Month: April 2025

Law as a Tool, Not a Tyrant: Reclaiming the Spirit of Justice

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There are many ways to get things wrong and one of those ways is to detach the law from its most foundational purpose.  That is a part of a legalistic mindset—which always will end up producing bad interpretation and misapplication of law.  

Law is not an entity separate unto itself or something stand alone.  It is a political tool, a guide or instrument for application of an agreed upon principle or cultural value, and application of the intended use requires a common set of assumptions to the creator.  It cannot float in space—never treated as an independent truth—it must be moored to a mission or the common good.

It’s the law!!!

I’ve been in conversations recently where some involved are in denial of the political nature of the law and treat it as if the words on a page somehow have their own life.  It is a misunderstanding of language.  There is nothing static or unassailable about any written code.  Everything depends on having an interpreter with values they are similar or basically the same as the originator of the law—the power of law, therefore, is in the interpretation and application.

When a person assumes that the law can speak for itself they’re delusional, they don’t grasp what law is or what it is for at a very basic level and end up using it to create a system of legalistic prescription rather than understand it through a practical lens.  They have essentially made dead words (applied in any way they want or are most familiar with) a focus rather than cutting through to the underlying principles that make correct application possible.  Their obsession over the letter of the law comes at the expense of following the spirit behind it.

Most people can’t read cursive let alone know what the founders truly intended.

This is what the Pharisees did and Jesus corrected.  He didn’t question the legality of his servants breaking Sabbath rules, rather he gave an example of when David did what was unlawful (only lawful for the priests) to show exceptional circumstances allowed a written law to be set aside.  It is at this point Jesus declared: “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” (Mark 2:27 NIV)  This is a higher principle not ever stated in the law but describes a purpose of the law that cannot be separated from the application.

Biblical law may not be relevant to matters of the US Constitution, but both the law of Moses and the law of the Constitution were established to safeguard a nation.  It was a law for the common good of the people and not something absolutely set in stone.  And, in fact, in the earliest days of the US, it was a matter of disagreement how much power should be in the judiciary—which led to the Judiciary Act of 1802 and to courts being dissolved by Thomas Jefferson.  

The point being is the law can’t be properly handled apart from the foundation it is built upon.  Law should serve the common good and needs a reset if it goes astray and ends up becoming a cumbersome burden that is in the way of pragmatic concerns.  Letter of the law people enforce a system for sake of the system alone—they claim the slightest deviation will destroy everything good and right—and end up with ridiculous results.

Don’t cross the street!

Suppose a child is told not to cross a street by their parent.  It is a busy highway and too risky for them to cross.  That’s the law and it is a good one.  However, if some unusual event were to happen, a real emergency, is it important that the child remain on their side of the road even at risk of death?

Those on the legalistic side would argue the law is what it is.  And that making a change based on this circumstance will only lead to more exceptions being made until nothing is left.  This is a slippery slope fallacy based on an assumption there is no authority that is higher than the law and that the system we is basically optimized.  But this idea that the current regime represents some perfect balance that should not ever be challenged is dumb.  There is nothing sacrosanct about the current business as usual.

Many today catastrophize about the end of the US Constitution like they did under Lincoln.

A system of checks and balances requires some dispute and conflict.  Activist judges that obstruct the role of elected leaders— with an ever expanding definition of “due process” at our expense—hinder progress and might need to be checked.  

Worse yet, when the attention is selective.  It is nothing but loopholes for some and the lawfare for others.  Which is the irony of legalists.  They apply a withering standard for others while always finding exemptions for themselves—they may declare “nobody is above the law” and yet are always given an excuse when it is their turn.

There is a place for precedent or principle, tradition is a better guide than ideology, but then there is a time when a deterioration of values and good faith application bogs the country down and justice becomes slave to a system of perverse priorities.  It is when the application of law no longer serves the common good, but only the lawyers, corrupt prosecutors and jurists who all gain at our expense.  The legal experts claim to uphold the law and yet undermine public trust with their shenanigans that defy our values.

Lawless regimes

Law is a tool, and the hands wielding it are what matter more than what is written in it.  Words on a page are a weak defense when those tasked with applying them are evil or compromised.  A hammer can be used by a carpenter to build or by a criminal to kill and law is no different.  A nation of attorneys is potentially as lawless as country without a written law and enforcement mechanism—our moral constitution matters more than a jot and tittle legalism.

Jesus took on the legal system of his day and not to abolish the law.  No, he exposed the experts.  They strained on gnats while swallowing camels, missed the forest for the trees, and are like those today who will punish us with regulations while rewarding those who flout our laws.  We are shown no mercy while simultaneously the favorites of the political establishment need not worry about a day in court.  Law for thee, not for me.  It serves the elites, not the people.

Law is about setting boundaries and due process depends on the situation.  When the British invaded, in 1812, there was never a thought of applying the Bill of Rights for those who rose in defense of the nation.  In times of war the due process is pointing rifles at the invader.  And foreign gang members who crossed into this country illegally shouldn’t be allowed to abuse asylum laws.  Abraham Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus or due process for citizens during the Civil War—a free ride home for non-citizens is a great deal compared to Union Army detention.

Lincoln was hated by Democrats for his use of executive power

Having dealt with the USCIS, I am not a big fan of paperwork and most especially not when they offhandedly reject your mother-in-law’s tourist visa (as they have done for years, see the time stamps) after all the fees are paid and a visit to the US embassy—and you can rest assured there is no grandstanding by US politicians about due process and assumed right to be in the country on the behalf of those who do it the right way. 

No law might be more fair than our currently convoluted regime—that does many times more to protect gang members than grandmas merely wanting to visit their children or grandchildren.  Sure, we can’t take lawful order for granted and we deal with this inconvenience for the sake of stability and security, but when we show excess concern for those who broke the law while then applying the letter to those trying to abide by it the law has become an immoral instrument and the current corrupt application of law should be set aside for a saner approach.

The perfect law is no law… 

In an ideal world there would be no laws, no borders, no governments.  Instead we would have a law written on hearts—where we voluntarily only do good for people based on internalized values—and have no need for legislation, enforcement or courts.  Borders would be unnecessary and airport screening an unthinkable invasive of personal space.   This is why we have a Bill of Rights to limit the power of government—more law tends to increase injustice rather than serve the common good. 

