Monthly Archives: February 2017

Too Much Wrong

Posted on by under Parental Responsibility

There’s too much wrong and: We Tolerate It.

Pollution, population growth, wars, violence, failing economies, disease and joblessness; all bad and getting worse—yet we tolerate it. This confounds my thinking! I decided if there’s a way to explain this, I needed to find it. Eventually I understood, there are reasons for this detrimental behavior—and most of them may be classified by a single descriptor; irrationality.

Can I rightfully claim our behaviors are the result of irrational influences? Well, based on the way the vast majority of people, and animals, live on this planet I consider it irresponsible not to point out relevant characteristics. If you listen to what the experts say; psychologists, sociologists, anthropologists, neurologists and so on—you formulate a model of the human mode of living. In the process of trying to understand this I found it has a lot to do with myriad weaknesses and flaws—in our psychology. We’re saddled with overwhelming, internal and external influences which, at least, modulate; who we are, how we think and what we do.

The bottom line is we can, in a rational sense, understand why we’re irrational. The reward of this is the opportunity to change our inappropriate behaviors in favor of other life-improving behaviors.

In the process of discovering for myself ‘what is wrong with us’ I started writing essays on anything which seems truly important. At some point along the way I decided it’s our responsibility to improve life for posterity; but to do this we must change! This is based on the notion that the choices made to date have caused the life conditions in our societies; and the same choices will continue to produce the same conditions. Most important, if we don’t like what has evolved and want to change it we have to learn to be different.

I am not an expert on any particular subject so I consult the experts to formulate some of the details in my writing. I choose not to write as if I’m trying to educate anyone on any particular aspect of science or art. I try to write from the perspective of another of the billions of people passing through this life carrying grave concerns about the way things are and the way they are going to be while my family and friends are trying to make their way.

I make minor excursions into; philosophy, psychology, anthropology, neuroscience, and history while trying to understand and explain why it is that we are struggling with the same problems as our ancient ancestors; war, disease, poverty, violence, hunger, exploitation, unfairness, inequality and so on. Yes, it’s still the same—we just have cell phones now. In my research I explore what I consider to be reasons for our irrational behaviors; immorality, free-will, culture, human nature and emotions and how this leads to our unacceptable living conditions. There are myriad forces impinging on our faculties sometimes completely paralyzing our ability to do better—as in the case of a negative emotional outburst.

I’ve heard people say we can’t do anything about the way things are—we just have to make the best of the world as it is. There are instances in history revealing the weakness in this argument. Even as recently as the last couple years we know of several countries overthrowing the oppressive regimes which have been responsible for the poor conditions many parents and grandparents had to contend with. Over time people have fought for equal rights regarding; gender, race, social and working class and sexual orientation. When something is truly worth having it’s worth fighting for.

I do have a goal; it is to fight for our children to have the right to a decent life. This will include all of us becoming active and responsible for the kind of world we are leaving for them. It includes learning new ways to educate and socialize so that the coming generations can look at the world with new eyes and answer problems and apply solutions we haven’t been able to thus far. I have no doubt we can do a whole lot better:

But, it won’t be by doing the same things our predecessors have done.

 

Space Program

Posted on by under Environment

Awhile back, then President Bush, announced his desire to rejuvenate the Space Program. Apparently, the plan is to have a station on the Moon by 2020 and people on Mars by 2030. And, this can all be done for $400,000,000,000. At the risk of sounding cynical I have to point out a conspicuous, but commonly overlooked fact. A $400,000,000,000 projection by the government may mean a $1,200,000,000,000 reality for the taxpayers. Do most people think this is realistic and does the average person believe this would be money well spent? There is an even more important question for us to ask. What could come from this to improve our lives and the lives of our children and grandchildren?

The actual benefit of the space program to a planet of people, the majority of which are; at war, starving, suffering from self-induced diseases and just plain scared of what the so-called leaders are doing is questionable, to say the least.  But what baffles me most is of the few people I have mentioned this to, there is support for continued exploration of Space. People think this is okay?

