America, Bigotry and Consistency

People are inconsistent.  America is inconsistent.  The United States is inconsistent.

Get over it.

People have a duality of nature.  They want freedom.  They want security.  The battle between these mutually exclusive natures creates conflict and conflict is sometimes violent.

We could drive around in tanks and make the speed limit 5mph and no one inside a vehicle would ever be killed in an automotive accident.  Pedestrians and buildings might suffer though, tanks have a lousy field of view.

Both freedom and security or safety are subjective ideologies based on perspective.

Some people think guns are dangerous.  I don't.  I see guns as being machines.  Machines are as dangerous as the operator who uses them.  Drop a bunch of ball bearings on the ground and then run a lawn mower over them and we have something very dangerous.  Run a lawnmower over a gravel driveway and "blam".

Subjective opinions, and some objective opinions, are capable of being swayed through the use of propaganda.

Was the United States a place where millions fought against slavery or was the United States a place where people were enslaved?

Both actually.  There was slavery in Brazil, Venezuela and Argentina.  These places didn't fight wars against slavery.  Is the United States on higher or lower moral ground?

I don't think the United States is morally superior or morally inferior.

The United States is a democracy that changes as public opinion changes.

When farming in the Americas was primarily large plantations slaves were needed because there was no mechanization and there were no itinerant agricultural workers.  Labor was needed to plant and harvest these large plantations.  Slaves were being sold in Africa.  Labor was needed.  Slaves were purchased and put to work in the Americas.

During the mid 1800's the industrial revolution, family farm and a population large enough to support itinerant agricultural labor developed.  Slavery was no longer an answer, the cost of slaves became an economic problem.  In the United States we fought a war against slavery.  In other American nations slavery withered away economically without the costs of a war.

Most of the people in the United States hated slavery so much they were not willing to allow it to wither away naturally the way it had in other places and the way it did in other American nations.

People in the United States hated slavery so much they fought a war to destroy it.

Was it stupid to fight a war?  Are Blacks in other American nations better off than Blacks in the United States?

(Personally I find the discussion of race to be racist, but, racism exists and if we don't discuss it openly in the light it breeds like mold in the dark)

Slaves, economics and stupidity

This isn't an excuse or justification for slavery.  This is an explanation of how it happened and how we can avoid future problems.

Slavery started in Africa because people started in Africa.  Maybe the Garden of Eden was in the Middle East, but, I think it more likely the Garden of Eden was in Africa.  In any case slavery started where people started.  Slavery has not ended.

The big attraction in the Americas was land that could be used for agriculture to feed the growing populations of Europe.  Yes, cotton and tobacco became important cash crops and I won't argue about the necessity of feeding Europe.  In any case the big draw in the Americas was agricultural land.

There wasn't any machinery.  There were no itinerant pickers.  There was no seasonal labor force.  Lots of land and very few people to work it.

At first the people who wanted to grow a crop tried to use indentured servants.  That didn't work so well.  The indentured servants worked a few years and then went off to get their own land which created an exponential need for people to plant and harvest crops.

It takes a certain kind of risk taking behavior to leave behind everything someone knows and travel to someplace that one knows almost nothing about.  That risk taking behavior is probably hereditary.  There is something passed from parents to children that encourages aggressive, risk taking behavior.  Some kind of predisposition to aggressive, risk taking behavior.

Somewhere along the line someone figured out they could buy slaves in Africa and sell them in the United States.  Slavery had been going on in Africa a long time.  The people in Africa were used to the ideology of slavery.  People became slaves, if they didn't like it they ran away and found their way home.  Native Americans or Indians had similar systems of slavery.  The advantage of African slaves was that they had no where to run to.

There is another issue too.  Just as aggressive, risk taking behavior is probably hereditary submissive behavior is probably hereditary.  The aggressive risk takers in the African populations were killed off.


So how do we avoid the mistakes of the past in the future?

Pretty simple, we do not take away the civil rights of people just because there is some perceived benefit.

Any attack on the civil rights of a people, any removal of civil rights from a people creates a slippery slope which can only lead to oppression.

We justify treating people badly,we justify stratification of society, we justify oppression.

There are billions of reasons to justify the oppression of people and I can argue them all.  I can argue against homosexuality dozens of ways.  I can argue racism and ethnocentrism.  I can argue against allowing people whose intelligence is insufficient to vote.  I can argue for almost anything I find repugnant.

There is only one reason I can use to argue against oppression or discrimination.  It's wrong.  Oppression, the violation of a person's civil rights, is wrong.

It's wrong when Anonymous does it.  It is wrong when Jullian Assange does it.  It is wrong when Andrew Jackson did it.  It is wrong when Joe Biden does it.  It is wrong when I do it.

Violating people's civil rights is just wrong and stupid.

Biden the moron

Biden is wacked.

What the government is moving toward is the subjective elimination of the Right to Keep and Bare Arms using whatever popular social stratification stereotypes people want to use.

