Ability to Liberally Connect Dots

Ability to Liberally Connect Dots

This is a test to see if the examinee can process information, consistent with the philosophy that seems to govern liberalism.   A high score might even qualify you for political office or at least as a spokesperson for liberal causes, without the annoying need to lie about your perceptions.

1.     If you have a sore tooth, you would see a

a.     lawyer

b.     obstetrician

c.      dentist

d.     none of the above

2.     If your car does NOT stop when you apply the brakes, you would see a

a.     doctor

b.     mechanic

c.      postal employee

d.     none of the above

3.     If you are running out of money, you would

a.     get a second job

b.     spend more

c.      rob a neighbor

d.     none of the above

4.     If the economy is not working well and you want advice, you would

a.  call on a person who has never had a regular job

b.  call on a successful business person

c.  call on a person who has invested in a series of unsuccessful green companies

d.  none of the above

5.     If you want to create a winning baseball team, you would

a.     give raises to the worst players

b.     blame the best players for losing

c.      blame George Bush for ruining the field

d.     none of the above

6.     If you want people to work harder, you would give more to

a.     the people who work hard

b.     the people who do not work hard

c.      your friends and don’t worry about who works hard or not, friendship is more important

d.     none of the above

7.     If you are trying to build positive community spirit, you would

a.     praise everyone

b.     criticize people who play by the rules

c.      punish those who are successful and reward those who are not

d.     all of the above

8.     Who is most likely to be a racist and anti-Semite, a person

a.     who attends a racist and anti-Semitic church

b.     whose principle spiritual advisor is a racist and anti-Semite

c.      whose church gives a big award to a famous racist and anti-Semite

d.     all of the above

9.     Suppose that two people have funded a number of businesses and most of X’s choices went bankrupt and Y made mostly good choices. This would mean that

a.     X and Y are equally good judges of businesses

b.     X was a better businessperson because he or she really wanted their choices to succeed

c.      Y used money from voluntary investors and this was foolish because they could have lost money

d.     none of the above

10. Your job is to consider the following facts and then answer the question below which asks what conclusion you draw:

* His father was a member of religion M in which the children take the religion of the father.

* In 3^rd grade the child said he was a member of that same religion M

* He said the sounds of that religion were the most beautiful sounds

* He went on a visit to a number of countries that practice religion M

* When he returned from the visit he changed his name to a version that is common in religion M

* He joined a church that has a close affiliation with that religion M

* His church gave a big award to a racist and anti-Semitic member of religion M

* A college acquaintance says he was a member of religion M

* When he visits countries that practice religion M, he gives talks in which he hints he is a member of religion M

* When he visited one country that is the most prominent to religion M, he bowed deeply to the head of that religion

* He has taken steps to forbid public criticism of religion M

* He blamed a C-person who criticized religion M for the violence committed by persons who are members of religion M

* He has sponsored prominent religious events celebrating religion M

* He has exaggerated the history of religion M in his country

* He has criticized a country that is an enemy of religion M

* He has said that people in that country should not build housing in the areas that he thinks should be housing people of religion M

* He has said one of his closest allies and personal friend and advisor on raising his daughters is a prominent and extreme member of religion M

* He has rarely been seen practicing that religion

* He said he is a member of religion C

Now the challenge is to choose the most likely conclusion (connect the dots):

a.     He must be a member of religion C

b.     He is a member of both religion M and C, but at different times

c.      He is a member of religion M

d.     None of the above

11. Consider the following facts and then answer the question below:  Note that these questions have to do with people of two different colors – B and W

* He criticizes a policeman of color W for stopping a resident of color B who was found breaking into a home

* His assistant stopped a lawsuit charging some members of B-group from threatening W members to keep them from voting

* He supported a young B person who was on probation from school for violent anti-social behavior after the B person tried to attack a W person

* He was a member of a B-church whose B minister is famous for criticizing W-people

* That minister was claimed to be his primary spiritual advisor for 20 years

* Whenever he is himself criticized, his friends claim that racism is the reason for the attack

Now the challenge is to choose the most likely conclusion (connect the dots)

a.     he does not like W people

b.     he does not like B people

c.      he does not like anyone.

