Supermajority

 

Sunshine Superman

Superman or Green Lantern ain't got a-nothin' on me
I can make like a turtle and dive for your pearls in the sea, yeah
A you-you-you can just sit there a-thinking on your velvet throne
'Bout all the rainbows a-you can a-have for your own

We don’t need a Superman.  We need a supermajority.

The most important decisions of the United States constitutionally require a supermajority.  E.g.

“…The Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeachments. When sitting for that Purpose, they shall be on Oath or Affirmation. When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside: And no Person shall be convicted without the Concurrence of two thirds of the Members present…”

“…Each House may determine the Rules of its Proceedings, punish its Members for disorderly Behaviour, and, with the Concurrence of two thirds, expel a Member…”

“….If after such Reconsideration two thirds of that House shall agree to pass the Bill, it shall be sent, together with the Objections, to the other House, by which it shall likewise be reconsidered, and if approved by two thirds of that House, it shall become a Law…. 

“…Every Order, Resolution, or Vote to which the Concurrence of the Senate and House of Representatives may be necessary (except on a question of Adjournment) shall be presented to the President of the United States; and before the Same shall take Effect, shall be approved by him, or being disapproved by him, shall be repassed by two thirds of the Senate and House of Representatives, according to the Rules and Limitations prescribed in the Case of a Bill…”

“…A quorum for this Purpose (counting Electoral College votes) shall consist of a Member or Members from two thirds of the States, and a Majority of all the States shall be necessary to a Choice…”

 

“….He (the President) shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur;…

…The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as Part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress;…

14^th Amendment …No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability…

25th Amendment …If the Congress, within twenty-one days after receipt of the latter written declaration, or, if Congress is not in session, within twenty-one days after Congress is required to assemble, determines by two-thirds vote of both Houses that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall continue to discharge the same as Acting President; otherwise, the President shall resume the powers and duties of his office….

In other words, the most important decisions of the United States, according to its Constitution, require, not a simple majority but, a supermajority.  It boggles the mind that opinions of the Supreme Court are NOT considered to be important decisions that also should require a supermajority. It is the responsibility of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, not to try like Neville Chamberlin and appease a minority who have become a majority in one institution, but instead require that all Supreme Court decisions by HIS Supreme Court should be by a supermajority of the sitting justices.  Criminal juries require a unanimous finding.  Civil juries require a supermajority finding.  Should not the same be expected of the Supreme Court?

Wishes

 

What a Fool Believes

But what a fool believes he sees
No wise man has the power to reason away
What seems to be
Is always better than nothing
And nothing at all keeps sending him...

And, despite Larry David’s wishes as expressed in the FTX commercial,  fools can vote.

 Republican Rep. Greg Steube (R-Fla.) deleted a tweet Thursday that accused House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) of allowing CNN, or as Steube put it the “Communist News Network,” to build a TV set in Statuary Hall. CNN had actually used a green screen displaying that section of the U.S. Capitol.

https://www.wfla.com/news/politics/gop-lawmaker-deletes-tweet-blasting-cnn-for-full-tv-set-inside-capitol-that-was-actually-a-green-screen/

My son worked on the digital effects team that made the hologram where the dead Tupac Shukar appeared to be on stage with Snoop Dogg at Coachella in 2012. Without a trace of irony, a number of people wanted to be taken backstage to talk with Tupac. I would like to say that those people, and Rep. Steube, were just fooled by new technology and once they realized that there is this new technology, then they will no longer be fooled. However Hans Christian Andersen addressed the same thing in his story about the Emperor’s New Clothes in 1837. His story was an update of Spanish story from 1335 .  In these cases, no new technology was involved. 

The old adage “If wishes were horses, beggars would ride” applies. Just because you wish something were true, doesn’t mean that it is true. Be wise.

Ethics

 

(If Loving You Is Wrong) I Don't Want to Be Right

If loving you is wrong I don't wanna be right
If being right means being without you
I'd rather live a wrong doing life
Your mama and daddy say it's a shame
It's a downright disgrace
But long as I got you by my side
I don't care what your people say

Should you ever choose wrong?

“Two wrongs do not make a right.”

“The ends do not justify the means.”

If you believe in these positions, then the lesser of two evils is still evil and should not be chosen.  If you are confronted with a choice between two evils then the best choice is not choosing.

If Donald Trump is truly unfit to be President, as Bill Barr has said, but he would still vote for Trump as President rather than vote for a Democrat, who Bill Barr believes to be evil, then Bill Barr’s best choice is to make no choice at all, e.g. filling in a vote for Mickey Mouse or leaving the ballot  blank.  Yes, in the short term, Democrats might win the Presidency, but in the long term maybe Republicans might learn not to nominate Trump.

