Explainer

During the dark days before Heller, the rogue inferior courts, like the Ninth Circuit, came to the consensus that the phrase “a well regulated militia” was more indicative of who had the right to keep and bear arms than “the right of the people”.

The result of this piece of stupidity was that we, The People, could not challenge a law based on the Second Amendment. We had no standing.

The federal courts can only address active controversy for the people affected for which they can grant relief. You cannot go to the court and have them decide on which color is best. Nor can you challenge many government regulations, even if they are known to be bad. You have no bone in the fight. No skin in the fight.

The courts have long ruled that being a taxpayer does not grant you the right to challenge the government.

Heller says that the Second Amendment applies to the people

Yes, it does. The Court did a fantastic job of driving a spike through the heart of that bit of sophistry in Heller, ⁣ but that doesn’t mean that the inferior courts haven’t found other things they can twist.

That idea, that the only “people” that had standing to make a Second Amendment challenge were the Militia. That private Militias are banned in many states. The only “legal” militia is the National Guard. The state controls the National Guard. The only people that can challenge state infringements on Second Amendment grounds was the state.

What Part of the Constitution Authorizes the Department of Education?

When the Supreme Court issued their opinion in —Brown V. Board of Education, 98 L. Ed. 2d 873 (1954) the Federal Government has used the 14th Amendment to justify prosecuting legally sanctioned discrimination.

The issue is that the Federal Government’s lust for power caused them to overstep “…to correct for persistently unequal access to resources…” —When it Comes to Education, the Federal Government is in Charge of ... Um, What?, supra. This is all the justification they really needed to create the Department of Education.

You and I can look at this and agree that the Department of Education is not authorized under our Constitution. What can you, or I, do about it.

You would think we could run to the courts and file a lawsuit to stop the law. It doesn’t work that way.

You have not suffered a distinct and palpable injury. You would have paid taxes regardless of the law, and the only injury you, or I can point to is our tax dollars being miss-spent.

Most of the requirements that the DoE places on the state are stated in terms of getting or not getting money.

A few years ago, the school board was hearing a request to raise the price of school meals for students. There was no need to raise the price of the meals. The costs were still covered by what the students were paying.

They were required to raise prices to maintain compliance with a DoE “free lunches” program. Under the program, the schools are allowed to purchase food from the government at a significant savings.

If we had ditched the program, the cost of school meals would have gone up more than what the program required.

The board was forced to raise prices so that they could continue to offer lower priced school meals. You can’t make this stuff up.

Who has standing?

Let’s say that on day one, Trump uses Obama’s pen and phone methodology and shuts down the Department of Education. The DoE answers to the executive. He decides how the laws are enforced and carried out.

You are no longer having your money taken to give to failing schools, that will never succeed. You don’t get to keep any more of your money, that’s still going to be taken away.

But somebody is now being injured. All the people who are no longer getting the beautiful DoE money have been injured by the executive order.

This means that they have standing to file a lawsuit in federal court.

Which means the government can now argue that the DoE violates the Constitution. The plaintiffs (people wanting money from the federal government), have to argue how the Constitution authorizes the transfer of wealth to them.

Reading the plain text of the Constitution and the 14th Amendment, we can see that education is not mentioned in the Constitution, as amended.

At the first step, the plaintiffs lose. If we presume, without finding, that it is constitutionally authorized, the plaintiffs need to show a match to this Nation’s historical tradition of education regulations.

That fails as well.

In the question of Anchor Babies, the same is true. As soon as Trump says “no more anchor babies”, somebody will sue. Then it can go through the court system. During that process, they will find that the Supreme Court has already decided the question of Anchor Babies with —United States V. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1898)

In other words, if the child is not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, it is not a citizen of the United States. Welping your child on American soil does not make your child a citizen of the United States.

Life is going to get interesting, in a good way.

Blackmail is a nasty thing. It is about exposing secrets. If you don’t give me what I want, I will expose your dirty little secret.

When you look at American traitors, spying for our advisories, you find that most, if not all of them, were bought off for dirt cheap.

What would happen is that the traitor would decide they needed something, generally money. They then tried to sell the information they had. They were offered very little for the information. Then they were blackmailed for having sold the information.

Blackmail is normally about hiding dirty little secrets.

Back when I had a security clearance, they were concerned about several things. Can you keep your mouth shut? Can you be blackmailed? Can you be bought?

