Category: Philosophy

March 23, 2022 – Total Domination

I remember this vividly. I was 17 and I was wrestling in high school. My brother (15) was also a wrestler and cousin(15) was a football starter. We challenged my dad and uncles to a 3 on 3 basketball game. I figured that they were all smokers and out of shape that this would be a cake walk.

I can still remember my grandfather cackling as they proceeded to beat our asses badly. I think that the final score was 40-2 or something like that. I don’t really remember the game itself other than they were way more physical that we were. Not in a fouling or nasty way but more like aggressiveness.

When getting the family settled into the beach house on Sunday, we play a couple of hours on the ping pong table. My sons recently started playing tennis. So, my younger son thought that he was going to school mom. No way Jose. Mom played several years when she worked at a youth residential treatment facility. It was closer than my loss in basketball, but my son was shocked. He proclaimed that he was going to beat her 10-0 in the next game.

I have noticed over the years that youth are not as strong as I think they should be. I don’t know if it is mind over matter or they are just not fully developed. I have had my nephew or kids help me move furniture around and they seem to not be able to move or lift things despite spending hours a week “working out”. Don’t get me wrong, I am out of shape and they can run circles around me. I am talking about practical fitness however.

I have spoken about wisdom in the past. Back to basketball, my guess is that we were in top physical shape, but they used wisdom to play to their strengths. Maybe if we were all basketball players instead of wrestlers the game would have ended more like the ping pong game. I just dont know but I have seen this enough times in various forms to know that it is more complicated that how much you can squat, bench press or deadlift.

Back when I was in high school, I used to play Dungeons and Dragons with my friends. Your character has both wisdom and intelligence. Intelligence is analogous to knowing pi is 3.14159 (plus a whole lot more) versus wisdom of using 3.14 when calculating the area of a circle. I can’t remember all the severely complicated math I learned to prove pi as a number but I certainly remember where to use it.

End Your Programming Routine: It very well may be that high schoolers competing against other high schoolers are at a roughly equal mental development. At that age, we don’t realize the influence that our mental ability has on the physical. We also don’t realize that we have not mentally peaked or that we don’t know what we don’t know. As I sat there watching that ping pong game, the great memory flashed back of my grandfather just howling as we got schooled.

March 18, 2022 – American Dream: Where Do We Stand?

This was kind of an interesting exercise for me. When I wrote off the cuff about the qualities, I really was reacting to what I thought that I knew. After really digging into the definition of the terms and their applications, I came away with a different perspective.

As a refresher, here were the five properties of the American Dream: Democracy, Rights, Liberty, Opportunity and Equality. In my opinion, the most important one is also the most subjective. Rights are recognized and incorporated into the government, have known boundaries and an expectation of exercising.

When we look at what our founder’s described as rights, properties that we were born with before the existence of the government are not necessarily recognized in other cultures, some examples the right to keep and bear arms or women’s suffrage. The fact that we have an entire category of law and lawyers means that rights are constantly evaluated and not considered static or even inherited before the government.

If we believe in this concept, then we have to be OK that our neighbor is doing something that we don’t like. We have to accept that my dream is not my neighbors just as his is not likely mine. We have to agree that the risk of not living in a Home Owner’s Association is worth the reward of freedom. We have to agree that we have the right to succeed beyond our wildest dreams but that comes with a risk of losing it all. We have to agree that consenting adults can gather together to worship the devil or have sex parties or snort cocaine as long as no one is being forced to do so and no one else is harmed in the process. We also need to understand that there is recourse for damages in a free society rather than attempting to force them to do something by creating laws.

You see, there is nothing wrong with the American Dream concept except we no longer believe in it. At the risk of sounding harsh, the term mental masturbation applies here. We like the thought of the American Dream, but we don’t actually want it. Just as a person could be very happy and thrive in a socialist, homogenous society, it could be miserable if you believe differently. Back to my comment on freedom I said a few weeks ago, totalitarianism is some of the most prosperous and happy conditions when you are on the right side of the ruling class.

