Brad’s Take

Peak Oil

Peak oil is a looming crisis for the world, as current oil fields lose productivity as they empty, as world demand for oil grows with additional nations approaching the oil consumption rates per capita that made the United States wealthy, and as newly found and developed fields promise new sources of oil – at one fourth the rate that oil is being consumed today.

The Peak Oil crisis is hitting now, as demand outstrips – now and forever – the ability to produce oil, on a day by day basis.

The risk: Shortages and rising prices for energy

Whether or not the climate change movement’s contention that burning fossil fuels returns carbon dioxide to the atmosphere that was removed ages ago – unbalancing the content of the air we breathe, and that traps more heat against the Earth that in decades and centuries past – we are facing shortages and volatile prices for oil and other energy sources.

The personal, private automobile is one of the symbols of America’s wealthy lifestyle. The car runs on gasoline, or diesel fuel – oil, that is – or increasingly, electricity from coal-fired power plants (which are still being built, even as Peak Coal approaches). One way to lessen the impact of short supplies of oil, and increasing energy costs, is to – reduce commutes.

Instead of investing heavily in exquisitely energy intensive roadways, or rapid or mass transit, one way is to abandon the concept of commuting to work, to school, or for shopping.

The Proposal

Cut commutes.

Many urban areas contain housing “communities” – regions, some vast in size, built by a single or small group of builders or investors, some at significant distances from stores, employers, worship centers, and schools. Other cities have seen vast shopping centers and other shopping districts “consolidate” – and expect the community to travel tens of miles to shop. Employers build offices and factories and other business facilities in areas remote from where most of their workers live. I think a “commute” tax on employers is needed, to gain understanding about how far workers commute each day, and the community infrastructure burdened by employers not being engaged with the community, and not taking responsibility for how much commute each employer imposes on that community.

But today the idea is – recognize the impact of letting “city planning” stray, and encourage long commutes – and the attendant costs of providing and servicing the infrastructures and private and public vehicles needed to support the commuting lifestyle.

Social engineering through taxes

What I recommend, is an excise tax, a Residential Excise Tax on the purchase of an existing residence or materials, land, and attendant costs of building a residence. The tax would be calculated for every residence purchased that isn’t located on, or adjacent to, a farm.

The Residential Excise Tax (RET) would be 2.5 percent on the accumulated and total cost of purchasing a residence the first year, increasing by 2.5 percent per year, to an eventual (20 year) target of 50 percent of the cost of buying.

The RET would be forgiven if the following conditions are met:

1. Schools. Public school (grades K-12) within one mile walking distance
3. Stores. Grocery and hardware stores within one mile walking distance, or qualified combination grocery/hardware store
4. Sufficient employment. That is, the total of all employees employed and working within one and a half miles (1.5 miles) is greater than one half (0.5) of the population within one mile of the residence.
5. Sidewalk. Whether or not the property borders a street, if the property includes any land surface, it includes a sidewalk for general pedestrian traffic in the direction of general traffic (vehicle or pedestrian) flow, that connects to sidewalks on adjoining properties.
6. Parks. Parks, play areas for children, and green zones within 1.5 miles, containing at least 1 square yard of area for each adult living within 1 mile of the residence.
7. Retirement. Or, the residence might be sworn to be a retirement residence where no commute or school is required by any resident. The retirement exemption would need to be re-sworn every year, and the first year that a resident commutes to work or school, the RET is due on that year, and the Retirement exemption would be set aside. For the Retirement exemption, all above requirements must be met, except Sufficient employment and Schools.

The Residential Excise Tax might be tailored to also encourage supplemental local food production, by requiring every resident have access to a minimum of space for a garden. Customary certification that water is available for the next century before the residence may be occupied should certainly be required. Certification about whether sufficient electricity can be provided might be worth implementing.

An alternative to calculating the sufficient employment factor might be to impose a factor relating distance to employer for each adult in the household, though that would be subject to abuse (fraudulent claim of distance to employer, fraudulent employer identification until after the RET is paid, etc.). These concerns would be covered by the Employer Commute Tax above.

The intent is to make the choice to live near one’s work cheaper than otherwise, or at least put a halt to the practice of planning communities requiring commutes of more than 20 minutes, or distances too far to walk, for work, shopping, and school. Secondarily, as energy costs rise, the current practice of living way over ‘thar, and working way over ‘hyar, will become increasingly a factor destabilizing employers, communities, and the lives of workers. Limiting the long commutes to the decidedly more wealthy will, in the future, leave fewer people stranded by an unsustainable planning bias toward accommodating big developers.

Communities have to understand the burden imposed by developments, by employment, and by centralized schools, shopping, and employers.

Net Right Daily’s Frank McCaffrey reports that President B. Hussein Obama wants to cut spending, but doesn’t know where to start.

I could think of one place to stop spending. ACORN. But that would bite the hand that helped put him in office. I doubt he will change his priorities now. (Barry Soetoro/Obama keeps paying off the unions, foreign interests, etc.)

I posted a comment on where to cut spending. I like it – here it is again.

I might suggest moving the controlled substance list to the IRS, impose a 50% VAT on anything “controlled” and disband the DEA.

Disband the Dept of Ed.

Disband the Dept of Homeland Security. Disband all Patriot Act activity, and hold the FBI accountable for security within the borders of America.

Cut past-Congressmen and past-Senator pensions in half. Reduce future pensions.

Reduce Air Force 1 to the weight and capacity of a C-130.

Cut BATFE enforcement activities by 30%. Make advancement and raises in the BATFE conditional on the number of rifles sold and number of gunsmith and gun seller licenses issued.

Remember President Reagan and PATCO, the once-upon-a-time air traffic controllers union? Disband SEIU.

Terminate and forbid federal mandates on states – including ObamaCare, NAIS, FSA (S.510) – and terminate funding states.

Terminate and forbid federal mandates on citizens of the US. Eliminate exemptions from income taxes, most especially for tax shelters, capital gains, and charitable or religious contributions. Capital gains should be untaxed by regulation, not exemption. Only individuals should be taxed, not organizations or business entities. Eliminate estate taxes, they disenfranchise descendants and those with vested interests.

Forbid and prohibit courts from imposing continuing judgments – including establishing post-divorce obligations and relationships, punitive oversight and auditing, and ongoing “legislation from the bench” such as bussing school children, etc. The judgement of the court is supposed to evaluate the evidence presented. The judgment should be restricted to the conditions present at the time verdict is rendered – and not capable of future control of anyone outside a recognized department of correction’s custody.

