It is often said that people rarely see the importance of a moment in history as they are living it. Looking back in retrospect things always seem more clear. Of course some things are undoubtably more cloudy but the value of central moments and actions become obvious. Certainly the greater the stroke of history the grander we expect the result, yet I believe much of the best of history proved to be of significant benefit precisely because of how insignificant it may have seemed at the time. If in fact people rarely recognize history being made then how much history would there be if it was by definition only in the grand stroke? Truly the most amazing history I have learned have been the small parts played by insignificant people that ended up turning everything. Yet it is the grand strokes we lionize as history’s great moments.
When I was learning to program software there was a programmer who had done some amazing things that transformed much of KDE, the open source project I have been involved with. I never imagined I could ever stand next to such a code wizard. Then I read that this individual liked to write a little bit of code, compile it and see how it worked and then continue on. It was a revelation. He took an incremental approach and with it did great things. I remember thinking “I can do that!” As I began programming I grew more and more confident until one day I took on a challenge on a level I had never done before. It required rewriting hundreds of lines of code across a number of files before I could test it. Even though I was taking an incremental approach it was a big bite. I spent a lot of time not evaluating how it worked, but trying to figure out why it failed and brought the whole program down.
There are a few simple rules I find in life that apply everywhere. To paraphrase the great Japanese swordsman Myamoto Musashi, once a man understands the way of wisdom he can accomplish things that he would have previously failed at. Musashi also said such understanding typically comes around age 50. I cursed when I read this in my 30s. Now I believe 50 is a better minimum age for a president, not that it is any assurance of wisdom. What is the wisdom of which I speak? Simple. Probabilities. We spend our lives believing we can defeat the odds because we are smarter and better looking and all the while prove the rule. This hubris leads us to absurd thinking that we can succeed where all others have failed and worst of all to the idea that we can rule by exception.
You can spot those who lack wisdom. They complain about the nature of circumstance or battle it head on instead of reasoning to find a position and approach that will enable circumstance to gratify their desires. For example these people gamble the last of their money away hoping to win while wise people open a casino and make money. In my opinion the rule by exception is the most evil of all. Say for instance we wanted to change something that generally works. We find an exception where people feel a knee jerk emotional support for our exception and then we bring them on board to destroy the working system to support the exception. This is called the slippery slope. For instance who could argue against keeping women from being butchered in back allies getting illegal abortions? Likewise who would argue for 3rd trimester partial birth abortion as contraception? Certainly it is hard in principle to look dispassionately at specifics. However for an argument like legalizing marijuana I think that just because it has medical uses doesn’t mean it should be generally available. It’s an exception. Besides I find the libertarian argument of a failed prohibition, tax act and absurd classification with heroin much more compelling.
Likewise the argument for the passage of what has been called health care reform has a significant failure in claiming to fix something for a small percentage of the population that will impact 100%. One could make the case on this alone, but it would be missing the the fact of how this will be seen by history. That cannot be said today as history is yet to be written. America does seem easily seduced by entitlements, but then who doesn’t like free stuff. However we can ask how we expect it to fare with regard to probability. We could dissect the nature of the bill, but wisdom tells us we can avoid the emotional battleground of specifics. Sheer probability tells us the more action we take the more likelihood of errors and unintended consequences. The more complex and involved the equation the more chance of interactions that feedback and produce a domino effect. To put it in programming terms, the more chance we have of finding there is a broken system, and this is key… The more points of failure introduced into a system the more challenging it is to find the key failure. In fact if there are enough points of failure introduced it becomes possible to encounter multiple failure points, which makes debugging and testing exceedingly difficult.
I’m sure in the coming years there will be no end to arguments over specific details of the absurdly complex law congress passed today that will affect the taxes and quality of life of every American. We could note that never in the history of the country has so sweeping a change been voted on, let alone by only one party and let alone attempting legislative chicanery to fix it’s manifold problems. All of this is really going to be of little consequence in less time than most people imagine. There is a simple reason why. I ask you to think of the ones you love in the world as you consider my next words…
When someone makes a promise to you it is essential you consider their words. Our parents benefit in our youth for most of us as being somehow infallible. Yet few are so fortunate to hold such an image through their entire life for few of us manage such sterling character. We often fail our loved ones, but sometimes our failures have absolutely nothing to do with us, but reflect circumstances beyond our control. When receiving a promise we must consider the promise, who is making it, their history and last of all the circumstances surrounding the promise.
