Youth. So wasted on the young. Some young people may have great natural intelligence that God, nature, luck, or whatever you chose to call it, provides them with. But for most of those all that intelligence is not going to help much until some wisdom is added to go with it. Wisdom comes usually from experience, but if you bother to learn from those who have lived and learned from experience your ride through life can be a lot smoother. Obvious. E.g., if you are approaching the road you want to turn onto at a high speed that will not allow a safe turn, perhaps you should not try to make the turn and instead go to the next intersection to circle back rather than slamming into the turn so fast that you end up hitting the car stopped waiting to turn onto the road you were on, or perhaps even better you should have gone with driving at a safe speed to begin with like parents and / or the driving instructor told you. At least I presume that someone told the distraught but seemingly intelligent young girl who hit us in that situation about safe driving habits. Let us begin.
A brilliant and wonderful young person, who sometimes challenges my way of thinking, or occasionally frustrates, with thoughts that express interesting mental pathways, brought up an idea a few days ago that made me consider the idea of the sound bite as perhaps a hidden evil. He said words to the effect that "those who want to go back to the way things were do not remember how bad they were". This was not the first time I have heard this sound bite, and I finally realized why I had not liked the idea when I heard it before. There was no time to discuss, but if there had been I would have agreed with the obvious part of this but noted that such sound bites carry with them unstated falsehoods. Examine by example: Yes, it is better to have regulations and laws preventing lead in paint used on houses and gasoline, due to health impacts. Or advances that allow us to drive safer cars. Or to not let anyone starve/be homeless/be without medical care even if they are not able to or do not choose to work. However, not all regulations and laws are good, and there needs to be control over those who make them, since they are neither smart enough nor wise enough to speak for us all, to not overstep their bounds. To not allow their sometimes overindulgent concepts of economic / social justice is important, if we are not to go into a permanent economic crisis and loss of fundamental freedoms. It is critical to have limits in how far those rules go, and in what can be a rule. For example, there is ample evidence that breathing mercury fumes is bad for people. So why do we allow rules that practically dictate the use of mercury containing light bulbs to combat global warming which may or may not be a serious problem? And why do we allow rules for improving gas mileage that drive the cost of cars up instead of letting the industry do this through competition, which might take longer but has the advantage of allowing those who chose to drive the over sized gas hogs the right to drive a safer vehicle at the cost of paying for more gas? Should those on welfare who chose not to work be paid more for having kids, or allowed to vote for greater and greater benefits for themselves thus increasing the enslavement of the working class?
We can see that some rules are good, some are bad. Unfortunately the bad ones are not dealt with by being deleted, and even the good ones do not have changes made to remove or modify the bad aspects that they have (the Americans with Disabilities Act, allowing scum lawyers a field day suing small business, for example). To combat the wrong, what we need to do is go back to the way things were for our foundations. Yes, here is where the sound bite bites the dust. We need to use the foundations of this great country to prevent regulations and laws that should not be allowed from hurting the American people worse than they have been already. We need to use the Constitutional guarantees and definition of the proper functions of government to limit what that government can do to us. What about those rules I used as examples before? I started with accepting restrictions on the use of lead. Pure competition allows the use of lead since it was probably cheaper, thus conferring a competitive advantage. But the cost to the citizens was high, in terms of medical problems, a cost that the paint and gasoline makers shifted to the people instead of bearing themselves. So it was right to have the federal government step in to reduce the harm based on the interstate nature of the problem. The rules for safer cars impact not only those who drive the cars who were often not informed of the problem a car had with safety before being purchased (and so were uninformed and unprotected from the car makers), but also those nearby who benefit by not being involved if an unsafe car goes out of control. And providing some support for the needs for those who chose not to work, while not a guarantee in the Constitution, is the right thing to do, as long as the amount provided does not become excessive.
The regulation of light bulbs and gas mileage, however, present no such case of third party loss. Given that there is no proven impact that either energy use for lighting or gas consumption in cars presents an overriding impact on the world or third parties (sorry, but the whole global warming issue, especially mankind's role in it if it is happening, remains a theory without solid foundation. I suggest looking up the problems that lack of critical knowledge about some aspects of how weather works that had to be guessed at in the models used to show future warming have as a start) there is no valid excuse to force high prices and loss of choice through government rules mandating certain light bulbs and high gas mileage. The thorny issue about support for the poor has me thinking. Perhaps in addition to not paying for children, there should be a limit to how long a person who does not have physical disabilities should be able to receive welfare? This would solve two problems. First, the cost of government for entitlement programs would drop, second, the illegal problem would take a hit since the unskilled citizens would be taking those jobs. Genius, and wise. Who would have guessed?