The Trolley Problem is a thought experiment in ethics about a fictional scenario in which an onlooker has the choice to save 5 people in danger of being hit by a trolley, by diverting the trolley to kill just 1 person. This was the basis of an episode in the last season of the NBC SitCom “The Good Place’.  In it eventually the truly ethical position was found to be not killing 5 persons or one person, but to destroy the trolley ( kill yourself).  That is how you remain good.  If you ever choose evil, even if it is the lesser of two evils, then you become evil.

A Long Time

 

A Change is Gonna Come

It's been too hard living
But I'm afraid to die
'Cause I don't know what's up there
Beyond the sky

It's been a long
A long time coming
But I know a change gonna come
Oh, yes it will 

Is 40 years too long? 

The lessons we earn from our parents may be those that they learned from their parents. Thus inbred actions that are not necessarily our fault, or our parent’s fault, but may be due to what our grandparents experienced. It is not just the sins of the fathers, but the sins of the grandfathers that are important

This means that what seems like a long time to us, is not so long at all. Saying that we as individuals are not actively racists, does not mean that our grandparents, whom we may not have even met, weren’t racists. My story. My paternal grandmother died in 1941, ten years before I was even born. My paternal grandfather died in 1950, the year before I was born. My father was born in 1925, after the Spanish Flu. My father’s mother and father, my paternal grandparents, lost two children to the Spanish Flu. They passed along to him a bias against common spaces and shared items, which I realize I have and has effected my actions. I realize now that it was because of his upbringing, which was affected by his parent’s experiences and attitudes.

An action against racism in society, and while you are a member of society, might still have nothing to do with you as an individual. You may not be racist. But that does not mean that your grandparents, or their grandparents, were not racist and that is why Critical, Race Theory, CRT, is taught (in GRADUATE SCHOOL!  Little children may not even realize that their parents were once little children to their grandparents, and this is why little children are NOT taught CRT)

This also has a bearing on, IMHO, the mistaken ruling by the Supreme Court on the Voting Rights Act, that actions of the states from 40 years ago are no longer relevant. Given in 2022, I am talking about actions that my paternal grandparents experienced in 1922, 40 years is a drop in the bucket. 40 years is long to me as an individual. 40 years is a brief period of time to states. Never mind asking African-Americans about slavery which ended in 1865. Ask an Armenian about the Turkish genocide, or an Irishman about the marches to celebrate the Battle of the Boyne. These things happened more than 40 years ago and still affect actions and attitudes today.

Bi-Partisan

 

As Time Goes By

This day and age we're living in
Gives cause for apprehension
With speed and new invention
And things like fourth dimension

Four dimensions? How about more than one.

Characterizing politics as liberal and conservative is probably TOO restrictive. It makes the assumption that politics is one dimensional when it is probably has at least one other dimension. A political position should be based on the type AND scale of government. We do not need bi‑partisanship. We need pan- partisanship.

This argument should sound familiar to people who remember the old Miller Lite beer commercial (“Less Filling/Tastes Great”) or the old Certs commercials ( “It’s a Candy Mint! It’s a Breath Mint! Its Two, Two, Two Mints in One.”). In the case of these commercials, people seem to accept that something can have more than one dimension.

		Filling
		Less	More
Taste	Great	Miller Lite	Not Miller Lite
	Not So Great	Not Miller Lite	Not Miller Lite

 

In political positions, the form of the government according to the Constitution is a lower case "r" "republic". As Benjamin Franklin famously described it ”a republic, if you can keep it.”   The Constitution does not specify the size of that government. There has always been a healthy debate between liberal and conservative positions as to the size and role of government.

		Size
		Limited	Big
Form	republican	Conservative	Liberal
	Authoritarian	Pseudo Conservative	Pseudo Liberal

 

A problem is that Authoritarians masquerading as Conservatives seem to have taken over the upper case "R", "Republican" Party. True Conservatives, such as Liz Cheney and Mitt Romney, must contend with Pseudo Conservatives who appear to be Authoritarians. And those are not just limited to Trump. While Pseudo Conservatives exist, Pseudo Liberals also exist. For example, Napoleon began as an officer in the French revolutionary army. Modern day Authoritarians such as Kim Jong-un and Vladimir Putin are big government, Authoritarian,  Pseudo Liberals.

The US Constitution describes a republican form of government. You can not be in the government if you are an Authoritarian unless you want to overthrow that Constitutional government. The Republican Party needs to decide if it supports this, lower case "r", "republic". If so, so it should eliminate Pseudo Conservative Authoritarians from the Republican Party, even if it means in doing so they will reduce their membership. If their argument is over the size and role, not the form of government, that needs to be clear.  The problem might not be owning the libs.  It might be eliminating pseudo conservatives.

