Hope

 

“Hope” Is The Thing With Feathers 

“Hope” is the thing with feathers 
That perches in the soul 
And sings the tune without the words 
And never stops - at all 

Hope is the belief that there is a future. 

As I said in an earlier blog post , https://dbeagan.blogspot.com/2022/07/faith.html, the three biblical virtues are Faith, Hope, and Love, and the greatest was claimed to be Love. I previously made a pitch for Faith, trust, because without trust, you may not accept Love. I also want to make a pitch for Hope in the future, because without it there is no point to Love. 

I have a special fondness for Hope. As a native Rhode Islander, I know that Hope not only is the shortest American State motto, but in the Greek myth, Pandora opened the chest which released evil into the world, but remaining in the chest was Hope. Hope is a belief that there is a future. And it is the future of the group, not oneself. Old men plant trees that won’t bloom until long after they are gone because their hope is for the group, not themselves.

 The future does not have the same value as today, even if it is not zero. “A bird in hand is worth two in the bush,” etc. Requiring a profit is merely expressing that the future is worth less than the present. If you say that the future has a value of 0.91 of the present, then this is consistent with saying that you expect a 10% profit. 

A problem with valuing the future is that we also know that as individuals we have a limited life. But the value of the future should not depend on our age. A 5-year old toddler, thinks that their next birthday is a long way off because each birthday is 1/5 of their life. They do not think of how many birthdays they will experience. A 20-year old’s next birthday is  1/20 of their life but they might reasonably expect that it is merely one of 60 more that they will experience. A 70 year old's next birthday is only 1/70 of their life, but it is only one of 10 more that they might expect to have. However the group may celebrate your birthday long after you have departed. Is the next birthday “A long way off”  as a toddler might think, or “Not so far away, but only  a few more of them” as the elderly like to think. 

	Self	Self	Group	Self	Group
Age in years	5	20	20	70	70
Expected number of birthdays to come	75	60	60	10	10
Value of next birthdays based on age	0.83	0.95	0.95	0.99	0.99
If only your life matters	.94	0.75	1.00	0.125	1.00
Effective net value of next birthday	0.78	0.71	0.95	0.125	0.99
Implied Interest Rate for Future	29%	40%	5%	700%	1%

 A toddler has not yet been civilized and thinks only of themselves, not any group.  The elderly thinking of the group, might think that the future has the same value as the present and ignore the fact that they only have a limited number of birthdays in the future. This is bad, since there are more future days than the present day and this leads to a belief that the future is worth more than the present.  The selfish elderly might think since they only have a few more birthdays left,  “Après moi, le déluge”. This would be equally wrong since it says the future has no value.  It seems like a future of 0.9 times the present, which is more consistent with a selfish 20-year old might be a good value for the future.  As long as the future has a value greater than zero, then we do have Hope.

 

 

Big Brother

 

Every Breath You Take

Every breath you take and every move you make
Every bond you break, every step you take, I'll be watching you
Every single day and every word you say
Every game you play, every night you stay, I'll be watching you

Is your cellphone watching you?

Your smart cell phone may not know if “you’ve been bad or good” and it may not know whether “you’re sleeping” or “you’re awake”, but it probably knows where you have been. It  can use some additional processing to determine where you are between say 12 AM and  4 AM and might decide that the most frequently observed location is your home. It can use some additional processing to determine where you are between  9 AM and 12 PM on weekdays and decide the most frequently observed location is probably your workplace.  

With access to another database, that home location might be used to provide other information such as an address, and the work location might be used to provide a company or agency name and an address. In some cases that information might have been intentionally blurred, but combining datasets might yield information which was not intended to be disclosed. 

There have been court cases where cell phone location has been used to try and associate absence, or presence, near a location with activity at that location.  “Your Honor, my client could not have committed the crime because his cellphone shows he was nowhere near the scene of the crime at the time of the crime.”  So be good for goodness sake.

Stampede

 

Stampede

Stampede they're comin' up to draw
Stampede three thousand herd or more
Here they come a smokin' fire boys you better earn your hire
Stampede and hell to score

Don’t be stampeded.