I spend a lot of time railing against the fascist left (that’s right you are just as fascist despite what the media says), my religious right friends need to look in the mirror as well. Jesus never required us to legislate morality. In fact for salvation purposes, morality is strictly the responsibility of the individual. When the veil was torn so were the ways of Judaism and the ceremonial laws of sacrifice and circumcision. While I can understand the distaste for sin, judgement and condemnation are also some of those sins. Creating laws of minimum square footage restriction may impact my dream as readily as I am not allowed to own livestock or buying alcohol on Sunday.

In case you feel like I am a bit all over it is because I am trying to get across is that both sides are pinching at the American Dream for their own reasons. Let’s be honest, both sides hope to use the power of the state to force everyone to adhere to our version of the better society. What is the impact? We lose the ability to pursue our dream our way.

End Your Programming Routine: Seems like we are ending about where I started, probably not for the the same reasons though. I assumed the American Dream was dead because the characteristics weren’t being upheld. It is even the case that some of those properties really are only ideals and not actually true, particularly Opportunity and Equality. I now think that the American Dream is dead because the definition of the characteristics change.

March 11, 2022 – American Dream Series: Equality

Here we are on the last quality of the American Dream. I will save my overall analysis for next week and stay focused on this particular aspect. It is probably a good start to look at the definition of equality. The Webster definition is the quality or state of being equal. I suppose that makes sense, equality is an adverb (or describing) the word equal.

And so, the definition of equal means of the same measure, quantity, amount, or number as another. Of course, we need to look at absolute and relative application of equality in the same manner that we have been looking at throughout the series.

What is this quality really getting at? Is it possible to have opportunity without equality? Maybe… you were given a job because of your parents, or what school you went to or for that matter whether you have a degree in a particular field. I would have to say that there are lots of areas that hands people opportunity over others.

It is pretty likely that this is really referring to racial or gender or even whatever self identifying class that I want to use. The question remains, do we have equality? Let us see. Are all races equal – no. Let us take something like skin cancer. Below are some statistics.

The point I am making is that it is physically impossible for all races to be equal, remember I am taking the absolute stance here. Now, is it possible that men and women are equal? Lets just look at how the transgender swimmers are doing.

Really can we make that case that there is really an absolute equality? I think the answer will never be yes. For instance, what are the odds that I would get equal consideration to be president? Can I get on the ballot, probably in a few locations but could I get elected, I highly doubt it. I think for the most part we have the equality in attempting something. Where we don’t and never will is largely achieving something.

There was a local kid about eight or nine years ago that started playing football as a freshman, first time ever. He was starting on varsity in the first game. By the time he was a senior he was one of the top 50 overall high school recruits, let alone number one in his position. He got a scholarship to play for USC and now he is actually in the NFL.

I don’t know if that was really his dream or it just worked out that way. The fact is there have been countless Heismen Trophy (best college player of the year) winners that never made it past one season in the NFL. There has to be some degree of luck in attaining some limited dreams. Just because I want it and do all the right things still don’t guarantee that I can achieve things. I would even argue that the best player in college football is not equal to most of his peers that get drafted and supersede his longevity.

I freely admit that story was more of an edge case than the intended center of the argument for equality. I am going to use conjecture from here on out. What is with pay inequality for genders? I think when the most people see that women get paid 80% of men, they assume that they just get paid less. I really don’t think that is the case.

We are not really talking about a woman and a man getting paid the same for the same job, we are talking about what all men make versus what all women make. We are talking about genders making different career choices because values and opportunities pursued are different amongst the sexes. This is not the first time, but currently, my boss is a woman. She works around the clock and she is very good at it. I hope she gets paid more than me because I don’t really want to do that.

End Your Programming Routine: I didnt’t talk a lot about race today and I am going to leave things here. I guess to be blunt, I don’t see common equality as an issue. I am not saying there isn’t racism or discrimination but largely we do not have equality barriers. Further to this, everyone will never be equal. That is the beauty of humanity and I think we should always play to our strengths.

