Another FL. Shooting, The Law, And Reasonable People.

I don’t know if you saw the video of a 28 yr. old dad being shot in front of his son; dying in front of his son. I don’t know if you saw the police press conference wherein they explained the “stand your ground law,” and why that meant that they didn’t need to charge this guy. I saw it. In fact, I can’t un-see it. Now, people on both sides are going to argue about this – because that’s what most of our society is interested in doing. However, you don’t read or listen to my thoughts because you’re like “most people.” Instead, you’ve demonstrated that you’re some kind of weirdo that wants to do their best to try to be objective and try to see past your own limited perspectives – in the same way that I try to see past mine.

So, let’s break down what happened here, because, the sooner that we as a society start to think reasonably, the sooner we can get our country back on track.  This was an escalation of more than just hostilities. It was an escalation of idiocy. Please note: I’m not placing blame – I’m analyzing the situation. As always, read through to the end before you get all pissed off at me, ok? Once you get to the end, then you can get all pissed off at me.

1. First, a young woman parks her car in a handicapped parking space. I don’t know why she did that. I would bet that no in the world wishes she had parked in a legal parking space more than she does… well, no one except for maybe the dead guy’s little boy. Nevertheless, she did. It was a poor decision. (Ed. Note: In the video in the linked article, she says she has the right to park anywhere she wants. So, given that bit of information, I’d say she’s likely to continue to park in handicapped spaces. Her ignorance is not the end of the analysis, though… we have to keep thinking and keep working through this)
2. But then, captain vigilante shows up deciding that it’s his job to hold people accountable – OH! and also, he figured that two wrongs do, in fact, make a right… It wasn’t enough for this guy to take down plate numbers and file a police complaint. No, he needed to engage in an argument with this woman. He has now escalated the situation, needlessly.
3. Dead guy – having bought snacks for his 5 year old son, comes rushing to the defense of his girlfriend who was being attacked punched yelled at by some dumb ass, and yells at captain vigilante to stop pushes captain vigilante away from the car and gets in shoves captain vigilante so hard that you might almost confuse him with superman – because captain vigilante is flying through the air.
4. Having been sent flying, captain vigilante whips out his handgun and takes aim at the dead guy, who does appear to be approaching him threateningly. By the way, I keep calling him “dead guy,” because, I feel like that drives a point home; this guy died over this absurdity. So anyway, captain vigilante carries a gun, which serves two purposes. First, it offers great protection when one has a habit of confronting people who park illegally in handicapped spaces. Second, but still very important, it would be much harder for him to tell himself that he is Bruce Willis from the original “Die Hard,” movie, if he didn’t carry a concealed weapon.
5. Seeing the gun, dead guy becomes the first person in this entirety stupid and pointless exchange to make a sensible decision. He very clearly appears to back away. 
6. Captain vigilante, not being deterred from the fact that all indications are that the danger to his safety has passed, takes aim, and fires. He does NOT get a gold star. He appears to have had every chance to de-escalate the situation in that moment. That is a tough sell, in terms of a “stand your ground” justification. I’m not a Florida lawyer. However, I am a U.S. lawyer, and I’m also a “reasonable person.” It is very difficult to imagine how captain vigilante’s fear for his life was reasonable, in light of the video evidence which shows (a still very much alive) dead guy backing away from the gun that was aimed squarely at his chest.
7. There’s no evidence that this was (overtly) racially motivated. If the dead guy was white, would the conversation be the same? Probably not… We’d probably be talking about how there was another shooting death and why we need to ban guns. However, an objective view of the very-recent history of western civilization makes it pretty clear that the people who have lost their sh*t will find a way to kill someone, if they feel so inclined. I’ve already written about the British politician that has proposed banning sharp kitchen knives, due to knives attacks in the U.K., as a legitimate solution. We’ve seen trucks, pressure cookers, and all manner of objects used to inflict death and destruction on innocent people. However, if you want to engage in the debate of whether there are ways in which we are biased which are unknown even to ourselves, you should at least put yourself to the test first.

