Technoglot

Never Known Hunger: The benefits of having been poor (and are no longer)

noreply@blogger.com (CKSummers) — Wed, 24 Jun 2026 13:04:29 +0000

Do you have children who are picky with foods? They don’t eat one of the food groups or the portion isn’t big enough or they would have preferred to have had two desserts and no vegetables? It is beyond their ken to truly visualize not having food and being very glad to have any.

Although this newsletter is titled to be about food, it is really about the realities of knowing what it is like to be without via experience and the blessings that exist when you can experience having it. It can apply to food, shelter, transportation, good water (I have this tendency to often say, after a long drink of water, “I love water”), clean air, safety, love, or whatever quality you can think of that is not inherent (though perhaps it should be).

Growing up without

Once upon a time (in a galaxy very close but seeming far away), my birth family went through many periods of financial struggle. I have never starved, wondering whether I would last to the next day, because my parents always somehow made it not be the case. Nor have I had to sleep in a car or a back alley. But I sometimes slept on the floor and then, when a paycheck came in, on a mattress on the floor.

I most remember the periods of stretching food as far as we could (maybe that is why having good food is so precious to me nowadays). A few times we were on food stamps and I remember the three pound blocks of Velveeta (or some other processed cheese) and the two pound tubs of margarine. One of my uncles was stationed in Alaska and, for a couple of years, we received a case of canned salmon for Christmas. There were salmon burgers twice a week for the next two months.

One of the dishes that lingered the most for me was “ham and beans”. This meant soup made with a ham hock and lima (or butter) beans. We had that five dinners a week for what seemed like months (though I am certain it wasn’t for that long). Although I can eat butter beans now (60 years later), it is always with memories rising to the surface.

When buying clothes, they were purchased from the bargain racks of a local thrift store. I remember the delight I felt when I got a pair of bell bottom jeans three or four years after they were fashionable. They didn’t last long as the fabric was pretty thin but the rhinestone designs on them made me smile. Thank goodness, no one ever razzed me about them though, as I said, they were badly out of fashion and I never encountered anyone else with a pair while walking through the school aisles.

I had relatives who had even less than I did so I sometimes felt “rich”. Feelings of richness or poorness is always a matter of comparison. I had a few friends whose families were “professional” (a banker’s son and a dentist’s son) and I slept over in the dentist’s son’s home a time or two. It was the first time I had ever even heard of an electric toothbrush.

Refugees and Immigrants

In the case of a refugee, the movement from their country is not voluntary. They either no longer have a home or their home area is not safe for them (politically or physically). Immigrants have more control over their movement. They want to move and they have a chance to prepare for the move.

In both cases, they have inherent motivation to do better in the new country than they were doing in their previous country. For a refugee, it may just be the chance to continue living. If jobs are available, they are usually willing to do any job that will allow them to survive. Often, these jobs are not in accordance with their prior positions or training. It is only when jobs are NOT available, that problems surface. Immigrants who have options have a lower crime rate than that those that already have citizenship including born citizens.

I had a grandfather to my two older children who immigrated to the US. In his original country, he was an engineer. When he arrived, he no longer qualified to pursue his engineering career. He did a number of things including working with a fast food franchise and owning a health food store. He could not be an engineer but he could, and did, do what he could. This happens with many refugees, or involuntary immigrants. They drop from “professional” careers to labor careers.

Although fictionalized, “Moscow on the Hudson” with Robin Williams is a good illustration of an immigrant/refugee’s process. Robin’s character took many different jobs to continue to survive. He was also fortunate to make some good, supportive, friends early in the process. Some immigrant/refugees have members of family to help. Some have support from others of their cultural, or ethnic, group. (Some are taken advantage of by others of their cultural, or ethic, group because they are ill-advisedly trusted.)

In all cases, they have inherent motivation to do their very best.

No one wants to stay poor

My parents were not always at the upper line of the lower income group. Sometimes they were at lower line of the middle income group. No vacations but they did have the ability to buy a home (in the 1960s, a steady income at minimum wage made such things possible) and they could send us to school and we had the privilege of being able to stay in school and study. No significant savings. I was supported in being the first of my family to graduate from college via social support arising from the death of my father (a Korean “Conflict” veteran) when I was 14.

During those periods when my parents (and the children) lived on unemployment and food assistance, my brother and I could always hear them talking about possible jobs and methods of stretching what savings they had. As part of their midwestern job ethics, they wanted to leave unemployment and assistance as soon as possible.

My father did various jobs and tried a few businesses. Alas, he had neither the background nor the preparation to make a business succeed. He only knew how to work hard and that, unless one is very lucky, is not enough.

What can be done?

I truly think that all in the upper income brackets should be required to spend two years in the Peace Corps or equivalent self-supported situation. They should be required to learn what is needed to live when they don’t have access to hoards of resources most of which they cannot claim to have directly earned.

Just having passed another Father’s Day, I find myself recollecting and recognizing some of what I did wrong while my children were growing up. (I am sure they have a longer list and, perhaps, leaving out some of things that I think of.) Although I don’t think that any sane parent would force deprivation upon their children when it is not required, I should have been much more ready to say “no” than to say “yes”. In particular, not having any choices for a number of years of their earlier years would probably have led to better hygiene and room cleanliness. Sets of chores would have been useful to them as well as the family. Helping me to repair things would have taught them more basic skills.

What are my excuses? Well, number one was probably not wanting to be the “bad guy”. It is harder to justify a decision that requires constraint when living in a situation where there is no need for tight budgets. Another one, with which others (including professionals) agreed with, was to be “fair” and “consistent” with older half-siblings who basically did whatever they wanted to. I should have ignored their advice and my uncertainty.

Count your blessings

There are songs about counting blessings. I truly do that. I don’t end up with a sum where I say “oh, I have 347 blessings today”. I just try to be aware of those blessings that I have. It is particularly useful when faced with a situation of anger or frustration. A driver does something rather dumb and I say to myself (sometimes out loud) “well, Charles, when you are a perfect driver, you can yell at others”. Sometimes my wife will complain that I am always trying to envision solutions to problems before they ever occur (and are often unlikely to occur) but the other side of that is that, by being aware of how things COULD go wrong, I am also very aware of my blessing of them not having gone wrong.

Healthy food versus False Economics: More profits can be made in the for-profit US healthcare system by making people sick first and then helping (but not curing) them.

noreply@blogger.com (CKSummers) — Fri, 19 Jun 2026 13:54:10 +0000

My wife and I seem to have always had the same reaction when our children told us about their school meals. “Oh, we really enjoyed our school meals when we were growing up”. They would look at us rather disgustedly and then talk about the food that they were presented with. I remember a lot of milk past its “use by” date but some of it seemed to go bad even before. I cannot really say that I know the reason just the result.

A healthy lifestyle starts at the beginning

Japan has Universal Health Care, as do almost all developed nations in the world. Thus, the government has a direct financial interest in having everyone as healthy as possible. This includes not being obese and eating well. The US, with its for-profit healthcare, would be okay with us being healthy but doesn’t really care much one way or another. The pharmaceuticals would likely prefer us unhealthy as it gives them much more ability to create drugs to reduce symptoms (but not cure), and obtain massive profits, that the food and medical industries have helped to create.

Besides Universal Health Care, which gives the government more motivation for healthy citizens and deprives private insurers from making money on illness, what does Japan do to help their citizens? One major thing is that, in school, they teach their children their adult responsibilities. Children help clean the schools. They help to prepare the meals. They exercise as a regular part of life walking to and from school and around the buildings. Some may be part of sports teams but, unlike in the US, all of the school children exercise in various ways.

Most of the US has abandoned the notion of school cooked foods from real ingredients. Not so in Japan. There are no food pyramids or food balancing charts. There is tradition and regular-sized portions of freshly prepared food.

What social influences in the US fight against healthy eating?

We have an “interesting” situation developing in the US. The prices of food at most of the “fast food” restaurants are approaching the cost of full-service regular restaurants. They are still fast because their food is either pre-prepared or prepared for immediate cooking and serving.

This applies to food eaten at home and during travel and work. What about the schoolchildren? In the US, we have two obstacles. These are the refusal, or social unpopularity, of eating a balanced meal AND the strong desires for communities to pay less for education and children.

McDonald’s, at the urging of some vocal parents, has attempted to have healthier food on their menu several times. We still have apple slices as options but most of the attempts have failed. Because who thinks of going to McDonald’s for a healthy meal?

How, and where, does it go wrong for US schoolchildren?

First, I should say that Japanese schoolchildren and adults do face marketing barrages to eat fast food and processed foods. They are not isolated from the rest of the world. But they see them as treats, special occasion foods that add a bit of variety to their nutritious, but not necessarily always exciting, regular meals.

As is true everywhere, US parents have only a limited amount of time and energy. But the surrounding environment, and peer culture, encourages parents to not spend much time on nutrition. It used to be that, when I was working on preparing dinner in the kitchen, one of my children would be there with me learning to cook (and learning to accept mistakes). No longer. But, I still cook. About half of the time, I can only call it “preparing” (heating up, combining a few things) but the rest of the time I still cook.

So, in spite of their parents doing the best they can (which, unfortunately, is sometimes not very well at all), children are not ready, and able, to find their own route to healthy practices. Nor should they be. The community, or the “village”, should be doing that. But not in the US.

Don’t forget about cost.

I can buy a nice apple for $1.25 in the US. I can buy a Snickers® candy bar for $1.50 and, often, on sale for that same $1.25 or even a $1. Now, I like Snickers® candy bars and my wife likes them even more. They are one of the more nutritious candy bars but they are still candy with plenty of lovely addictive refined sugar. In Japan, not barraged by ads and peers showing the fast, commercial, path a person would likely usually prefer the apple. How many of you, or your children, would pick the apple?

I like cooking shows and, based upon the number of them produced and the channels dedicated to them, I am not alone. But I can only gape at the healthy cooking shows. The previously mentioned apple is only a single item in a large comparison list between the advertised healthy meal and the easily obtained processed food menu. If a person examines the comparison only from a point of money, the healthy food menu does not often win. But it does win occasionally. But, add the time needed for preparation and cleanup and the scale tips very awkwardly towards the processed food.

School boards are always being requested to not raise taxes. There are areas which can NOT be put off. There are areas which can be put off (maintenance) but will mean even greater expense in the future. Then there are the students and their education. Many parents will use something like Great Schools (https://www.greatschools.org/) to compare schools and try to live in the “best” area, that they can afford, for their children. This site concentrates on test scores and college readiness. They also have statistics about class sizes and compositions and so forth. What they do NOT have is “how good are the lunches?”, “what are the arts and music programs like?” or other non-quantitative areas.

School lunches don’t fall into the quantitative category. Thus, they are an area in which the school board can cut budgets without badly reflecting in the quantitative scores. And they do. A processed lunch that just needs to be heated up and served is not only less expensive that a nutritionally balanced, freshly prepared and cooked, meal — but it is what the student expects and what their peers expect.

We had a friend of the family (not a real close friend but someone we could talk with) who was a nutritionist for the elementary school that our children attended. One day, we heard she had quit — she just couldn’t handle heating up processed food for the children every day anymore. She wanted to use her skills, and experience, and prepare healthy food but that was spitting against the wind.

Children who get accustomed to unhealthy meals are unlikely to make healthy choices in the future.

The Price of Happiness: Nope -- it has almost nothing to do with the amount of money

noreply@blogger.com (CKSummers) — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 12:39:11 +0000

Once upon a time (over 20 years ago), my wife and I went to Peru to see Machu Picchu and other sites within Peru. It is a beautiful country, full of many wonderful and friendly people. As part of our tour, we did quite a lot of walking and were often walking at greater than a mile altitude. One trip was to an elementary school high in the mountains. My wife, a schoolteacher, had brought our weight limit’s worth of supplies. Notebooks, crayons, and so forth. The school was basically just rooms with desks and decorated walls. I suspect that it was quite cold in the winter. But the teacher and children were glad to see us and our supplies. We did not intrude long upon their class time.

In order to get to the school, we had to walk along trails leading from mountain peak to mountain peak. Not difficult walks but certainly longer than most US suburban dwellers are used to. We had one 82-year-old woman from Maryland with us. We could barely keep up with her. At any rate, during our treks, we would occasionally walk by a private house, One such had a number of articles in the yard that we were mistaken in thinking that they were trash. A plastic milk jug, some sheets of plastic, some broken dolls. No, these were treasured play things. They were very happy to have them and likely had as much enjoyment from them as my children had from video games in their youth. (I am certain there are children in Peru, in the cities, who are glued to videogames just as my children are.)

It was a wonderful trip in many ways but what I most brought back was a love and respect for the wonderful people. From what we were used to, they had so little but from a more important basis, they had health, they had each other, and they had happiness in what they had.

One note in somewhat of an explanatory disclaimer. The people in this small house in the mountains, as well as the children in the school, did have access to community supplied healthcare as did others. This was certainly a factor in the reduction of their stress in “having enough”.

There exists a list (we seem to love lists, don’t we?) called “The World Happiness Report”. This report ranks the average happiness of citizens of different countries in the world (the Scandinavian countries seem to always do well). It says that the main three of its six criteria are income, social support, and freedom. Well, I certainly won’t try to disagree with them but we should recognize that they are trying to come up with a quantitative number. In order to do such, they have to have criteria that they can evaluate into a ranking number. In my opinion (and other opinions can have equal validity) the basis of happiness can be reduced to security and community. Another way of naming them would be the physical and spiritual sides of happiness.

Security as a basis of happiness

I use the two words, security and community, to simplify the definition of a basis for happiness. Note that there may be (completely reasonable and valid) reasons why a person might have these in their life and still not be happy.

What do you think of when you think of security? I think of lack of fear. To be not afraid of not having food to eat. To be not afraid that someone will snatch me, or a member of my family, off the street or break down my door in the middle of the night. To be not afraid that, if I get really sick, I will lose all my savings and become homeless.

Currently, in the US, any one of these may happen to someone and, for some people, perhaps more than one.

Community as a basis of happiness

What is community? For me, community requires at least two humans interacting with one another. A certain degree of community can come out of taking care of, and being taken care of by, a pet. That may be sufficient for some people but most need the ability to share with, and be reflected by, at least one other person.

Of course, communities may be positive, constructive, beneficial groups of people or those communities may be negative, destructive, and malicious. Some groups may be supportive within the group but highly negative with those outside of their group. I don’t think I am qualified to say whether happiness can occur within such a group. Happiness at the expense of the happiness of others? The thought makes me sad.

Does money come into the formula for happiness?

It all depends on the societal makeup. For most, satisfying the physical security requires some money. The money is a method of arranging for the true needs. In my opinion, the “safety net” of Scandinavian countries allows much physical security without explicit exchanges of money. Naturally, money as a resource is still needed but actual transfer has less importance.

But a strange thing has happened within much of the “modern” society and that is the concept of “needing” more than is necessary for physical security. Perhaps this occurs, in part, due to the generally stressful situation of a society in constant change. It can lead to a malaise, or even disease, where this desire for more, more, more prevents any capability of obtaining the spiritual/community portion of happiness. Too much creates fear of having less. Too much can start to denigrate the physical and community needs of others. Too much actually DECREASES happiness.

All in all, happiness requires balance

Physical security and spiritual community work together to give a balanced life and sense of happiness, not matter what words are used to describe it. As usual, this newsletter is not meant to give any “final answers” but a basis for discussion and investigation.

The economy: A set of interconnections

noreply@blogger.com (CKSummers) — Thu, 04 Jun 2026 13:14:20 +0000

The economy, whether for a household, a country, or the world, is a game with money as the tokens. Granted, it is a very serious game where the losers may lose their lives, in addition to anything else they possess, without “extra lives” or the ability to reset the game. Some people treat it ONLY as a game and forget that most of the players are everyday people. As a game, it becomes extremely important, and dangerous, when the great majority of the tokens are available only to a few people. Those people have learned to manipulate the rules of the game to take advantage of them for personal triumph but their goal is incorrect and deadly. The proper goal for an economy is to maximize the ability of ALL the people to participate.

An overview of an economy

As I wrote about in 2014, money is an abstraction of resources and energy. At the very foundation, the basis is about the things that you directly interact with — eat, drink, feel comfort, enjoy, and so forth. The larger the community, the more specialization that occurs and the more abstract money becomes.