Some years ago I watched a program about Mars. The people in this program were absolutely enthusiastic in their support for the continued exploration of Mars in spite of what they already knew. It is claimed that scientists have determined a meteor hit Mars 16 million years ago and knocked some of its landmass into space. They further concluded that 13 thousand years ago one of these pieces of Mars entered Earth’s atmosphere and was then found on Antarctica in 1984. That part is amazing to me, as I can’t begin to imagine how they can make those determinations.

So, what was the all the fuss about? Apparently, in 1984 a rock was found on the ice; it was bagged and stored. Then, after about a decade, someone decided it looked like other samples presumed to have come from Mars, and it should be studied. They probed and studied it for years. They discovered what they believed might be signs of life on early Mars. You have to magnify these specimens 100,000 times to be able to see them and then you can make out what appears to be the fossils of segmented worms. But, after much time and even more money they backed off from the early predictions of proof of life on Mars. Now they say, ‘maybe not.’

Turns out many of the specimens which are studied are gathered each year from Antarctica through expeditions funded by several agencies, including NASA. Specifically, these expeditions are paid with taxpayer’s money to walk around looking for interesting rocks to bag and bring back. Apparently, this has been the routine for quite some time.

So, in the mid 90’s there was a lot of excitement in the scientific community about possibly having evidence that there is, or was, life on Mars. Perhaps it leaned more toward ‘was life on Mars’ because a Mars mission in the mid 70’s determined there were no organic molecules on the surface of the planet.  But, this did not seem to deter anyone as they have continued to fire rockets at Mars ever since. Sadly, they have continued in earnest for the last few decades, trying to get more information on a planet basically determined to be lifeless in the 70’s.

Can we justify spending money like this? I may have missed something important, but the way I see it, this country is on the verge of ruin, in many ways. The America I grew up in is being pared like it is the product of a hostile takeover. Kids are even starting to worry about their future here. America is heavily indebted to foreign countries around the globe and we have been informed it is so bad we won’t get the Social Security we have paid into all of our working lives. The air, water and food are becoming more polluted and we may be experiencing the effects of global warming. We can’t afford homes anymore. Benefits are becoming a thing of the past, as are good jobs. The rich are getting richer and the working class is getting poor. Medical coverage for everyone—forget it! I could go on all day in this vein, but I think I have made my point.

Consider for a minute what this all means. Just in the Mars portion of the space program you will find approximately 18 attempts have been made to launch rockets to Mars between 1964 and 2005. And with all the billions of dollars spent; the success of these missions, the contribution to humankind, can be measured in the quantity of photographs returned. Some of the early successful missions returned 21 photographs—I shudder to think how much each of those photos cost the taxpayers. Of course, by the end of the twentieth century we were getting back thousands of photos. I say we, but I had no say in the matter and I didn’t get any of the photos either. So someone gets thousands of photos for the billions of dollars and the lost lives offered up for such misguided endeavors as these, all in the name of progress and technology.

What progress, may I ask? What improvements has the space program brought to the lives of the average person? If I were feeling a little facetious, I might say ‘Teflon coated skillets.’ I am being facetious because Teflon didn’t come from the Space Program. Yes, I have heard many people say a lot of technology came to us from the space program. In my opinion that does not validate anything. To begin with one may rightly ask, in fact intelligently ask, how has most technology really improved life on earth? And if you could somehow conclude it has, I think it would be easy to argue the same thing could have been accomplished just for the sake of improved technology—without a space program. By the way, there is a technology which did improve life on some parts of the Earth. Plumbing! Check history, you may find this technology has eliminated more disease than everything else combined.

I was in the military when America put a man on the moon. What did we learn and how has humanity profited from that? One thing we do know for sure is that it is not made of green cheese! Is there something else we now know because a man landed on the moon? I mean something worth knowing, something with real value, you know, something helping you and your family in important ways? Something worth all the lost lives, the ruined lives, the waste of natural resources, the additional pollution and the billions of dollars wasted while many people suffered and starved? Do we have a new source of food and natural resources we are shuttling from the Moon? Are there colonies of people on the Moon right now developing wonder drugs in low gravity? I’m a bit of a pessimist on this one.

