Approaching Zero

 
    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.

We should not punish people for crimes they have not committed

    Recently "60 Minutes" did a story on Red-Flag-Laws.   In their article they led with the story of a man who was mentally unstable and had a large assortment of guns in his apartment.   The police had dealt with him in the past, but never were able to hold him on any law he could be charged with.  In the story, he shoots several police officers as they were in the process of breaking down his door to investigate an issue and talk to him.  One office was killed by the man.   60-Minutes talked to a police-chief who was in support of passage of Colorado's Red-Flag-Law.   He believed it would save lives in the long run.

     How do Red-Flag-Laws work? 

     First you have to go to a court and issue a statement showing that a person has made "threats" to your life and safety.   The defendant is not required to be at the hearing, but if they are they can make counter claims to the judge.   The judge then issues a judgement of whether the guns should be confiscated or not.   If the judge does, then the police are sent to the persons home to confiscate them.  The person can come back in a period of time (30 days usually) to prove that they are not longer a threat and that they should be given back their guns.

     Sounds easy... right?

     Here is what is wrong with it. 

     First of all, judges will side with the threatened person nearly 100% of all the time.  Why?  Because it's safest for them, the judge.   If they rule in favor of the gun owner and he does shoot someone then that murder will be on the judge because they "could" have stopped it.   There is no upside to letting you keep your guns, but there is plenty of upside to take them away. 

     Second, you have not been charged with any crime, but you are considered "guilty-until-proven-innocent".    On top of that, you now have the impossible task of proving to the judge you are NOT a threat.   How do you do that?   If a judge asks you "Will you never use these guns to harm a person?" and you reply "Never, your honor!", then the judge has a choice to either believe you or keep your guns.  What is safer?   It is impossible to "prove" you will never ever do something.   Yet here you are, guilty of nothing, but punished for life because not only can you never get your guns back, you will never ever be allowed to buy another gun.   You can go before a judge a 100 times and declare you are no longer a threat to others but have no way to prove that beyond a shadow of a doubt.  It will always be in the best interest of the judge to keep your guns rather than let you have them back.

    It's a life-sentence without committing a crime.

    This is the biggest problem with Red-Flag-Laws.  They go against the most fundamental basis of our Constitution and Legal System:

 INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY IN A COURT OF LAW.    

     Nothing is more sacred in our legal system than that.  NOTHING!   If we allow our legal system to do away with this in these cases we now have a legal precedent to do away with it altogether.  We cannot let that happen, no matter how many "lives it might save". It moves our legal system from one of trying crimes that have been committed to one in which we take away rights in order to prevent crimes that "could" be committed.  While we do have laws on the books to put restraining orders on people who pose a threat to others, those orders do not take Constitutional Rights or Property away from them or there ability to protect themselves.

      It reminds me of the Tom Cruise movie, "Minority Report", where people are tried on crimes that are "foreseen" by 5 girls who have precognition abilities.   It seems to work until it is found out that the girls "visions" can be tampered with to put innocent people away.  Our legal system must never become a system to prosecute people for crimes they "might commit", no matter how many lives it "might save".   . 

     That brings me to my final issue.  I take issue with the Sheriff who sided with the Red-Flag-Law, who claimed it would save lives.   It is the police officers who will have to serve these judgments.  They will be put into harms way to confiscate the guns.   In the story 60-Minutes used, the mentally ill man would have been met with the same police officers at his door who wanted to talk with him.  Only now, they would have had to tell him they are there to confiscate his guns.  Would he have handed them over peacefully?   I very much doubt that.  Instead, the might have wounded even more police officers and killed even more of them.  To me, the only people who would hand over their guns peacefully are mentally-stable-law-abiding-citizens.  But if they are mentally-stable-law-abiding-citizens, then most likely they were no threat in the first place and the issuance of the Red-Flag-Law is completely unneeded.

All STATES Matter!

    If you want to piss someone off simply tell them: "You don't matter!"   Instantly you will have a fight on your hands.  We saw this when the whole "Black Lives Matter" movement came out and was met with "All Lives Matter" as a response.  Later this was followed with "Blue Lives Matter".  We all want to MATTER.  We all want to be heard and listened to and our needs met.

    The purpose of the Electoral College is very simple: To preserve the UNION.  We are the the United STATES of America and not the United Peoples of America.  That is really what is at issue here.   The states elect the President and not the PEOPLE.   The States created the Federal Government by coming together and writing the Constitution and ratifying it in their state legislatures back in 1791.   Our Constitution is about preserving our UNION of STATES pure and simple.  Our founding father recognized that not all our states are the same.   Some are more rural and some are more urban in nature.  They each have unique needs and wants that need to be balanced.   They saw the growth of the urban states.  They knew that the urban states would have a majority vote over the rural states without any care of their needs.  If left unchecked, this would eventually lead to civil war and a dissolving of our union.  In a sense, it's purpose to say to the Federal government: ALL STATES MATTER!