Another aspect of how things have changed for the worse is the "de-niceification" of our society. Manners mostly gone, both on and off the road. The loss of honesty and respect when dealing with people. The attitude of taking being better than working together. All these traits helped make the US, and the West in general strong, and their loss in today's world makes us all weak. Perhaps I will consider why this self imposed collapse of our society is occurring in a future post, but for now, I wish you all well.
Friday, April 20, 2012
Sunday, April 15, 2012
Rights and Responsibilities. Another Greg view. Both are important and it is obvious, since without responsibilities rights become meaningless, that responsibilities need to be considered more pressing than rights. But we, at least in the West, go about this backwards, screaming for rights but ignoring the responsibilities. Many think they have a right to take from others, to take what those who work earn even though they have no interest in working. They claim to have no responsibility to produce anything of value to earn their home and food. This is wrong. When you are legally allowed to steal from others, those others are in a state of slavery, and as we all know that is wrong. OK, calm down! I am not talking about those who are so aged, or infirm, or chronically ill, or who have conditions such that they cannot work. For those, society should provide enough comfort to live, with a few basic enjoyments to make life at least somewhat pleasurable. But those who choose to not work should not be given lifelong handouts from other people's goods. I include in these those who choose to do drugs, including abusing alcohol, those who choose to play the "entitlement" game known as welfare, those who choose to go from job to job only working long enough for unemployment. Note that those who are caught between jobs, meaning that they are without work for a while through no fault of their own, are not included in this list of those who should not be helped by the government.
Other rights that should not really exist without a strong dose of responsibility include privacy. Hold on, keep the indignation in check for a moment and let me bound this. Privacy in the home should be absolute as long as there are no people involved who are either to young or not mature enough to not avoid being involved, and as long as anyone is not coerced or forced into participating, and as long as no illegal acts are being planned or committed against parties outside of the home. OK, so we have: age of consent, no disabling handicap, ability to option out, and nothing that will take away the rights of someone else. Fair enough? Let us define home not only where you live, but also in legal temporary living arrangements and where privacy should be expected (hotels, staying with friends, public restrooms). Where you should have no expectation of privacy is pretty much everyplace else. In your car? No way. You have a responsibility to drive safely, you do not have a right to privacy as you zip through that red light endangering those whose turn it is to move. So if there is a traffic camera there, the state should have the right to get a picture of your smiling face as you force better drivers to slam on their brakes, instead of just taking a picture of your license plate. Why I care about this? Because of how many times I see people go through red, and hearing about how in jurisdictions' with red light cameras the registered owner can send a signed letter to the police stating that they were not driving to avoid the fine. Ridiculous! Have read where some brag about lying to avoid paying. Either allow picture ID to prove who was driving, or the owner pays the fine and he/she can take it up with the real driver about how the cost is to be made up.
Having kids? Sorry but no. Violent criminals, sexual predators, those who are insane who killed kids, drug addicts, those who have shown that they are incapable of raising a child without criminal neglect, and those who collect welfare should not have kids. For the criminals in this group, the ban should be permanent. For the others, for as long as the condition lasts. The reason is simple: If we are to believe in evolution, than we must believe that traits are passed through the generations. Not saying that a child will always carry on the parent's violent or lazy ways but why would you want to have a child at risk in a violent offender's home, and why would you want to risk that the trait is passed down so violence can be continued through the years? Still not convinced? Why do we, as a society, need to keep producing damaged kids when there are so many people around to continue populating the earth who do not have these negative traits and will not inflict negative upbringing on children, adding the environmental component for future troubles to the genetic component from the parents? Of course the welfare case deserves special mention, and the reason is simple: If you cannot take care of yourself without leeching off the work of others, why should you be allowed to produce offspring who you have an almost impossible chance of bringing up to be a good much less productive citizens? Get your stuff together, go back to school, this time with the intent to learn something useful instead of wasting the taxes spent on providing public schooling, and get and keep a job. Or if you can't learn, get out into the real world and take an illegal immigrants job picking produce so you can contribute something to the nation who has so unwisely offered you a free ride using other people's labor.
So, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are what we have as rights, with the important understanding that our enjoyment of these rights stop where those same rigths are being enjoyed by others.
Other rights that should not really exist without a strong dose of responsibility include privacy. Hold on, keep the indignation in check for a moment and let me bound this. Privacy in the home should be absolute as long as there are no people involved who are either to young or not mature enough to not avoid being involved, and as long as anyone is not coerced or forced into participating, and as long as no illegal acts are being planned or committed against parties outside of the home. OK, so we have: age of consent, no disabling handicap, ability to option out, and nothing that will take away the rights of someone else. Fair enough? Let us define home not only where you live, but also in legal temporary living arrangements and where privacy should be expected (hotels, staying with friends, public restrooms). Where you should have no expectation of privacy is pretty much everyplace else. In your car? No way. You have a responsibility to drive safely, you do not have a right to privacy as you zip through that red light endangering those whose turn it is to move. So if there is a traffic camera there, the state should have the right to get a picture of your smiling face as you force better drivers to slam on their brakes, instead of just taking a picture of your license plate. Why I care about this? Because of how many times I see people go through red, and hearing about how in jurisdictions' with red light cameras the registered owner can send a signed letter to the police stating that they were not driving to avoid the fine. Ridiculous! Have read where some brag about lying to avoid paying. Either allow picture ID to prove who was driving, or the owner pays the fine and he/she can take it up with the real driver about how the cost is to be made up.
Having kids? Sorry but no. Violent criminals, sexual predators, those who are insane who killed kids, drug addicts, those who have shown that they are incapable of raising a child without criminal neglect, and those who collect welfare should not have kids. For the criminals in this group, the ban should be permanent. For the others, for as long as the condition lasts. The reason is simple: If we are to believe in evolution, than we must believe that traits are passed through the generations. Not saying that a child will always carry on the parent's violent or lazy ways but why would you want to have a child at risk in a violent offender's home, and why would you want to risk that the trait is passed down so violence can be continued through the years? Still not convinced? Why do we, as a society, need to keep producing damaged kids when there are so many people around to continue populating the earth who do not have these negative traits and will not inflict negative upbringing on children, adding the environmental component for future troubles to the genetic component from the parents? Of course the welfare case deserves special mention, and the reason is simple: If you cannot take care of yourself without leeching off the work of others, why should you be allowed to produce offspring who you have an almost impossible chance of bringing up to be a good much less productive citizens? Get your stuff together, go back to school, this time with the intent to learn something useful instead of wasting the taxes spent on providing public schooling, and get and keep a job. Or if you can't learn, get out into the real world and take an illegal immigrants job picking produce so you can contribute something to the nation who has so unwisely offered you a free ride using other people's labor.
So, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are what we have as rights, with the important understanding that our enjoyment of these rights stop where those same rigths are being enjoyed by others.
Monday, April 9, 2012
Family history and change, continued. So it is now after WW II. Dad spends a year recovering in the hospital, then I think does some uranium prospecting for a time, then back in the Service but this time in the newly created Air Force as a anti-black marketeer in Germany. My cousin Georg told me that he was known to the underworld there as The Black Devil, and he would have been a formidable man to be interrogated by. Six foot one, very broad shoulders, again with a powerful build after having recovered from the horrible treatment as a POW. His expression when angry was fierce, and that was all that it took to bring us kids in line, and I can imagine that a criminal would cringe when my Dad would enter the interrogation room and give him The Look. Apparently he had great success. He was a Technical Seargent during some part of this time, and we have the picture of him with his usual "tough" face that most of his pictures have in uniform.