So, after spending billions of dollars while people go without food, shelter and soon, Social Security, someone has thousands and thousands of pictures of Mars. Well, what about those pictures of Mars? What has been learned? What do we know of the ’magnificent planet?’ (Not my words, just one of the sparkling monikers a scientist is apt to use when describing Mars and its continued exploration.) Scientists will tell you of all the planets in the Solar System, Mars has the most potential. The rest of the planets are just absolutely hostile to human life—uninhabitable. So this leaves Mars as the potential ‘oasis in space’ for human habitation.

What about this place? Mars is a little smaller than Earth with about one-third the gravity. The temperature on Mars is anywhere from minus 220 to minus 63 degrees Fahrenheit. The atmosphere is just the opposite of ours, what there is of it. On Earth we have about 78% nitrogen, Mars has 2.7%. On Earth there is less than 1% Carbon Dioxide, on Mars it is 95%. There is no water on the surface; there is no plant life, there is no animal life. Humans can adapt to some lousy conditions, but I don’t think we can adapt to this! Yeah, they will probably make some interesting proposals about how they will terraform this ‘potential oasis’ into a real life ‘Garden of Eden’ for another $1,000,000,000,000 or so. We can’t even keep the air clean on this planet, and this planet has evolved for billions of years to produce large volumes of just exactly the air we need. None the less though, they will still try to convince us they can make all the air and water we need—but only on other planets—not here. Sadly, they will convince enough people to have their way—and more money and lives will be wasted.

I wonder what stories were being fabricated about the Moon in the 60’s. What did they say about that dry, lifeless, still-unoccupied hunk of dirt which seemed so important to so many at that time? What can be said to make it seem as though all the lives, resources and money sacrificed for that effort were justifiable? Sadly, the Moon program had a lot to do with the very childish motivation of beating the Russians. And this was from the top down.

Some of the phrases used to describe the Mars landscape are; Death Valley, Mono Lake, Channeled Scabland in Washington, permafrost in Siberia and Antarctica and volcanoes in Hawaii. I think we should invest in property on Mars right away. Sounds like it could develop into a real-estate bubble at anytime.

By the way a round trip to Mars, at the speeds we can travel now, is between one and two years. I wonder how long it would take to get enough lumber to Mars to build malls and subdivisions, commuting at those speeds. I suppose we better find a planet close to Mars that is full of trees, because we won’t have trees on Earth for that job.

I am only hoping some people who are open to sensible thinking may consider whether we, as a society, can make sense out of supporting this type of endeavor. Fact is! Mars is a big chunk of lifeless dirt, just like the Moon, and I would rather spend what little resources, energy and money we have left trying to do something on this planet. I suppose in my way of thinking the grandiose plans should be reserved for when we have solved the serious problems. Just ask someone who is poor, sick or just not going to benefit directly from the space program, as in no job or fame, what they think of spending money exploring such things.

You know folks, we have problems! And as I talk to people, I sense awareness, but I detect a reluctance to talk about it. As if ignoring it will make it go away. I am tired and fed up with being lied to and taken advantage of. There is another stratum of people who make the decisions affecting our lives, our children’s lives and our country. And those decisions are generally being made to benefit those deciding. If we don’t wake up and change the way things are going, someday it will be too late.

There is plenty to fix right here, and dealing with the Space Program is not the total answer, but it is a start. I always point out if we can’t solve the small problems we will have no chance with the big ones. In this case, deciding if large amounts of money are going to continue being wasted exploring lifeless, useless objects is a simple problem. A few hundred years ago Jefferson said (paraphrased), if the common folk don’t stay involved in the happenings of government, government will run amuck. Well, we didn’t and it has.

I’ll tell you something—those nice folks in government need our help. They are in over their heads and don’t know what to do. I’m sure they must sense they are hanging on by their teeth as the condition of the country and the planet continues to decline. So we need to let them know we only want them to do things that make sense for the majority and if they continue to support foolishness they will be replaced. I do not wish to support foolishness, so in no particular order, I picked this foolishness first—and there are plenty more to go.

The thing disturbing me most in all this is so many common working people in this country are willing to support this kind of activity. It is simple, will the people of this country, including the next few generations, benefit from exploring Mars and can the country afford it? Those with the power may be able to foist their junk on the younger generation, because they just don’t know better yet. But, for those of us who were here in the middle of the last century, there should be no question. Aside from the potential rewards to a small percentage of the people who are looking for riches and glory, nothing important will be accomplished in the continued quest for Mars—just as nothing important was accomplished in the quest for the Moon.

