Are Rights Revolting?

The short answer is YES, and the reader can now walking away with a solid answer. Of course the reader may not be able to defend this position if it ever came up in discussion. This writing is inspired by David Starkey, an English historian and radio and television presenter, from the UK. Mr. Starkey added a layer to a long standing line of personal thought, this line of thinking says that a countries ‘Rights’ apply to every citizen equally and that it is only through legislation that ‘Rights’ are perverted; some countries provide a subset of what is granted to the citizenry to visitors. 

The takeaway point Mr. Starkey made is that the concept of citizen rights has always been done for the purpose of justification, be it justifying a revolution, revenge, or a power grab. Around eight hundred ago, King John of England signed the Magna Carta Libertatum. Previous to the Magna Carta the King owned the entire country and divided parceled out land to the nobles, who sub-divided their holdings for knights and other tenants. This created a land based hierarchy Mafia style, where a tithing was always kicked up one level; this is why so many Royal families ended up so rich. England at that time, much like today, was a class based system based on how much land one managed and how many vassals were working that land. The people at large didn’t like this idea and so John of England signed the Magna Carta so he could remain King; while he died the follow year, he left a legacy of social change that would impact the political land the world over. 

Obviously, there must have been some opportunistic bureaucrat waiting in the wings around that time who stepped up and said something along the lines of – Tax collection used to be handled by each landowner, but seeing as each individual person has to pay taxes now, there is going to have to be a system by which all of this is recorded and enforced on behalf of your Royal Majesty. The efforts of this tosser has been a stain on Western culture ever since. 

NOTE: Taxation and the term Crown Land still exist even to this day; while Crown land is presented as publically owned, there are restrictions and so someone somewhere has control, and seeing as the ultimate authority within the Commonwealth is still ‘Your Majesty’ it might be safe to say at this time that people have pseudo property rights. 

The American Bill of Rights followed in the footsteps of the Magna Carta when those in the colonies decided that they too should have ‘rights’. Those newly minted Americans carried the anti-royal revolutionary standard one step forward by bypassing the peasant-to-Royal-to-God conduit. This was made evident with the statement, ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness’ as laid out in the US Declaration of Independence. 

Canada eventually followed with, ‘The Parliament of Canada, affirming that the Canadian Nation is founded upon principles that acknowledge the supremacy of God, the dignity and worth of the human person and the position of the family in a society of free men and free institutions’. All the while, a sliver of the Canadian tax dollar goes to the ‘Crown’, though while it is less than $2.00 per annum per person. Leaving this author to ask; how has Canada been doing on the God and family fronts as of late?

Post WWII saw the establishment and execution, pun intended, of the Nuremberg Trials, along with the formation of the United Nations (UN). The publically stated goal of the UN was to ensure that another world war would to never to arise again. Whilst the last seventy some odd years have not produced a world war it also has not produced world peace; leaving me to ask, has the UN become the literal poster child for ‘the road to hell is paved with good intentions’?

Post WWII, the world at large once again applied a justice to Germany in a way similar to the Treaty of Versailles, though this time it was much more personal for at least some people, the actual numbers of people executed varies depending on source. The double blow by the major world Governments meted out upon Germany for its double war aggression did little to curb any drive for dominance though. All that happened was a shift in tactics, for once the bullets and bombs were taken off the European table; money and money based debt became the new ammunition for the control of Europe. The derogatory term PIGS, which are Portugal, Italy, Greece, and Spain were financially decimated by adopting the Euro, which was pushed upon them by Germany and France. An alternative acronym, GIPSI, was also created to include Ireland.  

The most recent pandemic has shown both the strengths and weaknesses that resulted from this post WWII world. The purported rights advocated to be upheld by the UN and many grand nations got tossed out faster then anyone could sneeze or sniffle. The people of the world were not consulted and even the leaders of the people of the world were not really consulted and if they were, they failed to question and only listen. 

The words ‘human rights’ are defined by Oxford’s junior dictionary as ‘a right that is believed to belong justifiably to every person.’ In a search for clarity, the term ‘right’ was investigated and was explained as ‘a moral or legal entitlement to have or obtain something or to act in a certain way.’ One way of considering the definitions provided above, is that what we have been told our rights are simply ‘justifiable entitlements’. It is the opinion of this author that the words ‘human right’ need to be fortified or tossed in the trash for the sake of clarity and simplicity. 

It used to be considered that one man’s rights ended at his fist or fingertips, personal property rights laws do provide an extension to that occasionally, especially if one lives in an area where stand your ground is one of those justifiable entitlement. Semantic arguments have a purpose because words do matter. It seems that many people believe that one’s ‘rights’ are immutable as they were endowed by God; begging the question, are those who infringe on these endowed rights for others through deceit, reserved a place in Hell next to those who talk in theaters?