d.     None of the above

12. If you really want the sum to be 5 and you are faced with two 2s and you are asked for the sum, you can

a.     claim that they were very large 2s and therefore the answer is 5

b.     claim that 2 plus 2 has always been 5

c.      claim that it is Bush’s fault that it is 4

d.     none of the above

13.  Suppose you borrow 5 dollars from a person and you promise to pay back the loan plus 50 cents.  In a month you pay them back the 5 dollars but they only ask for 25 cents extra.   You conclude:

      a.  you made a profit of 25 cents

      b.  you still owe them 25 cents

      c.   they now owe you 25 cents

      d.  none of the above

14.  The following are a series of statements.   Mark each as true or false

T  F      If you are driving a car and it runs over and kills a child it is the car’s fault

T  F      If you are playing baseball and you throw your bat and it hits a kid, it is the bats fault

T  F      none of the above

15.  If you have two guns and want to buy a third, but are stopped from doing so, you now have

      a.  fewer guns than you did before

      b.  the same number of guns you had before

      c.  more guns than you had before

      d.  none of the above

16.  If you were the person who stopped the purchase of a new gun, you have

      a.  decreased the number of guns in circulation

      b.  prevented a murder

      c.  made arrangements for someone who has a gun to follow you around

      d. none of the above

17.   Please complete the following sequence of numbers: 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8.9

      a.   10

      b.   it can be anything it wants to be

      c.   it is a racist question and I refuse to answer

      d.  none of the above

18.  If you have an allowance of 10 dollars per week now and you go to your Mom and Dad and ask for a raise to 12 dollars, and your Mom says OK, but your Dad says you can only have 11 dollars, you conclude:

      a.  your Mom wants to keep you salary where it is

      b.  your Dad wants to cut your salary by half

      c.   they must have made their decisions at a tea party because otherwise they should just give you 13 dollars

      d.  none of the above

19.  If you slow the rate of increase in a debt, after 3 years it:

      a. will cease to exist

      b. it will no longer be available to spend

      c.  huh?

      d. none of the above

20.  If you want young people to be employable, you would

      a.  raise the cost of hiring them

      b.  talk about how much you want young people to have jobs

            c.   criticize any company that does not hire a young person

            d.  all of the above

           

21.  Did Thomas Jefferson, after the passage of the 2^nd amendment, go to George Washington and tell George he would have to register his rifles, turn in his pistols, and it was illegal for him to carry a weapon on his person?   

      a.  Yes, but he was very tactful in doing so

      b.  Yes, and he explained that it was for George’s own good

      c.  George was pleased that someone was taking an interest in his affairs

      d.  none of the above

22.  Do you see any pattern here:  Taking the property of a person and giving it to someone else who will pay higher taxes, interpreting the civil rights act as permitting racist policies as long as the “right” group is benefitted, applying the commerce clause to an action that is done on one’s own property and involves no commerce, ruling that one-man one vote is the rule of the land in apparent ignorance of how election for the Senate occurs, forbidding people to drink really large sodas…..

      a.  yes, they are all efforts to do the right thing to help people who need help doing the right thing

      b.  no, I see nothing unusual here

      c.  no, there is no larger principal being violated

      d.  none of the above

25.  If the rate of increase in funding an activity that you support is decreased, has the amount of funding decreased?

      a.  huh?

      b.  yes

      c.   we need more information to answer this question

      d.  all of the above

Scoring the test:

Twenty-five (25) points if you genuinely feel that you knew the answers.

Twenty (20) points if you were not sure about the answer some of the time

Fifteen (15) points if you muttered while you took this test

Ten (10) points if you had to get up and go to the bathroom before finishing test

Five (5) points is you went to a friend and engaged in a rant about “stupid” questions

For those of you who scored high, congratulations on trying really, really hard and caring so deeply.  Thinking does not really substitute for caring, but it does have its place.   J

A Comment on Gun Control

                        A Comment on Gun Control

There are some issues that seem to be going unanswered or at least unadvertised in the hot and heavy debate about gun control. First, I ask the reader to take a short test.