There is a “spider web” that casts out from the specific item to foundational societal, and personal, uses. For example, getting a screwdriver involves a store, sales people, sales environment, stockers, distributors, manufacturers, parts manufacture and assembly, and raw material sourcing. Once upon a time, during a Google interview, I proposed that a tool that worked with the interactions of all such ladders could be of great use for planners and the economy. It could help to answer such questions as “how does moving the economy from private automobiles to public transportation affect jobs?” “How does moving from fossil fuels to renewable energy affect jobs?” Nowadays, the question might be “How will GenAI affect jobs?” but we may not know enough to be able to be sufficiently specific in our questions. GenAI, itself, might be able to do the interconnections but, first, it requires the data.

A part of the economy that hits most of us week on week is income. One of my sons has gotten a job which does NOT use his bachelor’s degree in Computer Science. It is in a deli for a local grocery store. It is a good company, good people, and the work is work that he does well and for which he is appreciated. But, he is already in the work by the week, counting until the weekend (for him, that is Wednesday and Thursday). In spite of his B.S. and six years as a coordinator at a grocery store in Maryland, he is making minimum wage which is not quite enough to meet his desires to leave home and be on his own. (However, it is better in the state of Washington than many others.) He is definitely not alone. Other forms of income are interest and dividends but those are usually something that exists for older workers or those that come from wealthy families.

His outgo is like most of ours. Living within the family household, he doesn’t face the corset of a true budget yet but he does know he must live within his means and he has tasted the stock market and wishes to dive back in. For others, not in his situation, they have a “most important first” budget which often does not quite include things most feel are normal. For the rich, and mega-rich, outgo is not really of any importance. All required things are just bloops upon the income/outgo stream. For most of us, the outgo must be monitored closely to not exceed the income. Sometimes we don’t succeed.

The tokens of the game circulate. The true foundation lies with the material world. That includes food, raw materials, and infrastructure. Without them, the economy would collapse quickly. Other things that we now consider “necessary” for everyday life truly are not although our reliance on the digital economy could indeed crash everything with a few dozen strategically located electromagnetic pulses (EMPs).

The parts of the economy associated with taxes

“The only things certain are death and taxes”. Just what are taxes and why are they so ubiquitous? Taxes are an allocation of resources for local or national group usage. There are many services that are common worldwide for people to pool resources (often via taxes) to serve the general populace. Such areas include infrastructure (roads, electrical networks, dams and reservoirs, water treatment plants, sewage treatment). Sometimes these are subscription services where individuals, who are willing to do so, pay for service. But, since they are for the common good, they are more often public services paid for by taxes. Can you imagine the situation if only 60% of the community decided to subscribe to waste services? It would leave 40% of the waste lying around causing health problems for everyone — possibly even another Black Death or other epidemic.

Other services, often paid for by taxes, include improvement of life areas. These may include police service, fire fighting service, libraries. These have a more haphazard payment situation however if (for example) fire fighting was a subscription service then a fire occurring to your next-door neighbor’s house would endanger your own house (and others) if you had private insurance and they had none. It is safer for the community if fire fighting is available for all people and all property. Perhaps you might say “I never use the library, why should my taxes be used to pay for it?” Perhaps you don’t, personally, make use of it but the fact that it is available to your neighbors helps to reduce juvenile delinquency, general unemployment, community estrangement, and social malaise. In other words, your community is healthier.

National taxes are traditionally used for national services. These include infrastructure that helps transportation from community to community (airports, roads, etc.). It also includes “defense” spending which should be used almost totally for protection of the general citizenry. There is a category of social spending that involves bringing in taxes and then redistributing them according to needs. Retirement and associated disabled benefits is another community support that is spread back among communities. Finally, an increasing expense is interest which is paid on debt owed by the national government to pay out on the budget.

The national budget, very simply, is a matter of money in and money out. It has been very popular over the past 40 years to pursue the fantasy of “trickle down”. This has led to a general lowering, and flattening, of income into the treasury without corresponding reduction of outgo to non-social services (such as defense). Note that social services such as “food stamps” are such a small portion of the budget that, even if politically appealing, they don’t really make much of an impact to the budget.

One can look at the budget deficits over the years and recognize that those yearly deficits continue to accumulate into our national debt.

The three biggest deficits shown (in order) occurred for WWII, the COVID pandemic, and the “Great Recession”.

Money, as a resource, must keep in motion to be useful.

Money has many attributes similar to that of physical resources such as water or air. As a representation of resource, it must be distributed and redistributed to keep the economy healthy.

“Trickle-down” creates dams and spill over which don’t serve the purpose of circulating money through the economy. Having lots of people able to afford other people’s services and products is what keeps money circulating. That cannot happen if it is jammed up into the pockets of a few.

Repeating some of the information from the old blog/newsletter. Money started when society outgrew barter. During barter, some type of conversion rate was agreed upon. One dozen eggs equals one fish. A cord of firewood equals one yard of woven fabric. Once the group of people grew larger, it had to be abstracted as someone who could provide a wall hanging might not need, or want, two cords of firewood. The conversion/barter rate needed to be converted into tokens which eventually became coins and money. It was the ability to easily transfer the coins that established the basic mechanisms of money and an economy.

Without movement of the money, the economy gets stuck and no longer is healthy and able to fulfill its purpose.

We the People ...: Democracy is the right to be part of the decisions for a society

noreply@blogger.com (CKSummers) — Fri, 29 May 2026 13:06:39 +0000

The word democracy has its origin within two Greek words. These words are demos and kratos. Together, they mean power (or rule) of the people. As in the subtitle, this means that we the people have a right to be part of the decisions that direct our society. That is the foundational idea but the process of democracy was probably used prior to any written history of humanity. A group of people getting together, discussing something, and jointly making a decision is an example of “democracy” at work.

The formal version of democracy, where people vote on issues (or people), is recognized to have started in Athens (508 BC) with Cleisthenes who made the idea of general participation as part of the decision-making process part of a series of reforms.

Direct versus Representative

A democracy can be set up as a direct democracy or a representative democracy. Direct democracies work best with small groups of people. When the U.S. democracy was initiated, transportation was not easy. The roads and infrastructure presented barriers to make a gathering of people for a direct democracy difficult, so it was created as a representative democracy. A substantial number of the writers of the U.S. Constitution were in favor of a direct vote limited to the “elite”. The final language was the result of compromises that left eligibility to vote vague and primarily in the hands of the states’ governments.

Qualifications and expansion of the electorate

Although left vague in the Constitution, voting was initially limited to “white”, “educated”, male property owners. New Jersey allowed women to vote (if they had property and were white) for a while but backed away from it in 1807. During the 1800s, the states slowly retreated from the requirement of owning property (this did not require an Amendment as voting privileges were state controlled).

At the time of the adoption of the post-war 15th Amendment, voting had largely eliminated the requirement of ownership of property. Note that Amendments to the Constitution are required for national coordination of rights and commerce to be consistent among the states. When each state can do as they wish, no Amendment was, or is, necessary.

The 15th Amendment officially ended the requirement for voters to be “white” males (note that “educated” had also fallen away as a requirement). Alas, if people want to get around a law, they will find ways (similar to the recent attempted “SAVE” Act within the US) to limit indirectly. Poll taxes were established to have an income requirement. Literacy tests were set up to require certain levels of education (and then it was made very difficult for the poor and non-whites to obtain education). Many of these restrictions were deemed illegal in the courts but each of them had to be fought and, even when the courts agreed that the practices were illegal, states sometimes would not enforce them (and it still happens).

The 19th Amendment expanded the right to vote (suffrage) to women in 1920 and the people of the First Nations were allowed citizenship, and voting rights, in 1924 but, since it was not done via an Amendment, it has not been universally accepted, or enforced, by all of the states.

In each of these expansions, a new set of voters was only allowed after EXISTING eligible voters agreed to the expansion (via state changes in laws or via Amendments for national changes). These expansions occurred, indicating a majority of existing voters approved of the expansion. The minority could, and did, make things very difficult for the new voters. This is still true in present days.

In 1965, the Voting Rights Act (NOT an Amendment) was enacted to strive to enforce the voting rights of those who had been granted such rights since the original Constitution. This was primarily to assist in the voting of non-white people but the Act was designed to help ALL eligible people to be able to vote. Alas, since it was an Act of Congress, once the elite, propertied, wealthy gained control of the US Supreme Court, they have been able to effectively nullify the Voting Rights Act.

The last Amendment associated with national voting qualifications has been the reduction of the federal voting age to 18 in 1971 via the 26th Amendment. This was during the last years of US involvement in Vietnam when tens of thousands of 18-year-olds were deployed, and killed, every year. That probably had something to do with passage of the Amendment.

Criticisms

As mentioned above, the “Founding Fathers” (FF) were not in agreement so they created relatively vague specifications, with states having control, to be cleaned up later. It is possible that some things (such as the War Between the States) might have been avoided had they been able to reach consensus at the time. We’ll never know.

Most of the FF were in agreement that full access to information and a well developed education were needed for successful participation in democracy and to make it thrive. Ben Franklin was in favor of making sure that the general populace qualified by having good, free, education. Others were more of the mind that wealth, allowing for extensive personal education, was needed to qualify a person to vote.

Even today, there is not a full consensus about the qualifications needed to vote. There are still issues of sexism, racism, elitism and other special qualities that people feel should disqualify people or should support them. Of course, the person doing the criticism usually feels that THEY meet those criteria.

Robert A. Heinlein felt that the right to vote, and participate in democracy, should be earned. One of his major criteria for earning the right to vote was to have served in the armed services (which, of course, he had). Personally, I don’t think that earning the right to vote is a bad one. The problem is setting up the criteria such that EVERYONE has an equal ability to earn that right.

Registration

How does one demonstrate, in a speedy and efficient fashion, that they are permitted to vote? In the United States, this process is done during registration. When applying to register to vote, documents indicating eligibility are submitted. Eligibility includes age (or birthdate), citizenship, and where they live. Characteristics which are Constitutionally mandated cannot be used as criteria for denial or removal.

Individual states still have control of purging of voter rolls. This ends up with over-purging (enthusiastic removal of voters that may, or may not, still be eligible) and under-purging (leaving non-eligible voters on the rolls which, theoretically, would allow someone to use the voting privilege of a no-longer-eligible voter).

Identification

Since identification is done at the time of registration, it speeds up the time needed to make sure the person is qualified to vote when it is time to do such. The people helping with the voting check the person’s name and address against the copy of the voting roll that they have. This is also the process that happens via mail-in ballots or other not-in-person voting. While it is conceivable that someone else might vote in place of a legally registered, and eligible voter, the process of registration makes it very difficult for an eligible voter to vote more than once.

So, what is to prevent someone else (not the eligible voter) from taking the place of the eligible voter? The process of identification varies from state to state. There have been various Congressional Acts that theoretically give more security about this. All of them continue to be described as ways to prevent voter fraud. This is very misleading. Voter fraud is almost non-existent in the U.S. because of registration and voter rolls. Extra identification possibly could help to prevent people substituting for others but that is not pertinent to the concept of voter fraud. Such Acts are primarily methods of suppression and election fraud.

Referendums

Referendums are special votes on specific issues. In concept, this is applying direct democracy to specific subsets of government issues. There are binding referendums where the legislators are supposed to have no choice but to follow the wishes of the electorate. There are also non-binding referendums which act as formal statements of preference. Unfortunately, the states have varying records of following through on referendums. Sometimes the state legislators will follow through with the voters’ wishes, sometimes not. Often, the courts are needed to enforce the results of referendums.

Suppression

Suppression and gerrymandering are the two most prevalent means of election fraud. Election fraud occurs when groups of eligible, qualified, voters are prevented from voting or prevented from having their vote have appropriate weight within elections. This is often done making use of income, race, sex, or political affiliation. In the United States, it is attempted on a regular basis to be able to get more votes than the opposition. The recent SAVE Act is an attempt at voter suppression and election fraud.

Conclusion

The United States representative democracy was designed originally to have a base definition of the electorate with specificity left to the various states. Various Amendments have mandated specific national inclusions but anything other than an Amendment can be overridden by state legislatures, with approval by the court system. Even Amendments can effectively be overridden by legislatures and/or court systems that have lost balance and objectivity. While voter fraud (individuals voting without eligibility) is very rare in the United States, voter suppression (election fraud) is an attractive method of bypassing democracy and controlling society by various individuals and groups.

An exploration of intolerance: A rising tide. Can it be addressed with caring?

noreply@blogger.com (CKSummers) — Fri, 22 May 2026 17:43:13 +0000

Intolerance is mostly defined by the root word, which is tolerance. To be intolerant is to NOT be tolerant. Tolerance is one of three basic categories of the parables and lessons of Jesus Christ. “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to cast a stone at her” is a common translation of the contents of John 8:7. This projects tolerance as a characteristic of self-examination. It is not saying that the behavior is correct according to the perceiver’s societal norms but it is saying that no one is perfect and we should address our own imperfections and foibles before we complain about those that we perceive within others.

“I am tolerant of all things except intolerance”. Tolerance is not a straight-forward topic because of the huge variance of viewpoints. For example, jokes which were once acceptable (and desired to still be acceptable by some people) can be considered a type of verbal violence. And, certainly, if a person is within a group where something is considered okay to think, say, or do then anyone who disagrees with that must be, themselves, in the wrong? Correct?

The perception of wrong and abstraction of something often encountered.

The aspect of perception is an important aspect of tolerance. If I believe that certain clothing is wrong but I am “tolerating” that anyway, it does not mean that that clothing IS wrong. It is my perception of something that, in itself, has very little (if any) attribute of good/bad right/wrong about it. It was a defining characteristic of the Puritans that their entire definition of right or wrong was based on their own opinions, and interpretations, of proper behavior within their own group. Alas, they had no qualms about using that intragroup specification as a criterion for OTHER groups.

A basic problem about discussing tolerance/intolerance is that there ARE very distinct, varied, viewpoints. I know which ones I consider to be “right” and you very likely know which viewpoints that YOU consider to be “right”. They may be the same, there may be some overlap, or they may be completely opposite viewpoints of each other. But the concept of tolerance, or intolerance, is still important BECAUSE there isn’t a single structure of viewpoints.

A matter of boundaries

One of the tricky aspects of intolerance is that of the extent of the perceived wrongness. It is not a fixed matter. The degree of boundaries indicates the amount of conflict between the observer and the person perceived to be wrong. It might be said that the amount of conflict is an indication of just “how tolerant”, a person interacting with the perceived wrong, is. In my arbitrary categories, the numbers increase as the perceived wrongness becomes “in your face” or difficult to ignore.

At the most self-contained, the perceived wrongness has no visible or other sensory indication (speech mannerisms, for example) that the person, or item, has any of the perceived wrongness within them. This is the basis of “don’t ask, don’t tell” types of rules and regulations where one group imposes their own definitions of wrongness upon another group but will “tolerate” the behavior as long as they are unaware, or can pretend they are unaware, of the perceived wrong behavior. Call this category one.

The next step up for boundaries may be visible, auditory, or via some other sensory perception. People can detect defining characteristics of the perceived wrongness without a need for investigation or inquiring. If the perceived wrongnesses are fully involuntary such as skin color or a limb missing, they could be considered category two-a. The perceived wrongness may be an external characteristic that is voluntary but noticeable everyday. Payot (long sidelocks) or dreadlocks or a tonsure on men or a yarmulke (skullcap) might exist as part of the person’s expressed identity. These signs, considered part of their identity, fall into category two-b. Shouting slogans or displaying signs are where the one group voluntarily demonstrates a behavior that others may perceive as wrong. This would be category two-c.

A pair of boundaries (or lack thereof) is broken when there is interaction between people. The items of this pair are similar in action but different in intention. Mutual, consensual behavior where both are in agreement about the behavior could be called category three. When a person, who has a perceived wrongness, forces their behavior upon others it can be considered category four.

These categories are primarily useful for purposes of discussion. As mentioned earlier, the categories are defined to increase in number as it becomes more difficult, for the person noticing, to ignore.

An inversion of standards

The most intolerant of people are forbidding of people who are in category one. There is no effect upon the perceiver. They may even be heartily approving of the person before discovering the aspect of perceived wrong within them. Knowledge of the existence of the perceived wrongness, alone, is sufficient for them to forbid. Note also that some groups, such as the Puritans, consider it a part of their existence to be fully intolerant of any deviation from what they consider wrong.

Categories two-a and two-b are not that different, from the point of evaluation, from category one. The only difference is there is no need, for the person who perceives wrongness, to investigate (or “discover”) the perceived wrongness. Category two-c may bring additional perceptions of wrong to the perceiver. The Pilgrims and Puritans were highly intolerant, coming in at the category two of perception. Note that, from Hawthorne’s “The Scarlet Letter” both Hester Prynne and the minister were considered good citizens until they left category one.

Category three is the last area (in my opinion) where tolerance may be pursued on the part of the perceiver. Nazis, KKK members, white supremacists, and such are at the category four as their actions are violent against others in many different ways. (This is part of their self-definition.)