Congress should require that every agency review every federal regulation under their purview, and testify to Congress, within two years, why that regulation, in detail, should be retained. Anything not reviewed in that time, or that isn’t presented for review should be automatically invalidated, marked obsolete and no longer in effect. No regulation should be permitted to stand longer than 10 years without Congressional review. Repeat above for each item of each Federal law, within four years, and as the 15th anniversary of each item approaches. Where timely review isn’t possible, those laws and regulations would have to be written again, and passed and signed, again, subject to then-current needs and priorities. Re-authorizing in blank would only be permitted for items reviewed in full detail, through deliberative testimony.

Review the USDA. “We are from the government, we are here to help” should be a lie. If the government is acting to help someone – we cannot afford it, and government assistance is paid for in loss of liberty and freedom. The USDA should be concerned with farm produce safety to the extent they are involved in inspections and review today. And that is it.

The National Labor Relations Board should be disbanded. Today’s worker has access to attorneys and civil and criminal courts and processes that make labor unions a simple canker on the American economy, costing every American in loss of productivity, in diversion of investment capital, in reduction in service, and in diversion of taxes on income. Labor unions and members should explicitly be liable to civil and criminal penalties for intimidation, slander, fraud, deceit, violence, criminal mischief, and inflammatory speech. And especially for harm to image and productivity to any employer. Craft guilds have a purpose, but labor unions as collective bargaining units have a monopoly, and should be prosecuted as an errant, criminal monopoly.

Campaign finance. No federal matching money should be available for any contribution not directly and explicitly attributed to, as reported under sworn oath subject to perjury penalties by the campaign staff, to a registered citizen voter, in a state not suspected of failing to purge registered voter lists on a periodic basis as required by law. Impose a 50% excise tax on all other donations (business entities, foreign entities, or anything not explicitly donated by an citizen of the United States who is currently registered to vote in the local state.

Revert government procurement regulations to pre-Secretary McNamara’s tenure during President Kennedy’s administration. The notion that a paper chase is more “fair” – or even affordable – is patently false. Any procurement should favor the vendor best suited to meeting the need. Helping newcomers and competition is in the best interest of the nation, but not at the cost of multiplying program costs – or casting utility of the eventual procurement into doubt. Which is what often happens today. I note that the specific industry adaptability – and procurement agility – won WWII. Today’s procurement costs and bureaucracy employs thousands and thousands, introduces programmatic delays and oversights that further federal careers – and don’t demonstrably serve the nation’s best interests.

Introduce a moratorium. Restrict federal pay scales from the President and Congress on down to 1973 levels until annual Federal expenditures fall below collected revenues for three consecutive years – while no longer combining earmarked collections (Social Security, etc.) into the general fund. Restrict House of Representative and Senate staffing levels and budgets to the 1973 average until the budget balances for three consecutive years.

There – does that provide a starting point?

Frank’s story is short, but includes a good video of Colorado Congressman Doug Lamborn’s proposal to cut NPR and Corporation for Public Broadcasting support to: none. Duh. That is about as likely as cutting ACORN funding while Obama is still in the White House. But the video is still worth watching.

Ooh! Good ideas are still coming! Sell Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. Auction them off for whatever anyone wants to bid. Revert FHA policies and authority to pre-Carter and pre-CRA (and pre community organizer) regulations.

Require English competency for all applications for citizenship. Forbid any government interaction with citizens – most especially voting – be conducted in any language but English. Immigration and Naturalization should spend more an English as Second Language classes as raiding employers suspected of employing undocumented workers. Anyone facing deportment should spend a minimum 60 days in Sheriff Arpaio’s tent jails in Arizona, or in a similar facility with similar accommodations and costs of operation.

Susan Albert at Lifescapes mentioned Blog Action Day. I remember that from last year. Hm. Maybe I should have thought about Blog Action Day conceived at Change.Org. Or maybe even “water”.

I know that four families a couple of miles south of me ran out of water in their home wells. We live in an unincorporated area of a rural county, north central Oklahoma. Three of them “solved” their problem by switching to a community water line from the nearby town. The other cut down several pecan nut trees – and the water returned in their well. Around them there are a half-dozen houses for sale or at least empty. I wonder what will happen as new families move in, if any of those homes have home wells.

I put in a small garden this year – and bought a seep hose to water with. The pump electricity seems reasonable, and I can hear the submersible pump when it runs. I watered the garden between rains, and that seldom.

The pony and chickens don’t drink that much water. The pony’s tank is 200 gallons, 6′ by2′ by 2′ – and catches some of the rain. I keep goldfish in the tank to manage algae, so the water stays somewhat “fresh” without regular dump-and-scrub cleanings. In fact, the tank hasn’t been empty in 10 years, now. I siphon out part of the water with a shop-vac hose, vacuuming sludge off the bottom just like cleaning the under gravel filter on a home aquarium. That happens a time or two each summer. I let the water get down to 1/3rd full before filling, to reduce concentrating minerals from the water, etc. I dip water out for the
chickens and cats. Every once in awhile I consider catching water from the barn roof, but I haven’t, yet.

In California, they found that San Jose was build on a bed of sand. And as they used ground water – things sank. Buildings shifted and cracked. So they built Lexington Reservoir – to encourange rainwater to seep into the ground water. Arizona was getting into the “settling pond” routine when I left Phoenix in 1999. Back in Californial, they drained their Lexington Reservoir back in the early to mid 1980s, to do maintenance. Before they could refill the reservoir in the Los Gatos Mountains, a drought hit. The drought delayed refilling Lexington Reservoir for seven (7) years. About the time they refilled it – it was 1989. And the epicenter of that big October quake – was within three miles of the Lexington Reservoir. Likely the fault created surface features that made the place a good site for the reservoir, and the drought years likely had more to do with the quake than the empty reservoir. Likely.

And yet, like Susan reports in Texas, aquifers in Oklahoma are running lower than in the past, some of them. Wednesday the 4.1 quake in Noble, OK, was probably not related to changes in water usage, or to changes in global temperature. Probably.

Water is useful. I look at Hoover Dam, and the nearby Kaw Lake flood control district. And the South Fork Salt river. Could we put in some water wheels for generating electricity, in season, on modest farm creeks? Could we adapt water desalination to clear water purification, entirely powered by a modest creek? Dare we not?