When the right to vote was problematic the Democrats created Jim Crow laws, grand father clauses and other ways to prevent undesirables from voting.  Joe "Bring back Jim Crow" Biden is looking to create a process where subjective opinions about people by "authorities" can be used to take away a persons constitutional rights.

The due process clause will be honored, the same way it was for Jim Crow laws, be allowing the person to challenge the stripping of their civil rights.  It just takes money and a lawyer willing to buck the system.

Think about it for a minute.  Homosexuality used to be classified as a mental illness, when homosexuals were social pariahs.  What group is the social pariah of the future?  What groups are unpopular with liberal demophytes today?

Will your life style or your attitude be considered a mental illness?

I once had a social worker tell me how violent and inappropriate football was.  Will people who engage in and enjoy watching violent and inappropriate sporting events become mentally ill?

Suppose someone is caught at an underground fight, either as a competitor or a spectator?  Will that person be judged "mentally ill" or "potentially violent"?

A persons civil rights should never be taken away with out due process.  In fact, I believe that no persons rights should be taken away without a trial by jury.

Something else Biden is doing is working to create a new deadly black market to replace the black market in recreational drugs.  Making stuff illegal always creates an uncontrolled black market.  When alcohol was legalized drugs were made illegal so there could be a big' violent and lucrative black market.  Now that people are beginning to recognize that we should legalize recreational drugs Biden and the rest of the scum bags in government need to conspire with bad guys to create a new popular black market.  That very deadly and very lucrative black market will be in guns.  I'm sure Biden and Obama and others will make a ton of money from that black market and the deaths the market causes.

Society will always be stratified.  It doesn't have to be, but, people are always looking to pretend they are themselves better than others.  Groups work to oppress each other in constant competition to become the "alpha" group.  It is pretty sick, but, that is society.  We don't have to like it.  We can work to change it (not by pretending we have the right to judge others the way Anonymous and Biden want to) by accepting others for who they are.  We also have to accept the current reality.

The reality is that scumbags like Joe Biden and Anonymous and Al Queda are not going to accept people for who they are.  The inability to work with others and accept others for who they are is exactly what causes most of the social problems in the world.  It isn't just being unable to accept others though, it is a fanaticism and self righteous arrogance to believe that they have some natural authority to ignore the rights of others and shove their ideology down the throats of those people.

Subjective elimination of civil rights, invasion of privacy, illegal search and seizure, ridicule and the spreading of inaccurate and derogatory propaganda about the people that "should" be oppressed.

Open dialogue is important.  A willingness to listen is important.  A willingness to accept is important.

A desire to "fight" and "dominate" is not only NOT required it is the source of all problems in the world.

Logic and facts and ignorance

So I am taking a logic class this term and as usual I am already annoyed with what people think of as "facts".

In the course reading the instructor makes a statement, "On the other hand, a fact is something that we do take to be objectively true (e.g., it’s a fact that the earth revolves around the
sun, not the other way around)."

The problem is this is a relative fact, not an absolute fact.

Huh?

Lets back up a little.  Suppose we have three people standing on the same line of longitude on the surface of the Earth.  One is standing on the North Pole at the point at which all lines of longitude start.  One is standing on the Equator.  One is standing on the 45th Parallel of latitude.  All of these people are standing as perfectly still as a person can possibly stand.  Which one is moving fastest?

The one on the equator is moving at about one thousand miles per hour.  The one on the 45th parallel is moving at about 750mph.  The one on the North Pole is moving at zero.  All of these conditions are relative to a point at the center of the Earth.

If we examine the motion of these three people from the relative perspective of the surface of the Earth or relative to each other the three men are motionless.  If we examine the three people from the relative perspective of the center of the Earth as the Earth rotates the position of a person on the surface of the globe defines the speed of their relative motion and we can say that the person on the Equator is moving the fastest.

But wait, suppose we examine the three people from a perspective of the center point of the Sun.  Which one is moving fastest?  In that case we have to know the relative position of the line of longitude upon which our three people are standing to the sun.  As the Earth rotates and moves around the Sun sometimes the person on the equator is moving faster and sometimes the person on the North Pole is moving faster because the velocity relative to the center point of the Sun is relative to the rotation of the Earth.  For part of the day the Earth's rotation is moving in the same direction as the Earth moves around the sun and we can add the rotational velocity of the Earth to the orbital velocity of the Earth.  For part of the day the Earths rotation is opposite the orbital direction and we must subtract the rotational velocity from the orbital velocity.

Everybody get that?  So we know that even standing very still motion is relative based on the observers perspective.

It actually gets very kewl here.  Einstein used the example of a train in motion.  If the observer is standing on the ground outside the train, relative to the observer the train is in motion.  If the observer is inside the train, relative to the observer the ground is in motion.

WTF?  The ground in motion?

Yes, because motion is relative to a reference point and in this case we are using the observer as the reference point just as we have used the surface of the Earth, the center of the Earth and the center of the Sun as reference points.

Motion is defined based on a reference point.  If there is no reference point there is no motion.