Will we ever learn from history?

 

 

Free-will

Posted on by under Ethics

Do we have free will? For over a half century, I never questioned—and no one ever asked. I’m sure I didn’t doubt I had free will. But it would be hard to avoid thinking this way being brought up in an average American household. But if we do have free will—how free are we?

The two most relevant positions on this question, at least in my opinion, are hard-determinism and compatibilism. The hard determinist simply concludes that because of cause and effect we have no choice, we just do what follows—no free will. The compatibilist agrees with the cause and effect theory but protects our ability to choose as much as possible in that the compatibilist thinks cause and effect and choice are compatible—free will.

While reading about one of the more contemporary philosophers, Stace, I thought I had found someone who explained compatibilism in clear, concise everyday language. Stace takes the compatibilist position because it gives him some latitude as he thinks this is necessary to protect the concept of free will. What makes the notion of free will so important and so important to understand? Probably most importantly; free will and our understanding of it, dictates our understanding of morality and our responsibility to it. One of the obvious institutions to be directly affected by our stance on moral responsibility is the justice system.

Not enough free will and we are not responsible for our behaviors—too much free will and we are responsible for every behavior we may exhibit. I agree; it’s an ideal worth protecting. But, only the correct understanding of free-will allows the conditions in which to form the proper moral and legal paradigms for the improvement of humankind. I am inclined to agree with Stace at this point; in that I think we would be in big trouble if we had to abandon morality and responsibility for our actions in favor of hard-determinism.

In defense of his position, Stace points out that the hard-determinist, those who deny free will, live their lives, outside of their lecture rooms and studies, as though they have free will. He says, “They will ask their children why they didn’t tell the truth, and then punish them as if they had a choice in the matter”. No doubt, this contradicts determinism.

But the conclusion of a determinist doesn’t necessarily lose all credibility at this point. The determinist thinks all choices are derived from previous events, and these events, the causes and effects, predicate our choices—therefore we are not free. Where Stace diverges from the determinist is on choice. This compatibilist agrees there is a causal link between events and choices, but thinks we are free to choose as long as we are not inhibited by any external force. Specifically, as long as we are not coerced by outside forces we are free to choose according to our desires and motivations. Therein, we are free. In fact Stace separates free acts from unfree acts this way. Free acts proceed from making choices which, although proceeding from previous events; the choices are based on one’s own desires and motivations.

Here is where I have to part company with Stace. I don’t understand how he ignored what seems to be the more significant source of constraints plaguing our choices and behaviors—that of the internal constraints. Turns out there have been others who bring up this same, very important distinction. Surely there are physical factors which inhibit our choices, but the ones used to demonstrate external constraints; stranded in a desert, doing something because you are threatened, or leaving an area because you are dragged away, are not the forces which normally interfere with our freedom.

At the top of the list of disabling factors when it comes to free will are things such as tradition and culture, religion and education. Then there is the fact of psychological and physiological abnormality. I think it is more relevant to ask if we are able to make a free choice, free from the over arching influence of these factors than to talk about external, physical limitations—at least in our culture for sure.

An example which illustrates the difference in internal and external constraints is of Socrates. At the end of his life Socrates was constrained—twice. When he was incarcerated his choices were limited by external forces and when his friends offered to sneak him out of the city his choice was limited by internal forces. In that Socrates was deeply convicted that the way he had led his life was the right way there was no other way for him to live—so he couldn’t leave. Turns out, he could have escaped the external constraints, but there was no way for him to escape the internal constraints.

The example of Gandhi is also important in the description of free will. Gandhi was not stranded in a desert; he chose not to eat. We could say he made a free choice—but did he? Could he have made another choice? If we believe the notion of cause and effect then we believe there was a series of events, causes and effects, leading up to the point in Gandhi’s life which culminated in the strong belief that he must do what he could to help the people of India. Whatever the forces were that caused Gandhi to be the person he was at this time in his life, they were sufficient to determine his unique choices and behaviors. His path in life had taken him to a point at which he believed that fasting would pressure the government to let go of India. This makes for an interesting question: Was Gandhi able to do anything other than fast now that events in his life created his personal reality—that fasting means helping India?