When I was in debt, I explained that I was in debt and that my country was worth more to me than money ever could be. I showed that I had been paying my debt down and that I was not hurting financially. For that level of clearance, that was enough.

At another time, there was a personal issue. I went to my boss and told him the personal issue. I told my parents. When security asked about the personal issue, I could easily show that I couldn’t be blackmailed by it because I had told my boss, my parents, and them.

The gist of this is that if you can’t be embarrassed by your actions, you can’t be blackmailed by a dirty little secret.

History

My first wife was an expert in emotional blackmail. When we got married, I was informed that she had had her cat for longer than she had known me and that I would go before she would let go of the cat.

In other words, a cat was more important to her than the person she had just sworn to love.

I am allergic to most fur bearing critters. Cats in particular. My allergies started off bad, they are impossible now. Because we lived with a cat.

The most common refrain that still echos through my head was, “If you don’t do X, I’m going to leave.”

It was used over and over, again.

One night, I spent a long time talking to my father at a bar. This was unusual because mom was the emotional rock, not dad. Plus, we had never done it before, we didn’t do it again after.

I left that conversation and returned to the hotel room where my wife and kids were. I was more relaxed than I had been in years. I had come to the decision that I wasn’t going to be emotionally blackmailed anymore.

When we returned home, it was just about like normal. Until the day she said, “If you don’t do X, I’m going to leave.”

My reply rocked her to her soul and a bit further, “Ok, there’s the door.”

Our life became more of a partnership until her abuse became too much and I left.

Just what is “emotional blackmail”

It is anytime you attempt to control somebody with threats that engender strong emotional responses.

The person who is threatening to commit suicide is using emotional suicide. The person who withholds love unless you do your chores. The person who threatens to leave you if you don’t give them money.

All of these are emotional blackmail.

Peer pressure is a type of emotional blackmail. When you feel like you will be ostracized if you don’t go along with your peers.

Having that feeling of belonging is incredibly powerful. Loosing it is even more powerful.

This is how you get teenagers to submit to being “jumped in”. Being jumped in for males is generally allowing other peer members beat the shit out of you. For women, it is often submitting to being gang raped.

That desire for membership in a peer group, or gang, can be that strong.

The Left and Emotional Blackmail

We are seeing large numbers of leftists resorting to emotional blackmail.

• You are dead to me if you voted for Trump.
• The 4Bs. No sex with men, no children, no dating men, no marriage with men
• Withholding sex until Trump is out of office
• Divorce or threats of divorce
• Excommunicating people from the peer group.
• Dissolving friendships
• Blue “friendship” bracelet. If you don’t have it, you aren’t a friend.

Conclusion

The only way to deal with emotional blackmail is a strong “fuck off, I don’t care.” Yes, that might cost some friends. They might come to their sense later. For now, don’t let them blackmail you.

There are two parts to access control, the first is authentication, the second is authorization.

Authentication is the process of proving you are who you claim to be.

There are three ways to prove you are who you say you are, something you know, something you have, or something about you.

When you hand your driver’s license to the police officer at a traffic stop, you are authenticating yourself. You are using two-factor authentication. The first part is that you have that particular physical license in your possession. The second is that the picture on the ID matches you.

After the officer matches you to the ID you provided, he then proceeds to authenticate the ID. Does it have all the security markings? Does the picture on the DL match the picture that his in-car computer provides to him? Does the description on the DL match the image on the card?

He will then determine if you are authorized to drive. He does this by checking with a trusted source that the ID that he holds is not suspended.

People Are Stupid

While you are brilliant, all those other people are stupid.

So consider this scenario. Somebody claims that they can read your palm and figure things out about you. Your favorite uncle on your mother’s side of the family is Bill Jones. You laugh and reply, you got that wrong, James Fillmore is my favorite uncle.

So, one of the more common security questions to recover a password is “What is your mother’s maiden name?” Do you think that the person who just guessed your favorite uncle incorrectly might do better at guessing your mother’s maiden name?

It was assumed that only you know that information. The fact is that the information is out there, it just takes a bit of digging.

The HR department at a client that I used to work for liked to announce people’s birthdays, to make them feel good.

She announced my birthday over the group chat. I went into her office and explained that she had just violated my privacy.

The next time you are at the doctor’s office, consider what they use to authenticate you. “What is your name and date of birth?”

I lie every time some website asks for my date of birth, unless it is required for official reasons.