I grew up on a Mennonite-build farm in Iowa. The house roof had gutters – that drained into a massive cistern. Could rain capture work for drinking water, for garden water? Amazon.com sells rain barrels for emergency use, for watering patio and garden plants. Someone must think so.

Guest blogger Molly Davis at Casaubon’s Book gives a report on the ASPO conference that considers high speed rail the magic key to solving the problems of the planet. The work of

But Dr. Anthony Perl, co-author of Transport Revolutions: Moving People and Freight Without Oil, in an ASPO-USA panel today, suggested that the government could use its existing authority to make major strides in reducing oil dependence.

Oh, great. Still proposing Peak Oil solutions with that underlying assumption of enduring affluence. Move the fossil fuel use from the (visible) gasoline station to the (hidden) (coal fired) power plant, that makes sense. Oh, and introduce transportation needs to concentrate the rail customers and products to make the rail cost effective (i.e. with hidden costs pushed onto the community). Essentially, airports without the runways. Wonderful.

Let us not forget converting farmland, crossing and interfering with existing infrastructure, and working out union agreements and jurisdiction disputes.

Dr. Perl’s proposal made sense – twenty years ago, when Europe bought into high speed rail. With Peak Oil here, now, and cheap energy gone, that might have been used to build those trains and rails and lay the tracks and power lines, build the depots and repair bridges and roads that the new lines need – not to mention tunnels under rivers and through mountains. I note that the local scrap yards are preparing (tearing apart) old farm and industry implements, cars, and anything else steel, to sell as scrap for export to China. Not only with China have the technology on trains for us to buy, they will have our steel resources to sell us in the form of rails, etc. And if you are concerned about atmosphere CO2, China is replacing their coal fired plants with modernized, lower emission coal-fired power plants. But they are still burning coal and oil to produce products – like Dr. Perl’s trains and rails.

Yesterday’s wooden ties laid over gravel, still a useful design for modern trains – what will take their place, in the realm of high speed trains? Will forests need to be denuded to provide the thousands of miles of rail envisaged, or will concrete (with seriously high energy requirements to make) or steel, or some other means be need to support the trains? Maybe geographically rigid wind tunnels, perhaps?

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My own take on zoning and taxing practices that would help?

I like the zoning approach for a first approximation.

1) Lay out high speed corridors, and deny all improvements or construction in those corridors. Exempt all taxes on sales of property in those corridors to encourage voluntary exodus. After five years, begin increasing real estate taxes on properties within the corridors, to double the tax rate within the ensuing five years. Permit purchase of properties within the corridors, at fair market value (compared to similar adjacent properties outside the corridors), only by the community or the high speed corridor entity, if organized. Until developed, use as a green zone/park system with minimal infrastructure. Disc golf, anyone? Perhaps (specified temporary) allotted garden space, too, even fruit and nut trees.

2) Establish zoning requirements that no urban or suburban residence can be built more than one mile from grocery and hardware stores, from public school facilities, and from employers sufficient to offer 90% employment of those residing in that radius.

2a) Establish a commute tax. Employer (only) pays 1 cent per mile per employee, for the distance the employee lives from work, and uses private transportation to attend the workplace on that day. Tax at 1/4th cent per mile per day for employees using mass transit that day. 50% of tax collected is to be returned to the community. This way the Feds and the state and community planners, as well as employers, get a fair idea of the amount of commuting going on, and the effect of hiring practices on community fuel and road usage. Employers and employees today seldom consider commutes in their planning. That should be addressed, and the responsible parties (employers and employees, community planners) should actually take responsibility.

2b) Housing development projects, planned for the sole benefit of the developer, without regard to impact on community fuel and road usage, commute to shopping and work, has to be turned on its head.

3) Provide for zoning and regulation relief for a new type structure: Owner occupied small business, mostly for urban areas. Where the owner resides in the business structure, with no dedicated parking provided – this can be scattered into residential areas, inviting walk-up shopping, and meet the above walking distance requirement for groceries and hardware. Perhaps a slight modification would suffice for public school facility, in rural areas.

3a) Presume that owner-occupied entities, from farms to small businesses, will require vehicle use in the course of doing business.

3b) School consolidations in many rural and semi-urban areas have pushed inordinate commute costs onto the community, in conveying students to and from schools, and in engaging in away-from-campus extra-curricular activities. Schools need to have to report, by student, by day, the mode of transport(s) used for each transport need, both regular school days and extra-curricular activities. This is a cost taxpayers in the school district deserve to know, in detail.

4) PassivHaus residence construction and general building practices should be encouraged for all new, and where appropriate, modified structures.

5) Change the profit motive for selling a home. Levy a 40% excise tax on the sale of a home, phased in over the next ten years in 6% increments each year. Assess the tax on homes sold within 30 years of most recent purchase. Where inherited, from date of inheritance, if inherited directly from previous occupying owner. Tax is levied on the total sale price, before accounting for costs of sale or remaining mortgage or other encumbrance.

5a) Exempt owner-occupied homes transferred directly by inheritance to new owner, from estate / death taxes.

Crunchy Chicken asks – how to get the message out about man-made global warming and peak oil.

There are a lot of niggling details being argued over in climate change and environmental circles. 350 ppm. Peak oil dates. Number of species gone extinct.

But, I’ve come to the realization that many of these details are, for the most part, irrelevant. We’ve got a much bigger problem. And it’s called apathy. Actually, it’s much worse than apathy because apathy suggests something more hopeful. No, what we’ve got is distrust, disbelief, the desire to prove wrong and more, importantly, hatred.

Until these issues are addressed our message (whatever it is) will just bounce off the heads of those we are trying to educate or encourage.

One commenter chimed in with

Carbon taxes. People change their behavior when money comes into the picture. Mental change follows action change for most folks anyway.

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On a personal note, I don’t hold that global warming is man-made. On the other hand, Peak Oil, the loss of wealth from the world as demand for oil on a given day overshadows the ability to produce oil on that day, will drive nearly all the changes that the AGW (anthropogenic global warming) worriers propose. The AGW argument runs in two directions – stop burning fossil fuels and producing methane, and sequester carbon and CO2 already in the atmosphere. Peak Oil expectations are that cheap energy – coal and oil – are getting more expensive and will become too expensive to continue life as we know it.

