The Sporting Life

The sporting life from what I can observe consists of schlepping children to and fro from their various athletic endeavors and watching sports on television sitting in an easy chair. Parents begin transporting their children to such things as t-ball and soccer pre-kindergarten. Soon these activities are transcended by soccer, softball, baseball, football, volleyball most or all of which may begin as early as kindergarten. These activities continue through high school with increased intensity as they evolve into school activities as opposed to a collection of parents self-organizing. The purpose of these activities is difficult to ascertain. Most of the urchins engaged in these activities are not athletes, give no indication of ever being athletes, and would be just as happy playing tag on the school grounds. The purpose of these child athletic engagements appears to be for the benefit of the parents. The parents are required to organize these activities, to transport their children to them, wait until finished, and deliver them up again home. It is the opportunity for you, as the parent, to meet other parents with which you have nothing in common and having nothing to talk about. It is also the chance to yell at the coach, grumble that your kid isn't getting enough playing time, complain about the referees, or the best scenario, to get in a fight with a parent of a kid from the other team. And, you take turns in the concession stand so that snacks are available and money is found to finance these activities. This latter is a real treat. By taking your turn in the concession stand the parent is unable to ignore anyone, child or adult, and must, at the minimum, show enthusiasm. Depending upon the parent's endurance, sporting activities for one's children can consume every evening of the week and both days of the weekend. For those who follow this path, their lives most be totally vacuous, without the hint of meaning or interest. Between the children's sporting activities and television sports, such parents live a nearly vicarious existence. It is difficult to know why anyone would want to be acquainted with such people let alone spend time with them. Children are inherently uninteresting and these parents spend a great deal of time successfully emulating their children. It is difficult to believe the children are in the least grateful. Comments of the children would seem to indicate they have some inalienable right to participate in these activities clothed and shoed as expensively as possible with the ever present water bottle at their disposable so they remain properly hydrated. If mediocrity is reached, parents are cajoled into summer camps for the improvement of technique. The expenses mount and vacations are foregone, but the children are happy.

Student Cheating

The latest outcry of concern in our daily publications is student cheating which to read the reports is endemic in our institutions of learning, from grade school through Ph.D. programs. The concurrent message is that we must immediately do something about it; what, no one says. But all are agreed that it is an onerous development and one that reflects poorly on us all. Personally, I've never been especially exercised over cheating in school considering the fact that a majority of the students in school don't take learning seriously enough for it to make a difference to them or anyone else. Secondly, most of the things students are suppose to learn are either wrong, superficial, or irrelevant. Not that one should endorse cheating, but there are certain things about cheating that seem to be positive. For instance, cheating takes some initiative. It also takes planning, preparation, courage, risk taking, and good nerves (coolness under pressure). These are all qualities that we encourage in our children; but as with so many things in life, if we do them we are being naughty. Again I'm not saying we should encourage cheating, but maybe it isn't the end of the world either. I suspect cheating is not a new phenomenon. I remember reading the Iliad and the Odyssey years ago and thinking I wouldn't trust those Greeks for anything. If my memory is correct, they would lie and cheat with the best of them. So I suspect that cheating is not new either in school or out of it. I suppose we could make it a crime like we do everything else we disapprove of; if caught cheating, off to jail you go. Or, if not having reached your majority, then to detention center; or at least put on probation where you can be monitored by the juvenile probation officer for evidence of continued cheating. The general public must be satisfied; a little like the Roman Collosseum. Cheating is a crime in numerous areas of endeavor such as tax returns, fraudulent transactions, illegal cable hook ups, failure to return library books, prenuptial agreements, fabricated SEC filings. The list could go on, but the point being, no good reason exists to exempt children from the criminal justice system if they cheat. They need to learn early the arm of the law is long and demanding. The earlier the better. As stated in other contexts, it is time to call our legislators for action. New legislation is needed.

