We often hear politicians and various social advocates say lofty things like:
"One more death from ______ is one too many!"You can fill in the blank with any number of reasons.
- Gun violence
- Drunk driving
- Drug overdoses
- Bullying
- Terrorism
- Gang violence
- Sports injury
- Stupidity
- The list goes on and on....
Of course no one wants to see a loved one killed or die ahead of their time, but is ZERO deaths due to drunk driving, guns, violence, terrorism, over-doses or just plain stupidity achievable? If you think it is, then what rights and privileges are you willing to give up to achieve that goal?
In Calculus you learn the concept of "approaching a value". Some functions by their very essence can never reach or attain a desired value. They can come very very very close, but never ever quite there. The simplest of equations to illustrate this is :
Y = 1/X
When graphed you see the following
As you can see the function NEVER touches the X-axis where Y=0. It comes very very close but is never quite equal to 0. In calculus we would say
"The function Y=1/X approaches zero as X goes to infinity"
Does this mean we can't solve for Y=0? Not really. What we can do is accept a value "CLOSE TO ZERO" as good enough. In the above graph we might accept a value of 0.1 as close enough to zero and say that when X = 10 we reach a value near zero.
It's not perfect but good enough.
What does this have to do with our world and what can we learn from it? Well for one thing is that perfection is never attainable but something close enough will often do. Today we live in a world that is constantly striving to be "perfect" and never seem to be finding it. Many politicians today are selling a notion that perfection is just around the corner if we just give up some of our rights as citizens. We can end all gun violence if we register all of our guns or get ride of certain kinds of guns. We can prevent all DUI deaths if we just give up our rights to not be breathalyzed. We can have no more hate if we just give up our rights to speak what we want to say.
Of course none of these requests will ever deliver on their promises because we can never reach perfection, but that won't stop politicians and law enforcement from pushing the next law they want passed.
Our founding fathers put the words "In order to form a more perfect union" in our Constitution. They were realists. They knew that anything created by fallible human beings itself would be fallible and less than perfect. They did not think their system was "perfect" but instead "more perfect" or to put it in mathematical language: "approaching perfection". They were admitting they did not have it all right from the start and that we would never get it 100% right either. Like the function 1/X, you need to accept an imperfect output to find a solution to the problem.
In the TV show "Blue Bloods", Tom Selleck's character often quotes the following:
"The enemy of good is not evil! The real enemy of good is perfect!"
It means that if we only accept perfection, we will never achieve the good we want. Like the function of Y=1/X, if you don't accept 0.1 as "close enough to zero" you will never find X=10. So also, if you wait for and accept only perfection you will never be able to find a solution to the problems facing you.
In our country our Bill Of Rights help us define that boundary of less than perfect. Take for example, DUI arrests. We know DUI car deaths are never going to be stopped 100%. As long as their are cars and alcohol we will have a bad mixture of the two. While no one wants to see a loved one lost in such a way, we know that we want our own rights to not be forced to do something against our bodies or have our bodily fluids used to testify against us (5th amendment right). There must be a balance and we must accept a solution that is close but not perfect. Of course the rights of the drunk person might allow some to go free and possibly offend again, but without the Bill of Rights and the 4th and 5th amendments, there would be no boundary to stop a government from invading your privacy and forcing you to bend to their will. The protection of your rights make it necessary that possibly some undeserving drunk goes free.
The 4th and 5th amendments stand as our "good enough" (but no farther) limits.
Does this mean we just stop striving? No. But we do need to be will to accept it can never be perfect. The good will be trampled by those promising and expecting perfection.