I offer this solution: we need to stop allowing ourselves to be so neatly, and easily divided, by politicians, the media, and all the other ilk that profits from telling us that all of our problems are someone else’s fault. Human history has been marked by times of war and (brief) times of peace. The worst of the wars often seem to revolve around (at least one group of) people becoming unhinged and (at least one group of) people being dehumanized. Nazis to the Jews; Japanese to the Chinese… and the Americans… and basically everyone not Japanese in WWII; the slave trade (when and wherever, it has existed), which has consistently led to wars, and has always been reprehensible in its own right. That’s the direction that we are headed in – both sides completely dehumanizing the other side, with actual malice for anyone that even remotely resembles them. We need to slam on the brakes. We need to be able to look at a situation like this – where there are a couple of people who are being idiots and just acknowledge that they were both being idiots, without feeling the need to “stand up,” for “our team.” We need to be able to distinguish the levels of idiocy. We need to be able to think and reason for ourselves.

An In-Depth Look At The (Expanding) U.S.-China Trade War.

Let’s start here: an inability to identify any objectionable thing that your political team has done, amounts to an admission that you’ve chosen to be a puppet. Don’t be a puppet. Judge ideas on the merits of the idea – not the name of the person advancing the idea.

So, let’s make this as painless as possible. In normal people speak: President Trump decided to tax some countries on some of the goods that they ship to America. We, The People, pay the tax, when we purchase the goods – not the nation shipping the goods here. However, the tax causes the cost of the goods to go up so high that the result is generally that we, The People, can’t afford to buy those goods anymore, so, we buy them from American manufacturers at a much higher price than we had to pay for that product before the tax. That makes those countries angry at us, because we have hurt their government (by reducing tax income from their countries business exporters) and the businesses of that country, whose goods are subject to the tax. In response, those countries tax goods that we ship to their nation. Contrary to popular opinion, we don’t just import goods. We export, as well.

Here’s a recap for how that’s worked out for everyone, so far. The President announced $50 billion worth of taxes on China. China said, “don’t swing at us. We’ll swing back.” The first $34 billion in taxes, otherwise called tariffs, went into effect and the very minute they went into effect, China announced that they will immediately begin taxing $34 billion worth of U.S. imports. U.S. lobster fisherman were immediately hit hard (no joke), and there has been an immediate impact on dairy farmers (including domestic cheese producers), as well as a looming crisis for anyone that is involved in the soybean farming industry.

In response President Trump slapped himself on the forehead and said, *#%&, I think I just started a massive trade war. Time to deescalate announced $200 billion in new tariffs on Chinese products. I think I can predict China’s next move!

By the way, we also started a $16 billion trade war with Canada. Now, our trade war with China is threatening to destabilize Canada’s farming industry, as well. I’m sure they won’t mind… maybe we can build that wall around the entire country?

As an aside, you may hear that this action was taken because Chinese companies were stealing our IP. Well, that is only partially true, as the story is being presented. In fact, a chunk of it is theft, carried out by non-state actors. This does not require a trade war to resolve. The other portion which is being called “IP theft,” is actually not that, at all. In many cases, U.S. companies are forced to share their tech secrets if they want to do business on Chinese soil. That’s not stealing. That’s business. Sometimes, we don’t like the terms of a deal; that’s when we walk away from the deal. A final thought on this: money “lost,” by theft, is lost potential income; money that a company might have earned. This is different than the impact of a tariff, which represents an actual increase in costs of goods for all Americans, as well as the same potential losses – amounting to being kicked when you’re down.

While we are talking about the economy: I hear the economy is raging strong. A closer look shows that this abundance of available jobs (outside of trade workers) is in retail, hotels, and restaurants. Those don’t typically represent the sectors that provide a livable wage. We are also still employing the Obama Administration’s bogus unemployment numbers, which ignore everyone that has “given up” looking for a job. Things are not quite as they are being portrayed.