In the end, just as the Judiciary Act of 1802 sought to realign the law with the common good by curbing an overreaching judiciary, we must continually ensure that our laws remain tools for justice, tethered to their foundational purpose of serving us, not as rigid idols that enslave us to legalism.  We need to understand the limits of resources and get our priorities right.

Models That Shatter: Air Crashes, Dental Bills, and the Burden of Bad Ideas

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Last time around, I dismantled the myth of indestructible buildings—people dream of granite fortresses, their mental models blind to necessary trade-offs—meanwhile ballooning the cost of new construction and keeping more people are stuck in older less safe buildings.  That same flawed thinking now fuels a frenzy over air disasters and my wife’s legitimate grumble over dental bills and paperwork that could choke a horse.  Whether it’s planes plummeting or crowns now costing thousands, folks cling to busted models—piles of regulations, their wild conspiracies, or broken systems—that splinter when reality bites. In my truss design world, I double-check software because it’s half-baked; we should also scrutinize the narratives and red tape the same way, and not add more wreckage.

Air Disasters and the Partisan Haze

The wacky left, not to be outdone by the kook conspiracy right, keeps blaming air disasters on deregulation. Start with January 29, 2025: a Bombardier CRJ700, American Airlines Flight 5342, slammed into an Army Black Hawk over D.C.’s Potomac River, claiming 67 lives. Then a Canadian Dash 8 skidded off a snowy Quebec runway—no deaths, but headlines aplenty. 

Now the April 10, 2025, Bell 206L-4 chopper crash in New York’s Hudson River, six gone, including Siemens exec Agustín Escobar and his family. X posts scream Trump’s crew gutted FAA rules. Never let truth get in the way of a partisan narrative, right? But the facts don’t bend. D.C. hit nine days into his second term—too soon for policy shifts to ripple. The Hudson chopper passed a March 1, 2025 inspection, clean as a new nail. NTSB points to D.C.’s air traffic staffing woes, Canada’s pilot error, New York’s likely mechanical failure—not slashed budgets.

Stats cut the haze. FAA data shows U.S. aviation incidents down since 2020, though Potomac’s toll spiked fatalities. Crashes in media hubs like D.C. or NYC feel like a deluge, but it’s perception, not reality. I’ve seen this hysteria before—folks panicked over food processing fires, but as someone who supplies building components we see many ‘fire jobs’ and not a surge.  Fires due to hot bearings, bad wiring, heaters or dust are quite common and to be expected.  The funny thing none of these food processing fire alarmists reported on the new feed mill near me—non-confirming news doesn’t go viral.  

Then the tinfoil-hat crowd spins BlackRock plots because Escobar was aboard. What are the chances a Siemens exec’s on a chopper? Pretty high, honestly—they’re the ones dropping $500 a seat, not me touring the harbor for free, with my family, on the  Staten Island Ferry. BlackRock’s got stakes everywhere; a link’s no bombshell. As far as the in-flight breakup of the Bell helicopter, my pilot brother snorted, “Never buy an air frame that does 30+ takeoffs and landings per day.”  That is to say there’s a difference between a vehicle with highway miles and the one used as a weekend racer.  Seized gearbox or stress fractures, not sabotage. The SEAL pilot’s fuel call was logistics, not a scream. Yet they weave a blockbuster rather than look at a shop log.

This echoes the indestructible building myth—deregulation won’t make planes drop tomorrow, nor do cabals rig bolts. More FAA rules don’t sharpen mechanics’ wrenches, just like overbuilt trusses don’t scoff at storms. That ELD mandate for trucks?  It jacked costs, no safer roads. D.C.’s staffing gaps brewed for years; New York’s airspace is a madhouse, and always has been. Good design—trusses or aviation—leans on more clarity: sharpen skills, focused goals, while also acknowledging the risk baked in. Pilots should scan skies, not bury their heads in binders. But folks expect oceans to swallow us if one desk job’s cut, their models deaf to reality’s groan.  Failures aren’t a secret plot nor will more rules prevent them all.

Healthcare’s Paperwork Quagmire

That same broken model—thinking more rules fix it all—bleeds us dry in healthcare, where compliance piles up and costs push higher.  My Filipino wife got sticker shock: Over $2,000 for a crown!  What???  Her gut said yank the tooth, but the doc—and me—aren’t keen on losing one of those original equipment food grinders. Before we hit the chair, she was annoyed by those butt-covering forms—shields for liabilities (“We asked about novacaine allergies!”) and traps to hunt you down if you don’t pay their yacht lease. 

Earlier this year, my son’s middle school emailed another form, they’re playing dental cop to prove his exam. We lucked out—they took our word his Philippines checkup happened, sparing me need to send their paperwork to Baguio for my in-laws to wrangle.  There, we’d stroll into a clinic, no appointment, $20 for a cleaning or filling. Ain’t swanky, but it’s sterile, does the job, and fits a $8/day wage world. Here, insurance bloats costs like student loans—dentists hike prices ‘cause the check’s guaranteed.  The poor folks get Medicaid, rich get their implants—me: never had dental insurance in my life, other than my couple year subscription to a scam “discount” that did squat unless I was already shelling out.

Since the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was turned into law, healthcare costs per capita soared from $10,620 in 2010 to $14,570 in 2023—37.2% up, inflation-adjusted, per CMS. Life expectancy sagged, 78.7 to 77.5 years, says CDC, while costs kept climbing. Rather than keep your own doctor was the promise, choice is diminished.  Big players like UnitedHealthcare—had controlled 15% market share, Statista—grew hungrier and doubled it.  Locally, Evangelical Community Hospital is now under WellSpan, and Geisinger sold to Kaiser Permanente, a $95 billion beast, both 2023 deals. Less choice, more denials, like truss software spitting out only one overpriced and deficient design.

https://paragoninstitute.org/paragon-pic/american-life-expectancy-fell-for-three-straight-years-after-acas-key-provisions-took-effect/

It is easy to forget the undemocratic way the ACA was formed. It was rushed to get around the results of a special election that would cost Democrats their filibuster-proof Senate. The Democrat Congress rammed through a trainwreck bill to circumvent their loss of Ted Kennedy’s seat.  The last thing we needed, in healthcare, was another layer of management.  Upset Americans—54% of the country wanting repeal—rose up in the mid-terms in opposition to this government takeover of their healthcare choice. 