Perhaps for someone with the strong conviction regarding right and wrong of Socrates the idea of sneaking away may not enter his mind. If the same situation arose for someone with less conviction he may choose to escape. Could we say this person would be making a free choice because he chose to escape? Or would we have to say because of the causal events leading to this point in his life this would be the only decision he could make.

So…what is free when referring to free-will? It seems that intentions arise in our minds as they will. The ever busy brain is constantly responding to external and internal stimuli. We are aware of some of this and it is familiar to us as the process of thinking. But how do these thoughts, desires and intentions arise. In short it all starts with a biological event. A physical process occurs in the brain which we ultimately experience as a non-physical process of the mind. As Sam Harris says “our thoughts are unauthored, but are author to our actions”.

Certainly the types of desires and intentions which randomly arise in our minds are contingent on what life has created as reality for each of us. On one hand we may think, now that the desire has surfaced we are free to act on it as we choose. On the other, we have to wonder if our choices are as inextricably linked to the past events as the desire was that popped into our mind.

Are we free? I don’t know. I like to think I have some responsibility for how I behave. One thing we can know for sure—I think—is the sum of our experiences, mental processes and whatever control we get to bring to our lives is evident in our behaviors.

Organic or Not?

Posted on by under Social Obligation

 

I recently read a report by Hannah Wooderson claiming the Food Standards Agency commissioned a review by the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine on differences between organic and conventionally produced food. The report says:

 

‘Organic Food does not provide any significant nutritional or health benefits.’

 

It’s appalling to me that such things are stated and spread in our modern world—and then believed. We know way too much now to make this statement. To do so is to ignore a lot of information that has been available to us for some time. But this article is typical of how ‘bad information’ is spread. And in this particular case—how ‘destructive information’ is spread.

In the article there was a paragraph with a simple description of organic. “Organic farming, which focuses on protecting wildlife and the environment, means no artificial chemical fertilizers are used, pesticide use is restricted and animals are expected to be free range.” The article goes on to say eating organic has become increasingly popular in recent years, but “the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition appears to cast doubt on the potential benefits to people’s health from the method.”

In the beginning of the article three rather large names of institutions are thrown out creating the illusion of credibility—and it works to a certain degree. Then people’s names and quotes are given adding to the apparent credibility. But as you read on you notice this is thrown together with little snippets which don’t seem to work well together. A couple examples; “Without large-scale, longitudinal research, it is difficult to come to far-reaching clear conclusions on this.” To me, this is senseless—because without sufficient research and evidence, it is ‘impossible’ to come to ‘clear’ conclusions . . . period!

Another one is “Researchers looked for differences in content of nutrients and other substances in 3,558 comparisons but did not examine levels of contaminants such as pesticides.” From this it is clear they focused on something I haven’t looked for in organic food–nutrient comparison, and missed the most significant characteristic of organic in this study–chemicals. Finally “Our review indicated that there is currently no evidence to support the selection of organically over conventionally-produced foods on the basis of nutritional superiority.” The flaw in this article is organic isn’t about nutritional difference—it’s about getting natural, uncontaminated, unadulterated food.

What is puzzling to me is that in cultures where a significant portion of the suffering and death relates to how we eat, that anyone would make negative comments about organics. Why would anyone care if a small percentage of society pays more and eats organic?  “Organic sales account for over 4 percent of total U.S. food sales, according to recent industry statistics.” ~https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/natural-resources-environment/organic-agriculture/organic-market-overview.aspx

This begs the question, ‘why would anyone want to do research on whether organic is better or not?’ I know these researchers didn’t pay for this out of their own pocket, so whose interest would be served by paying for this kind of research and then spreading this propaganda?

