Was the United States Founded On Slavery?

 We often hear people who hate their own country, tell us that the United States was founded on slavery; that it was founded on racism.  Unfortunately, our public education system has done an abysmal job of teaching history.  In many cases, public education has actually perpetuated this idea of how the country was founded.  But it is not true; certainly not in the way that they are claiming.

It is true that racism has existed for centuries, but has existed this way everywhere and in every culture in the world.  It doesn't matter what color the people are, they all have racist views of the people of other colors throughout the world.

One of the first things that these people cite as reason for their belief is the "three-fifths compromise".  This has been taught in public school and has formed the opinion in the minds of millions of student, but it is a horrible misunderstanding (misstating) of what the three-fifths compromise was and what it really meant.  and the truth is, it meant exactly the opposite of what people think it meant.

First of all, the three-fifth compromise was not a statement of individual worth.  It was a compromise to deal with slave states that wanted to count their slave population in the census, and therefore have an advantage in power and representation in the House of Representatives.

The frames of the country wanted these states to join the union, but they all agreed that slavery would have to ultimately be eliminated, but if the slave states were counting their slave population, they would maintain power in Congress, and would never end slavery.  So a compromise had to be made.

At first, the framers stated that we could hardly count slaves in the census if they were not citizens and not allowed to vote.  The slave states countered that although the slaves are not slaves, they were like livestock and a part of the population.  The frames countered by stating that if that were the case, the union states would count their cattle.

This debate went back and fourth, and they finally settled on the three-fifths compromise.  And this compromise, I've still over-simplified since the ratio was different for female slaves.  But non-the-less, this was the compromise settled on.   It gave slave states extra seats in the House of Representatives and electoral votes.

The compromise had an affect of allowing the slave states to push for and elect pro-slavery presidents, but ultimately, this advantage didn't last.

After the Civil War, that compromise was nullified with the 14th Amendment.

But the three-fifth compromise is not the only reason the people that insist that the United States has always been a racist country, are wrong.  There's also the phrase "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness", drafted into the Constitution by Thomas Jefferson.  The statement came from European philosophy and the current colonial discourse.

The original phase was "Life, Liberty, and Property".  The aspect of property was mentioned because of how things were in feudal Europe, where the lords, governors, kings, could take private property of the workers are any time they felt like it.   So the concept of private property being protected under this new government, was a primary concern.  However, the founders felt that this would allow the slave states to assume a Constitutional right to their property, which would include slaves.  The founders wanted to avoid anything that would ingrain slavery in the new country.

The word "property" was changed to "happiness" because they knew that not everyone owned property.  Poor people, indentured servants, slaves, couldn't claim property, but they needed to be included and have the aspirational right to happiness and for self determination.

In another case, in the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson wrote to King George III, and condemned him for waging a "cruel war against human nature itself" and keeping an open market where "men were bought and sold".  This ultimately was dropped from the declaration in order to get a unanimous vote, which they wouldn't have gotten without the slave states.  But statement shows the intention of the frames from the very beginning of the country. 

Vermont abolished slavery in their state constitution in 1777.

In Massachusetts, it was determined that slavery was illegal in 1781.

Six states had abolished slavery by the time the US Constitution took affect.

There was a federal ban on slavery in the new western territories in 1787.

There are other examples of how the country was founded with a different mindset from what we are being told over and over. 

Is Our Society Really Male Dominated

 We hear it over and over.  I've heard it all my life, and I think we all have.  We've been conditioned to believe it, but is it true?  Is our society really male dominated?

The vast majority of wealth is owned by men.

Women do more unpaid labor. (ie. house wives, mothers, etc)

However, the wealth mentioned is a tiny proportion of men, whereas the vast majority of disaffected people are men.  The vast majority of people in prison are men.  The vast majority of the homeless are men.  Most victims of violent crime are men.  Most people who commit suicide are men.  Most people who die in wars are men.

People who do worse in school are men, and there are no programs encouraging them in math in sciences like there are for women.

When you look at the fuller picture, dominance isn't quite how we've been conditioned to feel about it.

It is true that in the past, men were the bosses of companies.  They were the majority of the political leaders.  There was a day and age where women were not allowed to own property.  But the property restriction went away.  The glass ceiling has been broken in management and in politics, with women being the CEOs of some of the biggest corporations in the United States, and in some cases, the world.

Looking at the subject with modern eyes, and stepping back for a moment, it becomes clear that we've been conditioned to look at a tiny sample of highly successful people (men) and drawing a conclusion that this is male domination.  But if this were true, why are there more homeless men than women?  Why are there more men in prison than women?  And why are so many more men killed in war than women?

The whole subject seems cloudy, but looking at the broader picture and ignoring what we've been conditioned to conclude, it calls into question how true the statement of male domination in our society really is. 