Unfortunately the oligarchy won and we were stuck with a deeply flawed bill, sold with lies, passed in the dark of night, that nobody wanted—results in more mergers while costs continue to explode.

Obama, getting creative to deal with the botched rollout of HealthCare.gov, created what was called United States Digital Service to fix the issues. This basically gave the Executive Branch a backdoor access to the newly minted government agency that was convenient for the Democrats at the time it was formed. And this, ironically, is now what gives DOGE the authority to do what they have been doing over the past few months.  Whether you see DOGE as a phoenix rising from the ashes or a monster coming from the abyss—you have Obama to thank for it. 

It’s like engineers, for compliance, ditching practical talks for nonsense specs that lead to an incoherent mess of conflicting interpretation—it produces more hassle for everyone downstream, not a sturdier roof or better structure.  This compliance Kabuki—fancy waiting rooms, school nurse cops—doesn’t make better teeth or safer streets, it just bloats our bills and increases our taxes for nothing in return. Philippines clinics run lean on cash, keep it real. Here, we’re buried under a pile of paper. 

Good design—trusses, planes, healthcare—cuts the fat, bets on need of good judgment over more forms.  Models that preach more rules will save us or seeing secret plots are as off as thinking properly engineered roofs can never cave.   The FAA didn’t fix Boeing’s focus on DEI over properly installed bolts in doors and the ACA only added to the cost of healthcare.  We must quit chasing fixes that will only add more dead weight to an already strained structure—and ask: what’s propping this whole mess up? And why’s it heavy enough to crush a man’s soul?

A Different Blueprint: Stripping Away the Myths

Things on the periphery are tough to flesh out, like trying to find out what is happening beyond the event horizon of a black hole. We all live in this big bubble—a commonly shared safe space—where folks will bicker over set topics, blind to how both sides are tangled in a bigger myth. The structures we take for granted, holding us up, are just assumptions we gotta question. These bad models—rules to save planes, forms to fix teeth—are flawed assumptions like thinking buildings never fall. If we want to see reality clear, we’ve got to strip away these biases, prejudices, blind spots, layer by layer. That’s my design philosophy: ask silly questions, and then take ‘em seriously. I mean, why don’t banks handle healthcare instead of employers? Why can’t we get checkups at the local bar? No rule says payers have to be governments or bosses.

Most folks can’t see past their battle lines, let alone a third path. But if we look beyond the forms we know, we might find a better way. It’s about exploring our foundations—digging into the functional fixedness of old ideologies, dusty processes, and our creaky systems. In truss work, I don’t simply trust software math ‘til I test it; in life, and I don’t buy models ‘til I poke ‘em. We can do better by imagining something different—say, healthcare that’s cash-simple, like Baguio, or an aviation culture that trusts pilots over paper. Models preaching conspiracy plots or encouraging more red tape are as wrong as thinking roofs don’t cave. 

In Japan, the electronic toll system on the Tomei Expressway and other routes crashed for 38 hours across Tokyo and six prefectures. The toll gates froze, smart interchanges shut, congestion piled up. And the operator, Central Nippon Expressway Company, had no fix in sight, so they threw open the gates, let drivers pass free, and simply asked them to pay later online. Most places, you’d expect folks to floor it and forget it. But over 24,000 drivers—some say 28,000—went online and paid up, no cops, no fines.  An honor system.

The test of civilization?

That’s not just a country; that’s a different approach to problem solving. They didn’t lean on a coercion model—chasing violators or piling on rules. The culture is what made the difference.  They could trust people to square up and people did. It’s a glimpse of what happens when you question our own status quo.  Why are our systems so heavy, so distrustful, in the first place?  Why does a Christian nation need government to solve all problems yet Japan does not?  This may be a difference between our individualistic frontier mindset and their group harmony formed of rice cultivation.  But it’s also the communal approach of Amish as well.

Mutual aid in Amish country is organic, not institutionalized, they don’t need bulky and wasteful organizations.  They have built an identity together (like the Japanese have) and thus they voluntarily go along with the program.  This may sound stifling, but is it really?  Americans pay a boatload of taxes so that their bought off national leadership can bomb Gaza’s hospitals.  Did we ever vote for that?  No.  The general public is just as indoctrinated and controlled by ideologies as a strict religious sect.  The big difference is that Amish get their barn back days after a fire whereas the rest of us will spend the year sifting through insurance paperwork. 

It isn’t just the Amish who self-organize for sake of immediate needs in their community.

A sustainable future requires effective and efficient resource allocation that does not rely on costly bureaucracy or enforcement agencies.  Governance is best internalized—something we do voluntarily as part of our collective identity or being part of a larger group.  This will require discarding models and myths that aren’t beneficial.  This idea that the world’s problems are either solved by some undefined ideal regulatory regime or are all caused by it’s evil twin of a secret world spanning scheme is simply fantasy that prevents reasonable discussions and pushes away from solutions that will better harness our human potential.

Cooperation doesn’t need to be top down or cumbersome and artificial.  No, love for our own and self-sacrifice love is as coded into human DNA as conflict.  And we should be taking a closer look at Japanese and Amish blueprint.  Honor, a common code of ethics, shared cultural values, an internalized joint identity and being respectful to others can’t outsourced.  Diversity is only strength when it harmonizes and follows the same tune.  It is a combination of building a familial trust, deeper human relationships, and a societal mission that is worthy of fuller investment—not more programs, systems and rules.  

The Myth of an Indestructible Building

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It was November 29, 1900, and fans filled the stadium in San Francisco for the annual Thanksgiving Day game between California Golden Bears and Stanford Cardinal. Some, not wanting to pay the entry fee (one dollar then, $40 in today’s money), climbed on a nearby glass factory roof to get their view of the action on the field.

The newly built factory roof collapsed about twenty minutes into the game. One hundred people fell as it gave way and plunged four stories down—many landing on the 500° F oven below. It was a horrific scene. Young people being cooked alive. What happened? The building roof wasn’t designed to hold a mass of spectators. It failed. Those who had climbed up were oblivious or did not have enough concern for the stress they were adding to the structure.

This tragedy wasn’t just a failure of design; it revealed a deeper misconception that buildings should be invincible, a myth that shapes our reactions to collapses even today. It goes further than engineering or physical buildings as well. Our models of reality are oversimplified at best and flat-out wrong in too many cases.

