The National Anthem Controversy

The National Anthem Controversy

A NFL football player refused to stand for the national anthem. While I reckon he has a right to do so, it makes little sense to me.  He says he will not express pride for a country that mistreats black people. Very well then, why doesn’t he go out and march with ‘Black Lives Matter’? Suppose everyone who doesn’t like the way our government operates in this or that area, for this or that group or principle, did the same thing?  Who would be standing?  And no one would have the vaguest notion why they were not standing. Perhaps the football game could be delayed while each person not standing explains why.

Frankly, I don’t know how singing the national anthem at sport games or marching bands to support veterans, etc in the slightest way improves the subject being honored. Nobody is there to change anything for country or veterans, they paid big money to see the game. In other words it is meaningless patriotism or support. How can such meaningless gestures become so sacred? The real patriots are out doing real things to improve their country or help this or that disadvantaged group. I  get the feeling that those who stand the straightest, and sing the loudest are often the ones who never help others outside their family cabal. 

I never really understood why some religious persons insist on their ‘right’ to impose their prayers or hymns or rituals on everyone at a public meeting or gathering. I keep waiting for some ‘heathen’ with a different inherited religion to leap up and be converted. Haven’t seen it happen yet. Actually doing  something to make your country better or help those citizens in need is patriotism. Disingenuous displays of patriotism is rather Trumpist or Hitlertarian. Power, money or fame seems to fuel the fire for public display of patriotism. 

Patriotism essentially means doing things and living such ways as to make your country a better place for all citizens. If the most someone can do is live their life as a good example for others, that is meaningful patriotism. Meaningful patriotism is living the Golden rule regarding other members of your country, it means supporting the politics which is geared toward helping all citizens have more successful and peaceful lives. 

In practice, those who get too carried away with inherited religious doctrine or self-serving family values or contribute via inheritance to sequestering a nation’s wealth into genetic cabals are poor patriots. History teaches us that great empires which allow wealth to accumulate in genetic cabals always implode for that reason along with the tremendous costs to maintain foreign  military bases.

Let’s be a tad honest and realistic here. We can’t fill stadiums for people to gather for patriotic hymns, and speeches, and Hitler-like blind patriotism, or to sing praises for our soldiers—so we attach these things to athletic contests where we have a captive audience. If we attached devices to measure our emotional state during the national anthem and during the football game the difference would be huge. 

I reckon it is no less patriotic to sit out the national anthem for personal inclinations than it is to support using paid mercenaries to fight our wars instead of putting this possibility on all able citizens, or financing invasions via borrowing the money for such adventures to be paid by the next generation, who—naturally—decline to pay it off either. We live in an age where people like myself never have to sacrifice personally for wars, to keep all our citizens gainfully employed, or to ensure all kids have good schools and good teachers, and good health care, and a safe environment, and so on. This is a pretty good deal and perhaps I, and others receiving a pass from the real nitty gritty of patriotism, should stand the tallest, sing the loudest, and wave the flag around most vigorously during the national anthem. On the other hand, unless the God we pray to is an idiot, I doubt He would be impressed. The ultimate absurdity is playing the national anthem before the start of the first horse race. Hardly any actually go to the race track anymore except for a handful of special races, so you have clusters of mostly down and out regulars who, like zombies, rise from their seat, with racing form in their hand, still focused on their upcoming horse picks, many so absorbed with getting their picks right that they actually forget to sit down for some time after the anthem ends. It’s understandable enough—when the anthem ends one can hear a pin drop.  No cheering, no clapping, no visible  sign of emotion—-and I doubt there is a patriotic thought anywhere in the room. Well, who am I to judge this since I too am still trying to decide between horse # 4 and horse #5 to squeeze into a trifecta.

