Are Teachers Essential Workers?

What would happen if during the Covid 19 pandemic that truckers, grocery store employees, and health care providers said they were not going to work because it was too dangerous? The country would be in big trouble because they are essential workers to keep Americans fed and to provide the critical health care coverage to fight the pandemic and save lives. So, the question that begs to be asked is aren’t teachers also essential? My wife is a teacher and I have always stated that teachers are underpaid and underappreciated in our society. I say this because they are not only essential but because they are backbone of our society. Without good teachers society would collapse. In fact, they are more important than healthcare providers because there would be no healthcare providers without teachers and they are more important than grocery workers because good teachers are harder to find. My wife always told me that what caused her the most anxiety as a teacher was seeing any child falling behind. My wife taught first and second grade and she knew the more a child falls behind at that stage of their life the probability of them overcoming those deficiencies will be extremely difficult.

Teacher unions look out for teachers but they do so at the expense of children. The unions want schools closed until there are no more cases of Covid. That could take years because even if there are vaccines there could still be Covid cases. This is unreasonable. Will children and teachers get Covid if schools open? Yes, but the likelihood that any teachers or students die from the virus are very low. It certainly makes sense to protect students and teachers with preexisting conditions such as diabetes, old age, or heart disease.

There has been recent activity and protests concerned about injustices to black citizens. Well, the biggest injustice that can be made to black children is to close schools. Education is the biggest equalizing factor in society. However, urban schools are more likely to be shut down and that means black children will suffer and fall behind.

There were other hypocritical suggestions such as closing schools but opening child care facilities. This makes no sense, if day care facilities can open then so too can schools. Furthermore, teachers will not teach kids but they have no problem protesting outside of government buildings in close proximity with other protestors.

Teacher unions are not open to any negotiating such as having half of students show up on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday and the other half on Tuesday and Thursday. This scheduled can be alternated every other week so each student has 5 days of in school learning every two weeks. This suggestion would allow students to social distance. My point is that there can be some negotiating to help move our educational system forward instead of leaving it stagnate and having children fall behind. Distance learning may help some, but it is no substitute for the real thing.

The BLM Movement Does not Make Sense

Yes, black lives matter as do all lives. But the BLM movement makes very little sense for a number of reasons:

First, the BLM movement only cares about those black lives lost to white persons and the police which is a very small portion of black lives. BLM does not care about the dozens of people killed each day to black crime.

Second, BLM protests that violate the rights of blacks or any citizen by disrupting their work or way of life does not care about those lives.

Third, I have written how erasing history is dangerous but the BLM movement is trashing monuments of abolitionist's such as Frederick Douglass. Furthermore, removing monuments of Lincoln, Washington, Jefferson, and Madison also means erasing key documents such as the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the 13th Amendment, the 14th Amendment, the 15th Amendment, the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and 1875, and the Emancipation Proclamation to name a few. These are the documents that ended slavery.

Fourth, in my book Defending Freedom of Contract I discuss how the Constitution is colorblind, gender blind, and their is no hierarchy of rights. All people are equal with equal fundamental rights. No race or group of persons should be given any preferential treatment for any reason. BLM wants special treatment for their race including restitution. However, Blacks and other groups have been given preferential treatment for decades in the form of affirmative action and diversity programs providing them with educational and employment opportunities at the expense of more qualified persons (not just Whites, it could also be Asians). This is wrong, race should not matter but it does.

In other words, BLM believes all injustice revolves around race and there is no other explanation or variables involved for injustices such as governmental policies that are at the root of all injustices.

I read a statement from the leader of BLM that stated "All lives cannot matter if black lives do not matter". That statement is a truism because the converse is also true if all lives matter than all black lives matter. This proves that BLM does not know what it is talking about and it does not make any sense.

I wrote in my book how "obtaining knowledge" is a fundamental right and All parents should have the right to contract with any school for their children's education. Instead of tearing down private educational opportunities we should be building up these opportunities. Competition to the failing government system is a good thing. Education is the great equalizer in life. This should be the focus instead of violating the rights of some at the expense of others.

Who is to blame for the Plight of Minorities?

There is no doubt that minorities, in particular African-Americans, have never been afforded the same opportunities as many other persons. So who is to blame for this plight of minorities? There is plenty of blame to go round and this is discussed in my book Defending Freedom of Contract. That said, in some cases minorities have actually been afforded better opportunities such as with diversity or affirmative action policies and One Person, One Vote policies.

Since the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s over 22 million dollars has been spent on fighting poverty yet the number of impoverished remains unchanged. 22 trillion dollars should be enough lift millions out of poverty unfortunately over 70% of the money is used by the government to create government agencies to fight poverty and the money does not go to the people in need. The war on poverty and liberal policies have failed to change these demographics.

Education failures such as forced integration and Robin hood policies. Every person in the country should be allowed to go to the school of their choosing and not schools that government dictates for better integration results. Throwing money at failing schools never works because money is just one of thousands variables. More money but the same educators, curriculum, and administrators and the school will continue to fail.

The civil rights movement of the 60s and better voting rights led to a shift in minority representation in elected offices. However, blacks being represented by blacks did little change the structure of communities and opportunities for blacks. For instance, why are black schools run by black administrators and local officials failing many students. Why are liberal run cities by black officials have such high crime and poverty rates? Most crime against blacks is by blacks, not whites.

Social justice led by white people with guilt is not helping the situation. In fact, it is making things worse. Feeling sorry for someone and throwing money at a problem does very little to correct the problem. Guilt places all the blame on Whites and leaves no responsibility in the process to blacks to better help themselves.

It may surprise many, but since cases such as Baker v. Carr, there has been a shift in poverty and education according to the Department of Agriculture. In fact, more persons (higher percentage) live in poverty and lack education in rural America and not urban America. The reason for this is because urban areas have better representation in state governments and therefore receive a much higher percentage of tax revenues. Diversity policies are also part of the reason for trend to disenfranchise rural America.