1.     If you have a 10 dollar allowance and you go to your parents and ask for a raise to 12 dollars and your mom says yes, but your dad says that he will give you 11 dollars, do you believe your dad wants to cut your allowance in half? 

2.     If 10 people have something and 2 more want to have the same thing and you prevent these 2 from getting what they want, do you believe you have reduced the overall number of the object desired?

3.     If a person commits a crime and you cannot punish that person, should you punish someone else who is not guilty to make a point?

4.     If you want to do something that you believe is right, but it is illegal to do so, and doing so has been shown to contribute no positive benefit, should you do it anyway so at least you can say you did something?

5.     Do you believe that you should eliminate temptation indulged by a very few, even though the vast majority do not give into that temptation?

6.     Do you believe that after the 2^nd amendment was passed, Thomas Jefferson got in his buggy to go tell George Washington that from now on he would have to register his long guns and could not even own a pistol?

I would like to make a few points to those who say yes to even one of these questions. 

           

1.     There are approximately 300 million guns in America.  Stopping future purchases will not actually decrease that number. 

2.     Teaching people that there are negative consequences to their bad behavior is a good social function.  Teaching people that they will be punished when someone else does something bad is a very dangerous social function.

3.     Focusing on the inanimate object associated with a crime is not going to be as effective as focusing on the person and their violent behavior.  We do not ban hammers or baseball bats, or knives or cars even though examples of terrible killing using these objects are easy to find.  

4.     There are many instances where a weapon has prevented a rape, beating or other crime, but since the prevention itself does not usually get publicly counted, one is lead to believe, falsely, that only the gun related crimes are occurring in society.

5.     Banning the fork to eliminate over weight or banning cars because there are people who drive drunk, or more serious observations such as the idea that guns don’t kill, people kill, or that the only thing that is going to stop a bad person with a gun is a good person with a gun can be dismissed as silly, simple minded, just a joke or worse.  But that is a pejorative response and not a thoughtful argument. The observation that protecting kids in school necessitates having someone with a gun and appropriate training within the immediate area demonstrated a desire to protect children and the broader society.

6.     Only criminals will still have guns as the honest and compliant people are forced to give up theirs. People living in a violent neighborhood, unable to defend themselves, has not worked very well in our cities. 

7.     We could identify and help people with emotional issues that have demonstrably rendered them much more likely to commit violence.  We do not even deal effectively with violent students who are repeat offenders that attack other students and even attack their teachers.

A simple solution such as banning weapons is not going to take weapons out of the hands of those who use them to do harm but it will prevent people from defending themselves.  Instituting a mental health system that participates in early identification and consequential treatment is something we could do, but so far, we have not.

We are polarizing society when we target with punitive action a group that has done nothing wrong. When politicians impose rules that are plainly forbidden by the founding principals of our country, they run a risk of creating a much more negative situation than the one they are pretending to solve.

Some Thoughts on the Tragic Shooting of Children in Connecticut

The recent and tragic shooting in Connecticut draws out of one a number of thoughts, most of which are of no utility. This is as it should be since such incidents are the type that really should touch a person’s emotional system much more than ones intellect. Of course, at some point in one’s reaction the question of what could be done to make a second such incident impossible rises as a challenge. The first thoughts, for most of us, are something a bit like a fairy tale. Next time, the schools should protect the children better. Someone should have known and we should have listened better. Such “solutions” are tempting, but of course, by themselves they lead to nothing of any value.

After a while, our thoughts get a bit more strategic and we might think of things that really would work, if only we lived in a very different world than the one to which we are consigned. That sort of thinking leads to what is probably the most popular line of reasoning. We need to stop allowing violent people to obtain guns. If we are particularly careful we might add “like those used in this tragic incident.” So we see an effort to keep assault rifles from the hands of violent people. But, that too is a bit too open ended and it might occur to us that we are not very likely to ever identify all the violent people with whose hands the assault rifle should be kept from holding.

Making any of these strategies work would require a level of control that far exceeds our ability to exert. Will we ever identify every violent person? Will we really ever be able to eliminate the existence of all the assault rifles? Not very likely. Identifying all the violent people would require including lots of people who are not violet but share some characteristics of those who really are violence prone. Only in the excesses of the identification can we hope to include most, but even here not all the people with the propensity to do something so horrible as happened in Connecticut.

