Fact Checking

 

Battle Hymn of the Republic

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword
His truth is marching on.

God IS the truth.

There are no Alternate facts. There are only facts.  It is not for you to tell a lie because you think people can’t handle the truth,  or that they will panic if they are told the truth.  If you believe that people are godly, then if God is truth, how can they panic or find any truth inconvenient.

People may believe that WWE wrestling is real.  It is athletic and strenuous, but it is entertainment, which why there is an E in its name.  People can willing suspend belief and be entertained by stories, but still know that they are stories. And yet there are people who believe Soap Operas are real (or that “reality” TV is real ).  People can, and do, believe that the earth is flat because it appears flat to them.  People can believe that aliens constructed the Nazca lines, the Egyptian pyramids, or the Easter Island Moas, because they can not  believe that an “inferior” people could have done these.  People can believe that the Earth is less than 10,000 years old despite all evidence to the contrary.  As long as those people can respond to facts with “I don’t know about that”, fact checking or saying “yet it moves” may only make those who believe in the truth feel better.  The opposing view to truth is by definition false.  People are entitled to their own opinions but they are not entitled to their own facts. Teaching the opposing view to truth is teaching what is false.  Like in the Song, let us battle for the truth.

Strangers

 

How Have You Been

Though you are strangers
I feel that I know you
By the way that you treat me
and offer to feed me
 and eagerly ask
If I'll stay for a rest

Is it naive not to be afraid of strangers?

Most  religions and cultures have sayings and customs about treating strangers kindly and offering hospitality to strangers.  In the Old testament, Leviticus (19:33-34) says “When a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong. You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt”.  In the New Testament ( Matthew 25:34), Jesus described the blessed as  “For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me”.  The Quran  (al-Nisaa 4:36) says  “Serve God; and do good – to parents, kinsfolk, orphans, those in need, neighbors who are near, neighbors who are strangers, the companion by your side, the wayfarer (ye meet), and what your right hands possess.” The Dalai Lama has said that “There are no strangers, only friends that you have not met yet”.  In most cultures breaking bread with, or offering wine or water to, strangers and offering them shelter is a common custom.  The reason that these customs and religious teachings are necessary is that humans are tribal and do not trust those who are not in their tribe.  However,  the wisdom of the tribe knows that strangers can share knowledge and other information that is valuable to the tribe.  Hence these strictures and customs that strangers are to be honored.

It is not an accident that Jesus used the Good Samaritan when he looked for a model of being kind to strangers.  Samaritans were viewed by Hebrews as of the lowest Caste.  Hebrews returned from capacity in Babylon.  Samaritans are the tribes who were not captured and taken into captivity in Babylon, and they were reviled by the Hebrews for this.  Thus when Jesus relates the parable of the Good Samaritan, the lesson is that someone on the lowest rung of society can be the example of the best of society by offering kindness to a stranger.  It not naïve to be kind to strangers.  It is naïve to automatically distrust strangers when you don’t know what they have to offer.

Punishment

 

I Wanna Be Around

When somebody breaks your heart like you broke mine
That's when I'll discover that revenge is sweet,
As I sit there applauding from a front row seat,
When somebody breaks your heart like you broke mine

Revenge may be sweet, but prevention is even sweeter.

“An eye for an eye” is not only a Biblical phrase.  It dates back to the Code of Hammurabi. It does say that the guilty should be punished.  But it also says that the punishment should fit the crime.  Revenge might have been “A life for your eye.”  This phrase should be read that vengeance, i.e. punishing the guilty, is NOT the intent.  Protecting the innocent is the intent.  The guilty have to be punished in such  a  way that the innocent are protected.  Punishing  the guilty who have been caught  is a way of changing the consequences of the risk such that the price paid might deter other offenders. This protects the innocent from those who have not yet been caught, or have not even committed a crime.  Exacting vengeance on the guilty who are caught is not the intent of the law.  Cruel and unusual punishment is forbidden under the US Constitution.  It honors the principle that the punishment should fit the crime.  What is unstated is that this protects the innocent from the guilty who have not yet been caught or not yet committed a guilty act.  It is not a license to impose a punishment on those guilty who are caught that is commensurate with all of the guilty who were not caught. Those who are caught should not be scapegoats for those who were not caught.

Acts of vengeance inspire ever larger acts of vengeance to response to the initial act.  Acts of justice, not vengeance, are intended to protect the innocent so that future acts of vengeance are averted.

For example, those who steal have no incentive to produce because they could always steal property from those who have produced.  Those from the property is stolen  have no incentive to produce because whatever they produce might be stolen.  Society wants people to produce.  It enacts and enforces laws against stealing because it wants to encourage production, not only because it wants to punish stealing.  This means that the penalty for stealing should encourage production, not merely punish stealing.  Killing those who are guilty of stealing punishes only those who have been caught stealing.  Killing is an act of vengeance, not prevention.

Government

 

And The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway

The Movie-Palace is now undone,
The all-night WATCHMEN have had their fun,
Sleeping cheaply on the midnight show,
It's the same old ending-time to go.

Its an age-old question, “Who Watches the Watchmen?" 

In a System Optimal solution, the question is what, or who, is the system.  Merriam Webster defines system as “a regularly interacting or interdependent group of items forming a unified whole”.  While humans are independent, they can act together as a system.  While there is a system of smaller systems, nature, or God’s dominion depending on your beliefs, humans as individuals have to form their own smaller system of other humans.  The problem is that each human acting as an individual, seeks a User Optimal solution.  The system of humans ideally will be composed those other humans who can put aside their own User Optimal solution and seek the System Optimal solution.  