There is a common misconception and an unrealistic expectation about structures—many people seem to assume they are like blocks of granite. From those who believe that every building collapse is a conspiracy to those who think every failure demands stricter government regulations, the myth of an indestructible building continues due to a lack of understanding of engineering and the limitations.

Design Limits Are Not Defects

One key misunderstanding is design limits. Engineering is not about making a building too strong to ever fail. Unless we’re talking about the Great Pyramids, it’s all about trying to meet certain established parameters. An engineered building is designed to meet the expected conditions as defined by regional building codes. If the wind, snow, or loads exceed the designated standards, then there will likely be a collapse.

Earlier this year, after a heavy snowfall in upstate New York, many buildings had their roofs cave in (including this fire hall) because the weight of the snow was that much greater than the design weight. Sure, most engineers build an extra safety margin into their components, but eventually these limits are too far exceeded and you’ll end up with a tangled mess. This is why there are sideline roof shoveling businesses in these places where large snow accumulations are a regular occurrence.

Sure, code could force people to build to a much higher standard, making a collapse due to snow load virtually impossible. But this would increase the costs so much that it would price many people out of building a new house or barn. Engineering is all about compromise, more precisely about making the right compromises given the expected conditions. Yes, there is a case for making adjustments based on observation or after studies, but ultimately we build for what will work most of the time.

More Is Not Always Better

In the aftermath of the earthquake that had struck Myanmar and neighboring Thailand, there was a comment made to me in a chat hoping for more layers of regulation. This is a sentiment, in the specific context of rapid development of Bangkok, that seems more reflexive than reflective. It is a progressive impulse to believe that more interventions and rules are the answer.

The collapse of an unfinished tower in Bangkok, during the earthquake, sparks questions about building codes.  Was it missing sheer walls?  Did the contractor rush to ‘top it off’ quickly?  I want to know what the investigation finds.

But, for me, as someone who works in the construction industry and has occasionally needed to sift through these layers, I could not disagree more. Sure, better regulations may be needed. However, legalism doesn’t work in building standards any better than it does in churches. Sure, you need a code of some kind. And yet onerous regulation will add to the cost of construction, not necessarily improving the end results, and only making new housing less accessible.

It is, at best, the same trade-off discussion we can have about self-driving cars and the need for LIDAR. Sure, this expensive laser ranging system may marginally improve the results, but at what cost? Self-driving cars with cameras alone are already safer than human drivers. Keeping these systems at a price that is affordable will save more lives than pricing them out of reach for average people. It is, therefore, optimal to rollout the less expensive and safer tech even if it could be slightly improved.

At worst there is only more expense and no benefit to more layers of red tape. The real problem with rules is that they are written in language that needs interpretation. Unlike a classroom theoretical setting, in the real world you can’t just memorize the correct answers and pass the test. The ability to make a judgment call is far more important than adding to the pile of regulations. More rules can mean the more confusion and the truly critical matters get lost in the mess.

I see it over and over again, when different customers send the same job for a quote and all of them interpreting the engineering specifications their own way. It is the tire swing cartoon, a funny illustration of when the customer wants something simple and yet the whole process distorts the basic concept until it is unrecognizable. That is where my mind goes when we talk about adding layers. Is it increasing our safety or merely adding more points of failure?

This one stuck with me and should be standard equipment in every design department.  I first saw it as a child while visiting the engineering department of the construction company my dad worked for.

Some of it is just that some people are plain better at their jobs than others with the very same credentials. I am impressed by some engineers, architects, contractors, and code officers—not so much by others. I’m willing to bet the intuition of some Amish builders is probably more trustworthy than a team of engineering students’ textbook knowledge, full of theory, with no real or practical world experience. In the end any system is only ever as good as the users.

Theory Is Not Reality

My work relies on truss design software. I enter information and it does those boring calculations. When I started, I assumed that it was more sophisticated than it really is. I thought every load was accounted for and nothing assumed. But very soon the limits of this tool started to reveal themselves. It is only as accurate or true to reality as the engineers and developers behind it—and on the abilities of the user (me) understanding the gaps in the program.

When it comes to mental models—the kind of physics involved in engineering—only a few people seem able to conceptualize the force vectors. Things like triangulation, or compression and tension loads, are simply something I get. Maybe from my years of being around construction or that curiosity I had, as a child, that made me want to learn what holds a stone arch up or why there are those cables running through that concrete bridge deck. My model was built off of this childhood of building Lincoln Log towers (arranging them vertically) and occasionally making mini earthquakes.

I’m exasperated by this expectation that people have for skyscrapers to be indestructible or to topple over in the same manner of a tree—as if they’re a solid object. It also seems that the big difference between static and dynamic loads is lost on most people. They don’t understand why a building could start to pancake, one floor smashing the next, or how twisting due to extreme heat could undermine the structural integrity of a building without ever melting the steel. Of course this has to do with their beliefs or mistrusts that are not related to engineering—nevertheless it shows their completely deficient understanding of how the science works.

The concept in their head is off, their brain modeling is inaccurate, and their resolution may be so low they simply can’t grasp what the reality is. You try to explain basic things and their eyes glaze over—sort of like when Pvt. John Bowers tried to explain why the plants need water, and not the electrolytes in Brawndo, in the movie Idiocracy. Ignorant people will scoff before they accept a view different from their model of the world. The theory they believe rules over all evidence or better explanation.

On the other side are those who trust every established system without understanding it. They “believe science” and see more as an answer to every question. More rules, a larger enforcement apparatus, faith in their experts, without any feel for the problems encountered by the professionals or those in the field. If they had, they would question much more than they do. Human judgment is still at the base of it all. Or at least that is what the lead engineer told me while we discussed the limits of software and the need to be smarter than the tool.

Not even AI can give us the right balance of efficiency in design versus safety factor or what should be written in the code. It may be a better reflection of our own collective intelligence than any individual, but our own limits to see the world how it actually is are not erased by the machines we create. We are amplified, never eliminated, by the tools we create. So we’ll be stuck wrestling with our myths and theories until we take a final breath—only our flaws are indestructible.