At lot of information was avoided in this article. And important points missed. To begin with ‘organic’ isn’t about nutritional content—it’s about the ‘process’ by which the food comes to our plates. Although, like they said in the article, there are some positive differences. If you research ‘organic’ you will find it’s about avoiding pesticides, it’s about avoiding GMO’s and sewer sludge (euphemistically called biosolids). It’s about not wanting our food radiated. Buying organic is about wanting good food without chemicals. And this is not for appearances; it’s about staying or getting healthy; avoiding doctors and hospitals. There is also a concern for the environment, the air we breathe and the water we drink, and being considerate of the animals that live on this planet with us. And finally, when a person buys organic it may be because they care about what kind of planet we are leaving for posterity.

When you read about sewer-sludge fertilizer you find that even those in favor of it know you can only put so much on the ground because it pollutes. There have been reports for decades now on the down side of using chemicals on our food. It’s bad enough these days that it even gets on TV news occasionally—which has to be pretty bad! It’s no secret that chemicals have ruined towns, ecosystems, and reproductive capacity. They tell us we are carrying 250 chemicals in our fat cells which don’t belong there. And recently we have learned that it is especially concentrated at the top of the food chain even as far north as one can travel.  And I assure you there is a whole lot they don’t know and a lot they are not telling us about the detrimental effects of the conventionals way of producing food!

Are there significant health benefits for those buying organic food? Without relying on big names and quotes to try to give credibility to my view, I will suggest common sense and intelligence. I contend that if you don’t want your food grown in a field of sewer-sludge and you don’t want it bombarded with high intensity energy particles and you would like to avoid eating most of the popular chemicals on, it or in it, because you think these may be harmful to you and your family, you should consider ‘organic.’ If this isn’t enough to convince you and you want to know more—look up reports on the effects to humans, plants and animals of breathing, drinking and eating chemicals. Then read up on sewer-sludge and the problems it’s causing. Then look for the ‘true’ reasons for GMO’s. They tell you it is to make food for the whole world, but we are already throwing food away in ridiculous amounts. It’s about ‘power’; about gaining control of our food supply and it’s about lots of money for those who are in the position to benefit.

If you want more information—check history. See if there is any evidence that industry and government have at times been ignorant, deceptive, self-serving or just down-right liars. If you check it out you have a chance of forming a ‘clear conclusion.’ You sure don’t want to try to form any conclusions with articles like this one.

         

 

To Better Laws

Posted on by under Social Obligation

Would an intelligent, sophisticated body of people design and support a system which criminalizes, prosecutes and fines its good citizens? I hope you will excuse my cynicism in the first part of this story, but it does reflect the attitude I developed as this was happening. If you read through you will find there is a message to be gleaned from this story.

It’s 8:00 AM and my wife just called me. We aren’t usually out and about this early in the morning, but she had no choice; she’s a pawn in the criminal system now. Yeah—she’s a menace. I will probably have to register her and notify the neighbors. I don’t know how it happened or why— I guess she just snapped. There are differing versions of the story, that’s always the way you know, her version and the cop’s. My wife and I have been together for nearly a third of a century and she has always been an exemplary member of society and a wonderful, honest wife and a caring, compassionate individual. So I think I will side with her on this one.

Nearest I can gather, she was on a rampage in town. She had been to the library to check out some books and then went to the nursery—probably a front though; maybe she was trying to score. She had an extra $20 in her wallet when I was sneaking around in it; I think she had just sold her last crop. Hopefully the profit margin will get a little better in time. She’s not real bright; she  has a few degrees from a local college and she has been designing graphics on computers for a couple decades. She has a home business, has always done the books for my business and has been published in a couple magazines. By the way, she’s an artist too. So maybe she isn’t the sharpest tool in the shed, if you know what I mean. Oh yeah, she has written and illustrated a children’s book she hopes to publish soon. Almost forgot, she had an almost perfect grade point average in college, 3.94 or so, she’s never been in jail, never drank and never smoked. But there must be something wrong with her because she was sucked in by the legal system. The cop who bagged this one must be mighty proud. I’ll bet if his kids knew he had brought this one down they would be the envy of the neighborhood.