EPA Rules Do the Opposite of Their Intentions

 EPA rules, when it comes to car manufacturing, and specifically, truck manufacturing, for the most part, do the opposite of their intentions.  The standards encourage manufacturers to increase fuel economy, but the rules based on vehicle size unintentionally encourage larger vehicles.

 Footprint Standards: The EPA measures fuel economy targets based on a vehicles "footprint" (the area between its wheels).  Larger vehicles are given a lower, easier-to-reach fuel efficiency, while smaller vehicles face stricter (harder to reach) fuel efficiency standards.

Since it is easier meet compliance standards with bigger vehicles, manufacturers build bigger trucks, rather than spending more money in the effort to squeeze more efficiency from smaller vehicles.

Large vehicles such as trucks and SUVs yield higher profits for manufacturers, making it easier to justify the investment of the bigger frames that satisfy the more lenient standards.

Emissions v Fuel Economy: While the EPA regulates air pollutants and greenhouse gases, heavy-duty commercial trucks have different measurement exemptions and classifications compared to cars. and this shifts manufacturer priorities when it comes to emissions and fuel economy. 

Why Do Bad Ideas Come From Academia as Well As Other Elites?

 Over the course of time, it seems that some of the worst ideas imaginable for society, have come from academia and/or other elists.  Why is this?

In short, it is because certain fields lack the immediate, self-correcting feedback of physical or economic reality.  Those ideas are developed in a vacuum immune from reality; absent of reality.

Fields in business or in engineering, on the other hand, face harsh feedback, in the form of testing, of bad ideas.  These fields have to operate in reality.  They can't exist in a vacuum.  A bridge built with faulty engineering will collapse.  An economic model based on false (or limited) assumptions fails in the market.

And the truth is, the fields that escape reality, have an endless list of ideas they think ought to be tried, and there's zero accountability if they turn out to be wrong.  Those who promote those ideas write academic papers, and get published, and many support theses; but there is never any accountability for being wrong.  No one loses their PhD for having bad ideas.  No professor loses his job for being wrong.

Whereas, in fields such as engineering, people are expected to base their statements on testing to prove their assertions.  In in the real world, anyone that consistently steers a company down a path with disastrous ideas, loses their job.  However, this is not true in government or in academia.  So bad ideas abound, and bad ideas continue.  There is no connection to reality.

 Academic careerism incentivizes high-volume output over practical use.  This rewards sensationalism and/or conformity over truth.   It pushes publishing of papers, regardless or the usefulness of the ideas or the truth in content.

Complex jargon and ideological frameworks sometimes become internal credentialing mechanisms in academia, where challenging those ideas risks professional ostracization rather intellectual correction based on facts.

Currently, it is built into the academic systems to avoid intellectual correction of ideas.  So bad ideas are perpetuated.  Challenging those ideas is strongly discouraged.

Likewise, in other fields, such as news media, challenging these promoted ideas can cost someone their job.  So for the most part, people tow the party line and avoid deviation from anything other than the approved language. 

Book Smart / Street Dumb

 I continually see people that I know are book smart, but they seem incredibly dumb at times.  And it seems that the times when they are dumb, it's often the simplest of practical, everyday, things that most people would know.

I know someone that was an A student in mathematics and physics, but as far as I can tell, is functionally a moron when it comes to common sense.

There was the case of a screw that came loose on his storm door.  He claimed that the screw was stripped out and that the whole storm door or at least the handle would need to be replaced.  And I knew that the handle on that storm door was less than two years old, and I also knew that storm doors are not screwed into from the handle.  The screw for the door handle goes from a plate on the inside of the door, through the door to the plate on the outside of the door.

So I checked the door.  I held the plate on the outside of the door flash against the door, and then from the inside, easily screwed into the handle and into the outer plate.  I tightened it.  The issue was resolved in two minutes or less.

This is a mechanical thing that anyone over 25 years old should already know.

There was another case where this same guy had to chain a mower to a car port post, to secure it so that no one could easily steal the mower.  the thing is, he looped the chain onto the mower and then back onto a lock.  The lock was secured to the chain and the mower, but he wasn't smart enough to also loop it all around the post.  So any thief could just grab the mower and roll it away, dragging the chain with the lock on behind.

How could any adult miss something so simple.

And then there was a young man that I knew that used to carry all of his video games, CDs, DVDs, DVD player and game console(s) in the back seat of his car.  I told him that thieves would see that stuff in his backseat and break into the car and steal it.  He didn't believe me at first.  He asked "how will they know I have this stuff?"
I had to answer, "all they have to do is walk by the car in a parking lot, or while it is parked at the curb, and look in the back seat.

He still didn't believe me.  He said, "Why would they do that?"