Models of a Messy World

If truss software taught me anything, it’s that no model nails reality perfectly—not beams, not buildings, not life. We lean on these frameworks anyway, because the world’s too wild to face without a map. But just like those fans on that San Francisco roof in 1900, we often climb onto flimsy assumptions, mistaking them for solid ground. The myth of an indestructible building is just one piece of a bigger distortion: we think our mental models—of faith, of power, of people—are unshakable truths, when they’re really sketches, some sharper than others, of a reality we’ll never fully pin down.

Misconceptions can have deadly consequences.

Take religion. For some, it’s a cathedral of certainty, every verse a load-bearing beam explaining why the world spins. Others see it as a rickety scaffold, patched together to dodge hard questions. Both are models—ways to grapple with life’s big “why.” Politics is messier still. It’s like designing a city where everyone’s got their own codebook. One side swears by tight regulations, convinced they’ll keep the streets safe. Another group demands open plans, betting that freedom builds stronger foundations. Both sides act like their own ideological model is bulletproof, shouting past each other while the ground shifts—economies wobble, climates change, and people clash.

Then there’s prejudice, the shoddiest model of all. It’s like sizing up a beam by its color instead of its strength. Prejudice, always a shortcut to save us from the effort of real thought, fails because it’s static, blind to the dynamic load of human individuals. Good perception, like good engineering, adjusts to what’s real, not what’s assumed.

All these—religion, politics, prejudice—come down to how we see. Perception’s the lens we grind to make sense of the blur. Some folks polish it daily, questioning what they’re fed. Others let it cloud over, stuck on a picture that feels safe but warps the view. I think of those fans in 1900, not asking if the roof could hold them. They didn’t mean harm—they just saw what they wanted: a free seat, a clear view. We do the same, building lives on models we don’t test, whether it’s a god we trust, a vote we cast, or a snap judgment we make. The distortion isn’t just in thinking buildings won’t fall—it’s in believing our way of seeing the world is indestructible.

What makes a model reliable? Not that it’s right—none are. It’s that it bends without breaking, learns from cracks, holds up when life piles on the weight. In construction, we double-check measurements because we know plans lie. In life, we’d do well to double-check our certainties—about the divine, the ballot, the stranger next door. The San Francisco collapse wasn’t just about a roof giving way; it was about people trusting a picture that didn’t match the world. We’re still climbing those roofs, chasing clear views on shaky frames. Maybe the only thing we can build to last is a habit of asking: what’s holding this up? And what happens when it falls?

What Thomas Sowell (and Libertarians) Get Wrong About Trump’s Tariffs

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The point of Trump’s tariffs is to get rid of all tariffs.  I can feel the blank stares of my ideological and indoctrinated friends who are hyperventilating about a blip in stock prices and loses for billionaires.  

I get it, Libertarians, you really do not want the government to do anything and Thomas Sowell said stuff about tariffs being bad, so in unison you bleat: “Tariffs are taxes!”

But your sloganeering is not argumentation and—while I generally believe less is more in the case of government—I’m stuck here in the real world with Trump.

Economic theory has it’s place, as do ideals, and yet this isn’t a matter of Sowell said it, I believe it, that settles it.  

Marxists also believe their man’s theory will work if properly applied.  Ideological people can’t accept when their theory doesn’t work in reality, they will always insist “that wasn’t true [insert ideology here]” and continue on their merry way muttering that next time it will work—if they could just brainwash more children and eliminate more enemies of the revolution.  There’s never a reevaluation in light of the actual evidence.

True X hasn’t been tried.

So, without further ado, let’s dive into where free trade fails and Thomas Sowell after we do that…

Can Hell Be Made Worse?

After the devastating earthquake of 2010, I joined a group of young people on a trip to Haiti.  It was a Christian mission and hosted by a Haitian pastor.  This grandfatherly man had, at one point, been in business and ran a factory manufacturing clothes.  

While I’m not going to make a case against charity or giving, there is often a cost that is unseen and a greater dependency created in the end.  The Haitian pastor was forced to shutter his operation and lay off all of his employees after the combination of cheap imports and donations made it impossible to compete in the marketplace.

But the even sadder story was in a place in the country called “little Africa” where rice farmers tried to make ends meet.  No, they were never rich.  However, they had scraped a living out of cultivation up until Bill Clinton started to dump subsidized American rice on the Haitian market.  These people were desperate.  They mobbed our delivery of a bit of relief and aid.

I know, I know, this isn’t real free trade.  But it is the kind of situation we are in.  Putting our favorite theories and fandom aside, and ideals that could possibly work if all abided by the same rules or assumptions, we don’t live in that fantasy land.  In the real world, it is like Haiti where subsidized products are exported and some will disproportionately suffer consequences.  

Yes, in theory, Haiti still benefits, as a whole, from importing cheap or free stuff.  But we can also make the argument that this kind of unfair trade has undermined a situation that was already fragile.  A government that would protect Haitian industries would not let subsidized products be dumped without something stabilizing in return.

Thomas Sowell vs Donald Trump 

Sowell is a great economist and provides a good answer to ‘progressive’ theories.  His being a guest on the Rush Limbaugh show has made him a favorite of conservatives—wanting validation for their free market and small government views.

As an academic, Sowell’s work dealt mostly with economic theory and to argue against all tariffs he uses abstraction “protectionism hurts market efficiency” and that they don’t solve issues like wealth gap, that they favor special interests, and retaliation against tariffs hurts exports, and they lead to long-term stagnation.  And he may be right if we lived in a vacuum sealed petri dish.

Trump, by contrast, lives in the very messy world of politics and negotiations.  He runs on instincts and intuition, not by intellectual exercises or writing papers or creating a set of principles.  He comes in with the big ask, the threat or the bluff, trying to disrupt and even create a bit of anxiety in the other side, before eventually bringing this process to a resolution that makes all parties leave with a feeling like they’ve won.

This is how we got from the “fire and fury” rhetoric—with the political class and corporate media hyperventilating about this being a path to war—to Trump being the first US President to set foot in North Korea and then shaking hand of Kim Jong Un.  It is just his method of changing the conversation or moving the Overton window.  You can’t get from point A to point B without shaking up the old status quo a bit.

Trump isn’t ideological, like Sowell, or trying to live off a written in stone economic code of conduct.  No, when he has leverage, or sees an opportunity, he uses it.  There are many countries tariffing US goods.  And our trade deficit is enormous.  So why is it so out of line for our President to cry foul or use the threat of reciprocal tariffs in other to back these countries down and then get a better deal for his country?