Intellectual Property and China: Is China Stealing American IP?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/business-44788817

https://m.huffingtonpost.ca/2018/07/01/how-long-canada-us-trade-war-trump-tariffs_a_23472244/

https://www.google.com/amp/s/business.financialpost.com/commodities/agriculture/china-has-crashed-the-price-canadian-farmers-collateral-damage-in-china-u-s-spat/amp

Can You Pass A Political Honesty Test? Let’s Find Out…

Here are the rules – Don’t bother playing if you’re going to cheat…

1. Read the blog post.
2. When you get to the question, STOP. Read the question. DO NOT SCROLL DOWN! lol
3. Try to give an honest answer to the question, without thinking, “what is the answer that my favorite politician would want me to give?”
4. Scroll down to find out which politician (if any) supports your answer.
5. If you found the article interesting, or eye-opening, or think someone else might, share it on Facebook.

Here we go…

We are going to use US states, for the sake of illustration, but, we are making up the numbers.

NJ feels like it is hurting its economy because too many goods are being imported into the state. For instance, nearly all oranges in NJ are imported. NJ is perfectly capable of growing its own oranges – they just need to be grown in greenhouses. The cost of a NJ orange is $7, if the grower is to make enough money to pay his employees and feed his family. The state that produces the cheapest costing oranges, is Florida. All the oranges are of the same quality and taste (weird, right?). In Florida, they can grow oranges, ship them all the way up to NJ, and sell them there for $1, and after all expenses, they make the same profit that the NJ grower gets from their $7 orange.  NJ’s governor – being a man inclined to tax the ever-loving snot out of people wanting to find a way to boost the state economy, decides that this is one area where he can help NJ. He will create a bunch of jobs for people who build greenhouses, and for NJ growers of oranges, by enacting an orange tax of $7 on every orange that comes from out of state. Now, the Florida oranges cost $8/ea in NJ!

Well, Floridians are pretty pissed off about all this. After all, their economy is built around oranges! NJ just took away a chunk of their income. Oranges are going to rot… and it’s all NJ’s fault! So, Florida’s governor takes aim at blueberries, since, apparently, NJ is the blueberry capitol of the world (*allegedly* true story)! FL taxes an equivalent amount on the blueberries, not wanting to come off as jerks by creating an excess benefit from the blueberry tax.

NJ also decided to tax imported eggs, because NJ farmers, due to the high cost of land and real estate taxes, couldn’t compete with farms from New York, because, contrary to popular opinion, there is more to NY than New York City; a lot more, in fact. So, NJ added a tax of $2 on each carton of 12 out-of-state eggs.

NJ’s neighbor to the north was not very pleased with their rude friends. NY really depends on the revenue generated by the eggs that are sold in NJ. So, NY taxes NJ’s tomatoes at an equal amount. Everyone knows that NJ has the best tasting tomatoes, so this really is punishing everyone.

Well, what happens now? The cost of eggs and oranges have skyrocketed in NJ. No one is sure what will happen to the cost of the tomatoes and blueberries in NJ. They might come down, because there are a boatload (or rather a truckload) that are going to rot every hour, since they aren’t being shipped to FL – it turns out that the high price drives down demand. Or, maybe the NJ price for those products will go up, since the farmers will need to try to recover some of the lost income that resulted from the loss of FL business. Anyone that wants to make orange juice or bake bread is going to have to pass a massive increase in costs to their customers, because, now, it costs so much more to buy the ingredients. The cost of a bloody mary has gone down in NJ, which is good, because everyone that lives there needs a drink, as they try to process all of this. Also, truckers are being fired, due to the lack of work. There is now a black market for oranges in NJ and Everyone from NY and FL hate New-Jersians…

Ohhhh… one more thing. NJ’s Governor was really angry that FL’s and NY’s Governors struck back at NJ’s new taxes, so, he’s working on finding more products to tax from those states; products that will create new jobs in NJ. The Governors of FL and NY responded by saying that they will continue to do the same.

To recap, some people got jobs, building greenhouses. Some people lost jobs making orange juice at factories. Everyone paid a lot more money for all of their day-to-day purchases. It turned out that NJ was shipping in a lot more than they were shipping out, so, overall, the decisions hurt FL and NY more than they hurt NJ, however, the overall result was that everything costs more money to buy in NJ than it used to, and no one is profiting more than they used to. There are a few people that have ended up with jobs who were previously out of work, and an equal number that lost jobs, due to the changes that occurred resulting from the extraordinarily high cost of orange juice, oh, and everything made with eggs.

