I was raised to believe that a person must be disciplined, and be in control of themselves, at all times. Particularly, a man must, as he will one day be charged to care for his family, and the undisciplined, unrestrained man will not be able to do this with success. As I’ve said, this is what I’ve been raised to believe, and though I still believe that discipline is important, and self-discipline doubly-so, I do not believe that it is solely the man’s responsibility to set the standards of morality in his house. Why? Because, in a dangerous world, the conveyance of morality from parent to child is extremely important, and there is no such thing as a perfect man.

I’m coming back to the 2025 project, to continue my exercise of examining the hijinks that are happening within Republican party plans. When you read through the 2025 documents, you might be excused for thinking there could be more evidence there. For example, when they say (with regard to the DoD), that the United States should “prioritize the U.S. conventional force planning construct to defeat a Chinese invasion of Taiwan before allocating resources to other missions, such as simultaneously fighting another conflict.” The implication, clearly, is that the United States is not already planning for the possibility of multiple conflicts. Allow me to introduce you to the actual United States military strategy, as per Joseph R. Biden, President of the United States of America. The Rand Institute (yes, that Rand Institute) has even suggested that the cost to be able to fight multiple wars across multiple continents is prohibitively expensive.

As I lay awake last night, listening to the fireworks go off in the far distance, I pondered some of the things that I’d learned recently. I asked myself what, out of everything that I’ve experienced, had impacted me or influenced me the most in the last year. Most of this breaks down into knowledge about human behavior that now drives my decision making process. I’m hopeful these observations can also help guide yours!

Of what comfort will my writing this be to those who are being bombed in Gaza, or those whose loved ones lay bleeding in the aftermath of a concert? None. So what, then, is the point of my writing this?

I’ve seen a rapid coalescing of my friends and associates—of intelligent and honorable people—into two distinct and separate camps: those who demand blood for the spilled blood of the thousand-plus Israelis who have been killed in an almost unprecedented terrorist act, and those who justify said attacks, suggesting in someway that the Israelis at the concert are an acceptable sacrifice for…what was that phrase…reshuffling the deck?

It starts with taking ownership of this nation. And that is why I celebrate. Because it’s my nation, and it’s your nation. And together, we will shape it into what we want it to be, no matter how long that takes. Yes, it is possible to celebrate the opportunities we have, while at the same time, being realistic about the challenges ahead. With a clearly radicalized Supreme Court, it can be easy to lose sight of that possibility, of that vision of the shining city on the hill that we never were, but that we should perpetually strive to be.

Happy Independence Day!

Now, get to work.

A while back, I did a blog entry about child abuse and how it correlates with political leaning. I made a promise at the end of that piece that I would dig a little deeper. You can check on the study above if you want the full scoop, but it boils down to this: in counties Trump one, child abuse was more rampant. It varied from county to county, but on the surface, it appears that Trump counties at the very least aren’t effective at stopping child abuse.

Through the course of our history, and before, these United States have always had a force of warriors prepared to do the hard work of keeping our nation safe from aggressors. These brave men and women enter the service of our country replete in the knowledge of the sacrifice they may be asked to make. And as much as each fighter has been willing to trade their lives for the safety of their loved ones, so have their loved ones been willing to sacrifice the lives of their soldier, Marine, fighter to preserve the nation which that person loved. How many fathers and mothers and brothers and sisters have been left behind as their loved ones gave the final sacrifice?

Yet another shooting has happened in the United States of America, which undoubtedly is prompting finger-pointing, shouting, and all sorts of comments about “guns don’t kill people” and the like. Many Republicans will hold up different states and localities as evidence that guns aren’t the problem and that gun violence is more rampant in Chicago (for example). Then there would be another round of handwringing and namecalling, until the next spate of violence.

Throughout the preceding sections, we have discussed something called an equitable person, and we have described various aspects of the person without indicating much about what an equitable person actually is besides identifying potential behaviors. We remedy that here, as it informs us of the nature and quality of relationships such a person might hold.

The right to property is the right for a person to keep in one’s possession a certain object. For said object, this right immediately reduces the rights of all other humans by a factor of one object that they could otherwise use, potentially use up completely. If you own something, then you own it to the exclusion of someone else, or there would be little point in making the claim that you own it. If I own something, yet others may freely take it from me, then I can’t be said to own that object. So ownership has two sides: it gives rights to the owner and takes rights away from everyone else.

Image by: Brianhe, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Why does it matter whether or not we have an equitable society?

This may seem a strange question. We have already pointed out that an equitable society would require putting pressures in place that pull people away from our innate need for hierarchal deference. That will require significant work. If we’re to undertake that work, we should be certain that the effort we put in produces an improvement worth the effort. To explore this, let’s look at the social benefits offered by unequal societies first, by examining several aspects of inequality from our past.

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,

With conquering limbs astride from land to land;

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame

Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name Mother of Exiles.

From her beacon-hand

Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command

The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she

With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

Throughout human history, violence has plagued mankind, farther back than I care to write about here. Starting from the ancient Egyptian nomarchs through the magnates in post-Domesday England, humans have struggled to exert control over other humans. Human-against-human violence has been a common result.

Note: This piece was written (not published) just after the Buffalo shooting. It’s sad how relevant it still is today.

On May 14th, 2022, a gunman traveled for hours to the small, friendly city of Buffalo, New York. The script writes itself at this point. He opened fire on people from a marginalized community and killed a bunch of your fellow Americans. Somehow brought in alive by the police.

You’ll read a lot these days about the various “ism” forms of government. The narrative from the right is that the left are leading us on the path toward socialism or sometimes marxism, as opposed to supporting our beloved capitalism. The narrative from the left is that the right are leading us into fascism. So for a moment, we thought we’d take a look at these various “-isms” and see what’s true and what’s not about these claims. I guess first, we should point out what these different -isms are…

Do you know what would be great? If those lazy poor people would stop being poor. When I was a younger man, I briefly flirted with the idea of Libertarianism. By “briefly flirted,” I mean I became a card-carrying member. I began reading up on Objectivism, the philosophy of Ayn Rand that is the foundation of Neo-liberalism and is influential in Libertarian thinking. Oh, it’s seductive. In Objectivism, everything is transactional. Every good deed requires a mutually beneficial exchange. In Objectivism, you are free to hate poor people because they don’t work hard enough in a society where everything is possible.

What changed the mind of my younger Software Engineering self?

Image from: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sorry_we_are_closed_sign.jpg

What does it mean to be an equitable society? Why do all of our attempts at building an equitable society begin from the same perspective? Is there a better world out there that we can begin to see forming and — as importantly — can we get there from here?

Follow along as Chuck begins to lay down the arguments for an equitable society. Happy fourth of July! And may this year bring us closer to the vision!