Progressive welfare policies of placing Native Americans on reservations and keeping African-Americans segregated to urban areas has been detrimental. Welfare provides these individuals enough money to survive but to keep them impoverished. They have become reliant on government assistance and handouts. It is enough to win crooked politicians votes. Do progressives really want blacks to succeed. I do not think so because the more successful they become the less likely they are to support Democrats.

Sure racism exists and part of the problem. However, it is small part of the problem. As long as racism is to blame then the all the other reasons for the plight of minorities will be overlooked and ignored

Defending Freedom of Contract: Constitutional Solutions to Resolve the Growing Divide

People may find the Press Release to my new book at the following location:

https://www.prdistribution.com/news/defending-freedom-of-contract-constitutional-solutions-to-resolve-our-growing-political-divide/4605657

This site contains more information than what has been previously published.

The book website is located at:

https://www.defendingfreedomofcontract.com/

Why Buck v. Bell was not an Anomaly (Part IV)

Segregation, marriage laws and race:

Eugenics leaders and scientist also drew upon other methods, besides sterilization, to achieve their goal of a pure America. Two of the most popular were segregation and marriage laws. In the era of racist Jim Crow laws, laws opposing interracial marriage and placing “undesirables” into asylums was a common practice for eugenics supporters to achieve their goals. This is not too much different than today where minorities and the poor are segregated in our decaying inner cities fighting addictions and crime. Think about it; no one cares when blacks are killed on the streets of Chicago or die from a heroin overdose. The only stories that matter to the media are ones that affect whites in rural areas or in suburbs. The only reason people are starting to care about young adults and youths dying from drug overdoses is because the issue has spread to affect middle and upper class whites. No one cared when the problem was mostly centered on those inner city underprivileged individuals. It is modern day eugenics at practice: to let segregated underprivileged persons kill off each other in a form of legal euthanasia. The prison system is another example of segregation. Sure, hard core violent criminals need to be behind bars. But a vast majority of criminals are small time. For instance, many prisoners are there for drug possession. And possession of any illegal substance does not do anything to hurt the personal rights of other people so it is questionable as to whether possession is really a crime.

Immigration policy:

Eugenics influenced immigration policy in the 1920s. Immigration laws were changed to not only decrease the number of new immigrants, but limit certain types of immigrants such as Jews and those coming from continents other than Europe. In fact, immigration policy from Europe favored Western and Northern European Countries over those from the South and Eastern Europe. The government even required new immigrants to pass intellectual tests before they entered the country. Today, the fight on terrorism and illegal immigration has forced the U.S. to look seriously at its immigration policies.

Environment and Education:

Eugenic scientists did not give any credence to any variables that may lead to many of the “undesired” or “unwanted” qualities in humans other than hereditary. A few key variables ignored by eugenics followers were both the environment and education. Present day legislators also ignore the same obvious variables when it comes to fighting poverty. Modern governments feel any problem can be solved by throwing money at it. However, more money with the same environment and educational variables (curriculum, teachers, administrators, infrastructure etc.) is not going to change the outcome of any welfare recipients. The goal of eugenics was to stop poverty, addiction, low intellect, and crime by eliminating the offspring from “questionable” individuals whereas modern eugenics is focused on keeping the addicted, undereducated, and impoverished persons alive on welfare for the sole purpose of winning their vote. Both forms of eugenics fail to address the key reasons why it fails the poor: the environment and education. What’s worse, the environment and education are blatantly ignored for political purposes.

Summary:

Buck v. Bell is still good law today because it has never been overruled. In Skinner v. Oklahoma (1942) the Court held that mandatory sterilization of criminals was not constitutional. The reason was because there was no consensus as to which criminals would qualify for the medical procedure. In other words, where is the line drawn to determine which crimes qualify and which do not. So in Skinner, the Court was not necessarily against mandatory sterilization, it was just not too sure which criminals should be sterilized and which ones should be spared. In a 2001 U.S. Eighth Circuit case, Vaughn v. Ruoff, the court cited Buck v. Bell and said “involuntary sterilization is not always unconstitutional.”

Radicalism and Extremism Trump Reason and Commonsense

Today, it is basically impossible to have a conversation over race or any other controversial topic. Why? Because extreme and radical views of a few trumps reason and commonsense of the many. We live in a divided country mostly polarized by politics that is fueled by 24/7 opinion shows on news stations. We live in a country that is incapable of having debates over controversial issues because many are brainwashed through propaganda garbage conveyed in our media outlets. Most individuals are too sensitive to have a rational discussion. Political correctness is a good example of this behavior and now everyone gets offended way too easily. We live in a country where we spend more time and energy trying to silence critics and adversaries first amendment rights than trying to have reasonable conversation.

When the President of the United States talks negatively about the police and only points out White on Black crime what is the result: Unreasonable groups such as Black Lives Matter (BLM). Is anyone surprised that police officers are targeted and being murdered around the country? I am not since that is often the message portrayed by BLM!

Is it hard to grow up in the United States as a minority? Without a doubt, I know it is (I grew up in poverty). However, I do not know what it is like to be Black and face racism and discrimination by bigots. Do the police target minorities more so then Whites? I am sure they do. I know discrimination exists, but anger and violence are not the answers.

Our government has destroyed races: Native Americans and now Blacks. Both are segregated on reservations or in inner cities. They live in poverty dependent on welfare from the government to exist. They are dependent on alcohol and drugs. They do not have a good education and have no prospects of any kind of work. They are more likely to have come from broken homes (especially without fathers). They resort to a life of crime and that is the reason there are more minorities in prison (based on percentages of the total population) and they are more likely to be targeted.