Most of the proposals for sequestering carbon have been energy intensive. Anything energy intensive has to be re-evaluated under Peak Oil.

Someone pointed out that cows produce methane – so feeding cows has become somewhat of a point of dogma for AGW mitigation proponents. They don’t seem concerned about swamps and compost heaps that sequester carbon – and emit methane. In quantities to obscure what can be measured from all the cows in the world. This is just one of the politically correct and facile arguments I object to.

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Barry Goldwater had it several years ago, “You cannot legislate morality.”

Carbon taxes won’t work. Look at how punitive taxes have failed to reduce smoking, or the dangers to young and old smokers. Smoking sections in restaurants, now, made a difference. Smoking sections demonstrate, publicly, that smokers are harmful to others. That visual cue – the smoke in the air, the segregation, is an image easier to carry into home and family life, implying a credible message to smokers and bystanders.

Cigarette taxes barely inconvenience sellers and wealthy – and impose real hardships on the middle class and poor. And fuel a black market that gangs, thugs, and organized crime exploit.

If you want to shut down coal-fired power plants, the obvious step is to stop using electricity. If you want to shut down steel plants, stop using steel. And if you want to save the planet, stop sending scrapped machinery and cars to China. Re-use, repurpose, rebuild and restore, instead.

If you want to stop burning diesel and gas in cars, stop commuting for shopping and for work. And school – return to the one-room school within walking distance (a mile or so), put up the teacher in a nearby home instead of a “living” (euphemism for Union) or “comparable” wage, forgo the weekly (out of town!) football and basketball spectacles.

(I can see how consolidating schools makes for career advancement for administrators, for consolidating authority, but it fails to take into account the impact of longer travel times and fuel usage on the community. I have a lot of respect for teaching and teachers. But teachers unions seldom pressure a school to improve education results, and they do *not* keep money in the local economy.)

If you cannot choose, en masse, to live a sustainable energy lifestyle – how strong is your message? Really?

I mean, you have to allow a transition, a period where people expecting to live in a post-industrial age find the adaptations – the devices, the community planning strategies, the building codes, the school building construction concepts, the bicycles, the shoes not made of petroleum in third world countries and transported around the world, for goodness sakes!

I have a drawing in a book, “Farm Appliances You Can Build”, that shows a wooden frame to stuff straw or hay – to hand build hay and straw bales. My neighbors that bale and feed hay use the big bales that require heavy equipment to pick up, store, and dispense. I don’t begin to know how to make my own twine.

The flip side to “carbon tax” is the devaluation of human effort. Real wages have to return to the value of the food required (at the rice and beans level of nutrition) for that day, plus 10-20% so the “wealthy” can afford to feed a family. Wages cannot be kept at a level where the average worker buys a house, buys a car every five to ten years, pays for college for every child, and buys them computers as their school requires.

As a nation we may have to evaluate whether some jobs should pay enough for a worker to have a family, or be married. I expect this pressure on wages to redefine a lot, including selection of mate and circumstances for “dating” and marrying – and having children. I expect the home to become not an investment, but where you expect your descendents to live. This may come to overturn our current approach to real estate taxes – which today assume a level of affluence that is not going to persist.

That kind of re-adjustment to “real wages” is what is needed. Does that have to happen today? No. Today we have to adapt to a “hideously expensive” energy society. And the first things to look at are employers and city planners oblivious to the distance people commute, and that fail to take responsibility for their impact on fuel usage in cities.

That is how to reduce reliance on fossil fuels in personal life. Not employing more union labor to build big factory cars that burn less gas – or coal-fired electricity – to repeat the same rubber-consuming, time consuming, resource consuming commuter lifestyle we have taken for granted since the boys came marching home from WWII and Sears created the myth of the single family dwelling, and corporate America invented mass commuting.

The ship doesn’t go where the captain doesn’t steer. If we don’t like this ship, the answer has nothing to do with harassing the guy at the wheel. I just don’t see that many people getting off the “cheap oil” ship. That Cheap Oil ship has to stay to the established trade routes – it cannot get to the “uncharted wastes” where people could live without massive use of fossil fuels.

A Carbon tax is a politically correct bandage. It serves the “Tax the rich” mantra, and it keeps union workers on the take as we build new cars and new coal-fired power plants to take advantage of the new economic leverage ploys you create. And it is my understanding the national electricity grid is someone inefficient, delivering some portion of the energy it starts out with. So-called “clean” electricity from wind power is quite a bit more expensive – and oil intensive – to build and maintain. And requires coal-fired plants to serve when the wind isn’t blowing where it is needed.

Like recycling plans for plastics and paper – without government subsidies, you wouldn’t see the wind turbines going up – or operating. I understand the wind operators in Texas, some of them, *pay* the grid to take their electricity, making up the difference from federal grants. That is what “sustainable” means to me.

Rob at Transition Culture calls out an appalling video – “No Pressure” – that purports to motivate cutting carbon emissions by 10%, the 10:10 organization.

One of the commenters uses a Common Cause report to offer a better approach. In responding to Shaun Chamberlin and her references, I came to some startling conclusions. Apparently I resent the heck out of many of the organizations involved in doing good.

Please note – I don’t disagree with Shaun. Shaun’s comments seem well informed and with good intent. The Common Cause report, though, bothers me, as does the above mentioned “No Pressure” video.

Unwarranted and insulting assumptions about the audience

I find the arguments that cite effects on future generations are losing their grip. It is the scholar, the intellectual that trains to think in terms of generations and ages that grasps what this means, not the average product of public schooling.

The affluent have the means to pursue long term goals. More and more people today are concerned not with the next generation, but with food on the table next week – or today. Attention spans shorten dramatically as affluence dwindles. Goals promising immediate security and survival are much more compelling to contemplate. For many, even the loss of assurance of affluence in the future is enough to shorten the perceived horizon.

Implausible arguments about the future

Then, too, predicting the future has been proven, over and over, to be problematic. The peak oil hysterics of a few short years ago about the end of access to any oil – has been disproved by events. Today the Peak Oil story is portrayed as a ratcheting economic sea change – and is compared against finding work, finding food, etc. The short term objectives obscure what may happen next month, next quarter – or not at all.

So I find the Common Cause report interesting, although based on an assumption of affluence and intellectualism about the target audience. Until Common Cause addresses that assumption, that ages-old “the rich are evil, and they have the wealth that would solve problem X if we just take that wealth away from them” (redistribution of wealth) mantra, I fear they will continue to labor under the burden of frustration and despair.

