The defense of Dissent and Friendships

Thursday, June 11th, 2020 at about 6:30 in the too early to be up in the damn morning!

On this day in history, the Klingons enacted laws making it legal to marry humans. They also made it illegal to eat Human women when they were upset with them or when they divorce them. Or so some story writer nerd guy said on the internet so It must be true right?

Hey Fellow weirdoes,

The more I write to this blog and the more I struggle to come up with topics I want to write about, the less I understand about the human condition. I really think that is how it is supposed to be. The more questions I pose, and the more I learn from the comments of the people who take time to answer them and engage with me, the more I understand that I don't know all that much, to begin with. It seems like a non-sequitur, a non-starter to say something like that, but it's true. The body of knowledge required to be an expert on more than one tiny subject is enormous, and when someone thinks they know everything it just points out to me in graphic detail how much they really don't know and how much I have to learn in the process. I used to be a lot more confident in my opinions and that was because I was a lot dumber than I am today. That seems to make little sense, however, it's spot on believe me.

Most of my friends and acquaintances are reasonable, intelligent individuals, and as I've come to understand their strengths and respect them for what they know, it's apparent that my own weaknesses become more glaring. I think that's how it is supposed to be, for if everybody was the same the world would be a very boring place indeed. Imagine if everyone thought the same way you do, or everyone had the same inabilities to critically think the way you do. The plot holes created in your life and everyone else's life would be enormous plotholes you could not see coming before you stepped into them, and it would happen over and over again. So be glad you have folks in your life that will disagree with you and be glad there are people around you that will react and respond to you with emotion and differing opinions. You would never learn a single different way of thinking without it.

In the last few days, a few of my friends have interacted with me about lots of subjects. All of the major ones have been covered because we post and talk about lots of stuff. Things like Covid-19, the economy, job loss, politics, and sports are just a few. We laugh about some things, discuss others and I just sit back and absorb the information about others. Whenever they talk about Baseball, for example, I am just a "lurker" because although I have been watching, for example, baseball for a long time, I am a casual observer. I could not explain most of the obscure stats or their relevance to the game in any fashion. Two of my friends know baseball inside and out including where the standings are in relation to the playoffs, how the season would finish given a set of scenarios such as winning the next 6 out of 10 games would do this or that to the race for the championship and etc. They are absolute geniuses when it comes to that stuff and me?, I don't have a friggin clue. They talk about football the same way, with talks about salary caps, trades, playoff scenarios (like you know, the old, if this team wins they need help from that team, etc to make the playoffs) and I look at that conversation and say "Where did these guys learn to speak this language?", what was I doing while they were learning to speak "Playoff" in football-ese? The same exact thing happens to all kinds of different subjects. I think the only thing I actually know more about than anyone else is how to be a loudmouth with an opinion. I have no shortage of either of those.

For example, I made the following statement
" I saw a very white red-haired female protester carrying a sign that said that "Silence is Violence". After thinking carefully about it, I really couldn't disagree more. Not only could I think of a couple of reason why silence is golden, I just don't see how my silence matters, If I cannot walk to participate, if I don't have the audience for my writings or videos and if the folks who know me best already understand my point of view better than I do. I really do not understand how it matters if I observe from the sidelines, which is where my capabilities lie."

One of my good friends added
" I too will not be protesting. It is unlikely, I will ever join any protest for any reason. It is nice that people are having discussions. I hope some hearts and minds are changed. However, I am cynical. Most of us would be inclined to say, I'm not a racist. Such a thing is defined differently by different people. To me, a better thing to say is I am aware of my prejudices. If you think you have no prejudices of any sort, I'm pretty cynical of that too. We all have them. Are you aware of yours? Unfortunately, I also believe that all this protesting, getting in cops' faces, calling out your fellow man for how they stated their opinion on social media, etc. etc. etc. will do virtually no good." 

By responding the way he did instead of responding emotionally, which would not have helped, he taught me that there are valid reasons to feel like you do, and all of them are pretty much ok as long as you are truly aware of your own prejudices also. I think this was a glorious piece of advice and I also know he actually believes this way which makes it more valuable to me.

I made a self-deprecating statement about being a big-mouth:

A buddy of mine says this virus thing is bogus.
I responded with a three-page story, the big mouth that I am.

Then I received this return comment:

Thank you for being a thinker and a loudmouth....most of the time, lol-jk

By giving me this feedback, the commenter made me aware that they read my opinions and complimented me as well. The compliment was nice but totally unnecessary because that's not the point, however, I appreciate the honesty. It is rare in our society.

I forwarded an on-line article from a site called "The Science Explorer"

Basically, the thrust of the article said that according to Bloomberg News "A second US Virus wave emerges after state re-openings" 
One of my mathematician analytical big brain friends observed about the article:

Ain't no science to this. It's taking a few areas in the country and yelling the sky is falling. It's not. Saying any recent 7 day period shows a significant spike is a flat out lie. This isn't that hard for these so-called Journalists to figure out. You can get these numbers broken all the way down to County. A decent Journalist would go find out what is happening in the counties that are experiencing pops if they wanted to report accurately on this. 

An example for you. The Governor of N. Carolina has been in a dogfight with a race track in Alamance County that has been open for the last month. He's telling them they can't open. The local sheriff says he cannot enforce this because it is unconstitutional. Governor gets lawyers to send them threatening letters. So last week, they put up a sign saying this track is open for a gathering in protest of racial inequality making it impossible to force them closed. Over 2000 people come weekly. The county has experienced a significant spike in COVID 19 cases. Now, a significant spike is double the cases from a daily number of 14 to 29. Oddly, the Governor is not forcing other tracks in NC to close. This is just a PO'ed Governor gonna show you who has the power. 