Yet, what is our solution to the problem: Diversity, affirmative action and other ways to discriminate against another group of people (which creates more anger). Black Lives Matter wants to eliminate the police department. Politicians want more gun control to stop crime or want to make prison sentences more lenient. Really? If this the answer to our race relations problem then we are totally missing the point. Unfortunately, these radical and extreme views will trump reason and commonsense to provide Blacks a better education and to wean them off welfare.

Unfortunately, with the poor leadership we have, the new norm is increased crime – especially hate crimes (including attacks from bigoted terrorists). When brain dead opinionated media types such as Anderson Cooper believe the Florida attorney general cannot have compassion for those that lost their lives in the Orlando terrorist attack because she does not agree with gay marriage, there is no way any conversation in this country will be productive. Hence, in Cooper’s view, if you are not in favor of Gay Marriage you must be a bigot. And that is the problem with how most people think today. They see bigotry where none exists. For instance, some police shootings, broadcast on the news, against Blacks were warranted. And folks wanting a “temporary” ban on Muslim immigration until the system is fixed are not all bigots.

Society is much too sensitive, brainwashed, angry, and radicalized to solve our race questions. Therefore, I expect things to get worse before they get better. Especially since neither Clinton or Trump will provide the right leadership (hopefully not as bad as Obama).

Federal Government Expansion Through Rationing

Both parties are guilty of the growth of the Federal Government. However, there is a distinct difference in points of view. The Republicans want to grow national security (border agents, agencies to fight terror, the military, etc.) to protect our freedoms, rights, and liberty. On the other hand, Democrats want to grow the federal government to infringe on our freedoms, rights, and liberty. The Democrats main focus is on rationing. That sounds strange that the government is expanding through rationing policies, but it is true.

Consider climate change as a good example of rationing. The goal is to ration carbon emissions. Thus, the government, in particular the EPA, places and enforces rules, regulations, and mandates on companies and individuals. It is a matter of time before the government provides each American with a “carbon footprint” identity card. We will have to use the card for every purchase in particular for heating, cooling, mass transportation travel, and so forth. The government will place a carbon footprint cap on everyone except for politicians and the President of course.

Rationing can also be seen as the government places more restrictions on guns. For massive gun control to work, the government will have to expand to enforce such measures.

In fact, federal rationing is everywhere! Consider socialism and welfare programs. Wealth is rationed and that transfer of money happens in the form of taxes and is then applied to anyone of several thousand anti-poverty programs. Obama-Care will ration healthcare just how Medicare has rationed healthcare for the elderly. Education is being rationed – trade schools are gone. Arts, music, geography, and history are rationed so educators can teach to a mandated test for reading, writing, and math.

Government rationing is also looking at controlling what we buy, what we eat, and where we do it. For instance, the government wants to ration how many calories intake, how much sugar we intake, how much meat we intake (related to carbon emissions), and how many carbs we ingest. The government can ration land through eminent domain. The government even rations farmers on how much of certain crops they can grow – and reimburses them for doing so.

Sure, Democrats have expanded a few rights such as marriage and of course there is no limit on the number of abortions a person can have. Now that is progress for you, the government rations our wages (taxes), rations what we can eat, rations our guns, rations our healthcare, rations our carbon footprint, but it is okay to kill as many unborn as you want! And what’s worse, the more government places restrictions on rationing, the more the federal government grows and hence, the more the federal government needs to ration our wealth. It is a vicious cycle.

Rationing is the biggest intrusion into our freedoms, rights, and liberties. But it is the most effective way to grow government. Hence, propaganda and fearmongering are used to make us believe it is in our best interest to comply with rationing. Every bad weather event is due to manmade climate change and every gun death could have been prevented with gun control. Unfortunately, most of us are none the wiser to these deceptions and lies.

The Rube Goldberg Insanity

I had never heard of Rube Goldberg, but was once given the chance to grade a “Rube Goldberg” contest. First, I declined because I was busy, but secondly, after reading about Rube Goldberg projects I probably would have rejected the invite based on learning and or educational differences. Rube Goldberg was a cartoonist and inventor. A Rube Goldberg project tries to find a complicated way to solve a problem.

I agree that a Rube Goldberg project is not all bad and does stimulate the thinking process for kids. However, that is as far as I will go. I see many more negative aspects of a Rube Goldberg project:

1. Rube Goldberg projects are convoluted solutions to solve simple problems and they have no value in American society. They are useless. It would be more useful to have students to try to invent something novel.

2. Rube Goldberg projects are not practical because they are not efficient. When hiring engineers at my former employer I was in search for the most practical and efficient engineers (and that was not an easy task). For that reason, Rube Goldberg projects set a bad precedent in the learning process – teaching kids that impracticality and inefficiency may be useful. Instead, it would be more useful for children to find more efficient solutions to simple problems that would be useful inventions.

3. Rube Goldberg projects teach chaos over organization. Organization is an often overlooked characteristic of successful engineers and people in general.

4. Rube Goldberg is now a catch phrase. Unfortunately, its meaning has a bad connotation. For instance, if a legislator is referred to the “Rube Goldberg” of Washington legislation - that is not a good thing. It means they are convoluted, impractical, and inefficient. I would place this label on some Obama legislation that has failed – ObamaCare, the Stimulus, and so forth. To be labeled as the Rube Goldberg of you field is not good. If that is true, then how can learning the Rube Goldberg way to solve problems be advantageous?

I truly believe our educational system is going backwards: eliminating programs and subjects, focusing on standardized government testing, placing athletics above academics, and now rewarding projects which are the most inefficient, convoluted, and least practical. It is no wonder we are fast falling behind other nations around the globe.