I must say though, having been with her over thirty years I can find no faults, but fortunately for me—the cops saw through her facade. The all-knowing, infallible personnel in the traffic law system got her number; according to them she doesn’t know how to drive and she fibs. Either that or she thinks she is telling the truth but is so wigged out on something she can’t see straight; she doesn’t eat Twinkies so that won’t fly. Oh, I forgot to mention she had a little whiskey in a coke at her 21st birthday party in 1979, someone else suggested it, but she didn’t like it so she doesn’t drink. She doesn’t take any prescriptions and doesn’t even take aspirin. What a trouble maker; surely a menace to society. You would think the police would have her behind bars by now. Well, they tried. She just got back from traffic court. They finally landed a big fish when they caught her. Boy-howdy the local ‘sheriff’ is probably still bragging.

Sorry, I was feeling quite facetious for a minute. Fact is she did just get back from court. And there is a less cynical version of the story I just told. And I am telling it because I think it is shameful the way people prey on each other. I find it hard to imagine that an intelligent society would allow the system to degenerate to the point it has. It is as though nobody cares about anybody and nobody cares about what anyone thinks about them. In this case my wife got to experience the more seamy side of humankind and the way our society works. The whole story has a stink about it, and I know there are stories which are much worse; but if we can’t deal with the simple stuff we surely don’t have a chance with the complex stuff. I have been around for over 60 years and I have seen some changes. I’m not saying everyone was wonderful when I was young, but I think it was a lot better than it is now. And we only have one place to put the blame—on people. Please don’t think for a moment I am naive enough to think a policeman has a pleasant job, but that shouldn’t give them license to be inconsiderate of any individual.

In this incident my wife was stopped and told she had not stopped at a stop sign. The exact description on the citation reads as follows ‘no stop at sign.’ It isn’t even clear what she was supposed to have done wrong. The description doesn’t discriminate between a California stop or completely ignoring or missing it and driving through at 25 miles per hour. But that didn’t seem to concern anyone in the system at all—which should have given us a clue what we were up against. My wife told the officer she thought she stopped, he said she didn’t—and wrote her a ticket. It makes me wonder, how the supervisors would know what the officers are doing with their time except for by how many citations they write. I admit I don’t know what pressures are put on police to issue citations, but I definitely think this must be one of the problems with the system. I mean it is a system that needs to produce income to cover expenses. I don’t know what the money goes to, but it really doesn’t matter to the point I am trying to make here. What bothers me is when it is forced from the good citizens of the community? The justice system, speaking of the traffic portion, has the same problem as the medical system, who in either system would want anything to change?

Now to my way of thinking my wife was unfortunate to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. I assume this officer probably thought she didn’t stop—I can’t imagine any decent person intentionally lying about something like this. But, someone was wrong. Could the twenty year police officer have been wrong? He was sitting in a car, in a parking lot, on the side street—at the intersection of a tee. Very simply, my wife was driving straight through and he was sitting perpendicular to the direction she was traveling. Sounds like a great vantage point for him, except for a couple things. I went to the parking lot where he was parked and the cold, hard fact is there is a row of hedges lining the parking lot. I could only see the top portion of the cars as they came into view from behind the building adjacent to the parking lot. If he looked away from that intersection for a few seconds she could have stopped at the sign; then proceeded, and it would have appeared to him she never stopped. Is it possible this officer never took his eyes off the intersection? Is it likely that at some time on his shift he would get something off the seat, look in a lunch bag, tune a radio, answer or make a phone call? Probably not, he probably stared at that intersection for the whole day. Does anyone believe that? Yep—the judge did.

It is unfortunate that in societies such as ours police are needed, but they are. Personally I know we are better off with police than without, but I also think there is room for improvement. I don’t know what the first people said when a police force was created, but I can imagine a group of intelligent people getting together today and creating a police force. I suspect they would develop it from the basic premise that the police should work toward ensuring safety for the citizens in the community. I assume this is the premise on which any police force should develop and operate. But my wife and I now realize that the activity of the police force includes extracting money from the ‘lawful’ citizens. There are probably some exceptions to who gets ticketed, but for the most part it seems the police write citations and the courts collect fines—just run us through and get what they can. Feels like one of those sci-fi’s where helpful robots are built and they get too powerful and take over.

It continues in the courtroom. One of the first things the judge said to the whole group was 99.9% of the time he sides with the officers; does anyone want to change their plea? The hands went up—he excused them—they paid the fines. My wife opted to stay—as we should. If you think you have been unjustly charged with doing something wrong—say your piece. If there are officers who really are being abusive, or incompetent, it will eventually become evident in court—I hope.