March 4, 2022 – American Dream Series: Opportunity

Like many of these concepts, opportunity can be subjective. I have written several times about absolute and subjective interpretation. I have also landed on the the idea of absolute definition when it comes to philosophy, like I am going to discuss today. However, it is complicated.

What is opportunity in the context of America? I think that the version of what we are talking about stems from our European origins. In my opinion, it technically means that we don’t have a ruling family or class and therefore there is not a glass ceiling for any individual. Meaning, it is possible for anyone of us to do anything that we set our minds to.

Obviously, there are sometimes physical limitations like someone in a wheelchair is likely not going to play in the NBA. I think most people get that exception to that. So we are really talking about the potential to do anything that we are capable of doing. I am not putting them down, it would be analogous to someone saying I want to live underwater like a merman. It is a limitation of the human body and the application of what we are trying to accomplish.

Do we really have the opportunity to do anything we want? Well, yes and no. We have the opportunity to do whatever we want as long as it is not interfering with someone else. And, I am not talking about criminal enterprise, I am talking about once we get to a certain level we start to interfere with powerful and rich people that don’t want someone to succeed at their expense.

Do you remember when we had George W. Bush’s ‘Too Big to Fail’ policy? Pure opportunity would have let those organizations fail and some bank with less debt or a better strategy would have assumed their position. We didn’t let those banks and investment firms fail because it would have literally crushed the economy (as it is currently created). Let’s be honest if the failure would have only hurt the common man, it would have likely happened but because it effected the Oligarchs as well then it was ‘too big to fail’.

There’s that word Oligarchs… I think we know some of them Gates, Walton, Bloomberg, Musk etc. There are others like Kennedy and Rockefeller that are familiar but we don’t get the connection and still others that we don’t know. This isn’t about conspiracy, this is about stating that there are forces beyond elected officials that are influencing policy much greater than voting.

The way to disrupt the system is to not play the same game. The rise of cryptocurrency is going to eventually ridicule traditional financial vehicles. And then, we may have a new batch of Oligarchs. There is hope, technologies suck as block chain will end the graft and influence that goes along with it. This is because there is no debate with public block chain, it is binary. You did it or you didn’t. You paid or you did not. It is all a matter of what is recorded, it is all visible and transparent.

I want to end this now because there are so many other aspects to opportunity than problems a few people will deal with. Probably what most people focus on is not whether you can become an oligarch but can you get out of the housing projects. I think the answer is yes but I will not deny that it will be difficult and most won’t.

If your mother was a drug addict or in an abusive relationship, what is a six year old going to do about that? To make matters worse, when that condition becomes normalized to a child they may not even recognize that there are other options. When you can be easily distinguished by the color or your skin as different, I will say that is a potential obstacle to overcome. But If there is a spark, if there is one person to be a role model, if there is desire then there is still opportunity.

I hate to say it, but some people are not going to have opportunity. This is not because it doesn’t exist but because it was taken from them. This is analogous to having someone steal your bike. You know how to ride, there are roads, there is nothing preventing it except you do not have a bike. Therefore, the opportunity to ride a bike is not there because it was taken. No matter how much you want to ride a bike or others want you to ride a bike or the government builds bike lanes, it doesn’t make it not stolen.

I suppose that is another aspect to this. Some people will not even notice their bike was stolen. Other’s will get a job or save money or put it on a credit card. The most important thing is that they have the drive to replace it. There is a third person that spends all of their time wallowing in the fact that the bike was stolen rather than moving on. Many would probably argue that there is a forth person that wants to be the second.

Because of their circumstances, it is difficult to get a job or save money or get credit. I am being simplistic, but to me that is a form of the third. It very well may be that they are barely making it on two jobs with five kids. If we are to assume that everything is on the up and up, we can credit them for taking responsibility for prior decisions. That is not to say that they couldn’t abandon their kids and sign-up for a new life, maybe in small increments at a time.

I am not suggesting that they do this. What is says to me is that is decisions have consequences. And consequences may limit opportunity out of morality. That is definitely the right thing to do but it is not lack of opportunity. Probably the best descriptor is opportunity wasted (sorry for being harsh).