Levels of reaction

Silence about perceived wrongness is the most tolerant. Criticism is less tolerant/more intolerant. Acting upon the perception is quite intolerant and may include enacting laws and penalties, or even active violence.

In parallel with the general group ethics of the Puritans, it is possible for a group to have intolerance as part of their identity. Their intolerance may be restricted only via legislation or physical restraint.

When should one become intolerant of tolerance?

As mentioned above, I don’t think that anyone should be tolerant of a category four situation. Being tolerant of such is becoming an accomplice and, by definition, category four situations are violating the rights, and sometimes liberties and lives, of others.

I can understand, but not agree with, the problems of being tolerant of categories two-c and three behaviors. It is difficult, or impossible, to ignore yet the behavior is not directly hurting anyone and not directly infringing on the rights of the perceiver or other people voluntarily participating. If a person wears a t-shirt indicating perceived unpleasantness or yelling slogans or insults over a megaphone, is this actually falling into category four? Even if not directly affecting others, it is a type of forced non-consensual behavior of one person, or group, upon another.

I remember the scene in “The Blues Brothers” where a group of Nazis is encountered by the Blues Brothers. AT THE TIME, they were only practicing behaviors in category three but, by their own self-definition, they were a category four group. The Blues Brothers ran them off the road into the water. Legally, they were in the wrong as the action was within category three. But, morally?

The biggest hurdle may be a fear of expansion of a behavior. If one is tolerant of category two-c or category three behaviors, is this encouraging escalation into “higher” categories? And, if you are in agreement with that behavior, then “obviously” you would consider the behavior to be accepted which is beyond toleration. But, if not in agreement, …

No real conclusion just thoughts

Tolerance and intolerance are reflections on the diverse viewpoints within society. What was once unacceptable might now be accepted, or something of which tolerance is encouraged. And it may also occur in the other direction. Behavior which was once tolerated, and even accepted by some, can become something that is no longer acceptable or tolerated by society.

Life is complex but, as long as people have varieties of behavior and thought, tolerance allows us to interact. That is the importance, and need, for tolerance.

Lazy, lazy, tests: They are fast, easy, and non-invasive but they should never be solely relied upon

noreply@blogger.com (CKSummers) — Tue, 12 May 2026 14:15:01 +0000

Once upon a time (about 30 years ago), I was going through various dating services trying to find a lifemate. (Found her at a mutual meeting on an outdoor walking excursion.) I decided to use a reasonably rated dating service in Seattle. I filled out, completely honestly and transparently, all about me and the most important things about the person I wanted to meet. It did not work out well.

I am short (shorter as I age) and a bit pudgy. I am also very well muscled. I used to be able to do leg presses of heavier weights than most of the people on my high school football team (I didn’t make the team — another story).

The erroneous world of BMI

My height and weight statistics were such that I had a BMI of 31.3 which is considered “obese”. My height and weight were almost exactly the same as the quarterback of the Denver Broncos. No, I won’t claim I was in as good of condition as the quarterback. As I said, I was pudgy. What I wasn’t was “obese”. But no woman in the dating records had any interest in dating an “obese” man. I offered to go into their office and show them. No go. They had their fast, easy tool that told them what they wanted to know and they didn’t care at all that it was totally inaccurate.

I was self-employed at the time and had my own health insurance. I was penalized for my muscle. The insurance agent SAID that he understood and sympathized but could do nothing about it. (The BMI is known to only be accurate for about 85% of the time — due to “abnormal” body composition of too much muscle or thick bones or other non-average aspects.) The company used the BMI as their Bible. There are other tests for better accuracy such as a water displacement test and a caliper test. There is even a pretty easy measurement test that is a lot more accurate. It includes the circumference of your waist and wrist in addition to height and weight. No go. Fast, easy, and wrong.

The autocratic world of Reddit

Once upon a time, when I was building my audience for my blog (https://technoglot.blogspot.com) I made use of some of the subreddits of Reddit. As you may know, each subreddit has its own owner, or owners. They control the topic as well as the rules for appropriate entries. They are the ruling folks. But, as the royalty, they have no obligation to follow their rules. The rules are there to meet the requirements of a subreddit. Following them is optional.

I never succeeded in staying on a subreddit long because they didn’t like a blog to occupy a place there (I did get quite a few views). None of the rules said no blogs but … I had one person who had written their own tool for spam detection. The tool detected duplicate base URLs! (So blog.com/X was spam of blog.com/Y because they both were based on blog.com.) An article from newsweek.com would have registered as spam because other articles would also exist within newsweek.com. But, their tool was fast and easy and they didn’t care that it was wrong (I have a Master’s degree in Computer Science). Not important.

The world of AI detection following the easy, quick incorrect path.

Now, we are entering the world of AI generating text and material. I am getting reports on the use of tools dictating what is AI and what is not. One of the rules is that of using the — (emdash). Apparently, AI detection tools have decided that only AI generated text makes use of the emdash. Balderdash. But, I am trying to wean myself away from using that indication of an extended pause because I would prefer to not be erroneously marked as AI. First BMI, now potentially AI. All out of laziness being more important than accuracy.

So, what other items is an AI detector likely to flag? Formal, academic style writing, simple and clear sentences. If it is clear, direct, easy to understand then you are likely to be in trouble. We will all need to write like Lewis Carroll in “Jabberwocky”. We all need to make our prose as unpredictable and erratic as possible. Oh, there are some understandable authors that have a “unique” voice who should be safe. Coming from a non-fiction, technical, background, I am probably going to be in deep doodoo.

Frankly (does anyone ever say “Georgely”?) I don’t think it can be done. So be prepared to be accused of being an AI if you love language and want to type it according to the rules of English. Oh, yes, ESL folks are also likely to be flagged because they are taught direct, straight-forward, sentence structure and “normal” writers don’t sound like that.

What’s going to happen?

I would like to say that all of these folks that are using these tools will sit up and say “my goodness, are the tools that bad? We should immediately stop relying on them so much”. But, people are people and most want to follow the quick, easy, cheap route. Plus, here in the US, we love those numerical scores. If a tool can give us a number as output, we can’t help but fall in love with it.

I’m “lucky”. I make almost no money from my books, blogs, and newsletters. So, it doesn’t matter if I am accused of being an AI. And I can find (and have found) other methods of distributing my blogs (and make use of SEO tools). And I am settled into a permanent “death do us part” relationship. So, as Bill Murray says so eloquently in “Meatballs” — “it just doesn’t matter”.

Sure, it doesn’t. Good luck to all of us.

A Leadership Position: Not always a replaceable cog in the machine

noreply@blogger.com (CKSummers) — Wed, 06 May 2026 14:14:45 +0000

Please feel free to repost, or restack, as I think it is past time for this to be discussed around the dining table, boardroom, or virtual water cooler.

When, in 1983, Steve Jobs hired John Sculley to run Apple, the decision was made because it was felt that a person who had successfully run a campaign to improve Pepsi-Cola’s position versus Coca-Cola could also market Apple products amidst increasing competition. This was reasonable, and rational, on paper. But Apple, and its products, are not fashioned around something that anyone can do or produce. While “the power to be your best” wasn’t a bad campaign idea it could have been used by other competitors without much of a change.

1984

There was a successful collaboration between Steve Jobs and John Sculley for a while with the peak being the iconic “1984” Apple commercial. But the approaches were just too different between the non-tech Sculley and the tech visionary Jobs and Sculley forced Jobs away from Apple in 1985. Jobs headed off to found NeXT where he wanted to re-create a new Apple from scratch using his experience at Apple. Technically, he was very successful with the NeXT cube used as the software and hardware base for Tim Berners-Lee initial work on the World Wide Web. Commercially, it was not as successful as the journey towards perfection tends to be a costly process. NeXT eventually folded and its modified UNIX® (the ancestor of Linux®) became the basis of Apple’s OS X operating system.

Beyond Apple

So, is this a newsletter/blog about Apple? No, though the Apple/Sculley/Jobs situation is a great example. The board of Apple wanted Jobs to bring in an experienced executive to run the company. That might have worked for another company but not for Apple.

This same attitude persists, through today. Boards of directors will compete against each other for the best-known, or highest “ranked”, executive. They treat them as cogs for a machine. If they can run a company making widgets at that place then they can do the same here. Maybe. If they are paid $200 million at Company A then they are surely worth it and they might come over here if we offer them $300 million and an espresso machine. It sounds silly and it is silly and it is a large part of the reason why the ratio of pay between CEOs and line workers is totally out-of-control nowadays within the USA.

Roles of a CEO

A CEO basically has three roles. One of these is to be the figurehead, or icon, for the company. While the need for a figurehead is true for all companies, it is particularly true for companies that are trying to improve market perception of the product or brand. In this situation, perhaps pay can be justified as though they were a celebrity (sports, music, acting, …). Of course, I’m not at all certain that celebrities should be paid so much but the case can be made that, in some cases, the CEO is to be treated as a celebrity. Steve Jobs, Lee Iacocca, Mark Zuckerberg, Warren Buffett, and more can be considered in this category. One of the first within US history was probably Henry Ford.

While it is true that a small percentage of CEOs can be seen, and “justifiably” paid, like a celebrity or icon, the great majority do not qualify for such and should be paid much less. All of them, however, do function as the “head” of the company. Sometimes they are actively visible and sometimes they work behind the scenes.

The second role is as an internal leader for the company. This is important (as Apple discovered within their fiasco). Even if the employees are not treated great, the employees need to feel like their efforts matter to the company. Decisions must be made and communicated in a constructive fashion. The CEO has the “last buck” stopping at their desk and it is vital they are aware, communicate, and take responsibility.

Any leader can make bad decisions but good leaders recognize, acknowledge, and take responsibility for those bad decisions and redirect before harm occurs. Great leaders work with others whose skills, and expertise, compliment their own skills such that they make very good decisions most of the time. Bad leaders either fail to make timely decisions or make decisions without paying any attention to feedback or outside information. Terrible leaders not only mostly make poor decisions but surround themselves with sycophants (or “yes people”) who will reinforce the tendency to make poor decisions.

The third role is in the area of networking. This is important for understanding what is happening in the market within which the company’s products are competing. It is also important for making others in the industry aware of what the CEO’s company is doing. New product ideas (and features) occur as a result of networking as well as internal feedback. Public collaboration (cabals and price fixing need not apply) may be of mutual advantage. To know, and be known, within the industry — THAT is the question.

Can a great soft drink CEO be a great tech CEO?

In the case of Apple/Sculley, the answer was no. Is such a situation always a bad decision? I don’t have enough knowledge and experience to give a definitive answer but my basic feelings are that it CAN work for certain market segments. It is very difficult in the tech industry. In the processed food industry, it is likely very easy.

If a company has an icon in the driver’s seat then that icon needs to know the product(s) of the company forward, backward, historically, and sideways. Or they have to present themselves as knowing such. If the company does not have an icon in charge, then that CEO can perform, or delegate, the other roles, as long as they have good supporting team members.

What about company employees other than the CEO?

People filling certain roles can be critical within a company’s long-term plans and ability to support existing products. They can be considered to be mini-CEOs and, within their subdomain within the company, can be treated, and analyzed, in the same ways as the CEO. The head of a product division, for example, may be known within the industry for that product as well as having in-depth knowledge of the product, and people working on that product. This is certainly a definite advantage for the company.

Analysis of needs

When a CEO is placed, or replaced, within a company there is a need to analyze just what roles is the person to fulfill. Although not titled a CEO, when Ronald Reagan was chosen by his party to be the Presidential candidate, it was to fill the first role of a CEO. He was to represent and be the figurehead of the company (USA). The second and third roles of leadership and networking were left to others behind the scenes and not in the spotlight.

If the board believes that an icon is needed for the company then, by all means, compete with other companies for that iconic/celebrity position. But, make sure that either the person is capable of filling the other roles or make it clear to them that they will not be controlling such duties. It may be necessary to fill an additional position at the same time to formally (or informally behind the scenes) handle the other duties.

What if an icon is not truly needed? It isn’t needed for most CEO-level positions. The board (or other group of searchers) must find someone who can be adequate at the figurehead position but who excels in the roles of leadership and networking. Pay them well, in accordance with company performance, but don’t treat them as a celebrity. They are a working stiff who is expected to do their job well and produce results.

Conclusion

There are broadly known icons within business. They are stars and celebrities. But most are not such icons and should not be paid as celebrities. They are working stiffs expected to do their duties well and who should be well, but not extravagantly well, paid and treated. By paying attention to needs and matching such to a candidate’s abilities, good long-term choices can be made.

Changes arriving for the Future: Sometimes necessary things don't just spontaneously happen

noreply@blogger.com (CKSummers) — Thu, 30 Apr 2026 14:06:33 +0000

Back in 1811, the Luddite movement started in Nottingham, England. It was composed primarily of weavers and home textile workers who had lost their jobs as the looms and cloth production plants became automated. People who had developed skills all their lives, sometimes as a third or fourth generation craftsperson, found themselves with no way to support themselves and family. They would mask themselves and destroy factory equipment, trying to regain their livelihood.

Of course, the tides of change overwhelmed them. Many suffered. Most survived and retrained with nostalgic stories of their past lives. They had no support from the English government which gave full violent support to the owners of the factories.

Technology changes whether we want it to or not

This is not an uncommon scenario throughout history. The advancement of the automobile pushed horses (literally) out to pasture and changed roads, use of land, and an entire industry which went from supporting the living horse to support of the “iron horse” (which term was primarily applied to locomotive engines but could apply, in principle, to the personal automobile). As Danny Devito says in “Other People’s Money”, a couple of suppliers of horse harnesses and “buggy whips” survived and they probably made “the best buggy whips ever”. But the vast majority of leather workers had to find other outlets or trades.

As is true with the climate, people are used to change. Humans have survived throughout the centuries because they are adaptable. They make tools, they move, they change their daily habits. But a mass of people can adapt to change that takes place over multiple generations (hundreds of year) much more easily than they can over a period of a couple of years or even a decade.

Self-service options are available at more and more stores and fast food restaurants. At the grocery store, my wife and I avoid the self-checkouts. Why? Though, by ourselves, we do not make much difference we are putting on the brakes, just a little, on a transition that is happening too quickly for people to adapt to.

Rapid change requires coordination, including climate change

Some islands (primarily in the Pacific Ocean) with only low elevation are disappearing. Their people need someplace to move to. Some areas that have crops used to regular rainfall are having periods of drought on a more frequent basis. They need crops that are bred for the newer climate and/or different crops that will work in the new climate. The same holds for areas that are now experiencing more rainfall — especially when it occurs in multiple brief periods causing flash floods and mudslides. New reservoirs may be needed and, preferably, they need to be designed such that they do not disrupt the local ecology too badly. I fear greatly what will happen as the glaciers, providing major sources of water to large populations, disappear.

100-year-floods are now occurring every five years. Hurricanes are stronger and more frequent. Tornadoes are happening in areas of the US that have no recent memory of tornadoes. It is too soon to know if earthquakes, and reactivated volcanoes, have generally increased but there certainly have been a few global ones that were unexpected. When they happen off the coast, tsunamis need to be allowed for.

Such phenomena are occurring now. In the relatively near future, they are likely to get worse. Population shifts need to be coordinated between governments. Support, in both transition subsidization as well as hybridization and crop planning, for farmers and resource harvesters needs to be increased. New building regulations need to be made to have housing better resistant to new weather disasters and climatic situations. Is your government actively working on such? The government in the US is definitely not.

Technology changes directly lead to economic needs.

Some technology changes can make smooth transitions. People typing on computer keyboards is not much different from typing on typewriters (though the ease of mistake correction can lead to “bad” typing habits). Using calculators (or calculator apps on phones) is not that much different than using slide rules, although I am sure the manufacturers of slide rules would not agree with me. I received a beautiful bamboo slide rule for my high school graduation. Small iterations are noticeable but not alarming. Most people can adapt.

The Luddites saw a transformation in a very few years that displaced their skills entirely. Right now, executives are being told all kinds of things about what AI can do and they are leery of continuing business as usual. Perhaps they are right but they are also running into situations where AI can NOT improve things in the ways they were told, or hoped. This AI bubble is making everything shaky and there is a decent possbility that a large section of workers will not just have to learn new skills in their profession but may have to change professions.

There is a general consensus that AI will displace many administrative and clerical jobs. It is much less certain about the technology sector. Some high level administrators are loudly proclaiming that they can get rid of 90% of their staff. Others indicate only a minor change (primarily a requirement of AI experience before hiring). Only time will tell. However, the delay, and uncertainty, is putting new graduates in Computer Science through purgatory. Two of my sons are among them. Other disciplines, and recent graduates, are also affected but not as much as within technology majors.