In choosing other humans to represent them as that System, humans have to trust that those individuals  will act for the System. One way to do this is to choose a person of integrity who would be honest about any conflicts between his own User Optimal and the System Optimal, for example, “Honest” Abe Lincoln, or George Washington who could not tell a lie. Failing that, individuals might be chosen who have no incentive to choose their own User Optimal because they already are so rich that their User Optimal can be disregarded, for example the  Rockefellers or Kennedys.  What should never be their choice for the System are people who lie, and who will choose their own User Optimal and lie that it is the System Optimal.

Exonerated?

 

Words

You think that I don't even mean
A single word I say
It's only words and words are all I have
To take your heart away

Words mean what they mean, NOT what you choose them to mean!

Merriam-Webster defines acquitted as “ to discharge completely (as from an accusation or obligation)”.  It defines innocent as “free from guilt or fault”. It defines guilty as “justly chargeable with or responsible for a usually grave breach of conduct or a crime” . This means that not guilty could be defined as “not responsible for a usually grave breach of conduct or a crime”.  Not guilty or acquitted is NOT the same as innocent.  There are different standards of evidence and proof, i.e. guilt, for criminal trials, for civil trials, and for the court of public opinion.  You can be not guilty in a criminal trial, guilty in a civil trial and guilty in the court of public opinion.  For example, O.J. Simpson was found not guilty of criminal charges in the killing of his ex-wife Nicole Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman.  However, he was found guilty in the civil case for the same killings, and is guilty in the court of public opinion.  

Donald Trump was found not guilty in his first impeachment case concerning the Ukraine call. The Mueller report found that there were 10 instances where Obstruction of Justice charges might have been appropriate but were not pursued because of the DOJ’s position that a sitting president can not be indicted.  These are NOT findings of innocence.

In both Impeachment trials the vote was for or against impeachment, not for or against innocence.  Just as absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, a finding of not guilty is not a finding of innocence. You are only exonerated if you are found innocent.

2024?

Wonderland

You searched the world for something else
To make you feel like what we had
And in the end, in Wonderland
We both went mad

Are we living in Wonderland?

“Sentence first–verdict afterward”.  So cries the Queen of Hearts in Alice in Wonderland.  We are supposed to view the Queen as deranged for stating this.  Of course you have a trial with a verdict first, and only then can you have a sentence.

The sentence for impeachment is removal from office, if in office, and a possible disqualification from holding a future office.  During Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial, a number of Republican Senators apparently placed sentencing first.  Their rationale for finding Trump not guilty was that he was not currently in office.  They said that since the sentence did not apply,  the verdict of the trial had to be not impeached. They apparently were not paying attention to the vote of the senate on February 9^th , when the Senate voted 56 to 44 that a sentence could be applied because the offense happened while in office, and even though removal from office was a moot point, disqualification from future office was feasible.  Their justification for a finding of not guilty was that the removal from office did not apply.

Given that Donald Trump appears to be very definitely considering running for President again, is it not appropriate to ask for a mistrial, because so many Republican Senators acting as jurors seemed to mistake the sentencing for the verdict. This is the United States, not Wonderland.  We have a verdict first and sentence later . If the penalty for murder is execution, but a murder is committed by an immortal, does that means that he is not guilty of murder because he can’t be executed?

Income Inequality

Straightjacket

Your way's making me mental
How you filter a skewed interpret
I swear you won't be happy 'til
I'm bound in a straight jacket

If incomes are skewed, who should be placed in a straightjacket?

A normal distribution of income with a mean income of $0, also has to considers negative incomes. Since the median income is equal to the mean income in a normal distribution, 50% will have incomes greater than $0 and 50% will have an income less than $0.

If the mean income is $97,026 as reported in the 2020 US Census, and the median is still equal to the mean, it would still be a normal distribution. In this case ~34% should have an income less than $0.  The top one percenters should have an income of approximately 2.33 times the mean or ~$226,070 per year, not the $538,926 that was reported in the 2020 Census.

If the upper incomes are increased, but nothing is done to change the other incomes, the mean and the median will no longer be equal.  In fact according to the US Census, the median household income is $67,521.  The distribution of income is reported as skewed towards higher incomes.  I know that normal and skewed are emotionally loaded terms, but these ARE the terms that are used in statistics.

Incomes less than zero are typically treated as if they were $0.  If these negative incomes are reported as $0, then the mean and the median can no longer be equal.  The Luxembourg Income Study, https://www.lisdatacenter.org/ , tracks income by country. The mean income is less than 120% of the median income in most countries.  It is declining over the period of analysis in all but two countries.  In the United Kingdom, the mean income increased from 110% of the median income in 1980 to 122% in 1994 before stabilizing in a cycle.  According to the LIS, in the US the mean income has increased from 111% of the median income in 1980 to 124% of median income in 2018 and appears to be still increasing.       https://dbeagan.blogspot.com/2021/07/inequality.html. 

Increasing the mean national income does NOT increase the median national income unless those incomes are also equitably distributed.  It is possible to increase the mean income without changing median income, which appears to be why the gap between mean and median income is increasing.

During the height of the COVID pandemic, the phrase “flattening the curve”  became common.  Mathematically this means that the variance of the distribution was increased, This reduces the height at the median, e. g. the maximum cases that will need ICU beds at that point in time.  The number of cases over time will not change, but “flattening the curve”, increasing the variance, is a way to reduce that maximum demand on hospital ICU beds.  It seems like a similar phrase should be used for “skewing the curve” to describe income distribution.  The number of people with zero income does not change, the national income does not change, but more of that income is skewed to higher incomes than would be expected if incomes were normally distributed.