War and Peace

The Games People Play

Oh the games people play now every night and every day now
Never meaning what they say, yeah never saying what they mean
First you whine away your hours, in your concrete towers
Soon you'll be covered up with flowers in the back of a black limousine

Since people play games, what is your best strategy for winning those games?

In the Prisoner’s Dilemma game, each prisoner can cooperate with the guards or not cooperate with the guards.  ( this is often called “Cooperating”  with your fellow prisoners and “Defecting” to the guards, but this is only a difference in perspective of with whom you are cooperating.)

If a Player cooperates with the guards and his Opponent chooses not to cooperate with the guards, then that Player gets two years off his sentence and his Opponent gets no years off his sentence.  If both Players do not cooperate with the guards, then they both get no years off their sentences.  If they both cooperate with the guards,  then each Player gets one year off his sentence. 

This basic game is used in Game Theory to illustrate that there is a difference between a series of two-player games played with only two players, and a series of two-player games played with more than two players.  In a series of two-player games with only two players, the winning strategy is to cooperate with the guards in every game.  If your opponent ever chooses not to cooperate, then you get two years off your sentence.  Even if your opponent also chooses to cooperate, neither of you get anything or “All or Nothing at all”. 

This is not the best strategy for more than two players.  When there are more than two players, the best strategy is for a player to  choose “Not cooperate”  in the first round but that player should choose whatever his opponent did in their previous encounter.  This is often called “Tit for Tat”, “Nice but Tough”, or “Something is better than Nothing”. Or in the song by the Rolling Stones, “You can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you just might find, you get what you need.”  This is a Nash Equilibrium, named after the mathematician John Nash, who was the subject of Ron Howard’s Oscar Winning Best Picture, “A Beautiful Mind”.  As John Nash observed in the film, “If everyone goes after the Blonde, no one gets the Blonde.”

If the choices are changed from “Cooperate” to “War” and from “Not Cooperate” to “Peace” and society is a non-playing party, the outcomes are same for each player, but society also wins or loses based on the outcome. The outcomes are:

Choices		Outcomes
Player One	Player Two	Player One	Player Two	Society
War	War	0	0	0
War	Peace	2	0	1
Peace	War	0	2	1
Peace	Peace	1	1	2

 

This can be explained as: 

• In "War" neither player makes a contribution to society.  
• If one player plays "War" and his opponent plays "Peace", then the player who plays "War" get the value his opponent would have kept for himself.  
• If both players play "Peace", then they each make a contribution to society and a contribution to themselves.  

The best outcome for society is identical to the More than Two‑Player Strategy.  "War" is an advantage to a Player ONLY in a two-player game.

That is why those predisposed to "War" prefer bilateral, not multilateral games.  Changing “War” to “Steal”, “Lie”, “Cheat”, “Covet”, “Kill” or any negative choice and changing “Peace” to “Not Lie”, “Not Cheat”, “Not Covet “, “Not Kill” or any positive choice, is merely changing the names of the choices.  It does not change the outcomes.  The best outcome for society is if everyone makes positive choices.  This is identical to the optimal strategy if there are more than two players.  Negative choices are only an advantage to a player only when there are only two players in all games. I hope that this changes how you play the game.

Not Guilty

 

Guilty

Well I'm guilty, yeah I'm guilty,
I'll be guilty for the rest of my life
How come I never do,
What I'm supposed to do
How come nothing that I try to do ever turns out right

If you are found Not Guilty are you found Innocent?

I have charitably assumed that the far-right Trump-ers , as represented by Louie Gohmert, were two- dimensional thinkers living in a three dimensional ( or four-dimensional,  if you count time) world. It is worse than that. They are clearly one-dimensional thinkers.

Louie Gohmert gave this away when he stated. "If you're a Republican, you can't even lie to Congress or lie to an FBI agent or they're coming after you."  He made this statement in reaction to the Not Guilty finding for Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussman of lying to the FBI, versus the indictment of Peter Navarro. Poor Louie. He assumes that a jury outcome is one dimensional, "Convicted" or "Getting Away With It". In fact, for thousands of years, it has been two-dimensional: Guilty or Innocent; and Provable or Not Provable. That is why the jury makes a finding of Not Guilty, they do NOT make a finding of Innocent ( or “Getting Away With It”).

The jury system is such that there are four possible outcomes:

1.     Guilty and Provable,

2.     Guilty and Not Provable,

3.     Innocent and Provable and

4.     Innocent and Not Provable.

The last three outcomes are collectively called NOT Guilty. . Yes, you may be getting away with it ( aka "Guilty and Not Provable") but the state is willing to accept this rather than accidentally finding you guilty when you are "Innocent and Not Provable". Not everyone is Guilty, despite Louie Gohmert's claim. Not everyone is a crook. It is just that there are smart crooks and dumb crooks, and dumb crooks leave lots of evidence behind.  I wonder which kind of crooks we are dealing with here.