Finally, people like to pick PINs and codes that they can remember. And they use things that match what they remember. What is a four-digit number that is easy for most people to remember? The year of their birth.

You do not want to know how many people use their year of birth for their ATM PIN.

In addition, it is easy to fool people into giving you their password. We call that phishing today. But it is the case that many people will read that their account has been compromised and rush to fix it. Often by clicking on the link in the provided e-mail.

A few years back, I was dealing with a creditor. They have a requirement to not give out information. A blind call asking me to authenticate myself to them. I refused. I made them give me the name of their company as well as their extension and employ number.

I then looked up the company on the web. Verified that the site had been in existence for multiple years. Verified with multiple sources what their main number was. Then called the main number and asked to be connected to the representative.

Did this properly authenticate her? Not really, but it did allow us to move forward until we had cross authenticated each other.

Biometrics

If you have watched NCIS, they have a magic gizmo on the outside of the secure room. To gain access, the cop looks into the retina scanner. The scanner verifies that pattern it scans with what is on record and, if you are authorized, unlocks the door.

Older shows and movies used palm scanners or fingerprint scanners. The number of movies in which the MacGuffin is the somebody taking a body part or a person to by-pass biometric scanners is in the 1000s, if not higher.

So let’s say that you are using a biometric to unlock your phone. Be it a face scan or a fingerprint scan.

The bad guys (or the cops) have you and your phone. While they cannot force you to give up your password, they can certainly hold the phone up to your face to unlock it. Or forcibly use your finger to unlock it.

Biometrics are not at the point where I would trust them. Certainly, not cheap biometric scanners.

It Doesn’t Look Good

We need to protect people from themselves. We can’t trust biometrics. That leaves “something they have”.

When you go to open unlock your car, you might use a key fob. Press the button and the car unlocks. That is something you have, and it is what is used to authenticate you. Your car knows that when you authenticate with your key fob, you are authorized to request that the doors be unlocked.

If you are old school, and still use a physical key to unlock your home, the lock in your door uses an inverse pattern to authenticate the key that you possess. It knows that anybody who has that key is authorized to unlock the door.

Since people might bypass the lock or make an unauthorized duplicate of your key, you might add two-factor authentication. Not only do they have to have something in their possession, they must all know the secret code for the alarm.

Two-Factor Authentication

Two-Factor authentication is about providing you with something that only you possess. You need to be able to prove that you have control of that object and that the answer cannot be replayed.

Consider you are coming back from patrol. You reach the gate and the sentry calls out “thunder”. You are supposed to reply with “dance”. You have now authenticated and can proceed.

The bad guy now walks up. The sentry calls out “thunder”. The bad guy repeats what you said, “dance”. And the bad guy now walks through the gate.

This is a “replay” attack. Any time a bad guy can repeat back something that intercepted to gain authentication, you have a feeble authentication.

The first authenticator that I used was a chip on a card. It was the size of a credit card, you were expected to carry it with you. When you tried to log in, you were prompted for a number from the card. The card had a numeric keypad. You input your PIN. The card printed a number. That number was only good for a short time.

You entered that number as your password, and you were authenticated.

There were no magic radios. Bluetooth didn’t exist. Wi-Fi was still years in the future. And it worked even if you were 100s of miles away, logging in over a telnet session or a dial-up modem.

How?

Each card had a unique serial number and a very accurate clock. The time of day was combined with the serial number and your pin to create a number. The computer also knew the time, accurately. When you provided the number, it could run a magic algorithm and verify that the number came from the card with that serial number.

One of the keys to computer security is that we don’t store keys in a recoverable format. Instead, we store cryptographic hashes of your password. We apply the same hash to the password/pass phrase you provided us and then compare that to the stored hash. If they match, the password is correct. There is no known methods for going from the hash to the plaintext password.

That security card had some other features. It could be programmed to have a self-destruct PIN, or an alert PIN, or a self-destruct after too many PIN entries in a given amount of time.

When it self-destructed, it just changed an internal number, so the numbers generated would never again be correct. If the alert PIN was set up, using the generated number would inform the computer that the PIN was given under duress. The security policies would determine what happened next.

Today, we started to see simple two-factor authentication. “We sent a text to your phone, enter the number you received.” “We emailed the account on record, read and click on the link.”

These depend on you having control of your email account or your phone. And that nobody is capable of intercepting the SMS text.