So, the question is: In this story, were the people of NJ better off, as a result of the Governor’s decision to raise taxes?  YES OR NO

DON’T SCROLL DOWN UNTIL YOU HAVE PHYSICALLY WRITTEN (OR TYPED) YOUR ANSWER ON SOMETHING.

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The above is an example of tariffs and the ensuing trade war. This is the policy that President Trump is currently pursuing. He enacted significant tariffs that will deeply affect Canada and significant tariffs were placed on Chinese products. Both nations have already begun work to implement taxes that will recover their economic losses. The result of these taxes will be a few jobs created, and a few jobs lost… and the higher cost of goods for every American, on nearly every single thing that you purchase, regardless of political background. It also makes those countries loathe us, which has been known to start an actual war, from time to time. It is worth noting that people from both political parties have advocated for enacting tariffs, in the past. This isn’t a partisan issue, it is just an ordinary, old-fashioned, bad idea.

Also, if you supported Trump’s position on tariffs, answered the above question with an answer of “NO,” and are now trying to justify reasons for changing your answer from “NO,” to “YES,” then you failed the Political Honesty test… failing is OK, as long as we learn from our failures – instead of repeating them.

If You Have A Big Mouth And Spout Half-Baked Ideas, I’m Calling YOU Out…

[Cracks knuckles] … Let’s do this … I’m beyond done. Have any of you chuckleheads, on either side of “half-baked political debate land,” who have been screaming about gun violence on the left, or immigration on the right, (you know who you are – you have oversimplified memes all day long) bothered to take note of a single tragedy that didn’t fit the political narrative that you let someone else tell you that you believed that you’ve carefully cultivated? I’m guessing not, since, I haven’t seen much in my news feed about the a particularly horrible story that would be all over the place, if the facts were just altered a little bit… you know, The 15-year-old boy – the aspiring NYPD officer, who was even brave enough to wear the jacket of the NYPD explorer program in public, who was murdered with machetes by a bunch of gang members, who are U.S. Citizens, even though their U.S. born street gang has a Spanish name (imagine the disappointment, when the alt-right realizes that they are actually U.S. Citizens… a tragedy gone to waste, they’ll say). This poor kid won’t fit any of the narratives that the right loves – that sense of, “well, he did it to himself,” is unmistakably absent. It was a case of mistaken identity. But, if only we had stricter gun laws… he’d STILL BE DEAD. Which is why it wasn’t shared with the same fervor of Parkland school shooting. It also happens to be the same reason that energy is only worth expounding when trying to point out when illegal were involved in a crime that was committed: you care more about your cause than you do about objective truth or actual solutions. You certainly don’t care enough to actually put any serious thought into societal problems… how can so many of us be so damned content to simply parrot the words of a political party. Hours of debate are engaged in between people who haven’t put in 15 minutes of objective research, collectively – you just know what your side told you, and like an absolute clown, you believed it to be true without so much as a god damned fact check. Of course, you fact check the “other side” all. day. long. 

I’m sorry, but, real solutions are complicated and imperfect. They involve ideas from both sides, and a willingness to work together to make a positive change. You have to actually care more about understanding the situation than you care about winning the debate. Until we reject the notion of demonizing, and ridiculing those that have a different opinion, we will continue our descent into the abyss; all the while, with the completely unearned arrogance of a people who lack the capacity to be incorrect.

[Ed. note: if my use of the terms “right” or “left” happen to offend you, because you feel that I am unfairly generalizing when it comes to “your group,” then, good, I’m glad that I offended you. Maybe it will make you ask yourself what you’re really interested in: defending your political team, or identifying objective truth. The two no longer seem to go hand-in-hand. At least for the time being, you need to choose… do you choose an ideological label, or do you choose to seek objective truth? If you chose the former, I’m probably going to continue to offend you. If you chose the latter, then you are committing to the idea that you don’t have a label, or a political banner, behind which you line up.]