If you want facts, just google the word coronavirus on your cell phone. Down the page is a statistics area. Mine brings up the County I live in. At the bottom of it in blue it says (more locations and statistics). From there you can get any country, any State and any county. I get your point but I can use these numbers all day to knock down this dishonest reporting. Health issues should not be political but they've made it so. It's like two years ago when they were pushing we're headed for recession BS. It was absolutely false. Nothing pointed to it happening anytime soon. I don't think anyone wants to see people die from this virus but who wants to see complete economic destruction from this thing either? People have little idea as to just how destructive these last 3 months have been. But everyone will find out when the dust settles. We are not going back to 5% unemployment or lower any time soon. We're talking a couple years minimum.

The primary thing that struck me first that I never even noticed was that it wasn't even from a Science publication like I thought it was initially. It was from Bloomberg news. Crap I feel dumb. Secondly, in my haste to say "Aha! I told you so", I failed to consider the article's methodology. A 7-day trend does not make a wave. My God, sometimes my eyes are glued shut to the details. Another one of my friends use a one-word description about this article and he just said "Bullshit". Classic him, but he was right. Damn, sometimes I just can't see this stuff. I wonder why that is? I can always see it after someone else does but don't see it when it's right in front of me. Once I read the entire article once again and compared it to other reporting, I am inclined to agree with both of them. I'm sure glad there is someone I can count on for contrary advice. I wouldn't know it otherwise.

My point here if there is one is that dissent is needed and is part of learning. If you have closed yourself off from the points of view of others you are doing yourself a disservice and are making those around you suffer from your insecurities. It really doesn't take that much of an effort to absorb this kind of learning, however, without it you are stunting your own growth just because you want to feel comfortable. Sometimes comfortable is the worst way to be as the world will pass you right on by while you are snoozing on the couch.

The divide in this country gets stranger and stranger every day. People who I think are otherwise decent hardworking thoughtful individuals have some fairly radical points of view occasionally. Well, radical to me I mean. I wonder how you would classify this kind of thing. I don't subscribe to the liberal points of view on a lot of things, I surely don't get and cannot embrace some of the stuff that Conservatives are saying and doing right now, I think Libertarians are drifting too extreme in some ways, I wonder what that makes me? I must be some goofy kind of Independent, capitalist non-Bernie bro. I am not for a socialist agenda but would like to see healthcare reformed in my lifetime. I don't think abortion should be a political discussion and don't think that politicians should be involved in healthcare discussions at all. I am aware that there is a huge religious influence on legislation and think that Insurance companies and religious organizations have no more right to be making decisions about my healthcare than a Pharmacist does. Doctors should be in charge of healthcare. Period. The accountants that run the world should not be in charge of defining how to treat me, regardless of how they define it.

We need a better taxation system than we have now because the underground economy escapes paying about 100 billion dollars in taxes every year, and that's just tracking expenses against income. In other words, your taxes are too high because only about 40% of us are paying what they actually owe based on their real income. We have known this for more than 75 years and still, we refuse to do anything to change it other than to refine and legislate an over-complicated tax code that no one can follow now. I think the whole thing should be scrapped in favor of a national sales tax system so that no matter who you are you have to pay taxes based on what you spend. All-cash purchases, even under the table ones, exist as a legitimate purchase at some point. 

If you Tax all the legitimate purchases then the gangs, hookers, drug kingpins, illegal aliens working cash jobs, everybody, etc. must pay their taxes, as there would be no escaping it. They have to because everybody buys milk, everybody buys fast food, everybody buys gasoline and etc. If you eliminate the income tax based on reported income and institute a sales tax based on your purchases, even the filthy rich have to pay taxes because you have eliminated the loopholes. Even if they want to park cash in overpriced artwork, they would have to pay taxes on the purchase.

It seems simple to me, but I'm probably missing something, like how politicians will never allow it because they can't get their grubby paws on that flow of the money. I could go on and on and provide dozens of examples of how this kind of thing affects my thinking but I think you get my point so I'll stop for now. 

It doesn't mean I am going to quit talking about it all together though.

1. Atlanta has fired 2 more Police Officers over a tasing and treatment incident of two local students that occurred during the demonstrations and the subsequent city curfews. That brings the total to 6 police officers that have been fired over this incident. Criminal charges have been filed against all 6 of them.
   
   I have not seen the videos although I hear they are fairly cut and dried and the cops were pretty brutal in their treatment of the two kids, with rough treatment and tasers being used without any resistance from them. I don't know what happened,  but if it is true then I can understand the cities reaction because I have read the story. Not sure I agree with charges or firing them, but I see why they made the decision to do so.
   
   
2. The world's tallest dog is a Great Dane that lives in Weeting Norfolk, in the Uk. He is 8 years old ahis name is Enormous Freddie, he is 7'4" at the head and he is also the world's oldest Great Dane.
   
   
3. The US Air Force has begun to deploying spy drones and B1-B stealth bomber flights along the South China Sea coastline in recent weeks.  They are supposedly part of a broader strategy to sustain surveillance and deterrence in the region following increased tensions in China-US relations in the region.
   
   
4. Starbucks is closing 400 stores over the next 18 months out of its almost 10,000 stores in the US/Canadian market. I'm not a huge fan of theirs because of their prices, products, and the fact that you have to learn a new language just to order coffee at their stores. This is a sea change from their strategy of 10 years ago where they couldn't open new stores fast enough, man how times change when you're having no fun at all.
   
   
5. A man has been injured and has sustained serious injuries requiring hospitalization which occurred while toppling a Confederate statue in Virginia. Man, it's tough being a rioter.
   
   
   Too bad it didn't fall on his head where it wouldn't have hurt anything vital.
   BigMike