A slightly more sophisticated method is a push alert to an app on your phone. This method requires radio communications with your phone app. The site requesting you to authenticate transmits a code to your phone app. Your phone app then gives you a code to give to the site. Thus, authenticating you.

There are other pieces of magic involved in these. It isn’t a simple number, there is a bunch of math/cryptology involved.

Another method is using your phone to replace the card described above.

I authenticate to my phone to prove I’m authorized to run the authenticator application. There is a 6-digit number I have to transcribe to the website within 10 seconds. After 10 seconds, a new number appears.

I’ve not looked into all the options available, it just works.

The cool thing about that authenticator, is that it works, even if all the radios in my phone are off.

Finally, there are security keys. This is what I prefer.

I need to put the key into the USB port. The key and the website exchange information. I press the button on the security key, and I’m authenticated.

Another version requires me to type a passphrase to unlock the key before it will authenticate to the remote site.

Conclusion

If you have an option, set up two-factor authentication. Be it an authenticator app on your phone or a Yubico security key. It will help protect you from stupids.

The Heller opinion clearly stated that the right to keep and bear arms was an individual right. That was the holding.

To get to that decision, the Supreme Court did their standard analysis. First, is the plain text of the Constitution implicated by the proposed conduct? Second, what is this nation’s historical tradition of regulation in this area?

Can I call a politician stupid? The congress might create a bill that makes it illegal to make ad hominem attacks on politicians. The president could sign that bill into law. I could then be arrested for violating that law.

That doesn’t mean that the law is constitutional. Regardless of what the congress might have said while contemplating the bill, claiming that “hate speech isn’t free speech”. The law must be evaluated in light of those two questions, is the plain text implicated and what is the history of regulation regarding speech.

Looking at the constitution, before the Bill of Rights, there is nothing in the enumerated powers granted to the State that authorizes them to limit speech. Thus, the law is unconstitutional. The state would argue that “promote the general welfare” authorizes them to make the law.

We can go a step further, we can look at the amendments.

Here we have a more clearly defined restriction on the authority of the state, Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press. The conduct at hand, making speech, implicates the plain text of the First Amendment. It then becomes the state’s burden to prove a historical tradition of regulating speech.

The state cannot find historical regulations restricting speech because it is mean; therefore, the law is unconstitutional.

The Supreme Court used the same methodology when deciding Heller. They first looked to see if the plain text was implicated. That required them to analyze the language of the Second Amendment.

Knowing the games that the circuit courts had been playing, they defined almost all the words. They used dictionaries from the time. They used dictionaries from multiple sources. Plus, they compared the words as used at the time.

This was part of dicta. Some inferior courts understand dicta and follow the guidance of the Supreme Court. Others do their best to twist the words. Often the inferior courts are more interested in what the Supreme Court didn’t say than in what they did say. Frequently, the inferior courts will say something like, “The Supreme Court didn’t say that 2+2=4, they said that 2+3=5. Since they didn’t tell us what 2+2 equals, we will just have to do our best.” Then proceed to hide a divide by zero to get an answer that says that 2+2=3.1415, getting pi in the face later when their opinion is vacated.

After establishing that the plain text covered the proposed conduct, the Supreme Court moves to the next stage, looking at this nation’s historical tradition of firearms regulation. In that historical analysis, they found that there were no laws that were analogous to a weapon ban, unless the weapon was both dangerous and unusual.

The Case at Hand

Barnett v. Raoul is a challenge to the PICA passed in Illinois. The People originally sought a preliminary injunction. They got it from Judge McGlynn. The state then appealed to the Seventh Circuit court. There, the administrative panel consolidated the case with other challenges to PICA. They stayed the preliminary injunction, allowing the law to stay in effect. They denied the requests for a preliminary injunction from the other parties and put the case to the merits panel.

This was not unexpected. The Admin panel had both Judge Easterbrook and Judge Woods on it. Both are statist and have often ruled against The People. Judge Easterbrook is most famous for having been overturned in McDonald v. Chicago.

Amazingly, the Merits panel had the same three judge panel as the original administrative panel. The circuit court heard the case quickly. They were under scrutiny by the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court had denied cert in a different case, with Justice Thomas writing that if the case was delayed for the plaintiffs (good guys) to petition for rite of cert. again.

Having heard the case, the merits panel sat on their opinion. The Second and Fourth were sitting on their opinions as well. Most of the Second Amendment cases were locked in, waiting for the Circuit Courts to issue an opinion.