Consider a store, in which one quarter of its staff deals with collecting money from customers in transactions of buying products. If you have lots of stores no longer needing one quarter of its staff that adds up to a lot of people.

Will there be jobs available for those who want them?

No one knows. Historically, technology changes have left holes that were rapidly filled as new technology led to new job types and positions. This change is somewhat different however in that both the repetitive labor jobs (automation) and creative/interpretative jobs (AI) are being assaulted. It is pretty well certain that new types of jobs will be needed and there must be a market for them in order to work within existing economic models.

There is a definite possibility of further increases in income inequality. With continued automation and AI increments, a business might be able to reduce staff by 25 to 40%. Presumably, the workers remaining are the ones with the greatest experience and skills to continue to be useful in the business. If they are paid in accordance with their contributions then profits will be distributed in a more equal fashion. If the remaining staff continues to be paid the same as before, then profits will rise and be directed to the pockets of owners of capital and stockholders, which will increase income inequality.

Populations continue to increase their average ages and the numbers in their oldest brackets. This is happening at the same time as population growth levels off or shrinks. Health care needs are expected to grow considerably but the economic system in the US does not support this and the US healthcare system is more and more expensive and much less dependable (on purpose to increase profits).

Jobs that require physical presence should be safe through this shift in the job market. Trades (electricians, plumbers, carpenters, …) should be safe until automation/robotics is adequately flexible to do the same type of work. Social/health work will continue to grow as population ages and population pressures increase. In order for such to be paid, some changes in the infrastructure will be needed. Jobs requiring originality, creativity, and aesthetic judgement should continue to be safe and even potentially expanding. Note that it can be envisioned that continued advances of AI and automation might still put these positions in danger.

What would those potential new jobs be? Most of them would exist in the “soft”, non-physical, job areas. The incorporation of such may require economic changes. The spread of wealth, or reduction of income inequality, would allow greater use of, and payment for, such new “soft” professions. That will be greatly resisted.

Conclusion

Humans have survived for thousands of years because they can adapt to changes. But, for rapid change, coordination and planning is needed to minimize suffering and thrashing. In addition, concentration of wealth and resources to a very minor section of the population will make it much more difficult to create new job niches and categories with livable wages.

Trickle down, Spill over, and Bubble Up: Terrible ideas can be camouflaged by cute names.

noreply@blogger.com (CKSummers) — Thu, 23 Apr 2026 13:25:33 +0000

I remember riding on the bus to work back in late 1980. The bus driver was enthusiastic about the election of Ronald Reagan. “The Gipper”, as appropriate for an actor out of Hollywood, had great charisma and could sell a box of gravel to people and convince them it was a box of diamonds. He wasn’t a con person like recent folks but he would have made a great used car salesperson.

Ronald Reagan was the consummate charismatic presenter

Sometimes Ronald Reagan was called “the first Teflon President” because nothing ever seemed to stick to him. His terms had a bit higher than average numbers of scandals and problems — but nothing close to current times. He just smiled and waved his hand and everyone just said “gee, what a great guy”. You couldn’t always remember just what he said but, golddarn it, he said it so WELL.

Gary Trudeau would write Doonesbury comics referring to Reagan by “rose-colored glasses”. The world looked so simple and nice through his vision and words.

It’s impossible for me to know, and possibly difficult for anyone to be certain about, just how much Ronald Reagan was involved in the creation of various policies and ideas — but he was the spokesperson and he made people (in general) happy about them.

Reversal of the New Deal on the road back to a “Gilded Age”

This was the start of the reversal of the “New Deal” which was instigated to protect the general populace against the greed and carelessness of the rich and large corporations. It’s been a long process but it has continued along for the past 40 years to where we are. Huge income inequality, virtually non-existent taxes for many large corporations, purchased legislators, and ratios of income between CEOs and workers that are dealing with close to astronomical numbers. This situation is quite similar to what existed before the Great Depression happened. Hopefully, we will not need to enter into another Great Depression before restoring sanity to the economy. The ramifications of the AI shift and automation within the labor pool will require something more than the policy changes of the New Deal.

Trickle down and Splash over

The primary economic policy injected into the US economy during the Reagan administrations was called “trickle down”. The idea, sold by President Reagan, was that if taxes were decreased for large businesses and the rich then the additional money they retained would then “trickle down” and increase the general wealth of the rest of the population. It was balderdash then and it has been close to universally agreed to by economists that it is still balderdash.

The “trickle down” never manifested. With those increased pools of money that were retained by the rich and large corporations, they invested in various things that would bring them even more money. They DID pass along money to others but it was in a way that I call “splash over” — because that money was distributed to the lowest income earners that provided services for them. The pools filled up and the water splashed over to reach the ground. Some bounced back up to minor business owners but most was reserved for services and labor.

Bubble Up is not just a carbonated drink

If trickle down and splash over don’t provide an equitable, vibrant, economy then what would one call the economy that resulted from the New Deal? I call it “bubble up” in contrast with the misnomer of “trickle down”. Within bubble up, we have a large, thriving, middle class that can save, educate and take care of their families, and look forward to a decent retirement after having worked hard for a number of years.

We also have a group of lower income folks that work hard for a living wage. They don’t have a lot extra but, without potential health care disasters looming over their heads like a guillotine, they are able to live life without being in a state of panic when an accident, or injury, occurs.

Unlike the folks being resurrected by the original New Deal, currently our dysfunctional Congress has no plans for what to do with the remainder of the populace who are willing, and able, to work but for whom there is no job. I will expand upon the topic in a newsletter to come but, with AI and automation displacing workers, we will soon (if not already there) end up with more people able and willing to work but with no open positions existing.

Bubbling

Besides the contrast to the theory of trickle up, why do I call it bubble up? All of these middle and lower income people are working, producing, and earning. They have the resources to spend and, while spending, they generate profits for other businesses. These profits indeed bubble up to owners and stockholders. Rather than some erroneous idea that the wealthy will actively take care of everyone else, it relies on the structure of capitalism to produce wealth that is distributed according to effort and ability with profits accumulated by the owners of capital. Trickle down squeezes the middle and lower class like sponges to drain them. Bubble up encourages them to thrive and keep resources, and money, flowing through a healthy ecosystem.

So, if it is so beneficial to the economy and society, why isn’t the concept embraced by everyone? Unlike other economic “isms”, capitalism doesn’t require perfect people to make it work but, by itself, it still allows greed, selfishness, and obscene accumulation to occur. And once an oligarchy is allowed to settle in it requires a consensus in others to stop it. Or a Great Depression.

I prefer the peaceful consensus and resurrection of the Renewed Deal. How about you?

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Wanted: A Plan for the Future: We have shown that we can do it -- so why don't we?

noreply@blogger.com (CKSummers) — Sat, 18 Apr 2026 13:42:00 +0000

Artemis II just splashed down upon returning to the Earth. The mission had a few hiccups but, in general, it went well. It had a goal, that goal had various components to make it happen, and we set it in motion. Other segments of the program are expected to happen — and I hope they do. Personally, I had always expected the first lunar colony around 1980 — but priorities shifted a lot after the 1960s.

How did the priorities shift? Why did we say “well, we did as Kennedy challenged us to do — we had humans walking on the moon before the end of the 1960s — so that’s it?” A lot of it (in my opinion) had to do with the myriad numbers of problems that we had to deal with on the planet Earth. They existed in large numbers. And they still do. Of late, it seems that we are actually heading backward on a number of the areas that we seemed to make progress on in the 1960s and 1970s.

We diverted our energies and focus from expansion into space to use those resources on problems on Earth? But did that happen?

A Shift from Leadership towards a Goal to a Government of Band-aids

This is admittedly just my opinion, but why did this shift occur? I think that an emphasis on polls is one area of change. Rather than having a long-term view for the country and policies, the results of polls on particular issues became of more urgency. This is similar to the movement of businesses from long-term development and vision to quarterly reports.

Ever since political parties developed in the late 1780s, there has been competition for voters such that one party (almost always only two primary parties in the US) will “win” over another. Each party has their “platform” which is a listing of their published priorities about issues. In theory, the voters will review those platforms and decide upon the party closest to their own points-of-view.

Each individual legislator, or candidate, will have variations in their priorities from the political party platform. But, over my lifetime, the platform has been used less and less. This is true both during the election campaign and after the election has occurred. Once again, this means a shift towards the most hotly contested issues at the moment. Short term conquers long term.

Perhaps this is an aspect of societal reduction of attention span?

The Journey towards Goals produces many Benefits

In the 1960s, the US had a goal as a country — land humans on the moon. Note that this goal also had some effect on other countries. As part of that goal, we boosted our education system and encouraged both general learning and STEM focus. The government worked closely with private industry to solve problems needed for the goal. New materials. Transistors. Continued improvement in what would be known as computer technology. Medical instrumentation and monitoring. Communication. Cordless Tools. And so forth. Just do an Internet search on “things developed as a consequence of the space race of the 1960s”. You may be amazed.

Was this due to the specific goal? Was it that we were challenging space? No. We had a focus. The goal might have been to establish a working laboratory on the ocean floor in the Pacific. It might have been to go a year without a war. It might have been to have accessible, healthy, drinking water for the world. The more general the positive goal, the more general the needs and the more widespread the benefits. The more difficult the goal, the more possibilities for side-effects. Note that negative goals (such as wars) also have spinoffs for developments that CAN be used for peace but, overall, are just not worth the price in human lives.

Goals can also be very specific. Let’s find a cure for the “common cold”. Let’s eliminate obesity within the country. Jimmy Carter and the Carter Center went after the guinea worm disease and have almost eradicated it over the course of 40 years. Let’s cure cancer! Specific goals have side benefits also though those benefits are less likely to be widespread.

Goals are necessary

Can you specify a national goal at present? For the USA? For your own country? I can’t for the USA.

Oh, there are various “band-aid” approaches. The Affordable Care Act helped to decrease bankruptcies and the number of people without access to healthcare in the US — but it was only a bandaid on the road to taking proper care of all the people within the US. There are various regulations that have been put into effect (or, lately, repealed) that address an improvement in CO2 production but not a national goal. Please don’t think that I disparage band-aids. They can be useful in delaying final problems (even death). But they aren’t addressing the goal and they don’t have nearly the number of benefits.

What will happen when (not if) AI and automation shift the economy such that we have many more people than available jobs? Climate change will create great shifts in populations, crops, living circumstances, and needs. As education improves and we shift away from manual agriculture the birthrate decreases. That means global populations are aging and need more general care. Can we? Are we prepared?

What happens without a goal?

Read the newspaper. Read, or watch, the various news streams. Check out corporate media. The reality that we need to fact-check items that we are told is, in itself, a very important reflection on the health of society.

If a person’s house burns down, the neighborhood comes bearing casseroles and blankets. These may be people that you have never met — but they come. A tornado hits a town and you can find people helping others all through the town. After the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, stranger helped stranger and grew to know each other.

Localized disasters rarely bring about long term changes in behaviors but they do show what people can do when they work together.

The specific positive goal isn’t as important as just having a goal

People can (and do) argue that space exploration is not important. I disagree — but that isn’t important. The goal is what is important. Goals give purpose. Goals give direction. Goals foster unity rather than divisiveness.

Give me goals. Give me leaders who are leading the country toward positive goals.

Give our children futures.

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Paying Back and Paying Forward: Passing energy around keeps society thriving

noreply@blogger.com (CKSummers) — Fri, 10 Apr 2026 12:51:00 +0000

The novel “Pay it Forward” gave a name to ideas which existed within philosophy for many years. The concept of paying it forward existed but, without the specific phrase, it was difficult to express quickly. The words, and concept, of paying something back had already been an inherent part of commerce and other aspects of life.

Paying it back

Paying it back is an easy concept because it has been in use for so long. Paying it back is giving back to the one(s) who gave you some equivalent thing. It is possible to “pay back” multiple people (such as a work group). Someone loans you money when you need it, you pay it back when you have it available. Someone babysits for you when an emergency meeting comes up unexpectedly — you babysit for them when they have a need and you are able to do it.

Paying it back does not require it be in the same form. Someone loans you money when you need it, you notice an opening for a job position that your friend might qualify for and you relay the information to them. There are different needs that a person may need within the course of their life and each of them could end up being something to pay “back” or “forward”. Some categories are:

money/finances
time
favors
information
support
social reputation
loyalty
attention or recognition
protection or advocacy
revenge

Paying it forward

Paying it forward means it is not in response — it is done because you can and because it is a positive interaction and generative of benefits to the other(s) and (indirectly) to your own well-being.

“Paying it forward” is centered around the concept that none of us can truly live alone — we all need something from others and others have needs that we can supply. It can be in any of the above categories (except revenge which, by definition, is in response). It might be economical (money), it might be societal interaction, it might be material goods, it might be access to job openings.

Phases of life

My aunt used to talk about people being more able to pay something forward or back in different ways depending on the period of life one is in. Stereotypically, when a person is young, they have lots of energy and possibly some time but less likely money — then they can do those time-consuming tasks such as going door-to-door for a good new candidate for a local campaign. Later, as one “settles in” to a career or family, the time tends to disappear (exactly where, I never quite figured out) but there is still some energy and a bit more money. If fortunate in life, as the energy and time dwindle, one hopes there are greater financial resources to help. Time, energy, and money seem to form a triangle of balance in life which shifts in time and situation.

One aspect of paying back is in the situation of generations. If we are fortunate (and too many unfortunate situations exist), then we are raised by our parents, grandparents, or guardians. We, in turn, pay back our parents by paying forward in the form of taking care of our children. Depending on the social culture, there may also be some direct caring of our parents in their later years.

But what if our parents are no longer around? What if we cannot have, or do not want, children? People still have the opportunity to pay it back/forward via volunteering in a daycare or a senior center or some other positive aspect of our social environment.

For most people, no ledger exists for “debts” where the interactions are written down. It is a regular part of the cycle of life, and needs, and participating only by receiving without engaging in the corresponding “payment” forward will starve society and yourself.

Society thrives best when many unplanned interactions of energy are returned and given.

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Flaws: Why are flaws so endearing?

noreply@blogger.com (CKSummers) — Sat, 04 Apr 2026 13:32:00 +0000

I have a good track record in writing, and publishing, non-fiction and technical books. Having been in computer science areas for over 40 years, this type of structure and methodology comes easily to me. Practice, practice, practice. But, I’ve always wanted to write (and, preferably, to sell) fiction. Fiction requires different skills. Of course, the remedy is the same as for non-fiction. Practice, practice, practice. But the skills built up over my career do not easily transfer to writing fiction.

In order to have something that people want to read, there must be conflict, problems to solve, or growth. Such challenges should be relatable to the reader. But these challenges may be in the external or the internal. The external ones are considered to be problems to overcome. The internal challenges are “flaws”, and mistakes that arise from those flaws, which then affect the external and create problems that did not previously exist.

In the 1950s and 1960s, there was a group of science fiction authors that wrote “hard” science fiction. Many of these authors had, as their primary source of income, jobs in scientific fields. Problems often had to do with making something work or repairing something or achieving a specific goal. These external challenges were straight-forward. There were steps to be taken, situations to analyze, and a moment of triumph.

Challenges used to only apply to the situation — flaws optional

The person present, while the problems were addressed, was somewhat secondary and many writers (such as Isaac Asimov, in my opinion) had difficulties including believable relationships, between multiple people, within their work. The problems of the individual, if brought into the story at all, concerned their needs to survive. As a person who started to read from comics, I would compare these situations to those of Superman (and DC comics in general). It is not a coincidence that the superheros of that period had much in common with the science fiction writing of the times. Problems, overcome, solutions.

Move forward to the 1960s and 1970s, and character development became much more important. The plots of Spider-man (and other characters in the Marvel universe), were more character-driven — needing the ability to take care of Aunt May to be as important as figuring out how to beat the villain.

The authors of the 1950s and 1960s wrote (in my opinion) some really great stuff. Mission of Gravity by Hal Clement and the Foundation series by Isaac Asimov are such that have endured the test of time. There was also a lot of throwaway “pulp” fiction, but there is always a lot of forgettable art/music/movies that the best stand out from. It is the same in current days.

Even the 19th and early 20th century writers, such as Jules Verne, H G Wells, or Edgar Rice Burroughs, followed a pattern of step by step.