Victims and Villains

After watching a Democratic debate, I had to see if the U.S. Census Bureau tracked victims and villains. They did not, but that did not stop both Sanders and Clinton from blurting out statistics on the subject. From the debate, it is clear that Democrats would classify 99% of all Americans as victims while the other 1% of citizens are wreaking havoc on the other 99% - they are the villains. After carefully watching the debate, a victim can be defined as a person that is female, poor, a minority, and even an illegal immigrant. Females who must pay for conception and or an abortion are victimized the most within in the female gender. Victims can live in poverty, but can be above the poverty line if they collect welfare. Victims are anyone who has been convicted of a crime and had to spend time in jail – especially if you are black. Victims also include anyone who has paid for a college education or healthcare. Victims work for a minimum wage and often pay no or very little in federal taxes.

People who feel the federal government or their neighbors are not doing enough to help victims are also victims. Victims are also classified as being ungrateful towards those who fund their existence through welfare programs. They not only expect more compensation, but they feel they deserve it even for doing nothing or very little in return. It is okay for victims to be irresponsible and unaccountable for their actions.

Villains, on the other hand, are often defined as wealthy persons who often work on Wall Street. Villains pay over 95% of the taxes in the U.S. and donate over 90% of all monies to charities. Villains also create more than 85% of the jobs in the private sector. Villains are responsible and do not accept any government handouts. It is also strange, but police officers are also classified as villains.

Although Democrats place the number of victims in the U.S. at 99%. There are people who do not want or accept government help. There are other people who may take government assistance for only a short period of time to get back on their feet. These people are not victims, they are actually villains based on the Democratic definition.

No question, but if you put a Democrats brain in a bird, it would fly backwards. They continually want to reward bad behavior and punish good behavior. But go figure, this is what our young generation wants. Keep in mind, the leader of the victim cause, Hillary Clinton, is constantly being scrutinized for lying, cheating, and breaking the law. In fact, her one day speaking fee earns more than the annual salary of 75% of those villain CEO’s. Yes, Clinton is of course the chief leader of this hypocritical conspiracy theory.

The Difference Between Liberal and Conservative Freedoms

As the election season kicks off, it is easy to see the difference between liberal freedoms and rights as compared to conservatives. Conservatives want individuals to control their own freedoms and rights. Conversely, liberals candidates are competing to be the most socialistic candidate for the 2016 election. And therefore, they say a lot of nice things such as offering “free” stuff – healthcare, housing, food, education, and so forth and so on. But anyone with a brain can see through this.

First, nothing is “free” and someone has to pay for it. Who is paying for it? Companies and individuals through higher taxes. In fact, in true socialism, all companies are run by the government and all properties are confiscated by the government. Conservatives call this thievery while liberals call this a tax.

Secondly, anything “free” is run and controlled by the central government. That means all schools, homes, food, and healthcare are controlled by the federal government. To some, that sounds refreshing to do away with private property, private schools, mass produced foods, insurance companies and all companies in general. But is “free” really freedom and a protector of our rights? Absolutely not! Liberals are first to want to break up any corporate monopolies, but the government is already the biggest monopoly in this country for so many businesses – healthcare for the old, student loans, home loans, etc. And what liberals want is for the government to be a monopoly over all products and services offered in this country.

How do government monopolies destroy our freedoms and rights? Well, first of all, it would eliminate our choices. There will be one size that fits all for healthcare, education, housing, food and so forth. When choice is eliminated with brainwashing and propaganda, socialism eliminates the most important freedom we have: the freedom to think for ourselves; the freedom to pursue and practice what we want; and the freedom to make choices that are best for us.

In essence, under socialism, people will not have any freedoms or rights. The government will dictate a one size fit all policy for every American. The government will take away our need for a brain – Education curriculum will consist of brainwashing material to get everyone on board. History books will eliminate the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, because they are no longer relevant.

I find this very scary and the number of people that can support Bernie Sanders is mind blowing. Anyone can get on a stage and offer free stuff, but not everyone can tell you how they intend to pay for it. No question Bernie plans on confiscating wealth, but where will he draw the line?

In the narcissistic generation of social media, it appears more and more people expect to work little while intending to take advantage of free things offered by the federal government. This is not sustainable, look at Greece and many European countries that are financially collapsing.

I receive dozens of spam messages each day that says I should take advantage of the Obama administrations healthcare, education, and housing subsidies. They may be phishing, but they know people expect our President to hand out free things. And what’s worse, we expect to get things for free without putting forth any effort. It is a sad state of affairs for our country.

The Laws of Symmetry and Equilibrium (Part I)

I have talked in great lengths on this blog about how symmetry is the key to equilibrium for not only all matter within our universe, but for society and lives. Symmetry controls the stability of our economy, our educational system, religion, and even crime. Below are some examples of my laws of symmetry and any government attempt to change the outcome of these laws will lead directly to waste, chaos, and failure.

There should be as many poor people as there are rich people. When the government tried to make it possible for all of the poor to own a home, the housing market crashed and started the great recession. For fifty years the government has tried to eradicate poverty with no progress to show for trillions and trillions of dollars thrown into the system. Hence, socialism and spreading the wealth cannot undo Darwin’s laws of symmetry such as the survival of the fittest.

There are as many underachievers as gifted or advanced students in our educational system. To the same note there are as many geniuses as there are intellectually challenged in society. Not everyone is college material. The government pours billions into helping underachievers and very little to help advanced students. The result – the U.S. is falling further behind the rest of the world when it comes to reading, writing, math, and science. The school system may have just as much luck trying to convert athletically challenged students into top notch athletes or introverts into extraverts. This sounds silly, but that is the effect of non-symmetrical based policies.

There are as many evil people as heroes. This is why government attempts to reform hardened evil criminals’ fails at a rate greater than 95%. This also explains why our criminal system is failing good citizens because they hand down lenient penalties. Every act of goodness is opposed by an act of bad and this explains why bad things happen to good people. The same can be said of good and bad countries.

There are as many successes as there are failures. Therefore, government interference in the private sector with bailouts is not necessary. For instance, the Bush/Obama auto bailouts failed because GM and Chrysler went into bankruptcy anyway.