When politicians and Presidents always say “God Bless America” at the end of speeches is this an order—or a plea—or a prerequisite required before God will considerate such a thing? Me thinks, that whatever form we envision God, the evolutionary process proceeds independent of any input from any species or individual members of any species. I would like to be more important personally but on what basis eludes me. And yes, I stand during the national anthem, sit where my ticket demands, park where I am supposed to, refrain from obscenities, and in general just go along with civilized behavior.  None of this is patriotism.

Another Picture from Life’s Other Side: Short.

Another Picture from Life’s Other Side:  Short.

There are multiple interpretations about life in our urban, rural, and suburban poor communities. This little snippet is just that and just as unbelievable.

https://www.yahoo.com/gma/alleged-robbers-trapped-store-quick-thinking-nj-clerk-160806592--abc-news-topstories.html

What kind of police protection is this?   45 min to respond to a “robbery in progress”? And the failure of police to take back the surveillance video offered to them by the store clerk?  

Fire the least professional policeman and hire the store clerk to replace the policeman.  Maybe we could do this nationwide: Fire the least competent police. And hire the best citizen protectors of neighborhoods to replace them.    Minimal training needed. 

Ethics: The Golden Rule vs Family Values

Ethics: The Golden Rule vs Family Values:  

Evolution continues to roll along, which is not to say in any predictable fashion. Even the collective global epitome of wisdom—Abraham Lincoln—would have stumbled badly had he predicted what life in this country, or world, would be like in 2016, 151 years after his death. We now have an impressive human knowledge base compared to Lincoln’s day—and likewise impressive gains in civilized behavior and living (at least in some countries). More people today have rights which only certain others had back then. Similarly, quality of life for the affluent has improved immensely. Ethics, however, is our blindspot. 

What is meant by ethics here? We certainly are not talking about ancient scriptures. Organized historical religions are trapped by the constraints imposed on them by scriptures all written, oddly enough, about the same time in history—what I like to call the age of prophets and modern religious sects. No reasonable or logical person can accept all the passages in any of these scriptures. There may be a lot of ethical truth in all of these scriptures, but they are mingled in with obvious historical, ethical, or scientific nonsense. Thus, the purists, the fundamentalists, and all like ilk, essentially ignore certain passages, or twist themselves into a pretzel trying to make sense out of certain scriptural passages. Why wouldn’t anything, purported to be the word of God, be innately clear, scientifically accurate, and written by God Himself instead of by the friends of a Prophet years after the death of that Prophet? Why would God use inheritance as the means to recruit followers? Things just don’t stack up here. This hardly means the Prophets were not truly ethical leaders of their day—they were. 

The ethics thus referred to in this musing is the ethics embedded in the human genome. However we define ethics, it is a trait found most advanced in the human species. Like all genetic traits there is genetic variation. This also means a genetic trait evolves over time, just like other human traits have done. Stay with me on this.

The perception in this musing is that our ethical trait is not evolving fast enough to keep up with our advanced knowledge base and behavioral/other emotional states. Behind the substance of this musing lies an understanding of human ethics as a combination of the Golden Rule and the responsibility of family values. All human societies across our planet view the Golden Rule as an ethical principle.  No one ever argues otherwise. Also, no religious scripture denies the responsibility of parents to raise their children properly.

We are, in the largest sense, all God’s children—the products of God’s evolutionary process. God’s laws govern this process—laws which we understand more and more over evolutionary time. There is no evidence that God ever nullifies any of these laws to protect or advance individual members of any species, or any species itself. This kind of God-interfering belief is a self-serving notion invented by humans.  However, ethics exists as a reasoned pattern of behavior which benefits all members of any species genetically endowed with ethics. Family values is an ethical behavior pattern which benefits a huge range of species. The Golden Rule is an ethical behavioral principle which enables the human species to achieve personal contentment in their lives. Virtually all human cultures recognize the parental responsibility of parents to their offspring during their formative stage of life.  We also know that human parental responsibility is essential for the survival of our species—we have one of the longest formative stages of any species. When we mess up the formative years, the damage can be lifelong. The Golden Rule exists as a means for individual humans to achieve varied degrees of contentment in their lives—in other words, serving others outside our own genetic cabal brings contentment to our lives. That is to say ethics (the Golden Rule) uses personal contentment as the reward for doing unto others as we would like them to do unto us.