Still other’s are going to argue this term systemic racism or women are not treated equal as men. Equality is a subject for next week but in reality, equality always relates to opportunity like rights to liberty. So, I will shelve that particular aspect and we will get into it next week.

End Your Programming Routine: I will never make it as a Supreme Court Justice because I am not a black woman – that is lack of opportunity for sure Joe Biden. But, it doesn’t mean I can’t try. I could go to law school, campaign to be a judge and work my tail off. Someday, another president will actually look at all the facts when making considerations for a nominee. Opportunity doesn’t guarantee that I will succeed but that whatever I want is possible.

February 28, 2022 – Running Out of Words

No, I don’t mean that I am quitting. You will have to read to get to the punchline today. First, we have a long and winding path to get there, so let’s get started.

Valentine’s Day is over, so what is next for merchandizing? Why Easter of course. What does this have to do with anything? I am getting there.

When I first met my wife, I was introduced to something that I don’t see often. It is tradition called cascarón. This is where you save your egg shells be used for Easter. Essentially, you try to preserve as much of an intact eggshell by cracking off one end of the egg. You want to build up a large inventory of egg shells for coloring and filling.

This is where it get’s fun. Some of the shells are filled with confetti, flour or oatmeal and some might be filled with money and occasionally, there might even be a raw egg! What you do is run around and crack them on peoples heads. We hide them with traditional Easter eggs and then inevitably wait to get cracked. If you want to participate in this tradition, now is the time to start building up your inventory of eggshells.

You should know by now, I am going to take this a lot deeper. One of my first Easters with my Wife’s family was in 1995. We were going to school over 200 miles away and of course it was a school weekend and we had little means to travel so they came to us for the day. They brought the cascarones.

My wife was living in a townhouse with several exchange students. One of them was Japanese and this holiday was foreign. So, we invited her to join us for the meal and the Easter egg hunt. She brought a friend to the dinner whose name was Ai (also a Japanese exchange student).

After the dinner, and when it came to cracking eggs (by surprise is the best) they quickly caught on to what was likely going to happen. Ai got so freaked out that she ran to her bicycle and peddled away not to come back again that day. This was our Sophomore year and consequently my wife became really good friends with her Japanese roommate.

We have kept in contact with her roommate over all these years. Her roommate and Ai came to our wedding. Five years later, we all met at her roommate’s wedding in California. Ai studied theater in college and dreamed of Hollywood, which she pursued. Yesterday, Ai died of cancer.

We had heard that it was terminal a few months ago. In December, Ai left California to go back to Japan for her final days. To be honest, we weren’t nearly as close to Ai as we are to my wife’s roommate and dealing and our own demons concerning cancer, it was out of sight and out of mind. But, it hits that this was someone who we know that left us too early.

My wife deals with strong survivor’s guilt. She had a coworker who was our age and kids are the same age that died of cancer a few years ago, that was hard. They had even done chemotherapy at the same time. Then she had another friend who was younger than us by probably ten years die a couple years ago, that was worse. It feels like we know too many people battling and losing to cancer way too young.

I know, this is being hypervigilant. I see it one place and my eyes are open to where else it could be. But, I also can’t help but wonder what God is telling me in this situation. Not just me either, for people with survivor’s guilt as strongly as my wife’s what can she get out of the situation? Is there a message here, am I trying to make a connection that doesn’t exist or is this a fact of life that now I am getting older the probability to bad endings happen in life?

I talked about the neighbor kid that is battling last week, my mother-in-law is in her second year of treatment, people that are in my inner circle are in the fight of their lives. I’ve gone through it with my wife too. Compassion and empathy are some of my weaker areas for sure. I think I have them, but it is really difficult to express them adequately. Maybe that is what God is trying to tell me?

Yesterday in church, the sermon was conceptually about making the most of a situation (not necessarily dying). What can you do with what you have. The question of the bucket list came up. I had never really given it much thought because I have never created one. At least for me, I came down to goals and achievements are for the living. I don’t really have a traditional bucket list because I think that when that time comes, I wont want to have a final bunch of experiences before I die. I think the point of making the most of the situation actually means living before dying.