    To illustrate this, imagine family of five: a mother, a father, two boys and girl.  Imagine that to make decisions in the family they use a purely democratic system of voting.   It is a true statement that women have unique needs and wants that are many times different from that of men.   Let's say in our hypothetical family,  they want to decide where to go on vacation.  The males may want to go camping and fishing whereas the females may want to go to the city and see museums.   In their democratic system, the males would always out vote the females and get their way.   Year after year the women would be subjected to camping outdoors and smelly fish.  Other decisions as well during the year would not go their way.  Where they eat, what they do, what movies they see, what TV shows they watch etc would all be ruled by the men because they are in the MAJORITY.   Our Founding Fathers referred to this as the "tyranny of the majority".   The majority isn't always right and shouldn't always get their way.    In our family example, it would be better for the sake of harmony (and to prevent divorce) that the men give up their majority rights and do what the women in the family want to do.    It too is about preserving the UNION.  The union of the family in this case.

    Our country is much like this family in that the majority is not always right. All voices, like those of the rural states need to be listened to as much as those of the large urban communities.   Just like the men in the our family example aren't always right and it wouldn't hurt them to go to the city and see some museums from time to time.  So also, our country needs to listen to the right and do things their way from time to time.   It's all about preserving our UNION of STATES so we don't resort to separation because a large group of states no longer matters anymore.   Just look at the state of California.   While they are talking about seceding from the union (over an election), at the same time several northern counties in their own state are talking about seceding from the state of California to become their own state because they no longer matter either.

99 bottles of beer on the wall

    99 bottles of beer.  Take one down pass it around... 98 bottles of beer on the wall.    Who doesn't remember singing that song on a long car ride with the family?   Most of us never got past 90 as by that time we were usually to hoarse to sing another note. (That was probably the goal our parents had in mind in teaching us that song so they could have some peace and quiet in the car)

    I have a new take on that song we should probably be teaching our kids and here it goes...

   99 freedoms of speech we all have.
   99 freedoms of speech 
   Take one down, trample it down...
   98 freedoms of speech we all have

  Okay, so it doesn't roll off the tongue like original ... but you get the point.

    Last year we witnessed the IRS going after conservative groups applying for tax-exempt-free status as a 501c3 to limit their free speech (and enhance others they do like).   The leaders of these groups were targeted by our government by the FBI, ATF, HSA, and even by OSHA.   They were also harassed by requests from the IRS for things like: lists of the their members (address, phone# and even SS#), 90-page questionnaires detailing their thoughts on the Constitution and the role of government in peoples lives.  Many saw their businesses dry up because their customers were often harassed as well by the same organizations.   Now we have learned that rather than stop this abuse, the IRS has instead decided to make it all perfectly legal by "clarifying its rules" and making it the requirement (saying that the reason for the earlier abuse was that the rules weren't clear enough before).  And even though the President said he was "angered" by the events that led up to the investigation (heard it on the news) and promised the American people that those who instigated them would be held responsible, no one... repeat no one.. has been fired for their actions.  Instead the person at the center of the crime was allowed to plead the 5th (they cherish that personal right a lot) and take early retirement. 

     Now we have learned that the FCC wants to get into the same game by doing a "study" of media outlets by placing government officials in TV newsrooms across the nation to see how decisions are made as to what information is brought to the American public and why.   From this study, the FCC maintains, they will be able to better serve the "national interest" by incentivize-ing media outlets.

    Hmmm....What could go wrong here?

    Of course many will say that the FCC study is not mandatory and TV stations can "opt out" if they desire.   But given that these same TV stations get their license to be on the airwaves from the same organization doing the study, it is highly unlikely that they will say "no thanks" to the request.  Anyone who has read (and I urge you to if you haven't) "Atlas Shrugged" will immediately recognize the similarity to the government agents that were placed inside of corporations to make sure these companies were complying with the government and were serving the "national interest and public good".    These agents were there mostly to "rat" on the companies and give the government inside information on what the company was doing so they could best strong-arm them when needed.   This will be the same job of these agents as well.... especially at conservative news outlets.

    Will Fox News be the first to be studied?   Not sure.  Given that Fox News lives on cable and not on the airwaves (so FCC does not license them) it would not be likely unless they use some other controlling tactic such as the IRS, FBI or HSA to do their dirty work.   But Fox also has many TV news stations dotted across the country that do live on the air-waves so they might see an FCC agents shadow darkening their doorway in the near future.   Listening in on their editorial and programming decisions while at the same time taking notes and providing important "feedback" to them as to what their FCC bosses consider important and newsworthy.

     Like a 100 foot wall separating two countries,  the best way to remove that wall is not all at once with a tank or a missile, but instead 1 layer of brick every year.  In doing so, each generation will think the wall has always been 100ft, 99ft, 98ft,...10ft,9ft,8ft,7ft tall until nothing is left to stop the invading hordes from taking over.

   We are witnessing the bricks disappearing now at an alarming rate and we better wake up and tell them to put them back before its too late. I believe to allow ANY government agent in the media will set a dangerous precedent for future generations as they will undoubtedly be told that "This has been a long held tradition in our news agencies etc... and we are just adding to that tradition by ...."

  Question left for us now is... how far are we into the song  "99 Freedoms of Speech"  and are there enough left to  make a difference.