All government laws, mandates, regulations, and rules should be applied symmetrically. This means they should be applied equally amongst the population for which the law targets. However, this is not what has happened for ANY law since Calvin Coolidge was President. Laws are complex with thousands of pages of carve outs, earmarks, exceptions, inclusions, and overall convolution and disorder. The end result is chaos, fraud, mismanagement, and waste. Every big entitlement is a perfect example of this: ObamaCare, Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare to name a few.

The Fairness Inequality (Part III)

Narcissism and political correctness are working to destroy America. Our sense of fairness has gotten more personal and individualized. So much so we are willing to see other people treated unfairly at our own expense. A society that is selfish and can no longer communicate is the worst type of imbalance that can be created in society. Obama’s unilateralism is one example given earlier. But it is impossible for 8 billion completely unique personalities to be treated fairly in their view. Our unwillingness to be compassionate and self-aware simply because we can no longer communicate is creating the biggest imbalance on this planet – me against the world. We are no longer willing to accept a friend’s happiness without being jealous and revolting against them. We can no longer put ourselves in someone else’s shoes to understand their fear, pain, and trouble. We can no longer comprehend commonsense methods. We can no longer debate rationally because we have been biased by TV and media propaganda. We can no longer be respectful towards others even if they have differing viewpoints and philosophies. We blame others for our short comings and have no sense of responsibility and accountability. What’s worse we treat others with different philosophies with hate and distain. In essence, we have become a country of self-centered problem creators instead of problem solvers. In a narcissistic society everyone thinks they are correct 100% of the time and everyone else is wrong 100% of the time. Hence, the belief we are being treated unfairly a large portion of the time.

In the name of political correctness and narcissism even when it seems we are doing something good (fair) it is usually unfair. For instance, we have hundreds of charities and government agencies for cancer, diabetes, arthritis, anti-poverty programs, and so forth. This sounds fantastic, but dozens of programs and charities overlap. Instead of pooling resources together to avoid redundancy and to avoid waste and inefficiencies that is not done. Why? Because there is money to be made in charities and government agencies. Besides, there is more power and control for the people running these programs and charities. For instance, there is very little reason to have juvenile arthritis charities as well as arthritis charities but it is done mostly for being political correct and narcissism. Researchers do not want to pool funding, ideas, and research because it is about being the person who finds that invention or hopefully a cure. What is truly unfair is the millions of people dying each day because a cure could have been discovered if we worked together and did not waste money.

We have to get over ourselves and start looking at the big picture. Everything should not be perceived as being a conspiracy to be unfair to individuals, groups, organizations, businesses, and corporations. What can be done to reverse this trend? Several things. First, make lobbying illegal. Second, unify laws over jurisdictions. Third, limit time that can be spent on phones and computers. Fourth, fine media outlets for failing to offer solutions to controversial issues they cover. Fifth, cap campaign spending and use the rest of the monies raised to pay off the national debt. Sixth, think in terms of equal and not in terms of fair. Seventh, eliminate charity and government agency redundancy. Eighth, spend an equal share of money on school gifted programs and underperforming programs. Ninth, stop standardized testing and restart vocational schools. Tenth, train people to do good deeds on a daily basis. Eleventh, bring back values that include family, community, faith, and an understanding of the Constitution. Twelve, balance life between volunteering and contributions. Thirteen, boycott opinion TV and media outlets. There are dozens of more things that can be done. Many of these solutions are theoretically attainable, but unfortunately they will not even be attempted.

I could go on and on about these fairness issues. They are evident every day. It is unfortunate, but these fairness solutions are the start of the American downfall.

The Fairness Inequality (Part I)

 

One major difference between liberals and conservatives is the difference between fairness and equality. Liberals believe in fairness whereas conservatives believe in equality. Equality is a stable, symmetrical, and balanced state in society. Fairness, on the other hand, leads to chaotic, asymmetry, and or an unbalanced state in society.

How does fairness result in chaos and or an unbalanced state? Let’s examine the liberal Fairness Doctrine. Liberals like this doctrine because it would create balance for political ideology over the radio airwaves which incidentally are dominated by conservatives. However, the Fairness doctrine does not include balance of political ideology over other types of communication mediums dominated by liberals such as TV. Hence, in actuality, the Fairness doctrine is not fair and creates a state of imbalance between liberalism and conservativism because it solely discriminates against conservatives.

ObamaCare is supposed to be fair because it provides poor people the opportunity to obtain healthcare. But the law does not treat Americans equally. In an attempt to be fair the law does stupid things such as force 60 year olds to buy maternity and child care insurance. The law forces some people to change providers, doctors, and hospitals. ObamaCare costs depend on location of enrollees and if participants belong to a union. In fact, the 2000 page law carves out thousands of exceptions treating every participant differently such as government workers and politicians being exempt from using ObamaCare. Is this really fair and equal?

Obama believes ObamaCare and any transfer of wealth is fairness. But in reality this does not work. Despite spending over a trillion dollars a year on anti-poverty programs there are still as many people living in poverty as 50 years ago. However, these actions strip wealth from other Americans skewing the wealth curve towards poverty – it is not balanced or stable.

Everyone believes they have been treated unfairly at some point in their lives. In fact, people are more apt to believe they have been treated unfairly or unequally than vice versa a higher percentage of the time. Hence, our government is constantly trying to develop laws to even the playing field and create fairness and perceived equality. For instance, diversity and affirmative action laws usually try to create fairness by discriminating against another race or gender. Is that really fair and equal? Instead of solving a problem to create equality our government intervenes to create “fairness” rules to expedite an unfair solution. In fact, our government will pour billions of dollars to bring up the performance academically challenged students, but zero dollars to help advanced students to maximize their learning experience. Hence, the end result of standardized testing is a “dumbing down” of our population. Is this fair and equal?