In other words, one of our immediate problems is that to even approach success we need to commit our own set of excesses. Perhaps our sins would not be nearly as bad as the potential that we are trying to forbid, but still they are troubling, especially to the ones we lock up for their unrealized potential. So, one of the difficulties we immediately run into is a basic truism of most of our actions which is that there are always unintended consequences to our efforts to be good. One might argue that if we simply ban all assault rifles that would eliminate the deaths from Assault rifles. If one is not terribly thoughtful, this solution provides a good deal of hope and seems to not incur much in the way of negative consequences.

One of the problems, though, is the all too common confusion between policy and intention. In other words, we ban the sale of assault rifles in the confusion with our intent, that assault rifles will no longer be in existence and therefore will not be available for use for such tragedies. Banning assault rifles may very well decrease the number in existence in the future. This reasoning is somewhat like that used by our government to save money. We are saving money by reducing the rate at which we borrow as though that were the same as actually saving money. It is not and we are not likely to develop a way to accomplish our goal of eliminating the existence of assault rifles by reducing the rate at which they are acquired.

That the ban will not eliminate the offense from ever happening even by the cause of the misuse of assault rifles is one thing, but of course our goal is not to eliminate the murder of innocents by assault rifles, but what we want to do is eliminate the murder of innocents by any means available. If the problem is posed thusly, it has the sobering effect of making it crystal clear that we will never succeed in that goal.

There is a very useful saying that comes into play at this point, which is that perfection should not become the enemy of the good. Maybe we should be happy with decreasing the number of new assault rifles in the future and recognize that eliminating them is not possible. The application of this aphorism leads to the question of whether the problem has to do with the access to the assault weapons and whether a ban would actually decrease their availability. Maybe it would in several hundreds of years. Flintlock weapons are certainly harder to possess now, than they were when first invented. But, of course, they have been replaced by numerous more modern weapons, including the assault rifle. What will come on the market in 5 or 10 or a hundred years from now? We can only guess, but in any case it will not be a pleasant, of that we can be pretty sure if the past is any guide to the future.

Of course, that begs one of the difficult questions that assault rifles are not even the most likely weapon, let alone the only weapon that might be used for terrible actions. Africans in Rwanda, for example know that one does not need modern weapons to kill hundreds of thousands, let along 26. So, we are lead to considering other approaches or perhaps multiple approaches to at least lessen this problem. The obvious consideration might then be given to turning the problem around. Suppose we consider not how the violent ones commit their crimes, but how the victims might be given the chance to not be victims.

This line of reasoning turns us to consider protections that might be instituted. We are not likely to think that arming the 7 year old child with a carry permitted weapon is the answer, but we might consider providing armed guards at our schools, for example. We know that will not be foolproof, because that has failed before, but perhaps it will be a good solution, if the school is the place where the attack is going to be lodged. We might also consider training several people in each school to serve as defense. Guns could be locked away in several places in a school and school officials who normally work in each area be given appropriate training to respond as needed. Some airline pilots have been trained to be ready in case of an effort to take over their plane and the same idea might be instituted in the schools.

Anyway, we soon get to the point of asking ourselves why this problem is so hard to solve in a way that is really effective. Having a large number of armed “good people” seems to be a solution on the way to being good, but it is not complete or perfect, and after a while it appears obvious that we will never come to a completely effective, perfect solution. One of the reasons why this and all such problems are difficult is that we do not have a very clear and simple notion of the causality that underlies the tragedy we wish to avoid. In other words, we do not and cannot identify the cause as some simple, correctable effect, because there is no simple cause for us to find. For example if you go into a room that is dark and you wish to cure that problem, it is reasonably easy to think that a light might be the answer to eliminating that problem of darkness. So, we install a light with a light switch or if there is no source of electricity, we carry a flashlight that provides light and its own source of power.