How many promises in your life have died the excruciating death of the fiscal impossibility to complete or preserve that promise? Has anyone ever let you down? Have you or anyone close to you ever failed? We imagine that while we fail some things our family unit may fare better but when bound together as a nation we simply cannot be stopped. While there is an element of truth to this in the economy of scale in the end it comes down to the collective will and ability of every single American to do as we promise each other. Here is where we must never forget the most important thing… As long as every American is as important as every other, as deserving as every other and as protected as every other then we stand together. As soon as we become divided into groups, punish some and reward others… as soon as we become a nation divided… we are headed for a fall.
This is the point we must not miss today. When I was young I was taught that my right to swing my arm went as far as your nose. Once my exercise of my rights intruded on your rights I was no longer exercising mine but violating yours. I love that explanation. I also know that any promise I commit to do for anyone is limited by my ability to do it. As a business owner my ability is limited not only by many factors in my work but in the trust I have with people I have credit with or lease property with. Should I fail to meet my obligations financially I could fail to meet my commitments to my customers, loved ones, etc…
I watched some of the debate this weekend. Representative Paul Ryan really drove home a point to house members in his committee. I can’t find that video, but here he is explaining his plan for medicare. Please look and consider. Currently in order to pay off our debt without reform your household needs hundreds of thousands of dollars. Many thought half a trillion dollar deficits under Bush were insane, but under Obama they are already $1.5 trillion. In 10 years our annual interest will be $1 trillion. Of course that assumes we don’t lose our AAA bond rating which would make borrowing twice as costly and without substantial change force bankruptcy in a few short years. Please note from today’s news Warren buffet is a better risk than the US and our AA rating is at risk These warnings come regularly.
The argument that this health care bill saves money ignores the reality that the congressional budget office is required to operate based on the assumptions. Again Paul Ryan in a short clip. According to polls most Americans don’t believe that costs will not exceed what they are being told. Don’t believe that? Look into costs in Massachusetts and Tennessee.
If you are celebrating the passage of this bill odds are you are young and, forgive me for saying, clueless, or an old hippie who wishes this were real socialism. It is authoritarian but not full blown socialism yet. The unintended consequences will be many, but they will include more taxes, followed by more taxes. More taxes will siphon money from the private sector to the public sector. Think of the public sector like one of those little fish that eat bad things off bigger fish and think of that little fish getting so big it’s starts eating the food of the big fish too. Only the private sector creates wealth and without private wealth you have a public system that equally distributes poverty.
The words for this day are indeed unintended consequences. Among those are the potential for the financial collapse of our government and severe social turmoil, and it could happen sooner than you imagine. I’ll put it this way. If our elected officials don’t see the writing on the wall now what do you suppose will make it clear to them short of Armageddon? And this is perhaps the one bit of good news…
Americans are an incredibly resourceful people of strong character. We seem to know inherently what is right and what is wrong. We may make a foolish mistake, like occasionally electing utterly clueless morons, but we are not stupid. We value liberty and freedom more than any other nation. We value character and ethics above any other culture. We value opportunity more than any other people. We may allow ourselves to be distracted by the comforts of life, but when faced with a challenge we wake up and come together.
If you are like me wondering how we have fallen so far from equal opportunity and equal treatment to an un-American pursuit of equal outcomes you are not alone. America must reform entitlements to survive and must reform government to thrive. Now we have a new urgency in the ticking time bomb of a new entitlement at a time we ought to be thinking about solving problems instead of creating huge experiments with dire probabilities. Just as the Texans shouted “Remember the Alamo” we can run to battle at the polls shouting “Remember the health care debacle”. Don’t expect it to be easy. Our opposition is sticking flowers in gun barrels and chanting for utopia. I may be getting acupuncture and using Chinese herbs, but I will be fighting to preserve the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and especially domestic. You can be sure there are more people looking to shrink government than ever before. If you have been in the delusion of utopia you are welcome to join the those of us patriots who only wish for you and your children to have every opportunity we have.
Never forget the blow to liberty today. Remember the health care debacle!
This entry was posted
on Sunday, March 21st, 2010 at 11:27 PM and is filed under social commentary.
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Both comments and pings are currently closed.