Mom heads to Germany, leaving Vienna, Austria and the sister that walked there with her. She ends up working as a waitress at the Officer's Club at Rhein Main Air Base, where at some point she has impressed the management so much that they select her to be General Eisenhower's waitress when he visits. She too has to recover from years of having less food than needed for good health, and sadly has started smoking cigarettes, which was common during the war. More importantly for these ramblings, which to date it appears that no one but me has read, that is where they meet and fall in love. Sadly, like so many other things, my parents never told us much about this time of their lives. Of course it could be, sometimes like my kids today, that I appeared to busy, or brusque, to them and they decided to not waste their time telling tales of their past to someone who would not appreciate it, and if this is the case I apologize to you Mom and Dad, from the deepest part of my soul, for at all hurting you if I did. Please know that now, with more wisdom in me after over 50 years, I would cherish knowing those things that I feel you may have wanted to share. But we do not know the future when we are still in the past, do not know what we give up in our youth what would be treasure in our later years.
So the tidbits I know are few. Frankfurt was a big city even then, and as Germany rebuilt after the war it was busy. My Mom lived in a small apartment in the house of a nice couple, whose name I fail to remember but believe was Misfeld. But they had a dog, a german shepherd who they told me a little about. Anka. Or, as I thought of the dog growing up, Anka the Anka Dog. Typical of his breed, he was smart, loved "his people" which came to include Mom and Dad, and inspired them years later to get our own German Shepherd for Christmas when I was 11, which has led to my lifelong love of that breed. Story time. Once Dad picked up Mom for a date, bringing a whole or a half roasted chicken over. (Or perhaps they went out, got the chicken, and went out again.) The chicken was left in Mom's room. The doors had lever handles, and Anka had learned how to open them. After they left, and feeling like having a snack, he went into Mom's room, took the chicken, and hopped up on her bed to devour it. Which is where he was when they came home. Of course they could not stay angry at the wonderful dog, and Mom told me that story with a smile.
Over the years, Dad mentioned a few of the qualities that led him to pick Mom. One, he knew she would be a great Mom because she was strong, and she was a nurse which was a good skill to have if you have kids, and she was smart. She also knew how to react in a possible dangerous situations, or she would not have survived the war. If we misbehaved, or rather when we misbehaved, and did not show her the proper respect, he would calmly note that he had chosen us a wonderful mother who loved us and we had better start treating her right. That always solved whatever little dilemma we were having with obeying the rules.
At some point Mom was able to emigrate to Canada, wanting to start a new life. She moved to Montreal, and worked for a very wealthy couple as the maid. It was a nice time for her, with enough food for the first time in years. The people were nice, and being rich had the obligatory Montreal Canadians season tickets. But they were not true fans and so did not go to many games, except during the playoffs which occurred frequently for that storied team, letting Mom use the tickets instead. Thus her being a lifelong fan, and thus me being a lifelong fan as well. Dad of course was in the Service, and so they were parted. But they both knew they wanted to make their life with the other, and so made the long distance relationship work. Dad eventually decided to pop the question, but in his own way.
One day Mom gets a phone call, and hears something to the effect of "Be ready in two weeks. I'm coming over there and we are getting married." And that was that. Dad borrowed $500 from one of his fellow officers (I saw the promissory note, all properly signed including the repayment) and arrived as spoken. Canadian law is, or at least was, very smart when it came to marriages. Before getting married you were required to have a contract, which I'm sure stopped a lot of pure emotion no-thought people from getting hitched only to have reality smack them apart a while later. Among other requirements you were supposed to provide a home and furniture. That document is in the family papers and holding it makes me wonder about how my parents were in those days. I imagine the strong formidable man, and the smaller 5'2" or 5'4" medium built blue eyed brown blond haired woman next to him, with their language and cultural differences overrun by the incredible love that they shared. Both shared great strength, of character, commitment, determination. Both had seen evil in the world, had stood up to it, and been forged by those experiences into tougher people. So when they went to the Catholic priest and he told them that they would need a six week course on being married before he would marry them in the Church they explained that they knew a thing or two about life and that this relationship was not a spur of the moment thing and that they had less then two weeks until Dad had to go back, but he refused to waive the course, and on that day they became Protestants. A few days later they married in a civil ceremony, and that began the rest of their lives.
It is back to Europe for Dad, and a few more years in Canada for Mom, including moving to Toronto. Never found out why she would move west like that, or for how long it was, or what she did there.