Problems arise when the balance is off between the Golden Rule and family values. The Golden Rule exists to provide the best environmental existence for a whole species, in this case the human species. The Golden Rule takes precedent over family values. The whole is more important than  individual parts. For example, preventing human overpopulation trumps any right of individuals to reproduce at whim. The Golden Rule trumps the right of any individual to drive as fast as they so feel. The Golden Rule is a lifetime responsibility; family values applies only to the formative years. Once a young person reaches adulthood they become the responsibility of the entire community, in most cases via culture and the government. 

Another hitch here is that children themselves have rights which trump parental rights. So all of this gets a bit tricky. We all understand that due to genetic and environmental variations, some parenting is better than others. The Golden Rule dictates that government do what it can to level the playing fields for all children. Of course this cannot be totally accomplished due to genetic and environmental differences. For practical reasons this means that all children are entitled to healthy diets, good schools, good teachers, good health care, a safe environment and freedom from chronic stress. No group of individuals can ethically use family values as a means to ensure their kids get an advantage. For example, affluent communities should not be allowed to use property taxes to ensure their kids have better schools.  Once the same amount of money is available to educate every child, then individual communities are free to design their own specific curriculum. This will help ensure the best curriculums develop. Competition is almost always a good thing.  The Golden Rule takes precedent here because societies function best when all children are well educated, just like they do when all members of society are given good health care. Yes children do have individual rights once they have become uterus independent functional entities. 

But even after government provides level playing fields, we also know that some parents are better parents than others for many different reasons. The science now exists to measure when children are under unacceptable chronic stress. Chronic stress generates high blood levels of certain hormones, and we now understand what the consequences are likely to be. At the same time we now know that certain psychological defenses, when available, can help protect the body from chronic stress. Clearly, the job now before us is fourfold:

1. Measure the blood levels of stress hormones once or twice a year to identify children in need of assistance

2. Determine what is causing the increased blood levels

3. Determine what measures can be taken by parents, or government or volunteers to correct the cause.

4.  Determine which psychological defenses need bolstering, and the best way to accomplish this. 

Where, the question immediately arises, are we going to find the manpower for all this? Well, for a start, much of excellent learning can be done over computers these days. Thus, teachers can  let computers do more of the teaching and also be part of teams to administer the four tasks above. There is no longer any need for individual teachers to be lecturing all period long. Students will be busy absorbing quality information via quality computer presentations, and using emails to connect with an appropriate source of help. There would be fewer individual classrooms and more larger open areas for grade level activities in science, history, math, arts, etc. Students could then be preceding at their own pace. This allows for a large staff center to deal with chronic stress problems. This not the musing to pursue this in more detail, but it is all doable. In fact this attention to chronic stress in students will save teachers their jobs, which are even today being challenged by computers.         

This attention to chronic stresses may well be the next big industry. Instead of locking up drug abusers we will be diagnosing the cause of the chronic stress generating the drug abuse and then treating the cause. If we can diagnose why a child is suffering from chronic stress we can then try to correct the cause. At the very least we can help the child become equipped with better psychological defenses to the stresses involved. We now understand that failure to treat the cause of chronic stress in the formative years greatly increases the likelihood that damage to various systems in the body will result in an adult— an adult who is neither a responsible citizen nor a productive financially independent citizen. Today we let such doomed children be jailed, live on welfare, enroll them in our armed forces, pay them non-livable wages, gate them away in ghettoes—all of which have just made our rural, urban, and suburban ghettoes grow worse with every decade, while the number of citizens reduced to poverty grows exponentially.