A Momentous New Alamo
It is often said that people rarely see the importance of a moment in history as they are living it. Looking back in retrospect things always seem more clear. Of course some things are undoubtably more cloudy but the value of central moments and actions become obvious. Certainly the greater the stroke of history the grander we expect the result, yet I believe much of the best of history proved to be of significant benefit precisely because of how insignificant it may have seemed at the time. If in fact people rarely recognize history being made then how much history would there be if it was by definition only in the grand stroke? Truly the most amazing history I have learned have been the small parts played by insignificant people that ended up turning everything. Yet it is the grand strokes we lionize as history’s great moments.
When I was learning to program software there was a programmer who had done some amazing things that transformed much of KDE, the open source project I have been involved with. I never imagined I could ever stand next to such a code wizard. Then I read that this individual liked to write a little bit of code, compile it and see how it worked and then continue on. It was a revelation. He took an incremental approach and with it did great things. I remember thinking “I can do that!” As I began programming I grew more and more confident until one day I took on a challenge on a level I had never done before. It required rewriting hundreds of lines of code across a number of files before I could test it. Even though I was taking an incremental approach it was a big bite. I spent a lot of time not evaluating how it worked, but trying to figure out why it failed and brought the whole program down.
There are a few simple rules I find in life that apply everywhere. To paraphrase the great Japanese swordsman Myamoto Musashi, once a man understands the way of wisdom he can accomplish things that he would have previously failed at. Musashi also said such understanding typically comes around age 50. I cursed when I read this in my 30s. Now I believe 50 is a better minimum age for a president, not that it is any assurance of wisdom. What is the wisdom of which I speak? Simple. Probabilities. We spend our lives believing we can defeat the odds because we are smarter and better looking and all the while prove the rule. This hubris leads us to absurd thinking that we can succeed where all others have failed and worst of all to the idea that we can rule by exception.
You can spot those who lack wisdom. They complain about the nature of circumstance or battle it head on instead of reasoning to find a position and approach that will enable circumstance to gratify their desires. For example these people gamble the last of their money away hoping to win while wise people open a casino and make money. In my opinion the rule by exception is the most evil of all. Say for instance we wanted to change something that generally works. We find an exception where people feel a knee jerk emotional support for our exception and then we bring them on board to destroy the working system to support the exception. This is called the slippery slope. For instance who could argue against keeping women from being butchered in back allies getting illegal abortions? Likewise who would argue for 3rd trimester partial birth abortion as contraception? Certainly it is hard in principle to look dispassionately at specifics. However for an argument like legalizing marijuana I think that just because it has medical uses doesn’t mean it should be generally available. It’s an exception. Besides I find the libertarian argument of a failed prohibition, tax act and absurd classification with heroin much more compelling.
Likewise the argument for the passage of what has been called health care reform has a significant failure in claiming to fix something for a small percentage of the population that will impact 100%. One could make the case on this alone, but it would be missing the the fact of how this will be seen by history. That cannot be said today as history is yet to be written. America does seem easily seduced by entitlements, but then who doesn’t like free stuff. However we can ask how we expect it to fare with regard to probability. We could dissect the nature of the bill, but wisdom tells us we can avoid the emotional battleground of specifics. Sheer probability tells us the more action we take the more likelihood of errors and unintended consequences. The more complex and involved the equation the more chance of interactions that feedback and produce a domino effect. To put it in programming terms, the more chance we have of finding there is a broken system, and this is key… The more points of failure introduced into a system the more challenging it is to find the key failure. In fact if there are enough points of failure introduced it becomes possible to encounter multiple failure points, which makes debugging and testing exceedingly difficult.
I’m sure in the coming years there will be no end to arguments over specific details of the absurdly complex law congress passed today that will affect the taxes and quality of life of every American. We could note that never in the history of the country has so sweeping a change been voted on, let alone by only one party and let alone attempting legislative chicanery to fix it’s manifold problems. All of this is really going to be of little consequence in less time than most people imagine. There is a simple reason why. I ask you to think of the ones you love in the world as you consider my next words…
When someone makes a promise to you it is essential you consider their words. Our parents benefit in our youth for most of us as being somehow infallible. Yet few are so fortunate to hold such an image through their entire life for few of us manage such sterling character. We often fail our loved ones, but sometimes our failures have absolutely nothing to do with us, but reflect circumstances beyond our control. When receiving a promise we must consider the promise, who is making it, their history and last of all the circumstances surrounding the promise.