Welfare

Over the years I have heard more complaints than I can count that welfare payments are simply a form of taking from those who deserve the money they make and giving to those who won't work and don't deserve money they get. This misses the point entirely. Welfare is simply another method of controlling the lower classes and it works very well. The person giving the money has control over the person receiving the money; this fact can hardly be disputed. In the case of welfare, it is the government giving the money, and the poor, uneducated, dysfunctional people receiving it. Without this monthly stipend, the government would have only the police to keep these people under control. With welfare, the Department of Human Services is created and staffed for the purpose. Social workers in the guise of helping those who need the help are in fact the second wave of enforcers of morality, public order, and discipline. Where the police are unable to justify throwing someone in jail, the social workers are called in to deal with the schizophrenics, the terminally depressed, and the other misfits who have lost what little housing they have or their residences are too full of mice and cockroaches to be habitable. Social workers are paid to monitor the activities of these folks; to act as payees, to ensure that the rent is paid, and to prohibit them from making nuisances of themselves. Giving someone several hundred dollars a month is quite cost effective. Without the monthly stipend, Walmart's loss prevention officers would be overwhelmed, beggars would suddenly appear in the streets, burglaries and robberies would multiply. All this would be very annoying to us decent folk who go to work every day and do what we are told. I have attempted to explain this to my Republican friends without success. The opinion continues to hold that these people should take responsibility for their own lives and not be supported by the rest of us. I think they should make up some posters and place them in various locals around our urban areas where these people live. This might make the difference. Once they read the exhortations on the posters, behaviors will immediately change and peace will reign. The fact remains though, the fact which remains unacknowledged, is that what should be is different from what is. It would be paradisical if what should be actually was reality; but it isn't and it would be better if we acknowledge it so we can deal with it.

Paid to Think

In a world of jobs, thinking is not a requirement. Thinking, in fact, is a detriment to productivity. One does not pay the stocker at HyVee to think nor the person at the cash register at McDonalds. The last thing an employer of these people wants is a workforce who spends its time on the job thinking about anything. The common opinion on teenagers working, which make up the vast majority of these employees in these jobs, is that they are good training and experience for adulthood. And in fact they are wonderfully good training for a career of working without thought which is expected of most of us most of the time. An exception to this mandated life without thought is the legal profession. The idea of thinking is an integral part of the law school curriculum. For many this is a difficult concept to grasp and even more difficult to practice. It is a new experience for most and thinking can be difficult if one has never done it. A large number who enter law school leave shortly thereafter having soon come to the conclusion that thinking is not for them. A graduate of law school really doesn't know much more than when he matriculated; but presumably the graduate now has the ability to actually think about issues presented. Unfortunately lawyers fall into the general malaise of the nonthinking population by limiting their thinking processes to their professional duties. They, like the general population, identify. They identify with a political party, a religious organization, a social network. Once this has been accomplished, no thinking is required. That job has already been done. There exists nothing in daily life that requires thought. And by thought I do not mean deciding on what to have for dinner or whether or not to put an addition on the house. Being a creative chef or builder of additions are activities, not thinking. For most of us, when not working we are engaged in activities. Activities are another substitute for thought. The major activity appears to be television. One can not drive down the street looking through windows, day or night, and if anyone is present, the television is on. Some engage in more than one activity at any given time such as watch television and cook. Thinking requires two things, at a minimum: effort and knowledge. Without facts one has nothing to think about and without effort the facts are de minimis. One only needs a brief discussion with a high school graduate to realize that our public schools are not in place to produce thinking adults; they exist to incorporate and indoctrinate but most importantly they inculcate respect for authority. An example of this is the successful effort by the schools to convince our children that it is great to be an American; that America is the greatest country in the world. I'm not saying that it isn't, but why is it or why may it not be. This is something we definitely do not want our citizens to give thought to.

Punishment

Have you ever thought about the concept of punishment? Where did this idea come from? God punishes sinners; parents punish children; governments punish citizens. It seems that underlying each of these is control. If you can not punish someone, you can not control them. Punishment is not revenge or retaliation. Revenge and retaliation arise from impulses distinct from controlling others; they are more primitive. But punishment implies power; without power one is unable to punish or to control others. Throughout history men have imprisoned, killed, maimed, and tortured other men as exhibition of power. It must be very satisfying to know that you can control other people by punishing them. Presumably the justifications for controlling others are as many as those who have the power to do so; but it is based on one unconvertible idea which is that the person with power is superior to the person without it. I am sure that this subject has been discussed by people wiser than myself, but it would seem to me that power is a gift from one person to another. In order for a person to have power over me, I must allow it to happen, I must give him the power to do so. Without my acquiescence, no one can control me. There are folks who refuse to be controlled. A good example are some of those who I represent who have used, continue to use, and will use in the future illegal substances. They refused to stop using them whether it is a crime or not. Our governments, especially the federal government, has decided that they will simply put these people in cages and keep them from these illegal substances for most if not all of their lives. It is not that these people are particularly dangerous or harmful to others; they are simply uncontrollable. They will not do what they are told to do. And since they will not do what they are told not to do, the government will insure that they don't by placing them in cages where they will be told what to do every waking moment of the day. They will be told when to eat, what to eat, when to sleep, what to watch on tv, what activities they are allowed to do, etc. They are now controlled 24 hours a day year after year, decade after decade. It is simply this: if you do not voluntarily act in the manner proscribe by us, then you will do what we say, every time we say it, all the time, where we have complete control of you every moment of the day. It is no more complicated that this.