A stampede is  defined as running away in a large group from something especially because of fear. Man is a group animal and, like any large group, man can be stampeded. A stampede at a concert or sporting event is among the most frightening things. Attendees have been trampled in those stampedes. Deliberately  starting a  stampede is among the worse things that could be done, because the group may act in a way a that is harmful to itself and others.

In Disney’s The Lion King, Scar starts a stampede to kill his brother, King Mustafa and frame his nephew, Simba. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote that “The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic... The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent.”

If a political party promotes the fear of …immigrants, religions, races, gender, sexual orientation, etc. aren’t they trying to stampede the voting population for their own benefit. When you vote, listen without fear. Don’t let yourself be stampeded.

RINOs

 

This Town Ain't Big Enough for the Both of Us

Zoo time, is she and you time?
The mammals are your favorite type, and you want her tonight
Heartbeat, increasing heartbeat
You hear the thunder of stampeding rhinos, elephants, and tacky tigers
This town ain't big enough for the both of us
And it ain't me who's gonna leave

Should we be hunting stampeding RINOs?

There has been a call for an open season on the hunting of RINOs, which are supposedly Republicans In Name Only. While the Republican Party has a disagreement on the size and role of government with the Democratic Party, both parties vie for the election of Constitutional officers who will swear an oath to support and defend that Constitution. Thus there should be no difference between the parties in the form of government. When Benjamin Franklin was asked what form of government that the founding fathers gave us in the Constitutional Convention, he  famously said “a republic, if you can keep it.”  A republic is not the only from of government that could have been possible. Monarchism or authoritarianism are alternative forms of government. If those who support authoritarians are calling themselves Republicans, then they are truly rINOS, because they do not support the republican form of government.

Those who support a limited, but republican, form of government are the only Republicans worthy of the name. Those who support an authoritarian government are rINOs and are either oath breakers, or potential oath breakers, since they have no intention of honoring the oath to support the Constitution. Those complaining most loudly about RINOS are probably themselves rINOS and it is time for Republicans to take back their party. The commandment to not speak ill of fellow Republicans should not include those rINOS who are only pretending to be Republicans.

Lauren Boebert II

 

Everybody Loves A Clown

Everybody loves a clown, so why don't you?
Everybody laughs at the things I say and do
They all laugh when they see me comin'
But you don't laugh, you just go home runnin'
Everybody loves a clown, so why can't you?
A clown has feelings, too

Colorado, the joke isn’t funny anymore. Take back your clown, please.

 “The church is supposed to direct the government. The government is not supposed to direct the church. That is not how our Founding Fathers intended it” Lauren Boebert,  Cornerstone Christian Center, June 26, 2022.

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion." First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

Lauren Boebert, as Representative for Colorado’s Third Congressional District, swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution against all enemies. If the Constitution says that Congress is supposed to make no laws establishing religion, which church is Rep. Boebert talking about directing Congress and the government? The Baptists? The Presbyterians? The Catholics? The Methodists? The Muslims? The Buddhists? The Jews? I believe that the founding fathers were pretty clear on the subject, What part of NO does Rep. Boebert not understand?

There are six justices on the current SCOTUS who are Roman Catholics. Let’s have them decide that Papal Infallibly and veneration of the Virgin Mary are the law of the land. While that might make Justice Amy Coney Barrett very happy, I suspect that it would upset the congregation of the Cornerstone Christian Center. Since it would  require Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Sotomayor voting with Justices Alito, Thomas, Barrett, and Kavanaugh, I don’t expect this to happen any time soon, but with this SCOTUS, who knows.

Knowing Your Place

 

Street Fighting Man

Hey! Think the time is right for a palace revolution
But where I live the game to play is compromise solution
Well, then what can a poor boy do
Except to sing for a rock 'n' roll band
'Cause in sleepy London town
There's just no place for a street fighting man, no

What is your place?