The silliest comments are being made by those who actually think they can protect their own grandchildren’s future by leaving their earned wealth solely to their own offspring. This is shortsighted and wrong on several fronts.  Evolution doesn’t work this way at all. The societies in history which have prospered  the longest have always managed to make the greatest percentage of their citizens contented. This is accomplished one way or another by the Golden Rule. When the lives of everyone matters then a nation has the basis for spreading maximum contentment to the greatest number of citizens.

While it may sound cruel and perhaps preposterous to suggest that family values is operative only doing the formative years, it is really neither cruel or preposterous. It in no way detracts from the noble goal of having family members have a close loving relationship till death do they part. Most offspring recognize their indebtedness to their parents for the effort and cost by the parents to raise them. It is quite another matter to claim this genetic connection entitles them to continued financial support for life, plus a right to an inheritance. Getting something for nothing other than a genetic tie-in  belies logic. And when an entire society embraces this notion it dooms the fate of entire segments of citizens, and ensures such a society implodes on itself sooner or later.  All grandchildren are dependent on the health of any society in the future. Thus dooming the future of any society by customs in the present spells disaster for all the descendants who will live in such a disaster.

Essentially then, to get it right, all parents are obligated to provide the proper formative environment for their offspring (family values) with the government striving to level the playing fields  as best it can. Once the formative years are over, offspring are best expected to operate independently on their own and and it becomes the collective responsibility of everyone in that society to support the needs of all adults—via the Golden Rule.

The era of time is past when we can continue to allow chronic stress for millions of young people in their formative years create developmental limitations on these young people. Times are no longer so simple and rural. We now live in a congested global environment driven by all kinds of intercommunicative electronic devices. We might call all of this the age of unprecedented chronic stress. We don’t like the way people in our modern mass ghettoes act, or feel, or think. Well, they don’t either and therein lies the basis for global implosions. Only recently have we begun to more thoroughly understand the consequences of chronic stress and ways to reduce such stresses.

If we cannot get the ethical principles of the Golden Rule and family values to dominate our culture without creating genetic cabals centered around wealth as the divine value of life, then all this modernity will destroy us.

The Next Musing, titled Achieving a More Perfect Society,  will attempt to redesign how we can create an environment to meet the needs of children everywhere—affluent, poor, of any ethnicity, any religion, any gender, any sexual orientation, and so on. 

Irony And Sacrifice

Irony And Sacrifice

I suppose many wondered who would topple Trump from his temple of vitriol against almost anyone. Other Republican Presidential candidates tried. Congressional Republican leaders tried.  Former Presidents tried. Women as an identifiable group tried, as did blacks, hispanics, gays, common workers, immigrants—oh, just about anyone not a mirror image of “the Donald” tried. To no avail. The more despicable and crude his insults, the higher his poll ratings went. Yes, just about everyone who was frustrated about anything, and wanted to tell off a few particular groups, had found their perfect smash-mouth candidate.

One thing is for sure, regarding an election in which nothing is for sure, that its savior would not be an American Muslim. I mean why would any political party trot out any Muslim at their political convention to rally Americans to their party’s cause?  Muslims are our enemy.  The only argument is whether all, or just some, are our enemy. True, this particular Muslim male would not be allotted a prime time TV slot—which may have explained why his middle aged unattractive wife, wrapped in full Muslim garb, would be allowed to stand beside him in a dutifully mummified manner (I suppose similar to Nancy Reagan, etc).

Speaking hesitantly, but intensely, this ‘misfit’ nailed Trump to the Cross. His anger was palpable and focused. His son, an American marine, had died by taking a bomb meant for his fellow American soldiers. “Have you ever read the Constitution?” this mystery Muslim queried Trump, as he fumbled to pull out a copy from his pocket. “Here, you can borrow my copy” Most Americans can’t remember ever reading the Constitution, let alone having a copy in their pocket. “Look up liberty and equal protection of the laws” he emotionally intoned.”  Then came the take-down: “You have sacrificed nothing!!!!”  