Mom heads to Germany, leaving Vienna, Austria and the sister that walked there with her. She ends up working as a waitress at the Officer's Club at Rhein Main Air Base, where at some point she has impressed the management so much that they select her to be General Eisenhower's waitress when he visits. She too has to recover from years of having less food than needed for good health, and sadly has started smoking cigarettes, which was common during the war. More importantly for these ramblings, which to date it appears that no one but me has read, that is where they meet and fall in love. Sadly, like so many other things, my parents never told us much about this time of their lives. Of course it could be, sometimes like my kids today, that I appeared to busy, or brusque, to them and they decided to not waste their time telling tales of their past to someone who would not appreciate it, and if this is the case I apologize to you Mom and Dad, from the deepest part of my soul, for at all hurting you if I did. Please know that now, with more wisdom in me after over 50 years, I would cherish knowing those things that I feel you may have wanted to share. But we do not know the future when we are still in the past, do not know what we give up in our youth what would be treasure in our later years.
So the tidbits I know are few. Frankfurt was a big city even then, and as Germany rebuilt after the war it was busy. My Mom lived in a small apartment in the house of a nice couple, whose name I fail to remember but believe was Misfeld. But they had a dog, a german shepherd who they told me a little about. Anka. Or, as I thought of the dog growing up, Anka the Anka Dog. Typical of his breed, he was smart, loved "his people" which came to include Mom and Dad, and inspired them years later to get our own German Shepherd for Christmas when I was 11, which has led to my lifelong love of that breed. Story time. Once Dad picked up Mom for a date, bringing a whole or a half roasted chicken over. (Or perhaps they went out, got the chicken, and went out again.) The chicken was left in Mom's room. The doors had lever handles, and Anka had learned how to open them. After they left, and feeling like having a snack, he went into Mom's room, took the chicken, and hopped up on her bed to devour it. Which is where he was when they came home. Of course they could not stay angry at the wonderful dog, and Mom told me that story with a smile.
Over the years, Dad mentioned a few of the qualities that led him to pick Mom. One, he knew she would be a great Mom because she was strong, and she was a nurse which was a good skill to have if you have kids, and she was smart. She also knew how to react in a possible dangerous situations, or she would not have survived the war. If we misbehaved, or rather when we misbehaved, and did not show her the proper respect, he would calmly note that he had chosen us a wonderful mother who loved us and we had better start treating her right. That always solved whatever little dilemma we were having with obeying the rules.
At some point Mom was able to emigrate to Canada, wanting to start a new life. She moved to Montreal, and worked for a very wealthy couple as the maid. It was a nice time for her, with enough food for the first time in years. The people were nice, and being rich had the obligatory Montreal Canadians season tickets. But they were not true fans and so did not go to many games, except during the playoffs which occurred frequently for that storied team, letting Mom use the tickets instead. Thus her being a lifelong fan, and thus me being a lifelong fan as well. Dad of course was in the Service, and so they were parted. But they both knew they wanted to make their life with the other, and so made the long distance relationship work. Dad eventually decided to pop the question, but in his own way.
One day Mom gets a phone call, and hears something to the effect of "Be ready in two weeks. I'm coming over there and we are getting married." And that was that. Dad borrowed $500 from one of his fellow officers (I saw the promissory note, all properly signed including the repayment) and arrived as spoken. Canadian law is, or at least was, very smart when it came to marriages. Before getting married you were required to have a contract, which I'm sure stopped a lot of pure emotion no-thought people from getting hitched only to have reality smack them apart a while later. Among other requirements you were supposed to provide a home and furniture. That document is in the family papers and holding it makes me wonder about how my parents were in those days. I imagine the strong formidable man, and the smaller 5'2" or 5'4" medium built blue eyed brown blond haired woman next to him, with their language and cultural differences overrun by the incredible love that they shared. Both shared great strength, of character, commitment, determination. Both had seen evil in the world, had stood up to it, and been forged by those experiences into tougher people. So when they went to the Catholic priest and he told them that they would need a six week course on being married before he would marry them in the Church they explained that they knew a thing or two about life and that this relationship was not a spur of the moment thing and that they had less then two weeks until Dad had to go back, but he refused to waive the course, and on that day they became Protestants. A few days later they married in a civil ceremony, and that began the rest of their lives.
It is back to Europe for Dad, and a few more years in Canada for Mom, including moving to Toronto. Never found out why she would move west like that, or for how long it was, or what she did there.
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