Fund raising v. authority

Don’t mind me. I find nearly all aspects of fund raising to pursue major goals to be unethical and self serving. My objection, I think, boils down to usurpation of legal authority.

Fund raising diverts money from the local economy, as do taxes. Yet the funds raised don’t go to support governmental objectives. In a free and democratic society, the government more-or-less reflects the will of the people being governed. If their is a regional or larger scale issue to address – then it seems that at least part of the solution should be under the authority, if not an act of, some layer of government.

And that is an aspect that challenges the concept of living under a government: Jurisdiction. By what authority does Oxfam or other interested organization invest time, effort, and resources into a community, a region, a nation, to motivate action and collect resources to pursue their (non-governmental) goals? Organizing resources to affect regional, national, and global issues is a form of governmental action. Where is the legitimacy of the authority of the organization to act in that regard? That is part of my personal resistance to most fund raising. The Salvation Army is one organization that has been granted, and serves within, legitimacy. From what I understand of Transition Towns, most are legitimate, assert and are regarded as authorities amongst the organizers, among the community of Transition Towns, and often negotiated recognition with established entities of local and national government.

Abuses in activism

Green Peace, despite decades of efforts to assume legitimacy in certain relationships of man to nature, are still considered by many to be the epitome of tree hugging wackos. I wasn’t swayed by the arguments that cows grazing on leased Federal lands in the US were responsible for the methane that caused the hole in the ozone layer.

The world isn’t fair. Various governments at all levels from world to neighborhood refuse, are unable, are unwilling, or are uninterested in addressing a range of problems. I rarely see the rebellion, the organization of people with the intent to gather resources to bypass governments to address their self-imposed objectives as being, well, legitimate.

Respect for Adults

Parents have a responsibility, the authority and obligation, to inform their children. They teach, they train, they correct children to impart cultural values, traditions, and rituals. Parents have the authority to act in forming their children’s character.

Past childhood, though, it is a profound act of disrespect to approach another adult, and tell that person, “You are wrong.” When you manipulate someone’s values or convince them that change to their traditions or rituals – their cultural identity – you assume the same role of caretaker, of custodian, as any other role of abuse, from highwayman to slave taker to tyrannical dictator. The childhood chiding, “You’re not my mommy!” still applies.

The religious proselyte always approaches the potential convert as “despised sinner”, wherein the state of salvation can be reversed, can be saved, and the worth of the soul become blessed instead. If only the despised unbeliever changes a few personal and social values and practices. The Common Cause report is a study in propaganda, and not of respect for the individual. There is no questioning of the motivation – to change a world full of despised sinners into willing contributors to whichever organization’s self-appointed goals. That inherent lack of respect bothers me some as well.

Transparent v. honesty

The use of the term “transparency” grated, when I would be more comfortable with “honest”, or “open”, or even “clarity”. And, yes, I do realize that the word transparent has been adopted in political speech to imply visibility into motives and actions – and is as corrupt a term as any others in it’s usage. Thus using the politically correct “transparent” term carries with it my presumption of corrupt behavior.

Billll’s Idle Mind mentions 20 questions on the Common Gunsense (anti) gun ownership blog. japete posts 20 questions with the stated goal of a dialogue, “I am aiming for common sense and some coming together of minds and hearts to keep people from being shot. ”

My own personal feeling is that the guns that the 2nd Amendment to the Constitution refers to is precisely the guns used to defeat – kill – opposing British soldiers, mercenaries on the other side, etc. Battle field weapons, even if they are ad hoc hunting rifles and officer’s pistols. The reason the 2nd Amendment is there in the Bill of Rights was because the states that ratified the Constitution, that became the United States, were worried. They had survived a Revolution, and wanted assurance that their neighbors and this new government they were forming would not become yet another tyrant. The 2nd Amendment preserves to the people and to the states the ability to resist tyranny. In event that all diplomatic and legal forums fail to check and address tyranny, yet the people would still have the power to overthrow the government. Not the legal means, that is carefully not included. Thus, this force that the 2nd Amendment protects – an armed citizenry – is a “remedy” only of last resort. It is in my mind that the existence of one more “check and balance” of government a and governed is in no small way one of the reasons that the United States government has survived this long. I am convinced that if the 2nd Amendment, right to bear arms, is compromised that the loss of that check on overweening, tyrannical abuse by the federal government that that so-called “gun control” would directly result in the end of constitutional government in the US, and likely also create the environment that other nations would be attacking the US in short order. Pearl Harbor would be as nothing, compared to foreign armies occupying what we still call today, the United States.

So. My take on the 20 questions.

1. Do you believe that criminals and domestic abusers should be able to buy guns without background checks?

Background checks provide the government with a list of gun owners – a short step from gun confiscation, as South Africa just showed the world. Background checks are excellent PR for political candidates, and notoriously ineffective in hampering criminals. We have laws that forbid criminals and domestic abusers from owning guns.

Lists of those that should be denied any civil right or permission, that isn’t a direct result of open court verdicts where the accused can face and refute his/her accuser is a direct violation of due process, an invitation to corruption and abuse.

No, I don’t think background checks work, and no, I don’t think there should be such an expense or restriction or even government involvement in purchasing a firearm.

Background checks have proven, over time, to stifle ownership by law-abiding citizens, while not hampering the so-called targets, criminals and such. The effect is clear to me – anti-gun people are smug at the same time their communities see increases in violent crime as law-abiding citizens disarm. The latest FBI reports show uniformly that states implementing Concealed Carry programs see decreases in violent crime. Some years ago one report checked back on several communities that required every head of household to obtain and have a firearm – and crime went down in those communities.

Nope. I don’t want to put guns in the hands of criminals and abusers. But I sure as heck don’t want to keep guns out of the hands of their next victim.

2. What is your proposal for keeping guns away from criminals, domestic abusers, terrorists and dangerously mentally ill people?

A citizenry and community that is disciplined and armed. Post signs at a schools, shopping malls, and work places that ban weapons: Warning – Entering Disarmed Victim Zone. Mass Shootings happen in Disarmed Victim Zones. The Management takes no responsibility for your safety in a Disarmed Victim Zone.