Surely Sowell isn’t against pushing for the elimination of tariffs—which likely is the end game.  And, furthermore, Trump’s brazen actions are far more likely to get results than the fine professor’s best lecture on economics.  Already other countries are lining up to start talks about removing their unfair tariffs against the US.  It is a game of musical chairs and you don’t want to be the last one looking for a seat.

Power, Principles, and Persuasion 

Marxism is about the application of power, Libertarians are about strict adherence to a set of principles, but Trump is different.  He is about persuasion.

Marxism is a hammer—raw power of the mob, trying to smashing the old order to hand control to the workers, or so it claims. In reality, it’s a machine for centralization: seize the levers, dictate terms, and dress it up as justice. Think Soviet bread lines or Mao’s famines—equality morphing into control. Libertarians, by contrast, wield a rulebook, not a fist. Their creed—liberty, markets, entirely hands off—is sacred, rigid as stone. Tariffs? Sacrilege. Sowell represents this.  Marxism a power grab, and libertarianism a fortress of unattainable ideals—both are better to be left as theory rather than an approach to real world negotiations.

Marxism would’ve sparked a trade war, not talks; libertarianism would’ve let markets bleed out. Trump’s different—he’s making countries dance. China grumbles but hints at softening; the EU’s haggling too. Stocks have dipped, and Sowell’s costs loom, but the moves are now undeniable: Vietnam’s concessions, India’s play, Japan’s hustle. It’s not a system winning—it’s Trump, raw and loud, proving persuasion trumps power or principle. He’s bending the world his way, one bluff at a time.  He is about persuasion—messy, unscripted, a vibe that bends the room.  

Tariffs are the threat, but trade that is truly free and fair is the actual goal.  And Trump is further along in achieving this simply for his boldness alone.  Maybe he’s not doing it the ‘right’ way or by conventional means, yet who says that we can’t try a new approach to get some better results than we’ve been getting?  The people who have been leaving the American worker behind tot decades now?  As my 13-year-old son would say: Let him cook!

From Ruby Ridge to Gaza’s Ruins: When the Right Cheers Tyranny Abroad

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The American right was outraged by Ruby Ridge when Federal agents killed a man’s dogs, son and wife and the deadly raid of the Branch Davidians that killed 76 in the cult—including 20-28 children.

And, indeed, Randy Weaver had basically been entrapped by the FBI and was just a guy who wanted to left alone. And there is no indication the Branch Davidians would have ever killed their own children.

But the ATF says they were saving children in the Waco, Texas incident. Here’s a direct quote of Janet Reno in her testimony to Congress afterwards:

We did everything we could to avoid loss of life… I thought it was the best way to save the lives of those inside, particularly the children.

So, since she said it, we believe it, right? We can blame Mr Weaver and David Koresh for what transpired. They broke the law and it is, therefore, their own criminal actions that provoked a Federal response. If you don’t want a deadly raid—sell all of your firearms and live at peace with the progressives that rule over you!

Many in this country would cheer bans on ‘assault weapons’ and celebrate as their ‘far-right’ neighbors were gunned down for failing to comply. It would be just deserts, a direct consequence of someone who was not keeping pace with civilization, and their blood on their own hands.

Of course, I would strongly disagree. The land and the rights therein belong to we the people, not the government. People have a right to defend themselves. And if you back people into a corner do not be surprised if they come out swinging.

There is an obvious lack of understanding about the plight of Palestinian people and their decades long struggle against settlers from Europe and around the world.

Zionism, supported by anti-Semitic British politician Lord Balfour, was essentially an equivalent to Hitler’s Madagascar plan. In that he wanted Jews to live anywhere but in his own country and thus declared that the Jews should have a homeland. The only problem being that the land chosen, called the British Mandate for Palestine, already had an indigenous population (of Muslims, Christians and native Jews) that were not enthused about being replaced.

Terrorism was initiated as a tactic by Zionists, who were absorbed into the Israeli state, and not Palestinians.

At first the fight between settlers and the Palestinians (meaning those who lived in that place before the Europeans arrived) was riots and evenly matched. But in time, with a brutal campaign of terror bombing and assassinations, including the murder of a Jewish settler later turned Anti-Zionist:

On June 30, 1924, Jacob Israël de Haan was assassinated in Jerusalem by members of the Haganah, a Zionist paramilitary organization. De Haan, born in 1881 in the Netherlands, had moved to Palestine in 1919 as a committed Zionist but became disillusioned with the movement’s secular nationalism and its treatment of the indigenous Arab population. He aligned himself with the ultra-Orthodox Haredi community, particularly under Rabbi Yosef Chaim Sonnenfeld, and became a vocal anti-Zionist, advocating for cooperation with Arabs and opposing the establishment of a Jewish state. As a political spokesman for the Haredim, he worked to undermine Zionist efforts, including plans to meet with British officials in London to argue against Zionist policies.

The settler’s eventually got the upper hand in their conflict with the native population, declared statehood in 1948. Secured their claim with a Pearl Harbor style preemptive strike after Egypt closed the Straits of Turn in response to Israel’s downing of six Syrian aircraft. This Six-Day War is sold as being a miracle, but is really just a case of the most aggressive and ready to go side gaining an advantage before the enemy even had their pants on. The Zionist project has been very audacious from the start, relying on support of first the British Empire and now the US to keep alive, and there was never remorse for any hardship imposed or death caused.

So when I see yet another meme parroting Zionist propaganda, portraying settlers as civilized and all Gazans as monsters, it just makes me want to vomit. This is what I am talking about:

Prejudiced much?

It’s hard to know where to start breaking a statement like this down. Let’s start with just the facts: Israel has blockaded Gaza, since 2007, restricting the medical supplies, food, and fuel—directly endangering babies’ lives. The result is that 1 in 4 Gaza children under five faced acute malnutrition.  There has been no effort to “save every baby” in Gaza—despite precision guided munitions, and every advantage, tens of thousands of Palestinian children have been killed and many more grievously wounded.