The EPA has created mandates and rules that punishes certain businesses who generate too many CO2 emissions. However, these rules do not apply to all businesses and they do not apply to the general population of people who generated high CO2 emissions. The administration has continually picked winners and losers in industry – in particular in the green industry. The DOJ has decided to enforce certain federal laws such as immigration but not others federal laws such as marijuana. People who work hard are penalized with higher taxes while lazy Americans are rewarded with subsidies. This is our fair society.

Government Incentives Lead to Corruption, Waste, Irresponsibility, and Failure

It comes as no surprise every government incentive plan leads corruption, waste, and irresponsibility which, in turn, inevitably leads to failure. This site and conservative sites alike point to failures of many government incentive plans such as welfare. Welfare includes subsidies for food, housing, unemployment, and healthcare. These plans simply move money from wealthy citizens to poor citizens and do not to provide any incentives for the poor to find work or education to get a better paying job. The goal of any government incentive plan should be to maximize economic growth. And that means everyone should be responsible and contribute to the system and not just hold the top 10% of all earners accountable. On paper wealth distribution sounds great (especially to the poor), but this is socialism and it has failed time and time again throughout history simply because government incentives are misguided and lead to a lazy populous. Our educational system is another example of how the wrong types of incentives lead to corruption and failure. Each week there is news of a school system “cooking” the books on test scores. Administrators, teachers, and other officials are guilty of this because it could save their jobs as well as lead to more funding for the school district. The first failure here is that the government (local, state, and federal) place too much of an emphasis on a plethora of test scores – it is simply paralysis by over analysis. The second failure is to not have the tests given and scored by neutral observers. It seems every week we can see another example of government incentives gone awry. Let’s examine the root cause of the Veterans Administration (VA) healthcare scandal. An inquiry into the situation found a majority of VA hospitals and clinics were negligent in caring for our veterans. The wait time for an appointment was, on average, over six months and worse yet; some veterans never got an appointment. The VA had a goal of having veteran appointments set in 2 weeks or less. In fact, the VA provided bonuses based on meeting this requirement. The result, many VA facilities were “cooking” the appointment books to meet the VA appointment standards and receive falsified bonuses. Obviously, one correction from the inquire is to no longer provide bonuses based on the wait time system since this incentive lead directly to corruption, waste, and a complete failure of the system which resulted in the deaths of the very people who have protected our freedoms. The Burgdahl scandal is yet another example of government incentives gone awry. The Obama administration traded the top 5 Taliban enemy combatants for a very “bad” soldier who disserted and collaborated with the enemy. Hence, terrorist organizations now know this administration will negotiate with them to trade prisoners. Hence, in the future, terrorist organizations now understand the advantages of taking hostages. Therefore, Obama has provided our enemies with an incentive to attack and capture Americans.

Flaws in Freakonomics

I watched the film on Freakonomics and for the most part I found it interesting, but was highly disappointed. The bit on Sumo wrestling corruption could have been determined with eyeball statistics. Even more troubling was the section on why crime has been decreasing over time. It was determined that the Roe v Wade decision to make abortion legal in all 50 states helped to reduce crime over time by aborting “unwanted” babies. In fact, they found abortions were the leading reason for massive crime drops across the country (50% of the reason). The authors state they are not political but stating facts. Let’s say their facts are true; then maybe they can explain the following for me:

What constitutes an “unwanted” baby? There are no official statistics on “unwanted” babies, nor is there an official definition. Is an “unwanted” pregnancy the same as an unintended pregnancy? If that is true, then that also does not make much sense. The number of children living with single moms has been going up dramatically over time and despite this epidemic the crime rate has gone down. What does this say? The number of unintended pregnancies (stats show unintended pregnancies are more likely to happen with single moms) must be going up, but crime is still going down.

Since most crime, especially violent crime, presides in our inner cities, then why has the poverty rate remained constant over time. Most cities have seen a decrease in crime, but at the same time the percentage of people living in poverty has remained the same. If there was a crackdown on “unwanted” babies then why hasn’t there been a crackdown on the poverty rate?

The section on educational incentives almost made me sick to my stomach. They researched the effect of paying kids a “stipend” would have their grades. What they found is that F students remained F students and 5% of D students moved to C students. What’s even more troubling is that C’s were acceptable grades to earn the stipend. More research would have to be done to conclude if C students were more likely to be successful than D students. Really, this is how far we have stooped – paying kids to go to school?

The real failure of Freakonomics is that it neglects decades of data in their study on crime and education. For instance, it only evaluates data from the all- time highs in crime during the 70s to the present and only the current situation with education. They fail to determine what caused crime to spike so high and what caused the educational system to get broken in the first place. This is a cardinal sin for economist’s to pick and choose which data they want to evaluate. For example, the real question for education is to determine what variables have caused the educational / parental system to collapse and fix that instead of bribing kids to get C’s (which will probably do them no good).