Terrorists and criminals typically get their weapons from clandestine and criminal sources anyway. Domestic abusers and dangerously mentally ill people are under surveillance, or should be, because they have needs over and above the averages citizen. It isn’t responsible to ignore those in identified need. Merely screening them from purchasing firearms from mainstream vendors only turns the to alternate weapons and alternate vendors. Worrying about domestic abusers and dangerously mentally ill people getting guns is overlooking the fact that you have already failed to protect your community and face your responsibilities to them and their families. In this case, you are looking at the weapons when you should have been seeing the persons.

3. Do you believe that a background check infringes on your constitutional right to “keep and bear arms”?

Yes. It hampers citizens while not hindering undesirables.
In addition, it creates lists of owners that can be abused, either to confiscate firearms to harass owners.

The Constitution makes clear that he government is to have no role in limiting, monitoring, or barring anyone from owning guns. Note that racial bigotry barred African Americans from owning guns that would have protected innocent lives from depredations by vigilantes and such as the KKK. Any restriction is political and subject to corruption and abuse.

4. Do you believe that I and people with whom I work intend to ban your guns?

I just found your blog today. From the questions so far, you are intent on barring those you don’t want to have guns from owning them, and that is a dangerous position to take. It is easy to stretch from “domestic abusers” to “those that don’t need a gun.” And that disowns the assumption of the writers of the Constitution that freedom requires every citizen, regardless of their civic or criminal status, to stand ready to defend against lawlessness, against invasion, and against domestic tyranny.

Did you know that during World War II, there was at least one unit, I believe there were more, made of convicted murders and other violent criminals? I spoke to the survivor of one such unit. They were given assignments that new recruits would be unable to face – difficult odds, hand to hand killing.

When you limit, artificially, the subject of guns to our local neighborhood, you close your eyes and your mind to the myriad Islam sects and others that violently hate the United States, and that would welcome and opportunity to plunder and destroy our government and our worship. You also disregard one of the responsibilities of US citizenship – to hold the government accountable for violations of trust, and of the Constitution.

You are aware, I hope, that the Supreme Court has held that police and sheriff’s departments are not expected to provide protection to any citizen, are you not? That police protect a community in a statistical sense. Some gun enthusiasts express that with a bumper sticker or t-shirt “When seconds count, the police are minutes away.”

Any move to limit and restrict weapons that might be used against a corrupt and tyrannical government, against an invading force, including terrorists, or against domestic criminals, is a move to ban weapons.

And I think you do indeed support part or all of the ban that Secretary of State Clinton and President Obama have been working toward since the Obama inauguration. Instances? The recent consideration of the EPA to ban lead in bullets, ultimately rejected. Last spring the bullet manufacturers were informed that while they had expected to purchase spent bullet casings from the military, henceforth, and despite existing contracts, all such brass would be shredded – making what should have been the basis for civilian reloaded ammunition, instead scrap metal for the Chinese. This attempt to eviscerate the civilian ammunition market was revised after intervention by Senators and Congressmen. At one point the OSHA proposed extending their control over sale, manufacture, and transport of black powder. Again, withdrawn. The international treaty to ban civilian gun ownership and possession is an open secret that pops up in the news every few months that Sec’y Clinton and Obama are negotiating.

5. If yes to #4, how do you think that could happen ( I mean the physical action)?

a. Ban sales of guns and ammunition except to registered police departments and uniformed services.
b. Make it illegal to own, store, or transport a weapon by civilians.
c. Sign the UN treaty that Obama and Clinton want (civilians with weapons can resist tyrants. Tyrants and criminals don’t like armed opponents. Law abiding rulers worry, but are confident in the rule of law.)
d. Make carrying a weapon or something that looks like a weapon illegal – defined as armed and dangerous, and an automatic “shoot on sight” offense.
e. Set up a confiscation program. They have the lists of people that have requested background checks – even though keeping records of who requested a background check is illegal. These lists of checks have been used in court any number of times. Funny how keeping illegal records is supposed to reassure gun owners that even though the officials break the law, gun owners don’t need to be worried that their rights might be violated. Wait – didn’t keeping those records just violate those rights? Yep.
f. Make it illegal for a moving company to move weapons or weapon lockers or gun safes. Make it illegal to carry weapons in a motor vehicle, or to have one in a residence. Ban civilian gun stores and shooting ranges.

6. What do you think are the “second amendment remedies” that the tea party GOP candidate for Senate in Nevada( Sharron Angle) has proposed?

I don’t know. The only instance I know of that the 2nd Amendment preserves, is the illegal use of firearms against a tyrannical government, when the rule of law has broken down and no lesser remedy is available than full and outright revolt against a government operating outside the limits of the Constitution. We may be getting closer to that kind of situation, but I hope we are still a long way off. I am disappointed that the Housed of Representatives has abrogated its responsibility to review and check the President when he exceeds his authority – as when he interfered in the bankruptcy of GM and Chrysler, to the detriment of lawful stock holders and the rule of law. The President’s actions had the appearance of violating the Constitution, yet the House failed to investigate, let along censure or impeach. That is a clear failure of the rule of law – and a step closer to 2nd Amendment kind of remedy. As I say, I hope we aren’t there, yet.

Another is the Coates testimony to Congress that President Obama has forbidden any prosecution or investigation of voter abuse or interference with voters – unless the voters are minorities. States identified with voting roles that aren’t current, and thus more liable for voting abuses, also happen to be minority and Democratic party strongholds – and President Obama has again forbidden any investigation or review.

7. Do you believe in the notion that if you don’t like what someone is doing or saying, second amendment remedies should be applied?

See #6 above. The 2nd Amendment applies when the rule of law has broken down, when there are no meaningful remedies under the law.

If the someone is in a position of authority, and claims that the Constitution, and civil liberties, no longer apply to the government, nor protect the peoples of the United States, then I would say, yes, the kind of remedies the 2nd Amendment preserves might be applicable. But that is a lot of caveats.

8. Do you believe it is O.K. to call people with whom you disagree liars and demeaning names?

A person that deliberately utters words and statements known to be false, intentionally and with the intent those words and statements should be used as a basis for actions and decisions by others, should be openly and clearly challenged for lying and deception, for fraud and for misleading. Lying is rude as a minimum, and can be criminal. Lying does not earn, nor deserve, any respect.

As for demeaning names – that gets into cultural values. At times one earns a reputation with a certain label. Objecting to the label when the reputation has been truly and honestly earned is failing to take responsibility for one’s actions. At the same time, deliberately using a term for someone that is intentionally demeaning is rude.