 

Mathematical Grammar

Given the original question:       6 ÷ 2(1+2) = x

People younger then I were handed an acronym to help them process equations such as the one above, this acronym is PEMBAS and the alternate which is BODMAS. The expansion of the acronyms are provided below:

 

·         PEMDAS: Parentheses, Exponents, Multiplication and Division (from left to right), Addition and Subtraction (from left to right).

·         BODMAS stands for Brackets, Order, Division, Multiplication, Addition, and Subtraction.

 BODMAS is common in the UK while PEMDAS is used in the US. The terms Exponents and Order are interchangeable, as they both refer to raising a number to a power or finding a root of a number; these operations are usually presented as x^y and √x. It must be noted that numbers within brackets are to be considered as a single number, please keep this idea in mind. It is at this time I’d like to thank my father for teaching me math and not an acronym.

 

It must also be noted that MATH is not a natural language. In a natural language one can still get their point across if the sentence is grammatically wrong, where as with math when you get the grammar wrong you get the wrong answer.

 

For the question above some people get to the answer 1, while others get to the answer 9. The answer is 1, and not 9, below are examples of how people get to their answer. Things will be made a bit tricky later on to prove the point.

 

Following the explanations we can return to the original equation:

Right:             6 ÷ 2(1+2) = 6 ÷ 2(3) = 6 ÷ (2×3) = 6 ÷ 6 = 1

Also right:       6 ÷ 2(1+2) = 6 ÷ (2+4) = 6 ÷ 6 = 1

Wrong-1:         6 ÷ 2(1+2) = 6 ÷ 2 × (1+2) = 6 ÷ 2 × 3 = 3 × 3 = 9

Wrong-2:         6 ÷ 2(1+2) = 6 ÷ 2 + 4 = 3 + 4 = 7

 

Recalling the idea that equations within brackets, as part of a larger equation are to be resolved first, brackets can be nested. In some cultures there was an emphasis put on the brackets e.g. {5 + [5 × (1+2)]} = 20 or in the more modern form 5 + 5(1+2) = 20.

 

Now for the tricky part, in the original equation we are going to declare that (1+2) equals ‘x’ and the answer will be provided, giving us the two possible equations 6÷2x=1 and 6÷2x=9. These equations can be expressed as shown below.

 

Right

6÷2x=1 is        6   = 1 multiply both sides by x thus arriving at         6 = x OR x= 3

(2x)                                                                              2

 

Wrong

While 6÷2x=9 can be expressed as 6÷2×x=9 when ignoring the influence of the brackets and then moving from left to right it can be seen that the equation gets altered. This new equation would result in 3×x=9 and while dividing both sides by three still results in x =3 there is a serious problem.

 

The problem is that both equations can’t be right seeing as 1 ≠ 9. For those of you who do not know or maybe forgot, ≠ means ‘not equal to’.

 

The Proper Perspective

As with most situations, laziness causes confusion and mistakes. The most accurate way of writing the original equation would be “{6 ÷ [2 × (1+2)]} =?”. Know that when it comes to brackets, or parentheses, there is also a hierarchal order of operations where the mathematician starts with the round brackets, and then on to the square brackets and finally the curly or brace brackets.

 

Most people who enjoy maths, or those unfortunate souls who hate math yet have to learn it, known that (a+b)²= x results in a² + 2ab + b² = x. While this shortcut formula can provide the answer for x, does anyone remember why this comes about? Just to finish off the page it will be shown below using the bracket types provided above.

 

(a+b)²= x                    

 

Expanding on the above this is what we get

[(a+b) × (a+b)] = x     

 

Multiplying each element in the first brackets with each element in the second bracket we get

[(a×a) + (a×b) + (b×a) + (b×b)] = x

 

Because a×b is equal to b×a we get

{(a×a) + [(a×b) + (b×a)] + (b×b)} = x

 

All of which results in

a² + 2ab + b² = x

 

Of course, if a=3 and b=5 it is simply easier to add them together to get 8 and then return the answer of 64. Mathematics is not just about playing with numbers, while that can be fun; mathematics also provides a methodology and framework towards successful problem solving. 

Of Mice and Men

 I was recently asked to review a documentary on some of the experiments that were done from the late 1950s to the early 1970s by John B. Calhoun an American ethologist and behavioural researcher. The video I was provided, ‘The Mouse Utopia Experiments | Down the Rabbit Hole’ is available at https://youtu.be/NgGLFozNM2o.

 While it is recommended that the reader views the video first, this article will try to explain some of the observations and conclusions I made. In a response to the video, I made the following statement: ‘People are more complex than mice and rats, how much more complex must be left to time because while the rodent-like behaviour might be observable; the cause may be multifaceted. The rodent experiments placed all of the subjects on a non tilted field, lacking affirmative action and welfare for the single mom rats.' I should have included mice, why didn't I include the mice, at the end?