End Your Programming Routine: Of course, we are all going to face the inevitable. There is no doubt that if we live long enough, we will see our fair share of tragedy – however we define it. I suppose that I can consider myself lucky not having to witness something like the holocaust or to be born into slavery. With all things, it is not how we handle the acute situation, but the aftermath that is going to make the difference.

February 25, 2022 – American Dream Series: Liberty

This week marks the half way point in the values that make up the American Dream. Hopefully, this week will be a little easier to quantify than rights last week.

I suppose the best place to start is the origin of the concept. According to Wikipedia, the idea came from ancient Greece. Essentially it meant to not be a slave. That is pretty plain, either you are a slave or you have liberty. The word itself is derived from the Latin word Libertas. Libertas was a Roman goddess representing liberty. The likeness has been used in France on money and was the inspiration for the Statue of Liberty.

Now that that is done, we can look a little deeper into what it means today. If we strictly take the Greek concept, we are not slaves. If you look a little harder, notice that doesn’t mean there are no laws, it means that we are free to operate within the laws that exist. And if we go back to last week, laws in theory should be based on our rights. In theory, laws should support or strengthen our rights and never restrict them.

I don’t want to get too far out of bounds with rights again this week, however you cant have liberty without recognized rights. It would seem that in reality, Rights are far more important than Liberty. Rights are going to define the boundaries that we can operate with said Liberty.

Do we have Liberty today? I actually think that we do for the most part. The notion that someone is doing something that we don’t want them to do, we enact a law preventing it. So, we are still free to operate within with the realm of legal, we just keep redefining what that means.

I think about all of the places that I have been, I would offer up China as an example. I am not an expert, but I am pretty sure Liberty is not among their cultural entitlements. Are the people slaves – no. Can they operate within the laws of municipality – yes. Are the laws applied universally – of course not and nowhere else (including the United States) for that matter. Do they have liberty – by that definition yes.

Just using that example above, it sort of downplays the importance of Liberty. The only situations I could think of where liberty would be a problem is when the boundaries are changing without the knowledge of the population or selective enforcement. In which case, people exist at the whim of the rulers or maybe we could call them slaves.

End Your Programming Routine: I really didn’t think that this was going to go this way. I suppose that I was because I had never really taken a deep dive into the definitions. I thought that I knew what I was talking about without truly understanding.

I have to admit that when I hear the word ‘Liberty’ one of two images come up immediately. They are either Libertas (sometimes the statue of Liberty) or the liberty eagle. Those are the signs of programming and invoke emotion rather than thought and understanding. I am not saying that I don’t want Liberty but now I know it’s place in the hierarchy.

February 23, 2022 – I am Interrupting This Series in Brewing…

Stuff happens. No one plans to get cancer, especially when the person is a child. Whether you are in middle school or middle age, health disruptions suddenly supersede any plans you have in life.

My son has a friend that was diagnosed with cancer last week. They are the same age and they live two blocks away. He has been over to my house many times sometimes for an hour or two and sometimes overnight. Even his siblings have spent time over here. This isn’t really an acquaintance, but someone that we know pretty well.

Speaking from experience, when you are in treatment your life is not your own. In 2010, my wife had a near death illness and in 2012 she was diagnosed with cancer. The severity of the tumor is graded on how treatable it is. In her case it was stage 4 (out of 5) meaning it was effecting multiple locations and was not possible to surgically remove.

I was pulling weeds in the garden one day, just kind of having some alone time. My wife was in the hospital and our pastor came by. He asked me how I was doing and what I thought about all of this. Since I had been through this once before, I knew the ropes with doctors, hospitals and all that. There was little fear about uncertainty of what the next few months of treatment would look like. The fear was really what the future would look like for me and two boys aged 4 and 6.

I told him, “After the last illness, I saw her faith and ability to appreciate life grow exponentially. I don’t think God’s lesson is for her this time. I think this is for the other people in her life, like me”. I won’t say that I turned the switch on exactly at that moment, but I will say that I started removing excuses in my life to change my ways in faith.