As can be deduced, when I started releasing my fiction, I followed in the footsteps of the old “hard” writers. For my young adult science fiction book, Rumblings in the Reef, the book I created was a world-building book. The protagonists, a group of “high school” students, inhabited a world where they were part of a species of people evolved from fish. They face challenges, and a specific problem, and they set out to solve it. But the character building was secondary. And that is where my problems, and those of the old “masters”, overlap. Creating believable, and interesting, characters was not their forté and it must become part of my skills.

[Note that mermaids and such are mammalian and probably, like whales, came from land ancestors who moved back to the ocean. The fish, or piscine, sapients face different components of life than those with a background of mammalian life.]

The literary flavor du jour

Literary agents (as do movie executives) love something of the nature like “this recent blockbuster plus these shifts and differences”. If a type of genre is selling now, they want more of it and that is all they want. When A Wrinkle in Time came out, it encountered a lot of rejections (26 rejections) but it changed the course of children’s literature. Many may not remember it now, but the Harry Potter series was rejected 12 times before effectively making it cool again to read (at least, for a while). I’m not saying my book is of the same quality as these two but it does NOT blend in with the current book themes that are selling — and has been of no interest to literary agents (so I ended up self-publishing). A book that MIGHT have been of interest to publishers in the 1950s does not thrill those of current days. Perhaps it would still be of interest to readers of today — perhaps not.

Immerse ourselves into the worlds of current themes. Magicians, dragons, vampires, special schools, romantasies, and so forth. Harry Potter is a brave, loyal, righteous character but he also makes a lot of mistakes. He keeps information to himself to his disadvantage and to the disadvantage of others. He forgets things at the worst times. His focus totally disappears when faced with too many obstacles. In spite of various abuses of authority he has experienced, he still expects those in authority to be proper and good and overlooks strange behavior (except with Professor Snape). And so forth.

Flaws connect with the spectator

Would Harry survive without an author continuously creating saving events? Probably not. Certainly, he couldn’t have been a protagonist in a 1950s book trying to make their way back to Earth without an adequate supply of food or oxygen. For every person like myself who says “but Harry, don’t you remember that particular item?” there are ten readers saying “he forgot that but I bet he makes it out of the fix”. The flaws make him human. They make him relatable. They make him a bestseller.

It’s not just Harry Potter, of course. There are many, many movies and books which quickly reach a point where, if the protagonist picked the better choice, the book or movie would soon come to a conclusion. Luckily for the reader/viewer, they often don’t make that choice. And so it continues.

Flaws generate the obstacles

If, in a character-driven book, things seem to be going much too well, you may rely on a mistake being made, or an action not being done, or a villain taking twenty minutes to head off to another room to allow an automated death to occur. Occasionally, a reader/viewer will say “if they had only …”. But they don’t and that means the end of the book or movie is still another thirty minutes away.

Something to Cheer About

Having flaws may be human but overcoming those flaws is what gives us something to cheer about. If they did it, maybe so can I?

Perfection equals Fragility

The protagonists in those 19th and early 20th century novels sometimes made bad decisions — or decisions that might have made sense at the time the book was written but seems absolutely nuts looked at through a 21st century eyeglass. But, more often it was an exterior event. In The Count of Monte Cristo, the drama gets involved with a greedy magistrate, a jealous rival, and an ambitious and unscrupulous fellow seaman. If someone is placed upon a pedestal of perfection, then they must be knocked off. The very idea of perfection is mirrored with the reality of fragility of that state.

The struggle to create the flaws

As a person with a science background, when I see a problem I want to fix it. So, creating characters with flaws is a problem for me. I hope there are those that still enjoy the problem being solved but I am aware that there are more who want to cheer the underdog, feel good when flaws are overcome. And be lovable — not just respected.

Our lives are beds from which we have the opportunity to learn and grow.

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Leading, and loaded, questions: And other ways to bias questions and polls.

noreply@blogger.com (CKSummers) — Wed, 25 Mar 2026 14:49:00 +0000

“When did you stop beating your spouse?” Ludicrous, but such questions happen. By phrasing the question such that some type of foundational axiom is assumed, you bias the situation and make it very difficult for the person to answer. In a poll, the answer, “I have never beat my spouse” is highly unlikely to be part of the limited choice of answers. In a direct interview, it is easy to edit the situation to make the reader or viewer assume that there is some basis for the question. A firm denial may make the responder sound defensive. Perhaps the best response, in a verbal exchange, would be to invoke humor — respond with “that’s the question I was planning to ask you!”.

Such questions can be called leading questions, loaded questions, presupposition, or begging the question. In the court of US law, this situation of embedding an accusation within a question, is called “leading the witness”. The same thing can occur with inexperienced counselors and can be part of the process for implanting false memories.

Some additional leading questions examples (derived from Google searching):

“You enjoyed the movie, didn’t you?”
“How much do you love our new product?”
“Wouldn’t you agree that our service is the best in the industry?”
Any question that requires a “yes/no” response — that is not referring to factual data — is almost always leading. “Does 2 come after 1” is a factual question with a binary response. “Do you approve of Politician A’s desire to improve schools” is a question with two embedded biases — it states there is a politician’s desire that may, or may not, exist and it gives a vague directive that few would disagree with (“desire to improve schools”).

It is too easy to manipulate from either direction — the question or the responses.

Have you ever encountered a poll (or a test, for that matter) where you said “Where is option E”? For polls, that is often deliberate. For tests — well, they probably don’t do it deliberately but it is probably done because of too little, or too much, experience.

What is the color of the sky?
a) Red
b) Yellow
c) Blue
d) Green

The creator of the test PROBABLY meant the answer to be C (blue) but have you ever seen a sunset, or sunrise, that contained red, yellow, or orange? Very likely. It would have been better to rephrase the question to “What color is the sky, when not obscured by clouds, most of the time?” By the way, it is not unusual for the sky to appear green near tornadoes.

I have seen something very similar to the following in a poll. I found it amazing that anyone would not see it as just a way to implant false information — but, apparently, many don’t see it that way. Note that it misleads on BOTH the question and the response.

How do you feel about the Democrats’ open door policy for immigration?

a) I think it is wonderful
b) I think it is terrible
c) I think all Democrats should feel ashamed
d) The policy should be squelched immediately

Of course, Democrats have never had an “open door policy for immigration”. But the question indicates that they have had such a policy and, unfortunately, many people do not do any research on their own — so they believe it. Embedding lies within a question is a time-honored (though not honorable in any other way) method for politicians to mislead. There should be an “e” response:

e) I think the creator of this question should be seated at a blackboard and be required to write “I will not lie” 500 times.

I am sure that there are questions with embedded lies for other political party situations — but I have seen the above sent in an email. As mentioned in a recent newsletter, it is always dangerous to just believe what you read or have been told. Research, get multiple viewpoints and data sources. What you hear is NOT necessarily what exists. Polls can indirectly lead people to accept lies as truth, and a bad poll question can lead many a recipient astray.

Watch out.

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Impeachment vs Conviction: People often seem to be confused as to what impeachment means. They use it as if it means conviction. It doesn't.

noreply@blogger.com (CKSummers) — Tue, 17 Mar 2026 14:27:22 +0000

Impeach this person, impeach that person, impeach them all. I listen and I am sympathetic about the general feelings that someone, or some group of people, have done something wrong. But, I still cringe because they don’t mean what they are saying and are apparently unaware of the fact.

What does it mean to impeach (or indict)?

To impeach a government employee is to ACCUSE them. For a non-government person, the process is to indict them. In each case, impeaching/indicting the person means that the body (House or District Attorney) feels that they have accumulated sufficient evidence of misdeeds that it should go to the next step — trial.

Impeachment is also a bit different from indictment as to what the misdeed may be. For a government official, they are supposed to have done something illegal/immoral that will impair their ability to do a good job in their governmental office. It is “more stringent” in that it doesn’t have to break a specific law but “less stringent” because it has to matter. If they were supposed to wipe their feet before entering the building but didn’t — even if shown to be true it doesn’t matter because it doesn’t affect their ability to do their job (it may drive the janitor nuts).

During an indictment, the District Attorney amasses evidence that they believe is adequate to prove the person did something illegal. If you drove through a red light but there was no other traffic around then you can STILL be prosecuted because you broke the law. (Admittedly, a jury MAY find you not guilty because they feel the penalty is excessive for the situation.)

In either case, all that has happened is that an accusation has been made and the person, or group, doing the accusing believes they have enough evidence to prove the accusation. We could go through and impeach every member of Congress and, if they did not go to trial, all could continue their daily routine without any hindrance. Just a check mark on their resumé.

The next steps.

Once this formal accusation is made, it is supposed to go to the next step — trial. For an impeachment, the trial is conducted by the Senate. For an indictment, the trial is held before a “jury of their peers”.

For an impeachment, 2/3 of the Senate must vote for conviction for the governmental official to be removed from office. This was set deliberately high to try to avoid purely personal removals. It has seemed to work for that.

George Washington hated, and warned against, the establishment of political parties — feeling that it might become a matter of “party before country”. And it seems to have gone that direction. So, now the 2/3 of the Senate needed to convict is more of a political party protection. The political party can be of greater importance than whether or not the official is guilty.

The trial of the Impeachment of BIll Clinton lasted five weeks. The voting was largely on party lines but ten of the 55 “not guilty” votes came from Republicans. This probably occurred because the articles of Impeachment did not meet the “must impair the ability to do their job” — perjury and adultery did not meet that criteria. The international community had a good laughing spell about the impeachment as they couldn’t see any reason a governmental group would impeach their leader for such offences.

The First Impeachment of Donald Trump was considered by the Senate for only two weeks. Voting was on a strict party line — with Republicans voting “not guilty” — though Mitt Romney did vote “guilty” on the abuse of power charge. Almost none of the evidence was publicly presented.

The trial for the Second impeachment of Donald Trump was only examined for five days, and most evidence was not even reviewed because it was recognized that a decision had been made prior to hearing the evidence. Still, of the 53 votes for “guilty”, seven came from the Republican party. It should be noted that, of the seven votes, six of those Senators were NOT going to be facing an election and, thus, did not have to be concerned about Party repercussions.

In a jury trial, all must agree on a guilty verdict. This reflects the idea of “innocent until proven guilty”. If one person feels they are not guilty then they are declared not guilty. There are situations where the trial hits a point where it is a mistrial and is done over but once a jury has reached a verdict, the same accusations cannot be brought to a jury again.

Summary

Impeachment == accusation. Conviction is needed before there are any consequences.

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Travel Then and Now: We don't think much about it ... but travel has changed a lot over the decades, centuries, and millenia.

noreply@blogger.com (CKSummers) — Tue, 10 Mar 2026 14:33:00 +0000

Once upon a time, about the only way people could travel was by putting one foot in front of the other. Oh, occasionally, they might fall into a river and grab hold of a log and hope to get off before the river led to some rocks or a waterfall. That may have been their encouragement to learn to swim. Oh, swimming, you say. How ordinary! But, even today, only about 44% of the human population know how to swim unassisted. (Most can float if they don’t panic.) Dreams of personal flying (without assistance) was a long held dream — but I think most have now decided to allow mechanical assistance.

Technical innovations

Humans are curious and good observers. A rolling log eventually got fashioned into a wheel, though there probably never was a stone wheel with a stick in the middle as you get from the comic “B.C.” or with a wooden axle as in the “Flintstones”. The log that they clung to in the river became hollowed out for more room, speed, and stability. People learned to use the wind with sails on boats, then for energy in windmills. Steam from a boiling vessel of water could push like the wind. So the power of wind was emulated with artificial “wind” in the form of steam. Eventually, people had many choices for movement — walk, swim, wheelchairs, hot air balloons, row boats, sailing boats, power boats, trains, automobiles, spaceships. Quite a journey through history.

Organizing for travel

Many methods of travel have been used — new ones developed and ways, still only dreams, that have yet to be developed. But being able to move is only a small part of travel. Daily travel has been, and still is, the most frequent reason for travel. Go out to the fields to work. Go to the savannah to hunt. Go out to sea to fish. Go to the local factory, or office, to work. General purpose containers such as pockets, purses, billfolds, backpacks, and tucker bags were created for carrying the needs for the hunt or the office.

Going farther, and for longer periods, was often a matter of income. People with little income would either just put their bag on their shoulder and move along — or, if it was a family, belongings would be loaded onto a mule or perhaps a cart. Carts were (and still are) pulled by dogs, horses, and humans — depending on resources.

Ah, but the higher income folks. If you’ve ever watched “Joe vs. the Volcano” (one of my favorites with Tom Hanks), you’ll see him go into a luggage store and come out with four huge steamer trunks — each big enough to serve as a room for a small child (I’m exaggerating a tiny bit). Upper class, royalty, the local “big wigs” relied on others to make themselves comfortable and move whatever they might think they “might” need on a voyage or at the other end of the travel. The various travels of Isabella L. Bird throughout the Americas and the Pacific are fascinating. She “roughed it” but she also had a lot of extra human labor assisting her.

Even today, you can occasionally spot a family with the very latest-fashion clothes with a MOUND of luggage queueing up at an airline counter to check their dozen suitcases and valises. I have yet to see them with the steamer trunks of yore but I will bet they still occur.

Borders

Ah, borders! Those artificial lines on the maps that indicate “ours” and “theirs”. It’s a concept that less complex societies don’t understand (because it doesn’t really make a lot of sense). It hasn’t been that long — perhaps only a couple hundred years (not sure exactly) — that people could just move around unimpeded. No passports, no rites of visas and papers of entry. Perhaps much of this fluidity arose from the fact that almost the only ones who traveled voluntarily were the rich. The poor more often were fleeing war, disease, floods, or some other reason why they just couldn’t stay at the place they were leaving. The poor usually didn’t do it willingly.

An exception was the pilgrim journeys. I am using the word “pilgrims” on the more generic level — people traveling to a sacred place for religious reasons — and NOT the more specific folk who arrived at Plymouth Rock in the Americas. No matter how they traveled — they did hope to return (healthily, if possible) back to their origination point. As part of their religious sense of duty, pilgrims often had very few possessions with them (possibly even gave their possessions away) and felt it made them more worthy if they suffered more.

Security

I have absolutely no idea — nor do I think there is a way for anyone to know — whether airline security makes us safer. I have a reasonable idea as to how it evolved. Humans (especially in the US) have a desire to “feel safe” in a world that doesn’t really care if we are safe. I can think of all kinds of ways to get around security measures (and have NO desire to try them) and I am sure that people who seriously want to get around them can figure out ways. We see these things in movies. Movies are not meant to be instruction manuals (usually) but they give sufficient hints for others to follow in the scriptwriters’ footprints if they so desired.

I do know that airline security makes air travel much less enjoyable for me. In our busy busy type-A society, however, we often have to do things the fastest way possible — and that is usually by air.

Once upon a time, when we didn’t have the large travel security infrastructure built up (it hasn’t been that many years), I booked a flight to Hawaii. But — silly me — I got the flight number and departure time reversed in my mind. I don’t really remember the precise numbers but the flight was something like 0205 and the departure time was 01:10. But I THOUGHT the departure time was 2:05pm. I got to the airport believing that I was still an hour early. The ticket agent laughed and told me to run for it. I did and I made it — because all I had to do was to arrive at the gate and show my ticket to the gate agent. This scenario may seem like a total fantasy to all of you who are under 50 years of age. But it was real and it was normal (except for the misreading of the flight information).

I am unwilling to pay for the comfort, and privilege, of not being treated like a sardine in a can. But, it is easy to understand the profit-motive for the airlines in configuring the planes in this way. The security requirements are just an additional overhead that one must SILENTLY (you dare not say a word about it while in the airport) anticipate and permit.

Summary

Each of us will make many journeys in our lives. Most have daily journeys. These may be to work or the grocery store or to our yoga class. We also have more serious journeys that may take days to complete and may be for stays of long duration. There are different ways to travel and different ways to take along that which we feel we might need. Some ways are faster and some are slower but we choose between trade-offs each time we travel.

I can imagine, however, a world of much easier travel — it wouldn’t be that hard.

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TAXES: Progressive versus Regressive versus Flat; among other matters

noreply@blogger.com (CKSummers) — Wed, 04 Mar 2026 14:35:00 +0000

“The only things certain are death and taxes”. Just what are taxes and why are they present everywhere? As I wrote about in 2014, money is an abstraction of resources and energy. At the very foundation, the basis is about the things that you directly interact with — eat, drink, feel comfort, enjoy, and so forth. The larger the community, the more specialization that occurs and the more abstract money becomes.

So, what does all of this have to do with taxes? Taxes are allocations of resources/money for communal use. The rest of the resources/money is for personal use. ALL of it comes from the same pool of resources/money.

What is the Government Sector and How do Taxes Relate to it?