I said, "Because that's what thieves do.  They look for things to steal and opportunities to do it.  And you are putting that stuff on display."

So the next time I saw him, he explained that he solved the problem.  I looked in the back seat, and he had shopping bags and a box full of stuff.  You couldn't tell what was in them, but you could tell that they were packaged with something.

I had to then explain to him that he'd have been better off just leaving the stuff out in view, because now he's made it easier for the thieves to carry his stuff off; because now it's all in bags and a box.

He didn't seem to understand the problem.

"The thief walks by ten cars in the parking lot, and looks in each one for something to steal", I said.

"If nine cars have nothing visible, but he comes by your car, he might not know what it is you have, but he knows you have something that might possibly be worth something.", I said, "and he's looking for something that he can sell for a quick buck."

I kept telling him that it was okay to have that stuff package up like he had it, but that he needed to put it away in his trunk where it couldn't been seen, and to not put it there in front of witnesses (his friends' neighbors).  I told him to pack up at his home, and then when he returns, take that stuff back into his house.

Well, I followed my advise for a while, but got lazy and just left it in the back seat.  

He was robbed soon after that.  He lost everything, but it costed him several hundred dollars to replace the window that the thieves broke to get into his car.

I didn't say "I told you so."  I just shook my head in disbelief that I even had to explain this stuff to him over and over and he still didn't get it.

 And then there's another guy that I know that has an advanced degree, and is a teacher.  When the Covid-19 pandemic first hit, businesses were shutting down.  I knew a lot of people that were losing their jobs and trying to figure out how to survive.  I knew business owners that were losing their customers (because their customers were out of work), and they were trying to figure out how to keep their businesses open.

So my first concern was my friend, so I asked him if he knew what he was going to do.  His response floored me.

"I don't have to worry about it, because I have my own business."  He said, "I'm not like everyone working in the corporate world."

I asked him, "what do your customers do for a living?"

He was stunned and didn't answer me.  It had finally hit him that the pandemic was going to affect him, just like it was affecting everyone else.  I was just amazed that someone with an advanced education couldn't figure this out on his own.

I could go on with other people that I know that have advanced education, including one person with a Ph.D, that had views that didn't match with reality at all.

In the end, I just said, "Book Smart, Street Dumb".  Someone might come up with a better way to paraphrase it, but that's what I see.  There are a lot of people that we typically think of as smart individuals, but when it comes to real life situations, they are complete morons. 

Data Centers

 I have always felt that having a data center built was a good thing for the local economy.  It would mean jobs.  There would be advantages in having them.  Plus, in the global AI race, it would be good to be on top, rather than fall behind enemy countries like China, who are not developing AI to benefit the rest of the world.

Regardless of what you think of AI, or the AI race, data centers bring jobs to the area.

But, so many people are against them.  Every time there is a hint of a data center being built somewhere, the locals come out in droves to protest it, and urge their representatives to prohibit them from being built.

Part of this is just hysteria.  There are people that know nothing about what data centers are, and they are afraid of what they don't know.

There is the legitimate concern for their water usage.  According to what I've read, some of these data centers use a tremendous amount of water each day for cooling.  This water usage would definitely impact what usage for people and businesses in the area.

Then there's the power concerns.  The data centers use a huge amount of electricity to operate, and this puts a definite strain on the local power grid.

But there are data centers that do not have these impacts on water and power.  There are data centers being built right now that use different cooling technology, and use much less water, or no water at all, for cooling.  And on top of that, they generate their own power.  So a data center of this type has benefits to the local community, with few, if any, drawbacks.

I'm hoping that the newer ways of building and operating data centers will take hold, and lessen the local resistance to change. 

Bullies

 Every time there's a school shooting, or to some extent, shootings in similar settings, I think about bullies.  In the school shootings, there has almost always been the element bullying that went too far and the bullied kids finally fight back.  As those bullied kids are just kids, they are not adults, and not equipped to adequately deal with those feelings, or having to deal with being bullied.

In one mass shooting, the shooter was a person that felt humiliated, isolated, and unfairly treated in the work place.  As an adult, he should've been able to deal with this, but that's not always the case.  I suspect that there are a lot more cases of people being mistreated at work, than most of us realize.  We assume they are isolated cases, but from my own experience (and observation), I feel that it goes on a lot more and in most companies.

I don't feel that the schools adequately protect kids from bullying.  They pay lip service to the subject, and have "anti-bullying" campaigns, but the truth is, the teachers and school administrators hold bullying out at arms length and avoid it when it's real and not just words; not just a campaign; not just a slogan.