Man is a group animal. That means an individual man lives in a group of men. Every group has a leader, a sovereign. The problem is that the best tactics for becoming a leader are not the best tactics  for being a leader.

Leaders are often chosen by domination over challengers for that position  This requires that an individual be better than others, e.g. his challengers. He has the best User Optimal solution.

However once a leader, he should take on a servant’s role for the group. He administers the best System Optimal solution.

The problem is that an individual has a limited life, but the group of which he is member does not have a limited life. Sovereigns will eventually die or be replaced , but the group lives on with a new sovereign. That is meant by the seemingly contradictory phrase the “The King is dead, long live the King.”

Leaders who achieve their position through dominance, seek to prevent challengers to their position, do not wish to have others with power. They wish to surround themselves with those who will protect them, and not protect the group that they are supposed to lead. The only way to remove a dominance leader may be through dominance.

For most members of the group, there is little or no interest in who lead the group. ”Meet  the new boss, same as the old boss.” Dominance sovereigns are tempted to view their position as part of the estate which they can leave to their heirs, not to the group, e.g. Monarchs, but even authoritarians are inclined to believe this. Kim Jong-un, the “Great Leader” of North Korea, is the son of the former leader, Kim Jong-Il, who is the son of the leader before him, Kim Il-sung. In addition to sharing the problem with dominance sovereigns, of being reluctant to give power to anyone else in the group lest that person  challenge them, inherited sovereigns might not even have the best, dominance, User Optimal solution.

In a republic, the sovereign is the group. The United States, in its Constitution, declared that it was a republic. ( As Ben Franklin said, if we can keep it!). The members of its group included all people, living in the States that were being United, without distinction as to race, religion, nationality, citizenship, gender, sexual orientation, disability, age, etc. The only exceptions were Indians who were already members of their own Sovereign Nations, and the provision that chattel slaves counted as only 3/5 of a person ( and chattel slavery was eventually eliminated by the 13^th Amendment).  Officers of the United States NEVER become sovereigns. The sovereignty remains with the People which is why officers of the United States swear an oath to the Constitution, NOT to any individual.

As Senator Corey Booker has said, the most dangerous  words you can utter to an officer of the group are "Do you know who I am?"  The proper response should be "Yes, but don’t worry. I will not let that influence my duty to the group."  Your duty is to the group not yourself, even if you are a leader of that group.

. 

Precedents

 

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer

Then how the reindeer loved him
As they shouted out with glee
"Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
You'll go down in history"

Is history a good way to make laws?

Arguing that there is no historical precedent for a law is silly. If that were true, then there would be no ”firsts” because if it were not done before, then there IS  no historical precedent. There ARE historical precedents for legal instances of slavery, genocide, segregation, primo geniture, witch burning, etc. and none of those practices are considered to be acceptable today. Looking at the historical record should not preserve those actions. The Constitution was ratified by individual states and their people to transfer power to a federal government. However individuals in those states recognized the danger of this and did not ratify the Constitution without guaranteeing  certain rights which the individuals did NOT surrender to the government. That is what the Bill of Rights is all about. One of those “Rights” was the Ninth Amendment which reads.

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

The People wanted to ensure that if they forgot to list a right in the Constitution, that right should NOT be construed as being surrendered to the State. A right does not have to be listed in the Constitution, or the historical record, to be a right retained by the People. Abortion may not be listed in the Constitution, but it  also "forgot" to list cell phones, the internet, internal combustion engines, refrigeration, air conditioning, automobiles, etc. because none of those existed at the time the Constitution was written.

Abortion might be one of those unlisted rights, but it is already protected. Life begins at conception, but legal personhood under the Constitution begins at Birth, NOT Conception. The unborn fetus has moral rights before birth, but it has no constitutional rights before birth. Forcing a woman to carry a fetus to term is taking a woman’s womb until birth by the government without compensation. That action by the state is constitutionally forbidden. Does the state have the right, and responsibility, to protect a viable fetus? Absolutely! That fetus, if viable, is one of the People. Before viability? Not legally one of the People.