House of Representatives was not capped at 435 in the Constitution.  The only requirement in the Constitution is that each state have at least one seat in the House of Representatives.  The capping of the number of seats at 435,  the method of apportionment, and the making it automatic, are due to acts of Congress.  Congress set the current cap at 435 in 1911 (in anticipation of the admission of New Mexico and Arizona as states) and there was a temporary increase to 437 when Alaska and Hawaii became states prior to the 1960 Census.  Congress made the process automatic in 1941.  It is the cap of 435, the requirement that each state have at least one seat, and an integer number of seats per state that results in the current situation of winners and losers.  If the cap did not exist, a simple way to apportion seats to meet the at least one representative per state constitutional mandate would be to allocate seats according to the “Wyoming” rule, so named because the seats would be allocated based on the  population of each state divided by the population of the least populous state, currently Wyoming.  On this basis California would have 68.54 representatives to Wyoming’s one representative, because the population of California in 2020 was 68.54 times the population of Wyoming.  This does require fractional seats and a total of 573.39 seats for the United States.  If the fractional seats were converted to integers, using conventional rounding rules, this would mean that California would receive 69 seats and the total would be 573.  This number does exceed the 435-seat cap on the number of seats.  However the vote per seat does not have to be equal to one.  There is a precedent in the Constitution for fractional amounts. Each of the previously enslaved population was counted as 3/5 of a person for purposes of apportionment.  It the number of seats is reduced from 573.39 to 435 and each seat was given 1.32 votes, four states, North Dakota, Alaska, Vermont, and Wyoming, would have less than one seat.

It is therefore proposed that the current number of representatives, which totals 435, be retained but that the voting power of each representative be the seats allocated by the Wyoming rule divided by the current allocation of seats.  In this case it retains the constitutional mandate of one representative per state, a cap of 435, and there is a whole number of representatives per state.  However the voting power of those representatives would change such that each of California’s current 53 representatives would have a vote of 1.29, which is 68.54 divided by 53, while Wyoming’s one representative would have 1 vote.  This would recognize that the most populous state should have the voting power that is a multiple of its population to the least populous state. No state would ever lose a seat, but states would gain voting power as their population increased. It is suggested that the size of the electoral college should also be adjusted, by law or amendment, to recognize this change.  There would be no losers, but the current voting power of the least populous states would be adjusted proportionally.  Then the apportionment of seats would not be biased toward the least populous states, which can be considered to be a Tyranny of the Minority of those least populous states.

State	2020 Population	Seats by Wyoming Rule	Integer seats by Wyoming Rule	Current seats	Proposed votes per current seat
California	39,538,223	68.541483	69	53	1.2932
Texas	29,145,505	50.525188	51	36	1.4035
Florida	21,538,187	37.337522	37	27	1.3829
New York	20,201,249	35.019873	35	27	1.2970
Pennsylvania	13,002,700	22.540829	23	18	1.2523
Illinois	12,812,508	22.211122	22	18	1.2340
Ohio	11,799,448	20.454932	20	16	1.2784
Georgia	10,711,908	18.569627	19	14	1.3264
North Carolina	10,439,388	18.097200	18	13	1.3921
Michigan	10,077,331	17.469556	17	14	1.2478
New Jersey	9,288,994	16.102935	16	12	1.3419
Virginia	8,631,393	14.962951	15	11	1.3603
Washington	7,705,281	13.357489	13	10	1.3357
Arizona	7,151,502	12.397486	12	9	1.3775
Massachusetts	7,029,917	12.186712	12	9	1.3541
Tennessee	6,910,840	11.980286	12	9	1.3311
Indiana	6,785,528	11.763051	12	9	1.3070
Maryland	6,177,224	10.708526	11	8	1.3386
Missouri	6,154,913	10.669849	11	8	1.3337
Wisconsin	5,893,718	10.217054	10	8	1.2771
Colorado	5,773,714	10.009021	10	7	1.4299
Minnesota	5,706,494	9.8924922	10	8	1.2366
South Carolina	5,118,425	8.8730452	9	7	1.2676
Alabama	5,024,279	8.7098384	9	7	1.2443
Louisiana	4,657,757	8.0744542	8	6	1.3457
Kentucky	4,505,836	7.8110916	8	6	1.3018
Oregon	4,237,256	7.3454948	7	5	1.4691
Oklahoma	3,959,353	6.8637360	7	5	1.3727
Connecticut	3,605,944	6.2510839	6	5	1.2502
Utah	3,271,616	5.6715096	6	4	1.4179
Iowa	3,190,369	5.5306639	6	4	1.3827
Nevada	3,104,614	5.3820033	5	4	1.3455
Arkansas	3,011,524	5.2206272	5	4	1.3052
Mississippi	2,961,279	5.1335249	5	4	1.2834
Kansas	2,937,880	5.0929616	5	4	1.2732
New Mexico	2,117,522	3.6708301	4	3	1.2236
Nebraska	1,961,504	3.4003651	3	3	1.1335
Idaho	1,839,106	3.1881820	3	2	1.5941
West Virginia	1,793,716	3.1094962	3	3	1.0365
Hawaii	1,455,271	2.5227849	3	2	1.2614
New Hampshire	1,377,529	2.3880153	2	2	1.1940
Maine	1,362,359	2.3617173	2	2	1.1809
Rhode Island	1,097,379	1.9023613	2	2	0.9512
Montana	1,084,225	1.8795582	2	1	1.8796
Delaware	989,948	1.7161243	2	1	1.7161
South Dakota	886,667	1.5370815	2	1	1.5371
North Dakota	779,094	1.3505983	1	1	1.3506
Alaska	733,391	1.2713699	1	1	1.2714
Vermont	643,077	1.1148061	1	1	1.1148
Wyoming	576,851	1.0000000	1	1	1.0000
Total/Avg	330,759,736	573.3885093	573	435	1.3181