Obama Cements Bush Legacy

<p>Obama has expanded on many of the Bush policies that not only did I not like, but they were also the policies that liberals despised about Bush. In many respects Obama is just Bush on steroids. And for this reason, Obama has cemented the Bush legacy – especially where it deals with national security and first amendment. Let’s examine some of these massive policy blunders: <p>Spending – Bush spending increased our deficit by over 4 trillion dollars whereas Obama has already exceeded Bush’s spending in just 4 years. Obama expanded Bush spending policies on corporate bailouts and entitlements. <p>Healthcare – Bush expanded Medicare (prescription drug) and SCIP even though liberals cried foul because it “irresponsible” deficit spending. But liberals are ecstatic Obama passed the most expansive and expensive government takeover of healthcare: ObamaCare. <p>Education – Bush passed the convoluted “No Child Left Behind (NCLB)” program. What’s worse, Obama added his own bureaucratic education policy on top of NCLB: The Race to the Top. <p>War – Liberals hated the Iraq war even though we won that war and freed the nation from a genocidal lunatic. On the other hand, Obama escalated the war in Afghanistan but exited the country with the Taliban as strong as ever. And let’s not forget Obama also went to war in Libya without the consent of Congress. Remember, the weapons supplied to Libya opposition forces were used in several terrorist attacks against Westerners. <p>Civil Liberties – The left was outraged by Bush’s enhanced interrogation policies used on enemy combatants. Obama does not have to “torture” enemy combatants because he does not capture them – he kills them even if they are unarmed. In fact, Obama is the first president to order the killing of American citizens who are terrorists. To make matters worse, the Obama administration says it could use drone strikes within the United States to execute American terrorists or criminals. By choosing to kill terrorists instead of capturing them the U.S. loses the tactical advantage of trying to garner intelligence. Obama has also refused to close Guantanamo Bay even though that was his first promise. <p>Collateral Damage – The left was outraged by the loss of civilian life during the Bush wars. However, civilian life loss under the Obama drone program has been exponentially worse. <p>Executive Privilege – The left was outraged when the Bush administration hid behind executive privilege for the outing of CIA agent Valarie Plame and the firing of U.S. judges. However, Obama has hid behind privilege for the terrorists attack in Benghazi and for his failed gun walking program “Fast and Furious”. Let it be said that no one died over the Bush executive privilege fiascos, but hundreds if not thousands died behind the Obama executive privilege fiascos. <p>Executive Power – Democrats loathed the executive power grab by the Bush administration (in particular the power of the Vice President) but that does not compare to the expansion of power made by the Obama administration in the form of czars and executive orders handed down as rules, regulations, and mandates. <p> Surveillance - Obama has escalated Bush policy to increase metadata analysis of American citizens phone calls and internet use. <p>Yes, in many respects Obama is just Bush on steroids. And, yes, this means Obama has cemented the Bush legacy. </p>

Why Are We So Afraid of Failure?

In the era where every kid wins a trophy for competing, we are a society focused on making sure people / children have successes. Hence, we are not pushing kids and forcing them face failures. Nothing prepares us more in life than dealing with failures and adversity. This is what makes us better and stronger people and ultimately defines our personality. While other nations around the globe push their children to face failures, we have become the politically correct nation that does not want to challenge kids – it has become offensive and abusive to push children to face failures. In fact, most schools and teachers only care if our kids meet a “minimum” set of watered down requirements in only reading, writing, and math. Our school system is not designed to “maximize” test scores or overall knowledge.

It seems everything is watered down these days so kids and schools feel successful – requirements are lowered (affirmative action is one example) and tests are easier. Parents and teachers do not have the time or the patience to push their kids. Government funding, such as Title I, are there to help under-performing students – no federal monies are designated for over-performing students. This is partly the problem of our school system which is a one size fits all philosophy. It is based on the philosophy all kids learn at the same rate and in the same manner. This is far from the truth.

I have worked with kids in our school system and I want to push them and challenge them. But once it gets too hard they cry and I cannot get parents or teachers to reinforce what I am teaching them. I find it very frustrating but do not want to hurt anyone feelings since I am just a volunteer. Therefore, each year I conform and scale back my expectations. It is hard to do especially when dealing with kids who have so much potential.

Everyone, who lives long enough, will face adversity and failure. It is how we learn to deal with adversity and failure is what will define our persona. It is what will define if we are doing everything in our power to become a better person and live a better life.

In fact, in life, we should face many more failures than successes if we are truly pushing ourselves.

Failure is only a bad thing if we continually make the same mistakes over and over. For instance, this is why I despise big government because they continually make the same mistakes over and over again (Romney Care to Obama Care, adding another entitlement like Obama Care when other entitlements are bankrupting our country, and so forth).

If we want to succeed in the future, our school system needs to push kids to achieve excellence even if it means they must fail along the way.

How People Misuse the Transitive Property

In math the transitive property states:

Whenever A > B and B > C, then also A > C

Whenever A ≥ B and B ≥ C, then also A ≥ C

Whenever A = B and B = C, then also A = C.

Hence, on a test if student A scores 7 points better than student B and student B scores 8 points better than student C, then we can conclude student A scored 15 points better than student C. However, most people make the mistake of thinking they can use the transitive property to evaluate trends and prognosticate future outcomes. This is what I like to call “eyeball statistics” and wrote about it here: http://pbohan.blogspot.com/2012/02/eyeball-statistics.html.

For example, if team A beats team B and team B beats team C, then we like to assume that team A will beat team C. This is not necessarily going to be the case. And if team A beats team B by 10 points and team B beats team C by 10 points, it is highly unlikely team A will beat team C by exactly 20 points. The reason for this is simple, in the real world there are a lot of variables that go into deciding a particular outcome – injuries, illness, matchup styles, mistakes, and of course people have good and bad days.

We see people try to use the transitive property incorrectly in politics all the time. For education the government is using standardized testing to decide if students pass a minimum set of requirements for reading, writing, and math. The standardized test encompasses a few hours of one day. Bureaucrats make the wrong assumption that children doing well in school will translate to higher test scores and conversely children doing poorly in school will translate to lower test scores. But this is not necessarily true. A good student can have a bad day due to extenuating circumstances such as trouble at home, lack of sleep, or other variables that may turn a good student into a poor one on any given day. The same can be said of a bad student; they can have a good or lucky day and pass the test. To assume a few hours of one day correctly assesses the aptitude of students is an insane proposition. The same test can be administered on a different day with drastically different outcomes for each student. It makes more sense to evaluate the student’s overall body of work over the course of the year instead of over a few hours. This is the only way to average out good and bad days.