In my mind, I grew up attending church every week. As I moved out of the home, I knew my beliefs and I wasn’t opposed to church but nothing we tried really felt comfortable. I justified that I was well adjusted in faith because I spent every Sunday as a youth in church. As a result, I realized that believing is one thing but worship and congregation are part of the deal as well. That is super tough for me because I find it uncomfortable but you cannot reach your full potential as a closet Christian.

Consequently, there is no such thing as a perfect denomination. What is more important is getting plugged in and keep an open mind. I don’t 100% agree with everything my church does, but I can’t say that it is wrong on theology. It is more about the approach and my comfort level and what I would prefer. Quite frankly, I think being challenged and uncomfortable is actually healthy in faith.

I hate to admit this but sometimes I wish that I had been the one that got cancer and survived. I wish that I had the ability to appreciate things in the same lens as someone that see’s life as a gift. As much as I can empathize with the family on the support side of the treatment, as of now I cannot have the same level of appreciation as a survivor. Let me be clear, it is not that I want it, I just will not have the same level of understanding.

A few nights ago, we went to a short prayer service for this teen that is starting his journey. It was informal and we really don’t know the prognosis. I don’t want to be the one that blows smoke by sharing my story and potentially provide false hope or sound somewhat gloating as I won the lottery on survival. I am not saying that it would be received that way either. However, I have this forum to say whatever I want to say. Maybe my writing gives someone a kickstart into finding the right course in life too.

End Your Programming Routine: This isn’t the only cancer story that is currently active in my life. It does happen to be the one that I am more hopeful for and the one that fits my story today. I don’t think that we need crisis or tragedy to change our ways. One thing that those situations do very well is galvanize where you stand and can easily push a person to one side or the other. I hope for the best here, I will stay tuned to where my lesson is in the journey.

February 18, 2022 – American Dream Series: Rights

This one could go a little technical or wordy if I am not careful so I will try to keep it approachable. At first glance, we hear all of these words frequently. And in context, they kind of, sort of make sense like we get it. But, I would ask to look a little deeper and what is the definition of a right?

A right is an entitlement that our culture has historically and by majority recognized as something that precedes the existence of government and is used in the creation and execution thereof. That is not to say that opinions or clarifications may not change. Going back to previous civilizations like Rome for example, citizens were male landowners. That carried through into this countries founding as well.

The idea of Human Rights differs slightly and transcends status of citizenship. I may have a right as a citizen to perform some activity that I don’t as a non-citizen (i.e. voting). However, human rights are recognized regardless of legal status.

I think the problem we have today is a misunderstanding of a legal right, a human right and what I want. It is further confused between “the movement” and “the demands” and what filter we are applying. In a larger issue, we have to break it down to smaller components, do the analysis and reassemble all of the results to have a clearer picture of what the analysis means.

I will skip all of the other hot button issues and focus on my current favorite Vaccine mandates. What does this mean? It means than an employer is requiring proof of vaccination to remain employed. OK, then let us break this down using American constructs. Here are some of the subtopics

  1. Is the vaccine harmful?
  2. Is the vaccine helpful?
  3. Is there scientific evidence supporting population health and virus transmission of 100% vaccination rates versus less than 100% versus no vaccination?
  4. Is there legal precedent to force me to consume anything against my will?
  5. Do employers have the right to require vaccinations?
  6. Do businesses have the right to require proof of vaccinations?

In one through three, the data I have seen is definitely inconclusive at best. Number four is generally no and five and six, the answer is yes with caveats. With that, I will skip the first three and talk about the second half.

As citizens, we have the right to our bodies. That is generally what we consume (or not) how much and it is regulated as to where. So, take smoking. When alone at home we can smoke all day if we so choose, In places where smoke can effect others it is accepted to regulate or restrict. It is also the case with children or indigents (who are not considered citizens because they are in the care of someone else legally) that they can be forced to do things against their will.