Second, the Isreali Defense Minister, Yoav Gallant, is on record calling Gazans “human animals” and has even vowed to “eliminate everything,” which is obviously a plan being carried out when you consider all of those deliberate strikes on the Gazan healthcare facilities:

…there were at least 136 strikes on at least 27 hospitals and 12 other medical facilities, claiming significant casualties among doctors, nurses, medics and other civilians and causing significant damage, if not complete destruction of civilian infrastructure.

Then the recent attack on ambulances and EMTs, the IDF brazenly lied about the circumstances of this war crime (exposed by a video) where these first responders were found with hands bound and executed.  The IDF uses an AI system called ‘Lavander‘ to pick targets:

Two sources said that during the early weeks of the war they were permitted to kill 15 or 20 civilians during airstrikes on low-ranking militants. Attacks on such targets were typically carried out using unguided munitions known as “dumb bombs”, the sources said, destroying entire homes and killing all their occupants.

These are not the moves of a military or political establishment trying to save lives, that looks like a collective punishment or ethnic cleansing—because it is.

Netanyahu is a man who has sabotaged the two-state solution (by supporting Hamas) and there is little doubt he saw the October 7th attack as an opportunity to finally annex Gaza for Israeli settlers. There is little evidence that the Likud party even cares about their own casualties, other than to use them to paint Palestinians as monsters.

But what about those Gazans?

What if the shoe were on the other foot?

Surely these bloodthirsty terrorists who—did you hear about October 7th—went on a wild killing spree claiming the lives of 1,139 Israelis. See! Proof that they want to kill all the babies!

But let’s back up just a second. First of all, not everyone in Gaza participated in that—Hamas wasn’t elected nor does it represent all people in the strip. Second, how do we really know who killed who? There is ample evidence of friendly fire (I read Israeli news), you had IDF helicopter gunships unloading their ordinance on random traffic, panic, and also a possible implementation of the Hannibal directive or when the IDF will kill their own rather than let them become the bargaining chips for a prisoner exchange. In other words, political objectives are more important than human life.

Hamas made a calculated move. The only way they can get back people that the IDF took from them over the years is for them to have their own hostages. Israel has held about 4500 Palestinians. 310 in detention without any right to trial. And those who have gone to trial have about as much chance of fair treatment as Donald Trump does in front of a Manhattan jury—literally no chance.

So what would you do if your uncle, father son or brother were being indefinitely held by the Chinese occupation forces in Texas, wouldn’t you be tempted to find a way to get them back?

But what about the Bidas family?

The cute redhead boys?

What about them? How do you know they weren’t killed in an IDF airstrike? There was no independent autopsy to back the Israeli claims they were killed by their captors and this makes no sense whatsoever. Why would Hamas want dead bargaining chips? Why would they turn over the bodies if they murdered them in cold blood?  And why is the Bidas family threatening to sue Netanyahu for using their tragedy to sell his bloody campaign?

Anyhow, just listen to what Hamas hostages have said about their own experience after being released. They were fed well and their sanitary needs were met, obviously it wasn’t a five star treatment and certainly not free of abuse, but this is a comparison and compare it to the credible allegations of Palestinian boys being raped by their guards in Israeli prisons.

In the end, neither side is a monolith. Israel has good and bad people, as does Gaza—Hamas doesn’t represent the population of Gaza any more than Netanyahu represents all of Israel nor does Zionism represent every Jew in the world. There are millions of Palestinians. Some may want to kill every Israeli.  But then Netanyahu, the actual leader of Israel, has called the Gazans “Amalek” which is to say a people God instructed Biblical Israel to kill man, woman and child. So how is that not a call for extermination?

It’s just very strange to me that many who are so sympathetic to right-wing characters like Randy Weaver or those Waco cultists suddenly believe propaganda because it’s coming from Israel. Why are you carrying water for a foreign power that takes billions from us, sank one of our Navy ships in international waters, and gives us nothing in return?

We don’t need to pick a team here—let’s just oppose baby killing no matter who is doing it!

If Israel wanted to stop killing babies in Gaza it would.

Snow Woke—Disney’s Female Empowerment Fairytale

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Apparently the Snow White remake bombed at the box office. We could just go with the standard “get woke, go broke” traditionalist assessment. Rachel Zegler comes off as the female equivalent of Andrew Tate—as being angry, entitled, selfish and toxic—which isn’t appealing to a broad audience.

But, before we get into the remake, let’s talk a bit about the original Disney animation of the fairytale. The character deviates quite a bit from the Grimm version. For a start, the fair-skinned protagonist is half the age (7 rather than 14) and there’s no “true love’s kiss” in this original version. Furthermore, she’s a sort of blank slate archetype—not some ideal 1930s homemaker mothering a bunch of dwarfs. In short, the adaptation then was not completely true to the source material and created an image of feminity relevant to that time.

The Grimm version was darker in tone and featured a prince weirdly obsessed with a dead girl in a glass coffin. The dwarfs did not have distinct personalities. And Snow White awakened when the poisoned apple is dislodged from her throat when a servant carrying her coffin stumbles. And it was at this point the prince professes his love and proposes marriage—which she accepts.

The latest Disney live-action takes liberties in a very different direction. It is even less true to the original (other than elimination of the Disney romance) and reimagines Snow White being a sort of feminist militia leader who leads a bloodless insurrection against the usurping queen. But the “mirror mirror on the wall” remains and a poisoned apple—despite the heavy edit of the script where an empowered woman replaces the worn damsel in distress trope.

Why People Don’t Like Snow Woke

People enjoy new takes on old genres, like Shrek or Furiosa and also powerful female characters such as Ellen Ripley in Aliens, Sarah Connor in Terminator or even Katniss Everdeen in the Hunger Games.  They were relatable, we saw them develop, circumstances made them tough to survive, and audiences loved them.  What they don’t like is preachy dialogue or lack of any real character development. A Mary Sue, a hero with no weaknesses, is unrelatable. It is the problem with Superman and with the many woke adaptations of stories.

We like the image of a woman against the machine.

Christian movies have a tendency to be bad for the same reasons. They can come off a little campy or forced. Sure, it may work for drawing your ideological camp, but it isn’t a compelling story for the unindoctrinated or the broader audience. Which is not to say that movies about Christianity can’t be great for entertainment.  I love gritty true stories like that of Hacksaw Ridge or profound, like Silence, will have anyone at the edge of their seats—the key being relatable characters.