Taxes are collected by, or for, sections of the community that are collectively called “government”. We often think of government as those people “in charge” — whether they were put there by democratic vote or as an act of a group of oligarchs or as part of a drafted group of people or a group that overwhelmed and took over from the previous government. But government is divided up more for purpose than of particular titles or functions. Government is composed of decision makers but it is also composed of the manifold people who carry out those decisions and make the system work (sometimes called the “bureaucracy”). A data entry person in a municipal water works is part of government. If it is a separate, for-profit, business then it is not government. The delineation is that the government portion is paid for by the community as a whole and gives service to the community as a whole.

Benefits for Citizens from Taxes

This is often an area of irritation for taxpayers. “Why should I have to pay school taxes when I don’t have a child in school?” “Why should I pay taxes to the federal government when they are spending money on this, or that, “frivolous” item?” “I don’t have a car, why do I have to pay for taxes that take care of the roads?” “I don’t go out of my house, why should I pay for National Parks?” “I am proud of being illiterate and ignorant, why should I pay for libraries or schools?”

The answer to such questions is a matter of direct and indirect use. You may not drive on the roads but every person who delivers something to you DOES use them. You may not go to the National Parks but you DO benefit from protections of the environment with better breathing and a general ecosystem. You may not have a child in school but I am certain that you make use of services from people (likely including yourself) who DID move through the educational system. Indirect benefits of taxes are easily forgotten when one is trying to balance the budget for the month. Every rich person is totally dependent on hundreds or thousands of other people who are making use of services that are taxpayer-funded — and so are the rich people.

When a person is choosing (if they have that opportunity) where to live, cost-of-living is an important factor. This includes taxes. You will probably save money in moving to a low tax area. But lower taxes are also likely to lead to poorer infrastructure and services. Poorer roads, poorer school systems, poorer fire and police departments, and so forth. Although poorer does mean less well-funded, many of these departments may still do very well because of the dedication of the people who work there — funding is not everything — but funding does matter.

How are Taxes Allocated?

There are many ways that taxes may be levied. In the United States, ONLY Congress can create taxes. Neither the Executive nor the Judiciary branches can create taxes although the Judiciary can determine whether the Constitution allows a particular type of tax to be levied upon the citizenry. Prior to the Sixteenth Amendment in 1913, all taxes levied by the federal government had to be allocated based upon a state’s population. This made any type of income tax upon an individual very complicated as it would mean a double index of tax responsibility — first allocating based upon the state population, then some individual allocation based on another formula. After the Sixteenth Amendment, the federal government was freed from the need to tax only upon basis of a state’s population — though the ability to tax continued to reside with Congress.

In the US, income taxes are based on income divisions, with higher income brackets having to pay a higher percentage of income in taxes. Alas, this is made very complex with loopholes, deductions, special credits and other methods of reducing or eliminating taxes. Since tax structures, and laws, are primarily created by the wealthy for the wealthy most of those loopholes and such primarily benefit the wealthy.

There are many other types of taxes. Tariffs, which can be created and managed ONLY by Congress are a type of sales tax paid by the consumer directly or indirectly via the price charged by the manufacturer/distributor. Sales taxes are based on the value of an article purchased. Property taxes are according to the current value of a piece of property. Payroll taxes are charged against specific types of benefits associated with employees. Capital gains taxes, broken into short-term and long-term investment, are levied against any profits (or losses) associated with buying and selling stocks or other intangible value. The last major category is associated with “wealth transfer” — moving items of value from one person to another such as a parent transferring wealth to a child upon their death.

The Uses of Taxes

A tax is money accumulated from the community as a whole which benefits the community as a whole. It should be that, the more taxes that are given to the government, the more the government does for the taxed citizenry. It is often true — but not always because it is always possible that the money will go to only certain segments of the population. In a representative democracy, it is up to us to make sure that our candidates really represent our wishes — that they truly represent us.

Types of Taxes

Tax structures can be progressive, regressive, or flat. They can also be uneven based upon special exceptions so that, even if a tax starts off as a certain category, for certain companies or individuals it can effectively be something different.

A progressive tax has the underlying motivation of having those who are more able to pay taxes — do such. As mentioned before in previous newsletters, there is no direct relationship between income and the earning of income. Much depends on the tax laws and other work laws. We may SAY that a great teacher is the most important job in society — but that is NOT reflected in wages, requirements, or expressed appreciation. On the other hand, a CEO may be a great figurehead of a company and may (or may not) be involved in corporate leadership, product direction, and other things that lend support to the earnings, and value, of a company — but they do not produce that value themselves.

A progressive tax tries to encourage a desire to do one’s “best” within a capitalist society while spreading the recompense among all the workers who generate the corporate value and wealth. The head of a company making $400 million dollars might be taxed $200 million (leaving “only” $200 million) and a worker producing value make $40,000 dollars and be taxed $200. This is determined by a combination of tax laws, wage laws, and unions (which are designed to represent the people creating the value).

A regressive tax works in the opposite direction. That $400 million dollar position might pay an effective tax (because of loopholes, deductions, and credits) of only $500 while the $40,000 dollar/year worker pays $10,000. Normally, such regressive taxes are not done via income taxes (much too obvious) but via loopholes, credits, and special deviations from common tax law.

Another method of imposing regressive taxes is by taxing things that poorer people use more of, as a percentage of expenditures, than richer people. For example, tariffs are often a regressive tax because a $100 tariff on a television set is so much larger of an amount for a poorer person than it would be for a richer person.

Flat taxes always come up in conversations about tax system improvements. It has the huge advantage of being simple. But it only works without loopholes or other special aspects of the law. The rich pay more because they have more — they don’t like the removal of the loopholes. However, a person earning just enough to live on will be hurt considerably by a fixed tax whereas a rich person getting excessive income may not even notice it.

Tax Fairness

Different formulas can work and they can approach fairness but loopholes, credits, and special situations can, and will, sink any reform. When we are paying taxes and are not receiving the services and value that we expect, it is time to find new representatives.

We pay taxes as a whole to receive benefits as a whole. When we pay higher taxes, we deserve higher benefits. But if we prefer lower taxes, we should expect lower (perhaps much lower) benefits.

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To Be Human: Or perhaps to be sapient. The first step of being an overlord is to deny the equality of others.

noreply@blogger.com (CKSummers) — Sun, 22 Feb 2026 14:18:00 +0000

I, along with two of my children, have been watching One Piece for a while. Having just finished the seventh episode in the live action version, I am encountering a familiar story. We have the fishmen denying the rights of humans as the result of humans having denied the rights of fishmen. Oh, the cycles — everywhere the cycles. This has been a motif throughout history for people. Oh, not with fishmen. That is just our imaginations extending current behavior into worlds of fantasy.

In each war, the “other” becomes less than human. They have to be. No one sane would attempt the murder of their own children and family. That is the path of self-destruction and annihilation. But the other tribe — once they are no longer our cousins and part of the family of humanity — they are fair game.

Ways to Divide

There are lots of methods used for this division and people are somehow easily enticed into believing them. One of my uncles brought home a wife, of Japanese birth, from his travels in the Navy during World War II. Since it was after World War II, she was not subject to the concentration camps and theft of property that US citizens of Japanese ancestry were subject to — but she encountered resistance and active discrimination. I never saw her get angry and she always just smiled and continued along.

But she was probably already used to dealing with discrimination — against women. It hasn’t been that long (less than 50 years) since most women in the US had to have a male’s (husband, father, guardian) signature on any paper to buy property or get a credit card. It is still bad. Many women, still believing in the “traditional” subservience of women to men, continue to vote for misogynistic legislators. (“The Handmaid’s Tale” is possible — with the active support of women.)

Within the US, there was initially dehumanization of the First Nations. They were called “savages” although the conquerors of the Americas committed far more savage acts. But, the tribes of the First Nations were not human so it was okay. Then the importation of blacks, as slaves, via European and African traders. They were even less human since property has no rights and it is perfectly fine to sell off a chair (child) from the set around the table (parents). Even after the 15th Amendment was passed, people actively continued to treat blacks as a lesser variant of human and, often, still do.

There was decimation of the Ainu population on the Japanese islands as they were overcome. “Fifth line” (named for the line number indicating nationality on USSR passports) Jewish people were murdered by Stalin and the Jewish population was even more horribly reduced by Hitler in the Holocaust. The citizens of Gaza have been severely culled in recent clashes. And there were the mass Armenian murders. And tribal conflicts in Africa. And so on and so on. Humans seem to have an amazing capacity to dehumanize others.

If I have left out your specific discriminated-against division, I apologize. There are just SO many.

Gender, skin color, religion, ethnicity, which side of the railroad tracks, political beliefs. Humans seem to be able to divide ourselves in all kinds of ways. I wonder whether we will be able to behave better if we encounter (or recognize) sapients from other worlds or galaxies?

The United States; a Nation of Immigrants

In the United States, we are all immigrants or descendents of immigrants. Actually, in the Americas, it seems that none of us originated in the Americas. The First Nations are believed to have crossed to the Americas via the Bering Strait and via boats from Polynesia and Africa.

But, even though we are all descended from immigrants, we currently seem to be embroiled in controversy about how long ago, and from what countries, our ancestors have immigrated. Who is valid, and an appropriate human, and who is not.

Consider the current President of the United States. Two of his wives are immigrants. His mother was an immigrant, His paternal grandparents were immigrants. Certain changes in laws, under consideration, would remove the citizenship of several of his relatives. At best, the following of correct immigration procedures for some of his relatives is unclear. At worst, they were situations that did not follow proper procedure at all.

Somehow, in spite of the history of the United States and the Americas, it seems that how and when we arrived is now more important than the many contributions immigrants have always made and continue to make. It is just one more rationale for division.

Transient division and the category of “whiteness”.

Although the concept of race is an imaginary set of categories that was created to justify colonialism and slavery, the definitions are variable depending on the politics and power structure of the times. The category of “white” is the name given to those who are currently included within the power group. In the 1960s, there was a great uproar over the candidacy of John F. Kennedy because of his religion (Roman Catholic). Those who hated him said the Pope would take over the United States. Roman Catholics were not “white”, then they were. People from Ireland were not white — then they were. Same with Italians.

It hasn’t always been explicit. But there are often signs (literally) that show “IRISH need not apply”, “NO CHINAMEN”, or (mostly in other countries) “NO Palestinians”. Of course, we were not happy with those of British ancestry (many of the “Patriots” were also of British ancestry) during the Revolutionary Way but, with such close ties still, it was more of a “civil” war than an “us versus them” war. Our current occupant in the Oval Office (called, by colleagues, “the biggest slumlord of New York”) was fined, along with his father, multiple times for the practice of “redlining” in the 1980s. Redlining draws borders to segregate according to race, or some other characteristic. This practice officially ended in the 1990s and 2000s but I suspect it still exists.

In each case, justification continued by making the other group not-human — particularly when a powerful person says they come from “shithole countries”.

The family of humans

There are a lot of feelings about the origin of humanity. They started from a couple called Adam and Eve. They evolved from a sequence of beings represented by “Lucy” discovered in Africa. They started from an unknown ancient ancestor in China. In Norse myth, Ask and Embla were made by the gods from a couple of trees.

I am not going to try to say what is “right”. It really doesn’t matter. The one thing that all origin stories have in common is a beginning from a long-ago couple of beings. In a way, it is a “chicken or egg” type of story — as there may have been OTHER couples in addition to the couple that origin stories say were the beginning. It doesn’t matter. There was a beginning. And it continued.

A need for expansion of area, plus an inherent curiosity, moved groups of people around the globe as human population grew. As they settled into each area, small differences popped up as they adapted to their new area. But they all came from the same beginning and they remain family. Family doesn’t always get along but we try to make it work.

Wouldn’t it be nice if we could all remember that “we are family” is not just a song made famous by Sister Sledge?

Please share, or restack, if you find this discussion valuable. Thanks!

Voter Fraud vs Voter Suppression: One rarely happens and the other happens too often

noreply@blogger.com (CKSummers) — Mon, 16 Feb 2026 14:46:00 +0000

In a democracy, the permission to vote is a concept known as eligibility. Voter fraud occurs when someone who is NOT eligible votes anyway. Voter suppression is when someone, who IS eligible to vote, is prevented from doing such.

History of and Changes in Democracy

Democracy arose as a concept, in ancient Greece, allowing participation in government by citizens. Although it was a direct democracy — people voted on issues without anyone between their opinion and the accumulation of votes — not everyone was able to vote. Only men could vote but not necessarily all men. Sometimes there were pre-requisites. For example, only men who had completed military service might be allowed to vote (Robert A. Heinlein would approve). For some cities, the man had to have achieved a certain level of wealth (an oligarchic democracy). For each democratic city of Greece, there was a set of criteria and those criteria could differ from each other although all had being male as a basic requirement.

Modern democracy has shifted from ancient Greece in two major ways. The first is a matter of inclusion. The original definition of eligibility is written directly within the Constitution (or other specification of the rules of government). This can be expanded by the vote of those already eligible. For example, a sufficient number of men had to vote for adding women to the roster of eligible voters (US 19th Amendment). When only “white” men could vote, it was up to those men to vote to allow blacks to vote (US 15th Amendment). In the United States, the Twenty-Sixth Amendment of the Constitution was approved by already eligible voters to lower the voting age to eighteen.

The other change from ancient Greece is that most modern democratic systems are representative democracies. People do not vote directly on issues. They vote for people who they believe will cast votes in the way they, themselves, would choose to vote. The representatives (whether called a Senator or Congressperson or Member of Parliament or …) are there to represent the people who voted for them. This is the theory. It is not always put into effect. Democracy, including representative democracy, is not easy.

Voter Fraud

Voter fraud is when someone, who does not meet the criteria of eligibility, votes anyway. This is very rare — because of the layers of safeguards in the various voting systems for the states within the US. This is a matter of identification and registration. People are allowed to vote when their identification matches their registration records. In spite of false accusations, there are many ways to assure this. Voter fraud in the US is very rare.

That does not mean that voter eligibility should not be checked. It means that current checking of eligibility has been proven to be sufficient. Vigilance is appropriate, paranoia is not. The fact that someone has lost an election indicates they did not have enough support. Recounts may be appropriate. Throwing tantrums is not.

One area of vulnerability is associated with the mechanics of voting. There are movies that talk about potential vulnerabilities — and they often talk about them as proof that fraud has occurred. Potential vulnerability is not the same as fraud. Normally, such films neglect to mention other layers of protection in addition to the one in which they have found potential vulnerabilities.

Thus, multiple layers of checks for eligibility is a good, and necessary, type of requirement. And vulnerability within one layer does not equate to fraud.

Voter Suppression

The other end of the “teeter-totter” is voter suppression which, unfortunately, is not rare in the United States. Voter suppression is when someone, who IS eligible to vote, is prevented from voting. I cannot claim any knowledge of such occurrences outside of the United States though I am certain that they have occurred.

One method used early in the history of the US is access to polling places (where a vote is cast). Polling places would usually be placed within city centers — making it very difficult for people, who lived away from the city, to vote. Keep these methods in mind as they never really go away — they just adapt to current circumstances.

Another method of suppression is restrictions based on finances. One of these methods was called a poll tax which required a fee to be paid in order to use the polling place to cast a vote. Since poll taxes were not explicitly made NOT legal, it took much litigation to stop the practice. Other methods of suppression also exist to keep the poor from voting. Not being given the time to vote is one such method. Given a choice between keeping a job and voting, most will decide to keep the job.

Another method of suppression is to prevent registration. This IS illegal but, if the local law enforcement officials do not want to enforce the law, it can still be done. Many a person during the 1960s in the US encountered this forceful repression (or suppression) of the access to the vote. The Voting Rights Act had aspects which clarified enforcement against these measures. Alas, the current Supreme Court, in their highly dubious wisdom, decided that these enforcement measures were “no longer needed” so many of them have come into active use once again.

A current attempt at voter suppression is trying to create additional hurdles to prove identification. As mentioned earlier, there is no significant voter fraud in the US. Making it more difficult for people to identify themselves is just another variant of voter suppression. Require a driver’s license (or identity card issued by the state). Sounds reasonable doesn’t it? Perhaps. But not within the context of having to go more than 50 miles to get such an identification. Many poor do not have access to transport — or allowed the time off from work to make the journey — to do such. (This assumes they will even be allowed to get the identification.) Base documents, such as birth certificates, may be difficult for the poor, or rural, person to obtain. In Canada, any one of nine different types of identification is allowed. Current US legislation is focused on preventing the poor from being able to vote.

Access to polling places. Hurdles to registration. Roadblocks to identification. There are other, even sneakier, methods used to curtail voting by eligible people.