On climate change we assume if there is a trend of higher global temperatures for a few straight years then we automatically assume the upcoming year will be warmer. If the earth is hit with a few violent storms we all the sudden assume that storms are increasing with intensity. This is human nature because it is what makes sense from a simple mathematical concept – the transitive property. However, climate change is not a simple problem to statistically evaluate using one or two variables – there are thousands of variables that must be considered. The same can be said about education, there are hundreds of unique variables and extenuating circumstances that affect each student.

A day does not pass when I see some genius try to extrapolate world issues by using the transitive property on data – this is wrong and it has to stop.

Practical Leraning

I am a volunteer math and science tutor at Avery Parsons Elementary (APE) School. I am called an enrichment tutor because I work specifically with advanced students. I have argued for years that schools spend more time, focus, money, and energy on bringing lagging students up to speed then they invest in kids that are advanced. Most of these students are bored as they go through school. This is the problem with education today and why it is failing so many kids. Schools are focused solely on kids passing a minimum set of requirements. They do nothing to try to maximize the learning experience for students capable of achieving more. This is wrong and why the United States has to import our doctors, engineers, and other technical workers from foreign nations.

The APE Night Light Project is being done by second grade students at Avery Parson’s Elementary school in Buena Vista Colorado. The product is a flash light which can also be used as a bike light or fastens to anything with its 18 inch Velcro strap. It is made using bright white LED lights and circuits purchased from Evan Designs (website below – this is great small business). The circuitry is cased in discarded roll-on deodorant canisters. The lights run on 9V batteries.

Some argue that second grade is a little too young for these types of projects. However, in my experience, the biggest problem with teaching youngsters math is that they see no meaning or purpose for it. That is because 9+8=17 or 25x9=225 means absolutely nothing! Numbers without any units or explanation mean nothing. The sooner kids can see the purpose behind math and science, the sooner they will become interested in learning these concepts.

The purpose of the APE Night Light Project is to have a practical educational experience where students learn math, science, creative writing, and solve real world problems. The goal is for students to see the practical aspects for learning (in particular math and science) as it is applied in the real world. The project fosters creativity and business acumen as students learn how to create a business, market products, and understand the financial implications on product pricing and profits.

Please contact me if you would like to donate (recycle) your used deodorant canisters for this project at pbohan1@gmail.com. The deodorant caps (lids) must be transparent and we prefer clear covers not colored ones (i.e. Secret Deodorant has clear caps or covers). Hopefully, one of these years we can put together a fund raiser and sell the product. Thank you for your help.

LED Company – Evan Design

http://www.modeltrainsoftware.com/bl-214f.html

Avery Parson’s Elementary School

http://www.bvschools.org/Schoolshtml/averyparsons.html

Mrs. Propernick’s Second Grade Class

http://mrsprop.weebly.com/

This information can also be found on my website at:

http://patrickbohan.elementfx.com/APE.htm

Product Features

Light Weight and Compact

Water Proof

Inexpensive

Recycles plastic deodorant canisters

Low Power and energy efficient – Single LED Flashlight runs up to 40 hours and Triple LED Flashlight runs up to 30 hours

Product Usages

Flash Light

Bike Light

Reading Light

Wrist Lamp

Product Types

Single LED APE Night Light

Super Bright Triple LED APE Night Light

Single LED APE Night Light with Velcro Strap

Super Bright Triple LED APE Night Light with Velcro Strap

OBush

Obama has expanded on many of the Bush policies that not only did I not like, but they were also the policies that liberals despised about Bush. In many respects Obama is just Bush on steroids. Let’s examine some of these massive policy blunders:

Spending – Bush spending increased our deficit by over 4 trillion dollars whereas Obama has already exceeded Bush’s spending in just 4 years. Obama expanded Bush spending policies on corporate bailouts and entitlements.

Healthcare – Bush expanded Medicare (prescription drug) and SCIP even though liberals cried foul because it “irresponsible” deficit spending. But liberals are ecstatic Obama passed the most expansive and expensive government takeover of healthcare: ObamaCare.

Education – Bush passed the convoluted “No Child Left Behind (NCLB)” program. What’s worse, Obama added his own bureaucratic education policy on top of NCLB: The Race to the Top.

War – Liberals hated the Iraq war even though we won that war and freed the nation from a genocidal lunatic. On the other hand, Obama escalated the war in Afghanistan but exited the country with the Taliban as strong as ever. And let’s not forget Obama also went to war in Libya without the consent of Congress. Remember, the weapons supplied to Libya opposition forces were used in several terrorist attacks against Westerners.

Civil Liberties – The left was outraged by Bush’s enhanced interrogation policies used on enemy combatants. Obama does not have to “torture” enemy combatants because he does not capture them – he kills them even if they are unarmed. In fact, Obama is the first president to order the killing of American citizens who are terrorists. To make matters worse, the Obama administration says it could use drone strikes within the United States to execute American terrorists or criminals. By choosing to kill terrorists instead of capturing them the U.S. loses the tactical advantage of trying to garner intelligence.

Collateral Damage – The left was outraged by the loss of civilian life during the Bush wars. However, civilian life loss under the Obama drone program has been exponentially worse.

Executive Privilege – The left was outraged when the Bush administration hid behind executive privilege for the outing of CIA agent Valarie Plame and the firing of U.S. judges. However, Obama has hid behind privilege for the terrorists attack in Benghazi and for his failed gun walking program “Fast and Furious”. Let it be said that no one died over the Bush executive privilege fiascos, but hundreds if not thousands died behind the Obama executive privilege fiascos.

Executive Power – Democrats loathed the executive power grab by the Bush administration (in particular the power of the Vice President) but that does not compare to the expansion of power made by the Obama administration in the form of czars and executive orders handed down as rules, regulations, and mandates. Surveillance - Obama has escalated Bush policy to increase metadata analysis of American citizens phone calls and internet use.

Yes, in many respects Obama is just Bush on steroids.