 The email statement above brought on a conversation where some interesting points were raised. I restated my position and expanded upon it by adding in that mice are not susceptible to propaganda. My opponent, and friend, brought up the portion of the experiment where some of the mice were given food harder to get, while mice in a different area were given food that was easier to get. Following that statement, is where I made my mistake by conceding that the difference in food access was a form of propaganda.

 My friend made a good point, indirectly though, that if mice/rats didn’t behave close enough to men then scientists wouldn’t use the rodents for behavioural experiments. Of course the tin-hat wearing individuals will insist that the rodent experiments were done so that the anti-social and the meek can justify their actions and lack of responsibility, more easily.

 The title of this writing was taken from the John Steinbeck classic published in 1937. The Steinbeck novella tells the story of two men, one physically weak yet smart and another man who is mentally weak yet physically strong, who have a cooperative dream of one day owning their own farm. Lennie, the large one, persistently gets into trouble due to his lack of emotional control not tempering the use of his strength. Spoiler alert: George the smarter one, murders Lennie at the end of the story after he realizes that the dream will never come to fruition so long as Lennie is part of that dream.

 While the Steinbeck story may be the boilerplate template for many TV shows, as it shows each person through a single characteristic, it is somewhat related to the Calhoun experiments because the experiments stressed the rodents to a point where all they had left was their base characteristics. This is where I feel my friend and I interpreted the validity of the experiments differently; a difference I attempted to convey in my emailed response and obviously failed.

Calhoun’s experiments were taken up by a plethora of people across all levels of society as a doomsday call for urban centers, back in the day. Today, many cities seemingly demonstrate that Calhoun was correct in his conclusions and that a given area can only support a given population and that the inevitable constraint of population density will eventually cause a self culling of that society. This line of thinking, for me has a number of problems when the comparison is applied to present day man.

 As mentioned in the email response I provided to my friend, the human urban condition is a multi-faceted regarding to the physical and social inputs, when compared to the simplistic model of an urban rodent life. The mouse environment provided personal/familial shelter, food, water, and a lack of natural predators. During the course of the experiment the food and water were maintained while the personal/familial shelter was limited due to the growth in population until the mice became predatory towards each other. The one thing that was missing in the source experiments that is of interest to me is that the experiment did not provide for the ability for the mice to leave and never return.

 Before returning to the realm of men, I’d be remiss if I did not ask this simple question, why not use cats in a similar experiment. Cats seem to be more finicky, a TV commercial once told me so, and cats seem to have more personalities within smaller groups. I feel that cats would be more representative of how men would behave in a similar situation because cats also take ‘pride’ in their hierarchal culture. The reason I’m introducing this point, is that mankind has assigned itself the title of apex predator, though this is only a truism after humans invented tools and language. I’m pretty sure that in the early years of our species development, we were both the feeder and feed.

 With your indulgence I’m going to toss in a wooden shoe, a sabot, into the works. The behavioural scientist decided to study the gatherer over the hunter and present that as the stereotypical behaviour of mankind. Understanding the bifurcation housed within the capabilities of men, should the mouse experiment be provided such weight when only one of the stereotypical roles be poked?

 Moving back to the realm of men now, there are many inputs in comparison to the world of those constrained mice. Within the world of men, the urbanites are subjected to a proverbial/literal carrot attached to the proverbial/literal stick via laws and social pressures. These pressures are applied by Governments, the Main Stream Media, Non-Government-Organizations (NGOs), activist types, corporations and religions. Please consider the following pressure points: commuter congestion, affirmative action mandates, family support laws, the ‘mostly peaceful protests’ and how they were covered during the COVID lock-downs, ad hominem attacks, cancel culture, social media, and being alone in crowd.

 Conversely, the rural folk are obviously exempt from some of the pressure points listed above and in fact some of the pressure points are completely reversed, commuter congestion and being alone in crowd are the two obvious pressure points.

 Going off topic momentarily, many people take situational pressures differently based on personal characteristics and which inputs, this means that any impacts are obviously going to be relative between peoples. As an example, one person may feel that not having the latest "smart (it’ll make you stupid) phone" makes them poor, meanwhile another person may be in awe as to why that first person is willing to shit in drinkable water.

 Adding in the element of ‘some way out’ as a key variable would for me, make a closer resemblance to the human condition. The mice were intentionally constrained, in a way similar to mankind until the means of travel matured. The mouse city experiment with the three constants and only one variable; is for me the main reason why the experiment is a flawed model for modern cities; better comparisons for ‘The Mouse Utopia Experiments’ would be Europe well into the late 19^th century one considers all of the territorial wars, or incarcerated felons.