The audience went wild. That’s it! that’s it! we all felt—“what has Donald Trump ever sacrificed for anyone or any group in his life?”  He simply inherited vast sums of money and amassed wealth off the backs of others via multiple legalized bankruptcies—stiffing contractors and investors over and over while his personal wealth grew. Gaming the system was the extent of his talent.   

Later on, much later on, I realized, in actuality, how myself and most Americans have never personally really sacrificed anything for our 50 years of invasions, or the welfare of the less fortunate. We borrowed the money for every invasion. Trillions of dollars. We have the largest, most deadly, and most advanced military power ever, with hundreds of military bases all over the world. Yet we haven’t won any war since World War II. OK, maybe Reagan’s Grenada War is the exception. So what, we are still the richest country in the world. Except 2-5% of our citizens now own 90% of our wealth. What has changed is that most of us don’t have to sacrifice at all for any wars, or our current military strength. What? Well then, who sacrifices or suffers for our military might and adventures?  The current generation borrows money for military invasions, government pension plans, health care and whatever else can be kicked down the road. So far the next generations decline to pay or sacrifice also. The poor certainly suffer since it has been a long time since our urban, suburban, and rural ghettoes have had good schools, good health care, safe neighborhoods, have not been on the front line of our War on drugs, or not comprised the bulk of our paid mercenaries to partake in our military invasions.

As a result of all the above, we are painfully  destined now to watch the chickens come home to roost. Not close up with any face to face reality, but we watch it from afar, everyday, all day long on our media gadgets. It seems a tad weird that someone like Trump, with all his wealth can buy, seems to be the angriest American on the planet.  Most of us, through observation, via the grapevine, through personal experience, or information pipelines understand, in some sort of abstract way, that wealth can’t bring happiness. But few of us accept that reality, and live our lives as if it were otherwise. The vast majority of Americans understand, through reality, that being poor can’t bring happiness either. But we still believe wealth can.

For this to become a planet of peace and prosperity, we have to somehow thrive on diversity, we have to have a more reasonable distribution of wealth, we have to protect our climate, we have to protect our natural resources, we have to end the current mass destruction of other species, we need to implement global minimum wages, we need to practice global responsible reproduction, we need to sacrifice our own materialistic greed to help the less fortunate, and we need to ensure that all children have a proper formative environment. We have the wisdom as a species to do this, but we have wrapped ourselves in self-serving ethics, self-serving greed, intolerance to diversity, an insistence that individuals can procreate at any rate desired, and like Trump, we are not willing to sacrifice or discipline ourselves for the greater good. We want more and better things, more and bigger tax cuts, and if some still have good wages, or pensions, or job security, etc,—well, we need bring them down a level or two.  In spite of amazing inventions that can do a lot of the work done by humans, we still stick to a 40 hr work week.  We scoff at any notion that the buying power of the lowest paying jobs should keep up with cost of living. We ignore modern science that tells us those young people with chronic high levels of stress hormones will have damaged physiology by the time they reach adulthood, including all sorts of mental and emotional malfunctioning.

In short, a lack of sacrifice to protect the rights and needs of the less fortunate, is common to more and more of our citizens, replaced by a very constricted sense of family values. If this trend continues the future will be a blood bath, the likes of which America has not seen since the Civil War.  We, as citizens, are becoming well armed with weapons of war, along with gadgets to ensure all combatants will be capable of co-ordinated attacks—all fueled by religious, economic, and cultural intolerance in a background of human overpopulation, limited natural resources, climate change, poor wages, chronic stress level environments, and so on.  Just the number of major global problems coming at us from so many directions has us paralyzed into inaction. Many of our problems today are too complicated and past the comprehensive abilities of the average voter, registering democracy useless. Feelings run rampant, and become the dominant force over logic and understanding. A Donald Trump, overflowing with feelings, appeals to more and more people. Anger and and hostility to diversity are seething just below our surface calm. 

When I attack the current use of the term ‘family values’ it is done so in a particular context, and that context will be the subject of the next musing.