That brings us to five and six. There is some ‘depends’ in here. Do private business owners have the right to require things beyond the law for employment? The answer is yes, as long as it is universally enforced and agreed in the employment contract. Do businesses have the right to restrict customers? Again, if it is privately owned and universally applied the answer is yes. In my opinion, I do not think the same privilege is allowed to government. Meaning, I do not think it is a right for government to restrict the citizens access, that is a violation of our rights.

Where does my analysis come down to on rights? A “Vaccine Mandate” violates our legal rights when it comes to interaction with government. A “Vaccine Mandate” also violates our rights when it comes to private interactions because I should be able to decide that I don’t want to enforce proof of vaccination. A “Vaccine Mandate” is something that I want, not because there is scientific proof or legal precedent to support a change in the definition of entitlement.

I think that it is also worthy mentioning that rights are considered as things government are prohibited from infringing or principally altering. As with all civil rights debates, it comes down to defining the classes. To Whom does it apply? Would we as Americans agree on the same set of rights as those who live in Dubai? I would doubt that we could agree on a lot of anything. This is why rights are considered changeable, because they are somewhat subjective.

I was going to carry on using examples of gender fluidity and try to make a scientific argument to the contrary, but I think this is enough today. This is the reason that there are whole categories of law dedicated to civil rights. I am not going to do it justice in a blog post nor am I an expert or a lawyer

End Your Programming Routine: Where does this leave us on rights? It seems like we have some. It also seems like the accepted definition is not rigid. I suppose that certain groups may be gaining rights while others are losing them. This is a complicated subject to just do a summary and use some concrete examples. As it pertains to the American Dream, I would assert that our rights still exist for the most part but I would say that we are trending toward new rights for inclusion but losing rights that were traditionally held and it depends on where you sit as to the direction you think it is going.

February 11, 2022 – American Dream Series: Democracy

Using the five ideals of Wikipedia’s definition of the American dream, today I want to go deeper into the first one: Democracy. I think most people have somewhere in the past studied this, but just in case I will hit the highlights again. The concept originated with the Greeks in the 5th century BC. A random group of 500 citizens were enlisted to perform one year of civic duty.

The American form of democracy is a modification of that practice. We don’t randomly select all of our government. We elect a select few to represent us amongst a a group of others that have been elected. This is a ’representative’ form of democracy. In addition, we don’t have one government but a cartel of member states at the federal level.

I am not an expert in this, but I do believe that states have some flexibility in terms of how they are comprised with respect to democracy. In fact, the more local the government the more diverse the composition of size and function and reach. My state essentially mirrors the federal makeup in the three bodies of executive, legislative and judicial branches.

If you go a level down to the county you start to see some differences. For instance, there is no executive position. The legislative and executive functions are combined into on body, the county commission. Yes There are judges but there is also a sheriff. This is a new wrinkle in the power dynamic. Because they are directly elected by the citizens of the county they have assumed more power than perceived higher authority, like state police for example.

Alright, you all can study up on your specific governments. I am going to move on. In order to have the American Dream we need democracy. What does that mean? Well, to me it means that the people have ultimate control of the government. It also means that we can change representatives if we think that they are not performing a job in a way that we approve.

Let us think about this for a minute. A lot of people talk a good game about having the power but I really want to put it into perspective. Unless you are a sociopath, firing people is difficult. It makes a person evaluate themselves and consider the consequences for the other person. I choose to think about what is best for the organization and the individual forcing them to go somewhere where they can thrive rather than underperforming at the current post.

To be honest, most people have never really done the job. They want to talk tough about what they believe and think should happen, but they haven’t actually done the hardest part. That is looking in the eyes and actually doing the work. Electing politicians is a small microcosm of that. They don’t actually have the heart to do the job. Hence, we very rarely elect a new politician over an incumbent. We are highly swayed by party propaganda convincing us that the evil we know is better than the evil we don’t.