Respect for ones self demands that courtesy be extended, except where courtesy is being manipulated or exploited unfairly. Difference of opinion, or even being wrong, is not the same as a lie.

9. If yes to #8, would you do it in a public place to the person’s face?

If they are lying, and actively, intentionally earning labels that are considered demeaning? Yep.

10. Do you believe that any gun law will take away your constitutional rights?

Yes. Either the federal, state, and local governments abide by the Constitution, or they don’t. It is a bit like being just a little bit not pregnant. Either your rights are interfered with, or they are intact.

11. Do you believe in current gun laws? Do you think they are being enforced? If not, explain.

No. Background checks demonstrate how easily amassing data is abused, regularly. The secret “Prohibited persons” list is another such example. I am convinced that law abiding citizens are harassed and exploited, and subject to current and futures abuse – without controlling guns in the hands of criminals. I also believe that gun control laws intimidate law abiding citizens, reducing security in communities and states.

Enforcement of gun laws is spotty and ineffective. You did read of the plastic guns confiscated, and gun license revoked, for a shipment of paint ball guns to the West Coast, didn’t you? The store importing the weapons was told by an ATF agent – that they could be made fully automatic. Except no one can figure out what the agent meant, or how the plastic guns could be made to shoot a lethal round. Most violations consisted of filling out complicated report forms incorrectly – information in the wrong box, or left out.

No, enforcement is easily manipulated to suit political agendas, and seldom increases community security.

12. Do you believe that all law-abiding citizens are careful with their guns and would never shoot anybody?

I think if anti-gun activists and gun laws weren’t so deliberately intimidating, more law abiding citizens would be more aware of responsible and safe gun handling practices.

Most gun owners never do shoot anyone – even those that go to war in uniform, many times, never shoot anyone. And you assume that there is a difference between law-abiding and shooting someone. Many times it is legal to deliberately defend your self, your property, and your community. In fact, protecting property and family often leads to fewer criminal killings, even when (especially when?) no shots are fired.

People get killed in cars. I see no laws about domestic abusers or criminals getting cars – even though some small portion of all motor vehicles is used during the commission of a crime.

Not all law abiding citizens are gun owners, and some would not handle a firearm. I think more gun owners than car owners are careful with their weapons, and avoid accidents. I am sure that most gun owners have never shot anyone, nor do they intend to, by their dearest wish. But a certain number prepare and train to defend themselves and others – possibly you! – at need.

13. Do you believe that people who commit suicide with a gun should be included in the gun statistics?

Yes, correctly identified – and appropriately compared to other forms of suicide, other defensive, accidental, and criminal killings.

14. Do you believe that accidental gun deaths should “count” in the total numbers?

Yes, as long as they are compared to defensive and criminal deaths.

15. Do you believe that sometimes guns, in careless use or an accident, can shoot a bullet without the owner or holder of the gun pulling the trigger?

No.

16. Do you believe that 30,000 gun deaths a year is too many?

I don’t know. How many were suicides, that would have succeeded using some other agent if the gun hadn’t been available? How many were defensive, and the death was to a perpetrator during a crime? How many were police and sheriff, or other authority actions at what was perceived to be a crime scene? Do you count the gentleman in Colorado last spring, that three police shot to death with no provocation or cause? (OK – one of the cops on the same force, but not present, was dating the guy’s ex-girlfriend. That doesn’t seem sufficient to me.)

How may traffic and pedestrian deaths a year are too many? How many gang-related deaths – gun and otherwise – are too many? How many smoking, inactivity, and bad eating habit deaths are too many? How many backyard pool deaths are too many?

If your numbers – 30,000 are correct, that amounts to about 1 in 10,000, right? Where does that put shooting deaths on leading causes of death in the US? And again, it is frightfully disingenuous and manipulative, to throw out the gross number, when most deaths during a crime are preventable – if the criminal had just stayed home. Counting shooting deaths by criminals is rude and demeaning – many of those could be reduced simply by better informed and wider ownership of guns by citizens.

17. How will you help to prevent more shootings in this country?

Advocate repeal of gun registration and background checks laws, and Disarmed Victim Zones.

18. Do you believe the articles that I have posted about actual shootings or do you think I am making them up or that human interest stories about events that have happened should not count when I blog about gun injuries and deaths?

I think you overlook what security for the community and the nation involve, and the responsibility of citizens to be ready do defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic.

The details that play out around any violent or accidental death should bother any thoughtful person. Falling off a ladder, falling into a bathtub or swimming pool, none is more heartbreaking for those involved than any others. Did you know the most common motor vehicle/pedestrian death, is backing over a toddler in the family driveway?

Commenting on the Santa Claus killer in California, where eight people were killed – most with burning racing fuel in an improvised weapon – someone pointed out that eight people were killed not because the killer had a gun, but because the killer had the only gun.

19. There has been some discussion of the role of the ATF here. Do you believe the ATF wants your guns and wants to harass you personally? If so, provide examples ( some have written a few that need to be further examined).

I think the ATF thinks their job would be simpler once all citizens are disarmed – and the only weapons in America were in the hands of the police – and criminals. Note that that approach isn’t working out all that well in the United Kingdom.

20. Will you continue a reasonable discussion towards an end that might lead somewhere or is this an exercise in futility?

Probably futile. Where you are convinced that Barry Goldwater was wrong when he said, “You cannot legislate morality,” I am convinced that history has proven him correct.

I look at the issues of defending the constitution, of keeping government honest by the possibility of, but not the threat of, armed revolt in the event of failure of the government to abide by the Constitution, and thereby assuring continuity of government and no need, at present, to exercise that responsibility. I look at the need to stand ready to assist in time of crisis in restoring order or repelling invaders. You might look at how the Swiss manage to avoid being attacked. The Swiss keep their arms after service, and their battlefield rifles are used for regular reserve training, kept in pride of place in their home gun locker.

If your reservation is the number of gun owners that don’t handle guns safely, then the remedy might be universal service, as in Israel, where everyone serves a couple of years.

Did I mention hunting? Some regions depending on hunting to maintain a healthy balance of game animals. Left unchecked, there would be more deaths from driving into deer, etc., and from diseased animals affecting livestock and urban areas.

Frank W. James at Corn, beans, spent brass, an empty page and a deadline, writes about the Death of Service – how franchise fast food joints don’t care about serving the customer.