On the other side, after votes have been cast, methods can be used to suppress votes. In Florida, in the year 2000, it was decided that voting cards which had not had their votes completely marked (look up “hanging chads”) were invalid. It went to the Supreme Court. In order to speed up the results of the election, it was determined that they could be considered invalid. In my opinion, the elections-in-question SHOULD have been redone. Once again, this COULD have been potentially okay if the rule was used for ALL votes. Somehow, only certain counties of Florida had this particular problem and, thus, only votes that were cast a certain way tended to be thrown out.

Summary

Democracy is not easy. So said “the Founding Fathers”. That has been proven time after time. It requires educated, and informed, voters. Educated means being able to find, verify, and use, information. It does not necessarily mean going to school. It requires enough people to want to see democracy work correctly. It is a forever struggle.

Thanks for reading Ideas & Interpretations! This post is public so feel free to share it.

For Their Own Good: No, it probably isn't -- for many reasons

noreply@blogger.com (CKSummers) — Tue, 10 Feb 2026 15:02:00 +0000

I am a voracious reader (my wife even moreso) and often get SF/Fantasy books before they become well known. One of things I got was a copy of “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” back before most people had even heard of him. As people who enjoy the series knows, Harry is courageous, loyal, honorable, and a number of other great, positive, attributes. That doesn’t mean that he doesn’t have weak aspects of his character. This makes him more human as well as providing gist for the author to write more about what he must overcome.

Since the scene happens very early in the book, I don’t consider this much of a spoiler. Within the second book in the series, “Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets”, a house elf named Dobby pops into Harry’s bedroom and TELLS (doesn’t ask, doesn’t inform, doesn’t reason) Harry that he must not return to Hogwarts. In spite of Harry’s efforts to quiet him or stop him from making his Aunt and Uncle angry, Dobby pays no attention to Harry. He has stopped him from getting letters from friends and now he is telling him what to do (or what not to do). Various methods continue to be used (sometimes explicitly but, more often, just inexplicable disastrous events) throughout the book that try to get Harry away from Hogwarts.

Towards the end, in response to a query from Dobby about how Dobby can repay him, Harry asks Dobby to promise him to “never try to save my life again”. Dobby’s efforts — though with the best of motives to help and protect Harry — have been among the greatest obstacles Harry has had to face. And this reflects actions that happen in real life to us all.

This is for your own good

I suspect that most of us have been told this at some time or another. Possibly from a parent, possibly from a friend or acquaintance. At best, it is a bad way to phrase a situation. At worst, it is a statement of control. It may be from a desire to protect based out of personal experience. It may be based on a sense of responsibility (especially as a parent). But the person does NOT know “it is for your own good”. It may be the worst possible thing. It may be avoiding a life lesson that would have been useful for the rest of the person’s life. It probably isn’t meant to be bad advice — but it certainly says “hey, there are a lot of useful things that should be talked about and we aren’t talking about them”.

As seen from the scenes in the Harry Potter book, sometimes the desire to protect can cause greater danger than the event being protected from.

I know what you want

This one is also something that most of us have heard at some point. They have declared that they have the power to read your mind. It would be good if they headed off to a carnival to set up a fortune teller’s booth — an appropriate use of their skills. Sometimes this is not stated up front at the beginning. Instead, they give you a watermelon flavored popsicle and say “I knew this would be what you would have chosen” — while you really dislike watermelon- flavored things.

This situation is a call for communication. But it is also an indication that communication has not been good in the past. Sometimes it is a result of “politeness” such that you have been taught to appreciate anything given and not complain about it. It is a good way to have a house filled with specialized objects, that you don’t even like, as one person who has given you something tells others and they assume that you liked it since you didn’t say otherwise.

This is also an opportunity for practice of assertiveness. “Thank you for your thinking of me but watermelon is not my favorite flavor”. Polite but, if they are listening to you at all, they now know that you don’t like watermelon flavored popsicles. “No, I don’t want that.” Sometimes they will then insist that you DO want that. They have no desire to listen. How you respond to that is very dependent on many things. The safest is to not respond, allow things to proceed, and minimize interactions (if possible) with the other person.

Note that telling them, and their forgetting, can be irritating but not necessarily done on purpose.

I know what you need

This is an additional step of control. They are not only telling you that they have read your mind but they also have possession of a crystal ball that will tell them the future.

All of these behaviors can be lumped under the phrase “presumptuous control”. We have all encountered such (unless VERY lucky). Sometimes the control word is in command and we cannot do anything about it. At other times, via communication and assertion, we can use the situation to improve the relationship.

Under what circumstances have you been the target of, or have initiated, such statements?

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So You Want to Buy a House: The dream has receded for many but hope does not have to be gone forever

noreply@blogger.com (CKSummers) — Tue, 03 Feb 2026 13:43:00 +0000

My 26-year-old son occasionally moans to me that “my generation will never be able to buy a house” — to which I raise my eyebrows and say “you might”. A further response is “things just aren’t the same as they were in your generation”. At which point, I stop trying to change his mind. He is right. Things are not the same as they were in my generation.

Yet, it wasn’t that way in the past and it doesn’t have to be that way in the near future. It isn’t unusual to look around and see a situation and not be able to imagine anything different. I have done blogs/newsletters on many closely related topics — income inequality, hope, apathy, entropy — but sometimes it is necessary to bring related topics together to address something specific.

Buying a house is a specific, and physical, issue that is closely related to income inequality, hope, and apathy.

Why do people say “I’ll never be able to buy a house”?

Most people rent. It used to be that most people owned (or held the lease and the bank held the property title) their house. In the US, in 2025, the average mortgage cost $2329/month. The average rent in the US, in 2025, was $1987/month. This is a $342 difference — not much. Admittedly, even not much may be too much for many.

With only a $300ish difference between renting and owning, why are so many renting? Some want to rent. Assuming you stay in the house for a number of years, a house is a great investment but it ties up a lot of money which could be used in other ways. It is also very “non-liquid”. Getting your money out of the house (equity) may be easy in a “sellers market” or difficult in a “buyers market” or if features in your house are no longer fashionable. I am sure there other reasons for people to prefer renting.

Requirements to buy a house beyond what is needed to rent

For those who would like to, but feel they cannot do such, there are two major hurdles. First is a down payment — usually 10% but sometimes 20% and, at times, down to 5%. The second, which is closely related to down payment requirements, is your “credit score”. A credit score is a fictitious number devised by credit companies. Companies that determine credit risk have their own arcane formulas. The minimum down payment required depends a lot on the economy and upon your credit score. This credit score also affects requirements for deposits on rentals and services (such as utilities). A third is being able to qualify for the loan — a mixture of income, credit score, savings, and other assets.

While the down payment is partially dependent on credit score, it still exists. For 2025, Bing says an average house in the USA is $522,200. With a good credit score, a 10% downpayment would be $52,220. There are also various one-time costs associated with buying a house, so let us say $60,000 is needed to buy an “average” house. If you started savings towards this total five years before, that would mean $12,000/year in savings. Or six months rent in savings instead of in a landlord’s pocket.

So, beyond requirements for renting, buying a house requires a good credit score, a down payment, and qualifying for the loan.

What has changed? Why have hopes to buy a house dwindled over the years?

There is a simple, quick answer — it is much more difficult to build up the savings needed. And, with the added difficulty, it is much easier to get discouraged and say “what the heck, I didn’t really want one that badly anyway”. The longer answer of WHY is sad but reversible with a LOT of work by MANY people.

Note that the credit score is tightly connected to savings and to a secure, reliable history of always paying bills on time. There are lots of details, of which some are secret and some are not very rational, but those are the primary needs.

Over the past 40 years (starting around the time of Ronald Reagan’s term of office in the US), real income (inflation adjusted dollars) has gone down for most workers. A result of the good old ridiculous “trickle-down” economic fantasy. Many people have written about minimum wage amounts, including myself here, but it is also true for those who make more than minimum wage. More people are earning less money and this makes it difficult to save. If you are living paycheck-to-paycheck it is virtually impossible to save.

There is a reason why so many people put that extra change into lottery tickets.

After World War II, there was a great push to build small, livable houses for the people coming home from the war and their families. These were called “starter homes” as it was recognized that most people would eventually want to move into larger houses. Nowadays, the idea has been revived in the concept of “tiny houses” — but many communities are very resistant to allowing these because they bring the average house price down (deflate the market). I will repeat — communities are resistant to building houses that more people can afford.

House sizes and house prices (per square foot) have gone up faster than general income. There are many fewer people who can buy a 3500 square foot house with a $80,000/year income nowadays than could buy a 1200 square foot house with a $15,000/year income in 1975. The house size (and price) has ballooned and the wages have stagnated.

In the US, Congress passed tax laws that allowed deductions for mortgage interest. This was very beneficial to those who lived at that time but having this advantage for house owners meant that houses were/are a good, usually stable, investment — which has led to home price inflation going up faster than cost-of-living and wages. In the past ten to fifteen years, with this being “such a good investment” — and lack of modification of tax laws to keep larger businesses, which have a lot of capital, out of the market — business funds have purchased more and more homes making ownership harder, affordable houses scarcer, and rental prices less flexible and higher.

So, a longer answer is —

real wages have decreased for most people in the US.
House sizes have greatly increased with few smaller houses available.
Corporations and larger financial institutions have taken advantage of tax benefits and loopholes to move house ownership away from individuals and families.

How can such a situation be reversed?

Once again, there is a short answer. Reverse income inequality and get tax and wage laws back to the era of pro middle-income/upper lower-income. The long answer is much harder as those that have benefited with changes over the past 50 years have a lot of power, are extremely greedy, and continuously want more. There are, of course, exceptions who give back to the community on a voluntary basis.

Income Inequality, wealth, wages, and savings

Here in the United States, we are enamored of our wealthy people. It’s been that way for a long time — perhaps since the beginning of the country. We don’t have lords and ladies, dukes and duchesses, kings and queens (though some would like to be). But we do have ultra wealthy people who have much, much more than they need or can use.

Many people admire those rich people. They sit on the sidelines and watch them, envy them, and cheer them on. It’s kind of like being at a racecourse and watching those speeding horses go by while cheering them on. “Rich people” include groups of highly overpaid CEOs and other C-class executives, inherited wealth, the rapidly dwindling “rags to riches” fantasy fulfillments, the financial market manipulators, and celebrities. I may never understand why celebrities are so highly paid — perhaps they are just exceptionally beautiful race horses such that people want to put wads of money into their harnesses.

The one category that should be expanded upon is “rags to riches”. It did use to be true that people could come up with an idea, dig in, save, and work their way to the top of the financial structure. They didn’t always do it fairly or legally — that is where the term “robber baron” came from. But it is mostly just a fantasy nowadays though it is firmly lodged into the national psyche.

Bill Gates came from an upper-middle (possibly lower-upper) income family, Mark Zuckerberg was at Harvard when he (with others) started the basis of Facebook — and he wasn’t a scholarship person, Elon Musk was part of a wealthy South African family. I won’t deny talent also but they started off WAY above the “rags” stage. Warren Buffett seems to have started his journey at a lower level than other rich “superstars” but he still didn’t start at the “rags” level.

So, who cares? However they did it, don’t they deserve it? Aren’t they a reasonable target for our own fantasies of achievement? Maybe — but their huge coffers are filled with what could be our savings and down payments. Tax and wage laws transfer what could, and should in my opinion, belong to the others.

There is NO “entitlement” to riches. NO ONE got rich by themselves. They may have started on their own (or with a few partners) but, after a certain point, they have to start leveraging the work and talents of others to keep climbing the wealth pyramid. An awful lot of the rich have forgotten, or firmly deny, this reality.

Here is an insanely simple example. A person with a company that has $10,000,000 of sales per year has 200 people working for them each making, on average, $25,000 per year. This leaves the person “owning” the company with $5,000,000 to put into their offshore accounts every year. If the wages were raised to an average of $40,000 per year, those 200 people would each have an additional $15,000/year for savings, education, a down payment, a vacation, or whatever and the “owner” of the company would still have $2,000,000 to put into their offshore account. That “offshore account” is also a major factor in that they quite likely are using various legal loopholes and methods to prevent proper taxes being taken from that $2,000,000.

The idea of “ownership” is a basic tenet of capitalism — but it isn’t written on the tablets with the Ten Commandments. The ability of the “owner” to pay their employees $25,000 per year rather than $40,000 per year is a matter of wage laws, inherent morality, and unions. Note that unions have suffered greatly over the past 50 years. There is no magic wand that says Bertha doing X work “deserves” $Y,000 a year in salary and benefits. It is ALL up to the society and the laws that are enacted.

So, how can the migration of wealth from the 98% to the 2% be reversed?

Once again, a simple answer first. Tax and wage laws need to be shifted back to favor the 98%. And unions need to be appreciated and supported with laws and by the community. There is not much to be done about people’s inherent morality or lack thereof.

Changing the laws

The wage and tax laws favor the rich because our legislators favor the rich when creating the laws. Some do this because they are among the rich — they have a lot of money and see nothing wrong with creating laws that will keep them accumulating excess money.

I “joke” about the rich owning our legislators. It seems that way but it is not quite that simple. Being elected to national office is a very expensive business (see why in my old blog here). It is easier for a candidate to have the money needed to be elected if they have rich sponsors. Those rich sponsors may, or may not, tell them how to vote and what laws to create or remove — but the elected officials are very careful not to antagonize their rich contributors because “how can they do good for people if they aren’t in office — and that means getting re-elected time and time again”? This is an excellent reason for term limitations. People who have held elected positions for a long time are very likely to do more and more to retain their position but do less and less of the things they originally wanted to do. Once again, exceptions do exist.

The rich have always had greater leverage but it accelerated horribly when the Supreme Court, very dubiously, ruled in favor of the rich in the Citizens United case in 2010. Although not explicit, this case allowed the rich to give (without disclosure) as much money as they wanted to candidates. It allowed the purchase of legislators. There really isn’t any other way to describe it.

So, the rich have a highly weighted influence on the US legislators and courts. There are also many other legal and economic benefits for the rich that are not available to the poor. Lastly, legislators who have been elected for multiple terms are more likely to value being re-elected than to be actively fulfilling their original desires for the citizens.

Primaries are key

Peacefully, the main method that US citizens have of truly changing our legislative base, and judicial appointments, is via the system of primaries. It IS possible to start new political parties but that is a much more difficult process than changing existing political parties from within.

The ruling structure within a political party have enormous advantages for electing the candidates that THEY choose. But, with a lot of hard work, it is possible to change the candidates running for office. It is possible to choose candidates that favor the general populace rather than the rich.

This is not easy but it IS possible. Without it, nothing more can be done. Tax, wage, and election laws will not change. You have to have legislators willing to work for the general populace and who are not scared of disrupting the status quo.

Once the legislative base has changed, what then?

We’ve really talked about all the parts but we’ll summarize here (not in any particular order):

Legislate enforceable ethics requirements for all branches of government.
Legislate term limitations.
Legislate enforceable limitations on campaign donations and require (down to the individual) visibility of all people donating.
Change the tax structure such that the 98% have a better chance to accumulate and save. The word “billionaire” should be so rare that people need to check their (online or print) dictionaries to know what it means. This includes changing tax rates and closing loopholes.
Change tax laws so that corporate ownership of property no longer has any advantage over investment of any other type of property.
Add citizen protection agencies that have the power, and political independence, to protect individual rights including unionization.

In some cases, creating effective legislation means approving Constitutional Amendments.

So, there we have it. Yes, it is much harder to buy a house now for most of us. But it didn’t use to be that way and it doesn’t have to continue to be that way. Primaries are key.

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The Giving Tree: Boundaries, boundaries, and boundaries. They determine positive versus negative results and actions.

noreply@blogger.com (CKSummers) — Mon, 26 Jan 2026 16:45:00 +0000

This newsletter will have some disclosures, and discussion, about a book (The Giving Tree) and a movie (What a Wonderful Life) that might allow you a different perspective on the works — and potentially ruin your enjoyment of them. So, if you think that might happen … stop reading.

There is a book, a widely read and beloved book, called “The Giving Tree” by Shel Silverstein. It is known for its words, and its illustrations, and for the ideas of how giving is good and how a person needs different things at different times in one’s life. All those are good things and certainly many people can, and should, enjoy the book at that level.

But, examining further, we can read the book again at a different level. At first, the boy and the tree had fun together. The boy enjoyed the tree as it was and enjoyed the shade and played in the old leaves. The tree loved being able to provide enjoyment for the boy and loved being useful. There is no explicit acknowledgement, or thanks, from the boy about the tree.