How many promises in your life have died the excruciating death of the fiscal impossibility to complete or preserve that promise? Has anyone ever let you down? Have you or anyone close to you ever failed? We imagine that while we fail some things our family unit may fare better but when bound together as a nation we simply cannot be stopped. While there is an element of truth to this in the economy of scale in the end it comes down to the collective will and ability of every single American to do as we promise each other. Here is where we must never forget the most important thing… As long as every American is as important as every other, as deserving as every other and as protected as every other then we stand together. As soon as we become divided into groups, punish some and reward others… as soon as we become a nation divided… we are headed for a fall.
This is the point we must not miss today. When I was young I was taught that my right to swing my arm went as far as your nose. Once my exercise of my rights intruded on your rights I was no longer exercising mine but violating yours. I love that explanation. I also know that any promise I commit to do for anyone is limited by my ability to do it. As a business owner my ability is limited not only by many factors in my work but in the trust I have with people I have credit with or lease property with. Should I fail to meet my obligations financially I could fail to meet my commitments to my customers, loved ones, etc…
I watched some of the debate this weekend. Representative Paul Ryan really drove home a point to house members in his committee. I can’t find that video, but here he is explaining his plan for medicare. Please look and consider. Currently in order to pay off our debt without reform your household needs hundreds of thousands of dollars. Many thought half a trillion dollar deficits under Bush were insane, but under Obama they are already $1.5 trillion. In 10 years our annual interest will be $1 trillion. Of course that assumes we don’t lose our AAA bond rating which would make borrowing twice as costly and without substantial change force bankruptcy in a few short years. Please note from today’s news Warren buffet is a better risk than the US and our AA rating is at risk These warnings come regularly.
The argument that this health care bill saves money ignores the reality that the congressional budget office is required to operate based on the assumptions. Again Paul Ryan in a short clip. According to polls most Americans don’t believe that costs will not exceed what they are being told. Don’t believe that? Look into costs in Massachusetts and Tennessee.
If you are celebrating the passage of this bill odds are you are young and, forgive me for saying, clueless, or an old hippie who wishes this were real socialism. It is authoritarian but not full blown socialism yet. The unintended consequences will be many, but they will include more taxes, followed by more taxes. More taxes will siphon money from the private sector to the public sector. Think of the public sector like one of those little fish that eat bad things off bigger fish and think of that little fish getting so big it’s starts eating the food of the big fish too. Only the private sector creates wealth and without private wealth you have a public system that equally distributes poverty.
The words for this day are indeed unintended consequences. Among those are the potential for the financial collapse of our government and severe social turmoil, and it could happen sooner than you imagine. I’ll put it this way. If our elected officials don’t see the writing on the wall now what do you suppose will make it clear to them short of Armageddon? And this is perhaps the one bit of good news…
Americans are an incredibly resourceful people of strong character. We seem to know inherently what is right and what is wrong. We may make a foolish mistake, like occasionally electing utterly clueless morons, but we are not stupid. We value liberty and freedom more than any other nation. We value character and ethics above any other culture. We value opportunity more than any other people. We may allow ourselves to be distracted by the comforts of life, but when faced with a challenge we wake up and come together.
If you are like me wondering how we have fallen so far from equal opportunity and equal treatment to an un-American pursuit of equal outcomes you are not alone. America must reform entitlements to survive and must reform government to thrive. Now we have a new urgency in the ticking time bomb of a new entitlement at a time we ought to be thinking about solving problems instead of creating huge experiments with dire probabilities. Just as the Texans shouted “Remember the Alamo” we can run to battle at the polls shouting “Remember the health care debacle”. Don’t expect it to be easy. Our opposition is sticking flowers in gun barrels and chanting for utopia. I may be getting acupuncture and using Chinese herbs, but I will be fighting to preserve the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and especially domestic. You can be sure there are more people looking to shrink government than ever before. If you have been in the delusion of utopia you are welcome to join the those of us patriots who only wish for you and your children to have every opportunity we have.
Never forget the blow to liberty today. Remember the health care debacle!
This entry was posted on Sunday, March 21st, 2010 at 11:27 PM and is filed under social commentary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.