I was shocked, as was my wife, when a judge in an American court would tell everyone they had a tenth of one percent of a chance of getting a fair hearing. The judge stood there making the point that he was heavily biased. It was apparent by the hands going up that a lot of people understood they could not get a fair hearing in that court by that judge? Unbelievably, that is the way it happened.

In my opinion the first thing that went wrong was the officer could have ‘easily’ checked my wife’s driving record and determined she is a law abiding citizen. He could have ‘easily’ said you need to make sure you stop completely at the signs and then recorded a written warning. This warning could then appear on the driving record for 2-5 years and if at any time an officer had concerns about the way she stops, or doesn’t, he or she could—with social impunity—issue a citation. Sure the officer had impunity, but that was legal impunity. But when one human is abusive to another they are in violation of a greater obligation–to each other.

Why would an employee of a legal system designed by good, law abiding citizens issue a citation at the first possible hint of an error? In his conversation with my wife the officer even referred to it as a California stop. So it’s obvious she didn’t just run through it. He even went so far as to tell her he occasionally does the same thing. How do you give a citation to someone for doing the same thing you do? I couldn’t do this to anyone. Certainly this would produce an unhealthy level of cognitive dissonance for the police officer. Unfortunately this doesn’t tell the whole story—we have mechanisms for shutting down our moral barometers when we have to do things which are morally objectionable. This isn’t necessarily good though because we then become unnaturally detached from our humanity.

That violation may not have hurt that officer then, but it may. According to psychologists we are adversely affected with cognitive dissonance when we have to act in ways which are not in accord with the way we feel. Furthermore that action and the impression it left on my wife and I will have a small effect on the evolution of society. People that abuse the system, and other people, must not realize that in time the people in their own families will be affected similarly, by abuse. They must not realize that when you treat enough people improperly it is going to come back around; literally. Do we not have a society which tends to be unfriendly? Maybe, just maybe there is a connection. The old law of cause and effect is unforgiving. My wife and I both have a different opinion of the system now and it will always affect how we perceive the people in the traffic system and what we have to say about them.

Unfortunately it is not unusual to get lost in the details when one focuses tightly on anything. But once the big picture is lost, once the attention is only on the letter of the law and not on the intent, a person has lost sight of a higher purpose. The emphasis then, in the case of traffic officers, shifts from helping create a safe environment for everyone to—writing tickets—period!

I wrote this because I hope some people will be reminded what being a member of society means. We should remember and consider that when we are born into a society we inherit an implicit contractual responsibility. All mature, responsible people have an obligation to society through this ‘social contract.’ This contract is easily understood when paraphrased as follows ‘do unto others as you would have them do unto you.’ In order to live successfully and comfortably in a society, cooperation and consideration are essential. Some think of this as reciprocity. Now I know not all people accept such responsibility, but fortunately there’s only a small percentage who abuse this obligation—and there is nothing easily done about this. But for the majority, who are reasonable and really desire a decent society for their loved ones, I think this is well worth considering. Even if some people don’t care if they live in a reasonable society I would think they would strive for one for the sake of their loved ones. I have often wondered how people who are destructive to society and the environment justify their actions when they have families. Corporations poison water, air, food, humans and animals; companies pilfer millions from working families; bureaucracies marginalize the citizenry who give legitimacy to their existence; leaders promote wars, etc. What happened to my wife isn’t as bad as these examples, but the common thread is lack of respect and compassion for fellow humans who deserve it.

I acknowledge that being on the police forces must be tough. I can’t imagine having to face that every day; I am glad there are people who choose to do so. I do want to thank the good police officers who are out there. But I want to make the point that there is a segment of society which responds well to being treated with respect. A few years ago I was pulled over for not having my lights on in a daytime lights area. The officer said he would let it go if I would do my best to turn my lights on. I now remember to turn them on every time because of his consideration and courtesy. I literally feel that I owe more to him than the law.

Just a thought, the laws are made to regulate our actions, but more importantly, we must regulate ourselves by the law we understand to be superior—Do unto others . . . !