My son actually got me to thinking about this some time ago and I’ve been checking in terms of personal experiences ever since, but he believes besides the lack of culinary excellence associated with all fast food enterprises there is also the accompanying complete lack of service.

His theory is these businesses work off ‘numbers’. All fast food ‘restaurants’ are built for volume and that’s how their individual success or failure is graded. If they screw up your particular order (because maybe you DON’T want cheese on your burger, or pickles or Gawd knows what else) they don’t care. They know there will always be someone else standing in line to take your place and your complaint or momentary discomfort is meaningless to their profit at the end of the day.

In short, they could give a shit if you come or go.

My first reaction is to think, well, if the employee wants to see the job as an opportunity to serve the public, working in a fast-food joint won’t prevent her or him from providing service.

But, you know, there are a couple of things that complicate the issue. One is turnover. When you take a new job, all your attention is on learning to read your boss to find what is expected. Two businesses can give the same instructions, in the same words, and mean different things. A new hire takes time to figure out what the words mean. When the environment is geared to lots of turnover, then that “learn the formula” distraction is going to be a powerful motivation for the entire work force there.

Established franchises have a formula for success. The franchise owner, the store manager, the shift leads, the worker at the cooker or register or dumping trash all have a job description defined to avoid errors. Meeting daily metrics and reports gets to be the major hurdle of the average work day. It can be easy to view this as “the goal” of the day.

High volume eateries often assign each sale a number to track the order, so they can track the order and hand the correctly assembled tray to the right customer. Hopefully. Unless one is careful, it becomes simple to transform the customer, in the employee’s mind, with the order or order number.

The immediate task of the cashier is the order – get it taken correctly, meet the manager’s or computer’s demand for specific information, in a specific order. Especially when trying to work through a line of visitors waiting to place and order, it is easy to let the attention focus on procedures, on money handling, on serving the computer. And the job slips from serving the community or the customer, to serving the computer, or perhaps the cash register or cash drawer.

I have walked out of various fast-food joints, when it takes too long to get someone’s attention, to get a cashier to take my order. I find that taking 45 seconds or more, with people “busy” behind the counter, to get someone engaged in my order is about as long as I intend to wait. I have been disappointed in food quality, and angered by further unneeded delays each time I put up with shoddy business practices like that. Supposedly there is someone, on each shift, every day, to be working an order-taking station. Whether they are being over-tasked and used for additional functions by an inept manager, whether they are ignorant about priorities of various tasks – I don’t care. Watching people bustle behind the counter, but not prompt at taking the next order is a sign, to me, of a manager failure. The manager fails to keep the work force in discipline, fails to keep the focus on actual service instead of looking busy, or fails to train people to meet primary assignments before working on secondary tasks.

When I moved to Phoenix (west of town, Goodyear, AZ), I had been a long-time customer of Taco Bell. But in Phoenix, I found that with a few exceptions, service was dead slow. Something like 10 or 15 minutes slow, in almost all stores. The exceptions occurred at a couple of stores, on certain shifts. The shift lead at certain stores could achieve a good quality product, without the ghastly delays. But evidently the district manager set the tone for the whole region – slow.

In part I agree with Frank. The nature of franchised fast food relies on newly-hired employees, and prescription workplace rules intended to keep quality high in the presence of green employees (which stifles the ability of the store to benefit from experienced employees).

But I think there is reason to consider the employee, too. Many are at their first job, or haven’t worked anywhere but in fast food. Others are working part time, or are working there because nothing else is available – that is, this is a last resort, not a cherished career goal. And many do not got to work with the intent to serve the community.

I know that having a dating partner that relies on emails, texting, or even lots of phone calls for “communication” in the relationship – is a big red flag and sign of a strong reason to leave. Electronics interfere in communication. Think of voice mail, those annoying “press 1 for sales, press 2 for technical support ..” automated replacements for people. Letting the computer define taking an order asserts an abuse to the customer in the name of “quality control”. Instead of an employee working to understand what the customer needs, the task becomes impersonal, translating what the customer needs into what the computer will accept. And defining the customer as an order number.

Combine the computerized interface with an employee paradigm of an assumption of using new hires in a consistent fashion – and Frank’s criticism of the industry pretty much holds true.

I suggest that the single greatest force for dehumanizing service, is an electronic order system. When I walk up to the counter at Wendy’s, and I am thinking what I want to eat – but the person taking my order cannot get to what I want to eat, until I answer the computer’s “Is this for takeout or dine in?” – that feels abusive. Even if the cashier is prompt and order taking runs quickly there.

I am making a list. Anyone calling on my home phone – listed with the “do not call” list – to promote a candidate, and I add them to my list.

Because politicians exempted themselves from telemarketing, common sense, common courtesy rules does not mean they have my permission to disturb me or clutter my phone messages.

I intend to vote *against* every candidate for office that calls, or solicits my vote.

There is a “do not call” list. If a politician cannot adhere to common courtesy, she/he cannot deserve my support.

Hip Mountain Momma writes on One Small Change about going No Poo – that is, no commercial shampoo. She shows a nice video clip about mixing a couple spoonfuls of baking soda into a quart of warm water for washing, then a finger or so if apple cider vinegar in a glass – filled with water in the shower – for a rinse.

A couple of issues bother me.

First, HMM (re-)uses a quart glass jar for the baking soda mix. That seems risky to me, in the shower. Any surface solid enough to stand on is solid enough, at the right angle, to break the jar if it slips. I understand about not encouraging plastic containers. HMM mentions not having to buy commercial shampoos in additional plastic containers each time you run out – but there is a reason for the plastic. It won’t shatter and slice feet and skin.

When I grew up we had aluminum pitchers that were reasonably robust, and wouldn’t shatter if broken. I don’t see them much anymore, plastic seems much more amenable to mass production. But they still show up in yard sales and the Salvation Army thrift store. I recommend a non-rustable metal container in the shower, or just reuse the dreaded plastic. Same with the vinegar rinse; keep glass away from bare skin and wet hands.

Then there is the part where HMM mentions pouring the baking soda mix over her hair, let it set for a minute or so, then rinse “really well”. Then pour on the apple cider vinegar mix, and “rinse really well.”

Is this “organic” and “plastic free” and “dangerous chemical elimination” approach – using more water?

Is she using the “rinse with water, towel dry, and brush it” form of intermediate care? Or is her hair longer than necessary – that is, is her long hair an ostentatious, conspicuous display of affluence?