To carry this to the extreme, who really believes that politicians are representing our point of view as average citizens? They literally can do things that are illegal for citizens like insider trading and prosecution immunity. Let us assume that my representatives were 100% in lock step with my beliefs, they are still two out of 100 or one out of 435 at the federal level. Even at the state level it is one out of 60 or one out of 30 depending one which side of the congress they are on.

The reality of making meaningful change by me electing a new government is statistically impossible. In the best possible scenario given above, my representative equals slightly over three percent of the total vote. Maybe the American Dream is more about the illusion of control via democracy? Maybe people act differently or more free when they believe that they have more control than they actually have?

I am not going to go into whether there is corruption, I simply don’t have any facts. I will simply say that the money to fund campaigns has got to be tremendous and it doesn’t come without strings attached. Political parties and other donors expect something as a result of their support. At the very least, they can be gatekeepers for who gets to run.

End Your Programming Routine: So where does this leave us? The demented adaptation of democracy from the original vision of the founders still exists. I have always contended that the best environment to perform is a benevolent dictatorship. That leaves a person to operate without interference in conditions where someone else is dealing with the politics. I think that I might argue that democracy is a bit idealistic as a cornerstone of the American Dream. I think I have made the case today that we don’t have much control anyway.

January 24, 2022 – Don’t Be Crabby, It’s a Beautiful Day

I have said before, my favorite kind of fishing is the one that I am doing. My boys were headed out to a campout and we had a free day. My wife wanted to go to the coast and do some crabbing.

There are some people in my family that are pretty ‘coasty’ (including my wife). Both my grandfather and uncle had houses at the beach and looked for any excuse to go, including I remember checking the mail. Me on the other hand, I want a compelling reason but crabbing seems like a good one.

People not familiar with the pacific northwest coastline may be jealous that in less than an hour we can see the ocean. Don’t get me wrong, it can be beautiful. I think where most of the disconnect between perception and reality with me is that it is a hard formula to figure out whether it is going to be nice or miserable at the coast.

One thing I know, if it is hot here where I live, it is often can be cloudy or even rainy at the coast. In the summer time, even when it is sunny the wind blows pretty stiffly to the point that it is 70 degrees and cold (or sand in your face) because of wind chill. I think many of the best days are in the off season. That happened to be Saturday.

The conventional wisdom is that crabbing is best done in months that don’t contain an ‘R’. That means May, June, July and August are out. It is not that you cannot crab, it is more that it is molting season and the meat doesn’t fit the shell and tends to be soft rather than firm.

There is also a best time of day to do it. The best time is slack tide or the time in between incoming and outgoing tide. The incoming tide pushes crabs closer to the shore and the outgoing pulls them out. I will also say, the tides can also move your gear around as well. One time, my family lost all of their pots to a strong tide and could never find them again.

The technique is pretty simple. You attach some bait to the ring, throw the ring in the water and wait. After 15-30 minutes, pull up the ring keeping tension on the rope so the crabs don’t slip out as you are pulling them up. Once the ring is on the dock, you have to check for sex and size. Males, wider than 5 3/4″ are keepers. Crabs should be kept alive until boiled. They should be immediately cooled and cleaned and they should also be kept as close to freezing as possible until eaten. And, they should be eaten within a couple of days if not frozen.

We dilly-dallied our way to the place that we were going to crab. Consequently, we got there at 2pm and they closed the dock at 3pm. It was such a nice day that we did it anyway and we got two keepers in our 45mins of fishing. I would say that this is not always the case. I have been on days where all day yielded two crabs. So, we got lucky but that is fishing.

One last thing about inexperienced crabbing. Sea lions have figured out that the crab traps contain food. They will tear your traps apart and eat your bait and crabs. Traditionally, bait is the remains of filleted rock-fish. Some people use chicken and claim that has less problems. I have even heard of people using road kill as bait as well. But, what I am trying to say is that if you see sea lions, crabbing can be pretty poor. Fortunately, we didn’t have that problem.

End Your Programming Routine: Oregon requires a separate shellfish license to crab. It is good for the calendar year and with that we can also harvest clams as well. This is also something that I have never tried. I see more trips to the beach this year to harvest the bounty of what we have available.