Essays
What is liberty?
What is liberty? It seems to me that at this time the fundamental ideas that birthed the United States is not known or being outright ignored. For me, at it’s core liberty is the right to control what happens to me. The Bill of Rights enumerates certain rights that allow me to speak and practice religion without personal consequences like being put in jail.
The Bill of Rights protects me from the government, but it does not give me the right to harm others or take away the rights of others because I disagree, even if the practice of those rights conflicts with my beliefs. The first amendment does NOT give a Christian the right to enforce their beliefs on a Jew, Muslim, Buddhist, or atheist. (I do not see how one can make the argument of life beginning at conception without using religious belief.)
The ninth amendment of the Bill of Rights clearly states that it is not the intent of the Constitution to enumerate all rights of citizens, in fact it says if the right is not enumerated it is retained by the citizens.
I thought that the ninth amendment and the inalienable, natural, rights declared in the Declaration of Independence were core beliefs of conservatives, but I guess that is not true for that which they do not like.
The Dobbs decision puts men and women at risk. Not only by what Clarence Thomas wrote but also because of the fact that it seems to go out of its way to say there is no right to control what happens to your body. Don’t like vaccines? To bad, that don’t matter that vaccine is for the greater good. Yes you have to wear that mask. Need welfare? Not going to give it to you until you get that vasectomy because we can’t afford paying for more kids.
If we truly held to what liberty means and fully agreed to equal protection under the law, we shouldn’t need to have an amendment that gives all citizens the right to choose what happens to and inside their body. It is the amendment we now need it seems and something that everyone should be able to support.
Does liberty truly exist in the United States? Is it really the land of the free? Unfortunately it appears that until this is enumerated in the Constitution certain Supreme Court justices and politicians will not abide nor defend that for which we stand.
Setting Up A New iPad
I’ve received my new iPad Mini 6 and I am working through setting it up. I opted to transfer apps, settings and data directly from the iPad Mini 5. First hoop I had to jump is getting through the update to iPadOS 15.4.1, which took several minutes to download and update.
Next thing I notice is that all of widgets on the home screen are all blank white boxes with no obvious fix. First I restarted the iPad, but that didn’t fix the problem. I then realized that while I see all the app icons, the apps are not installed so I need to start up each of the apps associated with the widgets.
I basically have to reinstall every app I use which is a really painful process that I cannot believe Apple foists upon users. And the process is made worse by the spotty nature of the App Store that right now is refusing to install apps.
So, it is going to probably take several days for me to get this Mini fully up to speed.
Profiting From Addiction
I’ve read Jonathan Haidt’s essay, Why the Past 10 Years of American Life Have Been Uniquely Stupid. I can summarize Haidt by saying the algorithms in social media are destroying our democratic society. We have devolved in to the very things that James Madison feared when writing the Constitution.
While Haidt makes many good points I don’t think he gets to the root cause, which I think is our acceptance that it is ok for corporations to make money from addiction.
In the United States we want to put all the blame of one’s problem on themselves. Thus, the only problem with addiction is the addict and the consequences they bring upon themselves. Too many industries like technology, food, service/fast food, alcohol, health, and pharamceutical all profit from addiction. You should note the fundamental nature of these industries.
Even after lawsuits and public trials against the tobacco industry that exposed it knew nicotine is addictive and knew it causes cancer and yet still made money off of selling cigarettes, we give every industry with a business model that uses addiction to maximize profit and wealth a free pass. In the United States it is ok for someone to make a buck off the death of another, and somehow there are even “leaders” in this country who consider themselves pro-life.
In the beginning Facebook and Twitter did not make money, it wasn’t until they introduced algorithms to force content in front of users that they began making money. Research is showing the algorithms are optimized for addiction. And still I think you will find many people in the United States point the finger at people who use these networks as solely to blame and unwilling to restrict Facebook or Twitter from making money because we believe nobody should be restricted from making money.
The United States was founded upon the basic concept of freedom, and frankly that concept is no longer the prime directive of the United States. Today the United States is entirely driven by capitalism and the prime directive is to make a few people very rich, and a few rich people don’t need nor really want democracy, they just want the citiizens to be free to spend more and more money on their products.
Everybody knows money is the problem, but like an addict that just can’t do what is in their best interests, nobody is going to do anything about it. Sadly, like most addicts we know, I don’t think our country will seriously address our problems until we hit rock bottom, and I fear for what such a bottom will look like for a country that has accepted children being killed in schools and people in power acting to overthrow the government.
Javy Being Javy
I am enjoying watching Detroit sports learn how great a player Javier Baez is, as a Cubs fan I appreciate his unique talent and was disappointed the Cubs didn’t sign him.
I remember a time when shortstops were considered the worst batter in the lineup and that didn’t matter because shortstops were considered the best athlete and most important defensive player on the team. Ozzie Smith didn’t make is his mark at the plate, he was known as the Wizard because of his defense. I always felt too much attention is paid to Baez’s inconsistency at the plate and not enough value placed on his defense, which I think is worth enough to absorb his bat.