Now let us look at the statement "it’s a fact that the earth revolves around the sun, not the other way around"

Is this true?  No.  This is only true if we accept the sun as the reference point for the motion of the Earth.  Suppose we accept the location of an observer on the surface of the Earth as the reference point.  Is the statement still true?  The answer is NO.

And here we have the crux of the problem, it is a lot like 2+2=10.

Traditionally we assume that an equation is in the base ten system unless there is a notation that the equation is in a different base system.  However, some people can look at the equation 2+2=10 and say, "oh, we are in a base 4 system" while others will say "the equation is wrong".  Both would be correct since we have a rule of assumption in mathematics which tells us that unless otherwise noted all equations are in base 10.

In real life we don't always have the advantage of these assumptive rules.  Real problems in life don't obey assumptive rules concerning relative truths.

Unless we know that motion is defined relative to the center point of the Sun we can't say that the Earth revolves around the sun.  Unless we know that the equation is defined relative to the base 10 number system we can't say what 2+2 equals.

Without defining the relativity of the problem we are ignorant and can only make assumptions about relativity and guesses based on the assumptions.

Take the recent hoopla about making guns illegal or further increasing restrictive laws on firearms or however you want to define the Sandy Hook firearms hoopla.

The assumption is that guns are different than recreational drugs or alcohol or prostitution so the violence that develops when an unregulated black market is expanded after legislation restricting a market is passed.

In other words people assume that legislating guns won't create the same violent black market that legislating recreational drugs, alcohol, prostitution or etc did.

What is the relative reference point for that assumption?

Ignorance.

Try telling someone that they are ignorant, especially a professor at a University.

My wife used to get really angry with me when I would say "I'm ignorant.  I don't have enough information to have an opinion."  She believed that refusing to have an opinion before educating myself on a subject was a cop out.  Lots of people do.  Like my wife, many people will demand that someone formulate an uneducated opinion and then hold them to it.  Reporters are especially good at demanding opinions from bureaucrats or politicians without any regard for the persons education on a subject.

So here I am, once again, learning about logic from someone who doesn't know a fact from an opinion.  My professor doesn't understand the relativity of statements like "The Sun revolves around the Earth".  This professor is ignorant of the relative truth of statements like these.  Is that a problem?  Not usually because the vast majority of people are just going to accept the premise that the relative motion of the Earth MUST be defined from the center point of the Sun.

"Drink the koolaid".  I hate that slang.  It took me a while to track down the origin.  It is based on Jim Jones telling his followers to drink poisoned koolaid because it was good for them and so they drank it.  The big problem is, most people who use that statement are too stupid to know that they are "drinking koolaid" all the time.

My professor "drank the koolaid" regarding the relative motion of the Earth to the Sun, ie the assumption that the motion of the Earth always has to be defined relative to the center point of the Sun.  Is that a "true" assumption?  Not at all.  Like the equation 2+2 we can usually "drink the koolaid" and assume a base 10 system and we will be correct most of the time.  Should we?  Should we always assume a "universal truth"?  Isn't that "drinking the koolaid"?

I'll learn in this class.  I can learn from anyone.  I just need to control my vomit impulse.

"hackers", anonymous and fascism

Anyone who has read my blogs knows I can't stand the fascist censorship groups like Anonymous engage in when they attack people whose views they disagree with.  It is just plain wrong.

I'm not perfect though, I do stupid crap too and I really have to applaud these guys for releasing the video of the dork bragging at a party about raping a girl.  Viscerally I don't give a rats ass if these rapists get a fair trial or not.


Hackers prove accused guilty and rapists won't get a fair trail?

I've been attacked by scum bags calling themselves hackers, had my identity stolen, my website trashed, been lied about, etc, all because I present viewpoints that these scumbag "hacker" fascists want to censor.  I have very little use for fascist censors spending their miserable lives hating other people.

However, this time it isn't censorship.  This time it isn't attacking someone whose political, social or economic viewpoints they don't agree with.

This time it is just posting a video one scum bag took of another scum bag bragging about raping a girl.

These guys are guilty, the video proved it.

It is an invasion of privacy.  The evidence can't be used in a court of law.  I am not saying that I believe what this group of fascists did was right.  In fact I think that what these fascist "hackers" did was wrong.

Being human, like being Christian, is not about being perfect.  People do "wrong" things and from an intellectual perspective I know that what these fascist "hackers" did is wrong.

I really don't give a rats ass if they have to take these scum bags to Outer Mongolia and have a trial in a yurt or the darkest Amazonian jungle where the natives don't have their own written language much less access to the Internet.

I'm still glad anonymous released the video and this time I have to applaud their fascist invasion of privacy.

One of the basic premises of a free society is that everyone has the right to privacy and no one has the right to break into someone's "home" and then search and seize whatever they want.  The fourth amendment of the U.S. Constitution provides for an open and lawful process for the issuance of warrants for search and seizure.  Jack booted thugs kicking in doors, searching and seizing is not only illegal it is a fundamental violation of human rights that I find repugnant.

Even so, as much as I hate fascism, I'm glad these jack booted "hacker" thugs committed this particular violation of fundamental civil and human rights.