Zegler is a bit much. Totally insufferable in the eyes of some. And she plays a part that is equally annoying. The departure from the source material is just too rude. Sure, there is room for an update, but you would never reinvent Rambo as well adjusted pacifist in a mission to avoid too much sun exposure. Disney dumped the essence of the original and replaced it with another tired ’empowered woman’ cliché. You wonder if Zegler herself wrote the script with lines like, “I’m not waiting for anyone to save me” or groaner, “The fairest isn’t about beauty—it’s about justice!”

Ouch.

Oh well, at least even apologists for woke seem to understand that it is just bad. They did not even bother accusing the audience of being racist or misogynistic this time around.

Smash the Symbolism!

What is truly lost is the symbolic depth of the original tale. Snow White was beauty and purity contrasted with the vanity and evil of the obsessed queen. They gutted what made the Grimm tale a significant message about the triumph of innocence over the destructive power of pride. This, obviously, is too nuanced for a superficial sexual organ obsessed militant far-leftist to understand. The producers of the new film replaced purity of motive against cunning with a banal competition for power.

It’s not even moral inversion. They totally lost the point. It makes me think they lack any layers to their being. It’s all about their grievance and getting back at those they’ve scapegoated for their own misery. Like the evil queen, with all the power, they envy the beauty and peace of others and attempt to kill it with their poisoned apple. Snow Woke is the toxic fruit. Zegler is an icon of their privileged ‘diverse’ female with an entitled chip on her shoulder and not the slightest bit of appreciation for all the good men who made her ignorance possible.

This is not to say those who are fixated on the literal whiteness of the actress are any better. Grimm was not writing about racial supremacy anymore than woke supremecy, if anything the original story was about our transcending politics and Zegler would be perfectly suited for the role if she were able to embody that spirit. But our culture, in a desperate need of critique, it dichotomizes everything—divides the world into friend or foe, as if life is a zero-sum game and there is never anything to gain through fusion of opposites.

Zegler is as Puritanical (and Pharisaical) as a religious fundamentalist. She reframes a rescuing prince as a stalker and romance as weird. More rigid than a patriarch, more domineering than the system she is taught to loath. A preacher rather than an actual protagonist. Basically, a young idealist who wields her moral certainty with a convert’s passion, and yet stumbling into hypocrisy under scrutiny—reaping benefits of every institution she claims to reject.

The Female Power of Beauty, Gentleness and Grace

A few years ago, I was in the checkout line and suddenly noticed the cashier. She was beautiful, pale or ashen-faced, with hair that was jet black, pleasant smile and yet there was something uncanny valleyish about her appearance. I could not quite put my finger on it. But then she spoke. This would send a shiver through me. Never before did I have that sort of feeling simply by hearing someone talk. There was a certain quality to her voice that was almost child-like, soft, pure, and really threw me for a loop. And it occurred to me that this young woman was a real life Snow White.  I had not thought this would actually be attractive in person, but it had me momentarily smitten.

As it would turn out, in a later conversation, I learned she was mixed race, Filipino mom and dad of some kind of European descent, which is likely what gave her this stunningly feminine appearance. Now, no doubt this gentle exterior was cover over a tough and capable individual. She drove an old pickup truck and lived apart from her family with a sister, and may well have been a teenager or in her early twenties. In many ways she is like Zegler (who is herself a mix of Colombian and Polish heritage), but this real-life Snow White wielded her beauty, gentleness, and grace as a quiet strength that captivated without preaching, Zegler’s strident zeal turns a timeless tale into a soapbox, losing the feminine power of subtlety for a hollow shout of self-righteousness.

This is what outspoken angry feminists fail to grasp, forcefulness isn’t the only kind of power. My petite wife could never command me to do anything. I’m 50% bigger than her and have twice the upper body strength, I would shrug it off. But she does not need to force me to do anything. She overpowers me by other means. For example, early on, before we were married, she convinced me to stop drinking so much soda, she told me water is a symbol of her love “pure and clean” and when I drink it I could feel her love. I didn’t need to be told twice.

When I look at my baby daughter I would do anything for her. She’s so vulnerable—there is a strong desire to protect and defend her—I’m drawn, not compelled.

So what does female empowerment really mean?

Is it empowering to a fish to be out of the water?

A visual representation of society telling individuals they need to be something else to be happy.

Humans are wired for their base biological and physical functions. Reproduction is a big part of this. It becomes clear after you see process through from courtship to baby in a carriage. Early in the pregnancy, given our financial goals, my wife had considered sending the yet to be both child to be raised by her mother. But as soon as the bundle of cuteness arrived, along with the appropriate hormones, it was never a question. Family is empowerment. My sacrifice, as a father, is more rewarding than the toys I could buy for myself as an independent bachelor.

We’re relational, not rational.

Therefore, the things we think will make us happy do not give us long-term fulfillment—the woke Zegler types are privileged, given preference as women or minorities, and yet always unhappy and looking at what others have and they do not. They are a paradox, enjoying female privilege—then miserable and wanting what men have.

It is toxic, it is their impurity of spirit, and it destroys their natural beauty and potential for true empowerment.

In all honesty, I don’t really have a problem with Zegler’s passion or outspokenness.  I guess I tend to prefer women with a real personality and feel she is right on the Gaza issue.  But what is wrong is that she’s not the right character to play what is supposed to be an embodiment of purity and the power of innocence against evil.  Snow White isn’t supposed to be Mockingjay or a story where physical force met with force—but of a different kind of power.

Ultimately, the 2025 Snow White stumbles not just as a film but as a misguided anthem, with Rachel Zegler’s shrill militancy drowning out the subtle power the Grimm tale once whispered. The original’s purity and even Disney’s 1937 grace knew strength isn’t loud—it’s captivating, like the cashier whose soft voice and uncanny beauty stopped me cold, a real-life Snow White wielding gentleness over force. My wife, too, overpowers me not with commands but with a love pure as water, turning a stubborn man into a willing protector, and just as our daughter’s vulnerability stirs my soul to shield her. Zegler’s remake, obsessed with preaching justice over enchantment, misses this: true feminine empowerment doesn’t need a megaphone or a militia—it’s the quiet, relational magic that binds us, a truth the poisoned apple of ‘Snow Woke’ chokes out, leaving a hollow echo where a fairytale’s heart once beat.