The boy goes away. The next time he comes back, he wants money. The tree gives him its apples to sell. In the story, at least, the boy doesn’t even say thank you. Goes away, comes back. This time he wants a house and the tree gives him his branches. He goes away again and then comes back. Each of these intervals are longer and longer and the tree remains lonely. The next time, the man wants a boat to travel around — the tree donates his trunk to build the boat. The man goes away and, later, comes back tired and the tree offers his stump to sit on.

Not being privy to the author’s thoughts, he might very well have meant to convey the things that I came away with — or might not. Note, by the end of the story, the tree has given away everything (except his stump (and roots?)). In humans, this would be called martyrdom. The tree is left to be very lonely unless the human wants something. And the human shows no appreciation (and never says “thank you”). To my mind, this is a warning book showing the dangers of not maintaining one’s boundaries. (It would be an ecological message if the tree had been non-aware).

But, as stated in the beginning, a story (especially a well-written one) can be read at many different levels. A happy one or a warning one. And a well-written story can provide different depths of lessons as one experiences more of life and has that lens of history looking upon what one is reading.

Then there is the Jimmy Stewart movie “It’s a Wonderful Life”. It, too, has different levels to examine. For most people it is a heartening movie about how the wealth of friendship is the best wealth of all. And I don’t disagree with that message. But the premise of the movie is “what would his world have been like if he had never been born?” Note that it is NOT “what would his world have been like if he had made different choices?” but his absence — his inability to do the things he was able to do. And this lesson is very true — we can never know what effect our actions make upon others.

But, within that life, what do we see? We have many instances of self-sacrifice. It is not the same as The Giving Tree. His choices leave him alive and, perhaps, those choices led to a better life? Perhaps. But the movie clearly says that you must choose what you think is best for others, rather than for yourself, in order to help the world. It is such choices that are highlighted in the movie. Perhaps he did make other choices based on his own desires? Perhaps. Or perhaps making the more “selfish” choices would have led to an even better result? Perhaps. We won’t know because that is not the story. Self-sacrifice is the focus on the movie — and not doing that, because he had never lived, was a disaster.

Most well-written books and scripts have multiple levels. As we grow, and have more experiences, our interpretations change. They “deepen”. Perhaps we read into the words something that the author had no awareness of being done. Perhaps we find the golden nuggets that the author was trying to allow us to grow into. Sometimes, those essays assigned in school are a way to practice aspects of writing. Sometimes, they are ways for us to express things that are not easily expressed. For me, both the “The Giving Tree” and “It’s a Wonderful Life” give forth a much different message than that for most people. That doesn’t make me correct or make me wrong — it means that my life has given me a different lens with which to see the world.

How about you? Are there stories that you have seen with much different eyes as you have grown older?

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Right, Left, Up, Down: Directions (including politics) are relative. How are we really moving?

noreply@blogger.com (CKSummers) — Mon, 19 Jan 2026 16:45:00 +0000

There are a lot of words that label political viewpoints — conservative, liberal, progressive, radical, authoritarian, moderate, centrist, pragmatic, and so forth. There are ALSO words that connect economic views to political views even though these are disjoint situations — so a person might be called a socialist, capitalist, communist, or whatever inferring that these economic systems can adequately reflect a person’s political views.

But, whatever label is used to describe — it can only be useful if the same definition of meaning is used by both the speaker/writer and the listener/reader. All of the above words do have definition meanings (though some are less strictly defined than others). But, if you ask someone the definition of many of these words, they get described from a basis of what they believe it means to themselves as opposed to what the dictionary may say.

People who use a word to communicate must all be working from the same definition.

So, usage of words like liberal or conservative rarely have value. Certainly current usage, and people definitions (as opposed to dictionary definitions), are not the same as they were thirty years ago or even twenty years ago.

If one does want to discuss, and describe, political viewpoints and words are difficult to be sure if they are valid, then what can be done?

Most people agree, in general, that people’s political viewpoints are towards the “left” or the “right” or the “center”. The exact definitions of those words are NOT in full agreement with all users of such words — but they can be used in terms of comparison.

I would propose that the main spectrum of comparison for political views would range from anarchy (where each person does, says, and behaves as they want — fully independent of others) and fascism (possibly dictatorship or totalitarian) at the other. One end gives all power equally to individuals and the other end concentrates power and control into the hands of a few (usually with ONE person in charge overall).

anarchy ———————————————————————————————- fascism

Societies of fully anarchic principles don’t last long — conflicts between individuals arise almost immediately and cause the system to collapse. On the other end, however, fascist systems are very hard to eliminate because of the full concentration of resources, control, and power. Fascist systems are more likely to be overthrown because of the huge pools of people who exist outside of the controlling groups — they get “fed up” and create (usually unstable) temporary structures OR the core control groups break up due to the inherent problems with the transfer of power and control within a very small group.

You could also label the above spectrum

individual ———————————————————————————-—— core cabal

because it is a line of distribution of power and control.

Now that we have the spectrum line set up what do we do with it? It is all about relativity. The label “centrist” should go into the center but note that the centrist values of the US are very different from the “centrist” values in the rest of the world. For most of the world, Universal Health Care is just a norm that people don’t really think much about — it is only the corporate/stockholder world of the United States that believes people are entitled to make profits out of sickness. For not quite as much of the world, paid public education continues up through later university levels — with the strange idea that an educated public makes a stronger country. The folks that call themselves “centrist” in the US would be quite a bit farther to the right of center than those who call themselves such outside of the US. This applies to much of the US Democratic party.

The older Republican party would still be to the “right” of the Democratic party but the current Republican party has shifted so far towards the right end of the spectrum that those people they call “far left” are really pretty close to the center. Remember that it is all about relativity. The farther “right” one group is, the more “left” an opposing group might be. As far as the above spectrum is concerned, there isn’t much activity on the left end for the US. Anarchists have no political power and direct mandates (which routes around representative democracy) seems to be losing out in general elections versus the courts (people say “yes”, representatives say “no” and the representatives “win”).

We can play a game at placing all other labels onto the spectrum but — as is true of personal (rather than dictionary) definitions — we probably would disagree a lot on that position. But, relative to the Democratic party and the current Republican party, libertarians would probably be placed in-between and the Green party to the left of the Democratic party (more left, the more individual-oriented).

The title of this newsletter includes two other directions — up and down. These are associated with wealth which is closely related to the “right” end of the spectrum but not identical to it. Just as in the progress of physicists from Newton to Einstein to Hawking, large gravity masses can distort space (and time?), the existence of excessive wealth can distort the individual/fascism spectrum. It does it just as does a dwarf star in space. The excessively wealthy individual can act as a very, very weighty (both senses of the word — pun intended) individual. Thus, on the individual to fascist scale those “super-individual”s can distort the line either direction (or both at once which is weird but, in this viewpoint, still possible.

What is “best” then? Would someone right in the middle cover the best situation? I doubt it. The center of the mass of wealth/control/influence will fluctuate from day to day, year to year. If you are part of that exclusive set of people who concentrate the power/control then that is “best” for you. If you have ideas less popular to the general populace you might head left on the spectrum but, even if economic distortion continues to occur, your “best” place will still be to the “right” of many.

Where do you place yourself? Your elected representative? Your king or queen? Your neighbor across the street? Just as is said for other characteristics (such as social interactions), it’s a wide, wide world.

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The Second Amendment: With this New Year, we need DISCUSSIONS. Discussions where we talk -- hear and listen -- think and respond. No need of rants, sound bites, bumper stickers or political diatribes.

noreply@blogger.com (CKSummers) — Sun, 04 Jan 2026 18:57:00 +0000

Another day, another murder. “Just a sad consequence of freedom”. So, why is the United States the only country in the world — that is not in the midst of armed civil war — that has such problems?

History of the Second Amendment

vv v Back in the days of the beginning of the United States of America, after the Constitution was signed, the “Founding Fathers” continued to work on a Bill of Rights. These aspects — amendments to be considered as part of the Constitution (a work in progress) had been discussed during the time of creation of the Constitution. But, as is true of most things that have to go through committees, agreement was not quick to obtain. So, certain issues, that they KNEW they wanted to have in the Constitution, were postponed so that the foundation document could be sent around to the States and be approved.

I don’t know if the Bill of Rights, ratified as a group of Amendments on December 15, 1791, had an internal order of importance. The fact that they waited for the group of ten to be ready before sending them to be ratified indicates they were all considered to be important.

But the Second Amendment is one of those ten composing the Bill of Rights. It reads:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

The Supreme Court interprets the Constitution (including all Amendments) to determine the meaning behind the words. That interpretation is not unmoving and usually reflects the changes that are occurring within the country and how the words may best be interpreted in the current period. Since the Supreme Court Justices are humans, they have the inherent flaws and biases (and potential corruption) of humans, and as such may make decisions that others disagree with. But, that is their legal, Constitutional, power — to interpret what the words mean.

Generally speaking (not being a professional lawyer or historian), the Second Amendment was created based on the experiences of those writing it. They had experienced — either directly or via their ancestors’ experiences — the effects of only the government having access to weapons (and ammunition). The splitting of the clauses for “a well regulated Militia” and “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms” has created a lot of the discussion, changes in interpretation, and political divides about the Second Amendment.

There has been little argument (as far as I have heard) about the “well regulated Militia” part. Each State was to continue to have their own state militia (now called the National Guard) independent of the Federal government and under the control of the State government. The relationship between the Federal government and state government’s control is presently an area of active discussion in the Supreme Court. (To me, it seems pretty clear — but it isn’t my right to make a decision.)

The part of “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms” is the portion that has — over the past 50 years (not very much before that) — been debated and politicized. Does it apply only in connection to the “well regulated Militia” (the primary interpretation until the 1980s) or is that a separate, but equally weighted, protection within the Amendment? (Once again, I have my opinion — but not the right to make a decision.)

If people kill people, what is special about guns?

“Guns don’t kill people, people kill people”. AGREED. But does anyone really think that someone could kill 500 people in 5 minutes with a butcher knife?

Guns make it EASY.
Guns remove the time possible for second-thoughts.
Guns reduce the time for potential defence.
The AR-15 has only the remotest resemblance to a Brown Bess musket muzzle-loader used during the time of the writing of the Second Amendment.

And yes, there are other means of mass murder available — chemicals, biological weapons, arson, nuclear and conventional bombs, and so forth. But they aren’t as convenient, or easily available, as guns.

Where does gun control come into play?

Here we come to another area of the division of powers allocated by the Constitution. Congress (NOT the Executive branch) can make laws to clarify aspects of law and the Constitution — subject to the potential judgement of the Supreme Court (which can decide if a law is valid or not, primarily based on the Constitution). So, it can make so-called “gun control” laws to REGULATE access to weapons and ammunition. It cannot forbid access but it can regulate, and control, access — subject to the agreement of the Supreme Court.

“They want to get rid of all of the guns”. FALSE. Very, very few people want to totally eliminate guns. There are various legitimate uses for guns such as hunting and competitions, and (unfortunately) self-defence. The idea that a group of people “want to take your guns away” is a falsehood (lie) that is very convenient for politicians, or profit-oriented private groups, to repeat over and over. Like other “big lies”, they expect that if it is repeated without end people will believe it is true. So, it goes into campaign speeches and bumper stickers. But it isn’t true.

It IS true that a large number of people would like gun ownership limited. They want gun ownership limited to people who

Are trained in the use and safety of guns
Are not criminals
Are not nuts (I use the technical term here)

The definition of, and requirements for, the above areas are the areas to focus on for discussion.

It is true that any restriction, no matter how reasonable, will delay the ownership and use of guns by people who meet the above criteria. Such a delay may be irritating to those who qualify but help in keeping all of us safe.

So areas of discussion apply to the above characterization of a qualified gun owner.

What kind of training is required? Should there be tests involved with granting gun ownership? Who should create these tests? Who should administer them? What is required for safety? Another test or mandatory equipment (gun locks, vaults, etc.)"?
How is the lack of a criminal record determined? Not all states communicate information to federal, or other state, bureaus or administrators. What types of infractions should disqualify?
What is “nuts”? A person undergoing, or who has undergone, therapy may be more sane and rational than someone who has never approached a counselor, psychiatrist, or psychologist. Some internal instabilities may be fully invisible. Should ranting on social media count?

Some of my own thoughts in the area of training in use and safety.

Personally, I think that we should look to the example of Switzerland. Although I do not agree that every citizen should be required to serve in the military, I do agree that every person who has a gun, to be potentially used, should be trained.

A week long course in use of the weapon, cleaning, dismantling and re-assembly, and movements under active fire — very similar to U.S. military training — should be required. Use of a gun is not limited to being able to point and shoot. Decisions about shooting need to be made calmly and quickly. This is especially hard for people totally unused to having weapons fired near, or around, them.

Switzerland requires use of a gun vault in every home. These are not tiny tin boxes — the vaults are similar to bank vaults in the U.S. A home invader in Switzerland will never use the weapons present in the house. A child will never pick up a gun and shoot their sibling.

Summary

There are many politicians and profit-oriented groups who try to move disasters and tragedies immediately to “thoughts” and “prayers” which may have some type of good behind them — but which do NOT directly address the problems. We won’t reach any type of approach to the problem without discussion. Discussions are squashed by lies about what groups of people believe. Within the United States, with 342 million people, we may have up to 342 million ideas about what can, and should, be done.

The first step is discussion. Speaking. Listening. Understanding. Replying. and back to Speaking again.

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Vice Wars: Supply supports demand. Why do we continue to ineffectually attack supply rather than demand?

noreply@blogger.com (CKSummers) — Tue, 30 Dec 2025 20:52:00 +0000

Vices — desires that are considered unacceptable by society (or parts of society). Such vices include drugs (alcohol, opioids, tobacco, …) and personal interactions (prostitution, gambling, …)

A basis of capitalism is the idea of supply and demand. Although the United States is an extremely strong proponent of capitalism (and, at present, unrestrained capitalism) this reality seems to be easily forgotten.

As long as demand exists, people will find ways to meet it with supplies. As soon as the Eighteenth Amendment was passed in 2019 (and, later, with additional enforcement provided by the Volstead Act), groups and individuals started determining ways to continue to meet the demand for alcohol. Alas, there is a difference between illegal commerce and legal commerce. By definition, meeting the demand for something illegal is a criminal activity and, thus, requires weakening of, and removal of, any obstructions that might impede the delivery of supplies for that demand.

In that period, the continued demand built up the strength of organized crime and filled their coffers. It also created holes in government and enforcement via corruption and, as often possible with humans and their weaknesses, blackmail and extortion. All in all, the period of Prohibition was one of the strongest supports of organized crime within the US (and, to an indirect degree, the rest of the world) in history. Yet it was all following the principles of capitalism.

When the Twenty-First Amendment was passed in 1931, it was done as a reluctant admission that Prohibition not only didn’t work but was a huge impetus for crime and corruption. The “temperance” movement continued to exist (and still does to some extent) but the majority said “no more”.

So, with that flagrant example of the inability to both support capitalism and, at the same time, fight against capitalism (but only in areas defined as unwanted — without removing the demand), the United States would surely have learned its lessons?
It would admit that supply and demand can be manipulated but not eliminated?
It would observe that making the supply illegal does not affect demand but only hurts the surrounding infrastructure by continuing the supply outside, and through, the law?

No. It is rare for groups of humans to adequately remember, and learn, from history. We see that over and over and over.

And now we see the consequences of the continued folly of this fight against capitalistic principles, Rather than increase efforts, and support, to REDUCE demand (which immediately reduces supply, prices, and competition) — we continue to fight the supply side. Although we have yet to see any evidence that current attacks are even associated with the supply-side of fentanyl trade, we know that it will not work against any potential fentanyl problems.

So, why does it continue? Attacking the supply side, in itself, increases profits.

By making it more difficult to bring supply to the demand, the price goes up and the profits go up for the suppliers.
It adds jobs to the economy — to attempt suppression of the supply.
With the increased profits received by the suppliers, they can give back money to politicians and enforcement officials to keep anti-vice laws in effect and to create the supply line holes which are useful for their business. Also known as corruption and misdirection.
The actions of “attacking the supply side” can be used as camouflage, or distractions, for other political, or economic, purposes. Such as the current attacks on (totally unproven) “fentanyl supply” from Venezuela.
It can give the appearance that something is being done to reduce the amount of the vice (whatever vice it may be).

Attacking the supply side creates great profits (and jobs within both enforcement and criminal production). The fact that these profits are counter-productive to reducing demand, and support corruption and crime, is “beside the point”.

To reduce vices, reduce demand. So simple, so hard.

[ NOTE: In cases where unwilling people are involved, there are laws about kidnapping, extortion, rape, blackmail, theft, battery, assault, and so forth ]

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