Another difficulty that arises is that looking in the direction of the mental health issues becomes greatly more complex than focusing narrowly on the gun involved. Most problems are much easier to approach if one stays with the immediate and the concrete. Moving to abstract and delayed solutions is neither nearly so attractive nor so easy to think about. Putting into place a mental health system that does not duplicate the problems that John Kennedy hoped to eliminate when he virtually destroyed the mental health system in America presents a huge challenge. So, those with a great motivation to do something are likely to focus on the concrete and immediate, again, banning assault weapons, without much attention to the level of success this will result. The fact that such an approach will not likely have any serious impact on the problem that is the elimination or at least major reduction in violent deaths is not nearly as easy to consider, to grasp and to resolve.

So, to summarize, we can try several approaches and hope they will each have some rate of success. We can try to regulate guns out of the hands of violence prone individuals. We do that now, but perhaps that effort can be improved. We can arm and train more people who are good and willing to try to intercede when the need arises. We can look more closely at the problem of identifying those with the desire and willingness to (and often a history of) committing violence and take steps to prevent them from carrying out their intentions by blocking their efforts. We can also remain concerned and caring in the face of the inevitability of such horrors. We must not get to the point where we accept that such action is never going to be fully eliminated. We can continue to be observant and to report any indication of a propensity for violence and we can demand that mental health assessments be provided and acted upon when judged to be a real risk, while holding such actions to a high standard of proof.

Eulogy for Frank Jaklitsch, friend

March 19, 2012

I am honored to be permitted to speak about Frank Jaklitsch. He was a person I greatly admired and a friend of mine. He lived an exemplary life and he faced death with the same courage that he demonstrated when his health was robust. Frank was a man of honor. I have been lucky to have not faced such a circumstance very many times in the past. Of course, my parents, and my wife’s parents and our grandparents have all died, along with a few older friends. There is something about a death in the generation ahead of us that is reassuring in a strange way. That is the way it is supposed to be and I could say my turn won’t come for a while yet, because I am younger. The older people die and the young take their place. That is the way it should be and we should not be able to change the reality of that, but sometimes nature or agent orange or some other tragedy changes that reality. Of course, what one can do about this is to change the way one looks at such events although that is getting harder now that I am among that group of older people. I have become convinced that the age at which one is certified as older is much younger than it was when I was a teenager.

We can anticipate going to heaven or perhaps enjoying a rebirth as a more evolved person. I like the latter idea, myself, as long as I am allowed to skip the teenage years and the terrible twos. Frank asked me what I thought would happen when he dies. Of course, we do not really know exactly what lies ahead. What should we say to such a question from a person we care about and want to comfort and a person who knows he is going to die. What came to my mind was a conversation between the two central characters in the movie “Meet Joe Black” which was based on the novel “Death Takes A Holiday.” The man targeted for his coming death asked the collector of souls whether he should worry about what will come next. The collector said that a man like him does not need to fear what comes next. I told Frank that and I really meant it. A man like Frank does not need to worry about a judgment of his life. Any measure of Frank’s life will show him to have been an exemplary human being and I told him that was my professional opinion. I am a professor. I am not a real doctor, but I do know such things.

I first met Frank in about 1979 when he was the 9 year old soccer players’ coach and I was his assistant. We got to run around with the kids and try to have them win games while having a good time. Frank was great with the kids. My job was to give extra advice such as “Aim for the goal when you kick.” And “Kick hard with your feet.” My own kids were on Frank’s team and when I told them Frank had died, they each had the same sad reaction and they each said he was a good man. I asked them why they said that. They each said he was nice to them. He really listened to them and he treated them like he liked them, he wanted them to do well and he respected them. You all probably know the saying that relates to this. It goes something like this: “Whatever you did unto one of the least, you did unto me.” Frank was a man who gave freely of his time, his energy, his good spirit, his kindness and he did so to all who came before him.

Frank had a number of characteristics that I admired greatly. These included his generosity, his capacity for acceptance, his open admiration and support of the success of others, his fairness and fine sense of ethics. You get the idea. He had a stressful job that required great tact and a sense of right and wrong. All the knowledge I had of Frank in that arena showed me that he always advised those above him to do the right thing. Once I asked him if I could get an exception to a zoning requirement so that I could develop 30 acres that surrounded a home in an uppity northern Calvert County community. I got one of the most tactful and kind hearted NOs that I have ever received. I also got a clarification that might have been paraphrased as “it will not happen till hell freezes over.”