Baez was not the problem in the Cubs lineup, the problem was that everyone else in the lineup was not much better. Put Baez in a lineup with other players who make contact and get on base and you can live with his strikeouts, and revel in his ability in the big moments. I think in some ways Baez is like Brett Farve, high risk and high reward. The defense, and in particular Reggie White, made Farve who he was for the Packers because it could overcome his interceptions. Put Farve on the Detroit Lions and he is not a hall of fame player.
I am happy that even though Javier is no longer playing for the Cubs, he is playing for a team in my area that is on TV every day. Baez is the type of player you tune in just to watch, regardless of your interest in the team, much like Cabrera was in his prime. Tiger fans need to remember the incredible plays that he has already made in four games when he strikes out in that crticial moment in July because it will happen and he will still be worth every bit of money he is paid.
On War
War should not be watched or consumed as entertainment. One ought to consider how it is that one or a few people can make the decision to start a war with seemingly little to no regard for loss of human life and the suffering it causes. I think at the heart of it is the sin of supremacy that convinces that the other’s life is not valuable nor legitimate.
Even in democracies, as we know all too well in the United States, one man or woman has the power to wage war. We have decided that expediency is so important we must empower one human to such power, a power that frankly we should never allow to just one human.
The power to wage war and it’s consequences is why character matters so much when deciding which human should be elected President of the United States. Anyone who treats the power to wage war as a political tool should never be allowed to hold the office.
Forming A More Perfect Union
In the United States, democracy is less about the form of government and more about an aspiration. The idea of true equality of all people, regardless of race, gender, ethnicity, religion, or sexual orientation was simply not comprehensible to the U.S. founders or their contemporaries. Interestingly, I think James Madison recognized the imperfections of the United States when he wrote these words in the preamble to the U.S. Constitution.
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
To me a “more perfect union” is not a declaration of an end state but rather a recognition that we can continue to become better. In other words, Madison expected the United States in 2022 to be more perfect than the United States in 1780 because the Constitution provides the framework for that improvement. It does this by providing for amendments that improve upon the original work.
Liberty Needs Equality
In my opinion too many U.S. citizens do not have an understanding of the country’s foundational documents, particularly the Declaration of Independence. For most the Declaration and Constitution boil down to one word, liberty. Indeed, the Declaration layed out the case for why the colonies were declaring their freedom (independence) from England. However, to me the most important part of the Declaration is the statement of why we had the right to declare our freedom and create our own government: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal…”
We can do this, we said, because we are created the same as you, King George. Citizens of the United States consider liberty precious, but true liberty is built upon our equality, and true equality is something not yet fully attained in the United States. The extent of which we fight equality, we put the liberty of one group of citizens over the liberty of other citizens. Liberty does not co-exist within supremacy.
On The Death Of Desmond Tutu
I am only aware of one country in the world that took conscious steps to address the cancer of supremacy, that country is South Africa. It’s path toward the task of overcoming supremacy was long and likely incomplete but would probably not have been taken up at all if not for Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu.
News of Tutu’s death makes me wonder how he saw the United States. Tutu had the wisdom to know that the antidote to supremacy is oneness, ubuntu. Supremacy cannot be shunned as it will simply continue lurking in the shadows. The only way to eliminate contempt is to see everyone as a part of me I do not yet know.
I feel as though the entire United States needs to be in a 12 step program. We cannot begin to overcome that which we don’t even acknowledge. We hide our addiction with our liberties. The amount of death that we have grown to accept, the amount of senseless loss of life we tolerate are not signs of a great nation or society.
The United States is leading the world into a third year of a pandemic that will continue to take more lives unnecessarily, and United States continues to lead the world in gun violence. All we are doing is managing to get by for just one more day. Apparently we have not yet hit bottom even after children are gun down in schools.
South Africa did not start to overcome the addiction of supremacy known as apartheid until it consciously did something about it. Any expert on addiction will tell you that no person can be made to overcome their addiction, the addict must decide for themselves they want to live. We, the citizens of the United States of America need to decide whether this republic handed down to us is something we want to keep, and that takes all of us to take a long look at ourselves and see us as we are rather than as how we keep telling ourselves.
Micro.blog Bookshelves Issue
Update: The issue below has been resolved.
Today I tried to move a book listed in micro.blog bookshelves that I was currently reading to finished, but when I clicked “Move To Finished” the book was removed from the currently reading list and not added to finished. I do notice that the book title still appears in the rendered version of the reading list on my blog. I then tried to manually add the book to Finished and it doesn’t appear. I also tried re-adding to Current Reading and it is not adding their either. Something appears to fundamentally not be working for the moment. Reported to help@micro.blog.
Live With Or Remove Corruption?
While I am sympathetic to Dave Winer’s critique of journalism in the United States, I am skeptical that his recommended improvements will make a difference. In my opinion the root cause problem of journalism is that it is beholden to the doctrine of capitalism. Everyone, regardless of party affiliation, believes that the prime objective of journalism in the United States is to make money and will bias what they publish towards that goal. Consider why it is that the titles for newspaper articles are usually not created by the person who wrote the article. Until the root cause is addressed I don’t see how there will be improvements.
The sad fact is, everyone is well aware of how money has corrupted every part of our lives. Our skepticism toward industry such as medical and media, and our skepticism of politicians is all rooted in our awareness of this corruption. We are at a danger level now because people have very little trust in anyone not themselves, and yet our society requires the ability to trust.