To Clone or Not to Clone

In 2007 the Iowa legislature suddenly determined that human cloning should be a felony. I'm unaware that there was much human cloning activity, but it is possible that the Department of Vital Statistics may have the information of who of our acquaintances are cloned and who actually have parents. I don't recall the impetus for the bill which would subject a cloner up to 10 years in the penitentiary, but I suspect it was religious in nature having in view that only God should be able to create man not other men. Now, of course, this view has no rational basis, but if one thinks about it, there are certain difficulties associated with cloning. For instance, how does probate work? Does a clonee inherit from the adults who raised him or her? Who inherits from a clonee? These are questions that would be what we call in the trade "cases of first impression". Another difficulty that would present itself is obtaining a credit card. I don't know how many times I have had to give as the secret word, my mother's maiden name. Since a clonee doesn't have a mother, this suggests that credit card companies need to change the secret word to something other than your mother's maiden name. This would cost money. Holiday dinners would certainly be different. Most clonees would be eating Thanksgiving dinner by themselves or at the local restaurant; but conversely, many fewer Christmas presents would be purchased saving hundreds of dollars. And since most families have at least one person who they never want to see, that problem would be solved. So there are benefits as well. Bastard, though no longer a pejorative term since half the children born in the United States today are bastards, would no longer be on the bottom rung of the social ladder. As the Indian custom of castes, clonees would be a rung below bastard since bastards have at least one identifiable parent. Bastards would be pleased with this raise in status and should, by all accounts, support cloning. I think we need to send out a state-wide questionnaire to determine how many clonees exist in the state. Once we have identified them, we can assess their intelligence and moral character to determine whether clonees are superior or inferior to the normal uncloned person within the state. It is my view that it would take a rather slipshod effort on the part of the cloner to produce inferior people, but be that as it may, we would have some statistics to work with. And if it were found that clonees on the average were of higher intelligence, more productive, better citizens than noncloned people, we should address our legislature with this knowledge and ask them to reconsider the crime of cloning.

Paranoia Plus

If you pay any attention whatsoever, you may have noticed that police stations, courthouses, the capitol, government buildings now have gate guards, many with screening devises to check for dangerous implements. This is a relative recent phenomenon, but one that has been gaining speed for a number of years. When you ask about this, the response is universally-security. It is to protect the people who work in these buildings. But let us think about this for a moment; something I often ask. Immediately several questions surface. For one, from whom are the people working in these buildings to be protected? The answer is, from you and me. I must take everything from my pockets to enter the Polk County Courthouse. The last time I was in the Iowa State Capitol I also was required to take everything from my pockets. The federal courthouse is the most difficult of entrance. There one must practically disrobe. I not only have to show my ID to people who know me, but I must take off my belt and shoes too if they contain metal shanks. Personally I find these requirements disrespectful. I am viewed as a potential threat to the safety of the people who work in the building. In many of these buildings, if not most, people are in possession of a vast number of firearms, weapons of all kinds, ammunition in sufficient quantity to hold off a siege. There is significant symbolism in the behavior of the people working for the government; of the government itself. The only conclusion that can be drawn from this behavior is that governments and the people who work for governments are afraid of the public-the people who they are employed to serve. Public places should be places where people want to go; to feel welcome. This is not the case. Every level of security makes the visit to a public place, such as a courthouse, more foreboding, more difficult, less welcoming. As a result the public goes to the courthouse only when required. It is no longer a place to hang out and see what is happening in the halls of justice. The federal courthouse is the most deserted. I'm not sure that one would even be allowed entrance unless one could articulate a specific reason for the visit. What this discussion leads to, especially in regard to the federal government, is that they are afraid of us--you and me. This is not good. Fear easily leads to oppression and repression; one may only look around the world to see how easily governments slaughter their own citizens because they fear them. This is not to say that the federal government will begin slaughtering the citizens of this country, but fear is a continuum; it travels from low to high, from a little to a lot, and it moves up and down. Fear is harmful; it is the cause of irrational behavior and it sets the government apart from its citizens. From being all in this together; it becomes us against them. With the level of security we experience in dealing with our government, the conclusion is easy to reach that the government is not for us but against us. But as with many things, there seems to be no solution. When voicing concerns over building security, the response is normally one of disdain or suspicion; you are either ignorant of life in modern society, or are callous of the safety of those employed to protect you.