Some of you probably know that Frank was an excellent carpenter. He not only had lots of tools, but he knew how to use them and he did beautiful work. If you look around his house you will see evidence of that everywhere. For the purpose of this eulogy, I am going to ignore the really beautiful stained glass windows that are in several places in the house. Diane created the stained glass windows, and they are marvelous. Anyway, a great old tree fell in the woods and Frank not only heard the tree fall but he also realized that tree had the potential to be much more than it had been before it died. He took it to a sawmill and had planks made. He made stairs to the basement from that tree. Beautiful stairs. He was a perfectionist and it showed. He decided one day that his kitchen and the breakfast nook would be nicer if the area was 13 inches larger than it currently was. He then added the 13 inches to that end of his house, and it did look nicer. He was a very passionate carpenter.

I will tell you a story about the time that Frank helped me build some stairs. One day I decided I wanted to build a staircase to get from the second floor to the first floor of my house and from the first floor to the second. Two-way stairs. You could already get up and down using a circular metal staircase that was a bit better than a fireman’s pole. The biggest problem was that our dog had trouble going up and down those stairs, but anyway, I wanted to build a nice oak stairway that would make my dog proud. Naturally, I called Frank to get his help. We had to build a landing so the stairs would come down to the new landing and then take a right hand turn and go down to the floor. It was to be an L-shaped staircase with a big landing. Frank knew how to do that and suggested the plans, which I recognized were good ones.

While we built the landing, which was really a big box, we needed to nail a small two by four on the inside of the box across two pieces of plywood to temporarily hold them together. So, we did the nailing on the inside of the box that was to become the landing and it looked like a landing and we surveyed all that we had made and we declared it to be good. We then built the stringers for the stairs down to the box landing and then we built the stringers from the box landing down to the floor. We cut them out so they were all within an eighth of an inch of each other and they were perfect up and down and in every way that we knew. I knew my dog would be proud of those stairs, not to mention my wife. I was about to declare all that I surveyed to be good, when suddenly, Frank said “Oh oh… we forgot something.” I looked at him and asked what we forgot. He said we needed to open up the box for the landing and get the piece of two by four out of there since it was no longer necessary to hold the plywood together now that we had the box landing built and it was ready to support the stairs and it was now NEARLY ready to be proclaimed to be good, but for that one imperfection. I looked at Frank while I was hanging over the edge of the second floor looking down at the box and the stringers and the unseen fully covered two by four. I was covered with sawdust and I was tired. I asked Frank “Does the piece of two by four present a structural issue?” I could tell Frank knew where this conversation was going. Then I asked him “Frank, is this two by four inside and fully covered by the plywood of the box a cosmetic issue?” He hesitated for a while and finally said that “it was neither, but it really should be removed, anyway.” At that point, I declared all that we had created to be good, and swore him to secrecy and promised him that I would never tell a soul. So I ask everyone here to please keep this our little secret and don’t tell anyone else. This explains why his work was so beautifully executed and why it took a really long time to complete. Frank was a quality person inside and outside. Metaphorically, he built stairs to heaven, while my goal was to get up and down without tripping and make my dog happy.

Finally, I want to note that Frank had good taste. He picked a wonderful southern bell for a wife. Diane has been a great helper, supporter, friend, confident, and all the other things with which only a fortunate man can be blessed. Diane and her friends and family helped Frank these last few months in a truly heroic way that few would be able to match and Frank knew that. Frank knew that he was loved by his family and by his friends. Frank will be missed by all of us, and especially by his wife and children. He leaves a space in their lives that can’t really be filled. It is a space that was filled by Frank’s goodness. It was not a space of unresolved issues. He built friendships the way he built stairs.

We will all miss you Frank! We know that Diane knows that she and Frank are loved and that there are many people whom she can count on for help and support. We certainly can’t replace Frank, but we can be a source for Diane to draw upon.

Thanks for letting me try to put form to some of my feelings for Frank.

Bob Lissitz