I remember my own step son was bullied when he was school.  Despite the fact that he was bigger than most of the other kids, they learned that he was mild mannered and would avoid confrontation.  He would back down, and in some cases, run to get away from them.  This just emboldened the bullies and he became one of their favorite targets at the school.  And despite his pleas to teachers and the school principal, they did nothing about it.  They claimed they couldn't do anything unless they caught them in the act.  So they wouldn't address it.

In one case, my wife and I bought him a new coat, because it was winter and he needed a new coat.  Within a day or two of him having the coat, the bullies had taken his coat, and drenched it in a toilet.

Again, the teachers did nothing.  The principal did nothing.

As I was a new step dad, and trying to let my wife handle this, as it was her son, it became clear to me that the female perspective wasn't working.  She had been telling him that violence doesn't solve conflict.

I sat down with him and told him that in most cases, if you have a conflict with someone at school. violence is not the first answer.  You try to resolve conflict in other ways.  But I told him that the world was full of bullies, even in the adult world, and bullies don't stop with just words.  They keep victimizing because they are cowards, and so to make themselves feel powerful, they need a victim.  and they search for a victim, until they find one that wont fight back.  This makes them feel powerful, and it makes them feel safe because the victim wont fight back.

So I told him to get a stick or something, and the next time they bully him, to use the stick as a weapon.  I told him that he wasn't to just go crazy on them, but that once he hurt them, and they back off, that should be enough.

The next day, he did just as I said, and we got a call from the school.  They were going to punish our son and suspend him for hurting the bullies.  I stood up for him in front of the principal.  I confronted him for not doing anything when he was the victim, but now all the sudden he's ready to suspend our son for defending himself.

I said, now all the sudden you're ready to take their word for it, that our son hurt them, but you weren't willing to take his word for it on repeated occasions when he was the victim.

I said that if they suspended our son, I would sue the school, the city, and each of the teachers and the principal individually.

Needless to say, he wasn't suspended after all.  But also, he wasn't bullied by those kids anymore either.

It just gets me that this stuff goes on, and the kids get no help from the adults, but once the victim strikes back, all the sudden the teachers want to step in.  It just doesn't sit right with me, but I saw it first hand when I was in school.

 I remember when I was in high school, racial tension was a thing.  I tried to stay out of all that stuff.  I treated everyone the same, and although I wasn't a popular kid, I managed to treat everyone right and equal, as best I could.  So I was taken aback when at one point between classes, I was on the 3rd or forth floor of my school building (I don't remember which floor), and close to when the bell would ring and we were all supposed to get to our next class, I was attacked by two black kids.  Both were smaller guys like myself, and just wanted to feel big by attacking someone that was small and they figured couldn't fight back.  They tried to push me down the stairs at some point, but I was strong enough and was able to fight back.  I think I was tougher than they expected.

In the end, the two ran when the bell rang, and I was gathering my books and trying to fix my shirt that had been torn in the altercation.  Despite the yelling and noise that went on during the fight, no teacher came out to help.  However, while I was picking up books and papers, suddenly, three teachers opened their classroom doors and walked out in the hall and acted like they had no idea what had just happened.

What a joke.  Those cowards waited until the noise was over and they knew it was safe.  That's the truth of the matter.  I saw how it was then, and I see how it is now, years later.  And I'm reminded of this every time there's a school shooting, and the teachers say when being interviewed "I had no idea that bullying was going on in our school".

Jeez.  What do you mean you didn't know bullying was going on in your school?  What school did you go to when you were growing up?  Because everyone that I know that went to a public school, knew that bullying was going on.  There's no way that these adults escaped that experience.  Even if they weren't personally bullied themselves when they were kids, they had to have witnessed it.  They had to know someone that was bullied.  No one escapes it completely.

My personal feeling is that when educators are in college working on a degree in education, there should be some attention paid to conflict resolution.  There needs to at least be an attempt to educate them on how to minimize this behavior.  I know that not all bullying will be stopped, but it would help reduce it, and certainly help reduce the worst cases of it.

I'm saddened sometimes, when I hear of bullying, but I'm also frustrated at hearing some of the pat answers for it, such as "violence doesn't solve disagreements".  I beg to differ.  In the case of a bully that has low self esteem and needs a victim to feel powerful, violence does help.  In fact, it's often the only thing that will get the bully (a coward) to stop.

I think I could go on further on this subject, as I went through a lot of bullying over the years.  I was a small kid in comparison to others my age.  I only started growing to be a little shorter than average, when I was in high school.  So it had reduced due to my size.  The bullies, in most cases, wanted someone a little smaller than me, for their own safety.

One thing that got me is that when I was in college, I thought the bullying would stop.  It didn't.  I was able to stop the physical bullying with violence.  The bullies just didn't want to risk further injuries after what I did to them the first time.  But other bullies were a little more sophisticated and used words and rumor and social outcasting as a form of bullying.  And I saw that kind of bullying the rest of my life.