The Seventh Circuit was the first to issue their opinion. First, they found that they were not guilty of the two-step shuffle. That they had always been faithfully applying text and history. Because they were using text and history before Bruen, their earlier work was still good case law.

That case law found that the plaintiffs had not proved that “assault weapons” were arms under the plain text of the Second Amendment.

They remanded the cases back to continue the process.

Judge McGlynn did not allow any delay tactics. His case was argued on September 16th, 17th, 18th and 19th of 2024.

It is now time for the Court to analyze the briefings and testimony to determine the facts of the case and to reach conclusions of law.

Both parties will submit their proposed findings of fact and conclusions of law. This is what they want the court to find/agree with.

On October 21st, the state of Illinois submitted their brief. There are 3585 pages, 58 exhibits, 2 attachments and an appendix.

Some facts are just that facts. They are easy to verify and check the veracity of. Others are opinions stated as facts.

The state says that PICA was enacted after July 4th. This is true and a fact. They identify that particular July 4th as the 4th of July when an asshole shot and killed 7 people.

It is not relevant to the Constitution that the shooting took place. Nor that the bill was enacted before or after that date. But it is a fact.

The state also wants the court to agree that the shooter used an AR-15 rifle and a 30 round magazine to kill 7 and would 48 people that July. Again, a fact but not relevant. The state then repeats that PICA was enacted after July 4th.

A more important date was the date when Bruen issued.

Here is an example of an opinion, dressed up like a fact.

Is the AR-15 a semiautomatic version of a firearm specifically designed for the military? Yes and no.

The AR-10 was a select fire weapon that Armalite designed for military sales. The AR-15 was a redesign, also for the military, using the lighter 5.56×45 cartridge. The original AR-15 was field tested in Vietnam, as the AR-15. The design was adopted and standardized as the M-16.

A new product was developed by Colt for the civilian market. It used the same name, AR-15. The differences were to make it capable of semi-automatic fire only. The simplest modification was the removal of the select fire control group and not drilling the hole for the auto-sear.

The early AR-15 SP1s out of Colt were M-16s without an auto-sear and with the hole for the auto-sear missing.

What is the state’s goal?

The state wants the district court to find that the weapons and magazines banned by PICA are not arms, as defined by the Seventh Circuit court.

To accomplish this, they need to have the court find that AR-15s and the ilk are really modifications of the M-16/M-4 platform.

The real trick in this that it is the plaintiff’s burden to prove that something is an arm protected by the plain text. The state does not carry that burden.

This is the difference between presumed innocent and presumed guilty.

Regardless of anything that happens in Judge McGlynn’s court, PICA will stay in effect for the foreseeable future.

It is likely that Judge McGlynn will issue his opinion with a short administrative stay to allow the state to appeal.

The Seventh Circuit administrative panel will issue a stay pending the merit panel issuing their opinion.

If the merit panel finds for the plaintiffs, the state will seek a rehearing en bloc. This will take time.

If the merit panel finds for the state, I hope the plaintiffs file a petition for certiorari with the Supreme Court.

It is likely that the Seventh Circuit will actually hold the case until the Snope case is decided by the Supreme Court.

Regardless, cases are starting to move again.

In VanDerStok, the ATF is arguing that the term may readily be converted was not defined by congress. This makes it ambiguous. An ambiguous term is normally clarified by the rule making procedures.

The gist of the argument is ATF determination letters regarding classification of things as hunk of metal or receiver has always focused on the term “readily”. According to the ATF, the new rule merely clarifies that “readily” can be modified by the auxiliary components included with a kit or in the same purchase.

When asked if the ATF could just as easily claim that all AR-15 lower receivers are machine guns because they can be readily converted to M-16/M-4 receivers, the ATF responded that AR-15 receivers are not being restored because they never were.

The issue is twofold, first, we don’t trust the government. The second is that there is zero difference between an 80% AR-15 lower receiver and an 80% M-16/M-4 lower receiver.

Both require drilling holes for the trigger pin, the hammer pin, and the selector switch.

Both require milling out the fire control group pocket.

The M-16/M-4 lower receiver requires one extra hole.

The Pivot pins are 0.250 +0/0.003 below the deck. The hammer pin is 0.375 +/- 0.002 below the pivot pin. The trigger pin is 0.3140 +/- 0.0015 below the hammer pin and 0.8430 +/- 0.0015 to the rear. The selector is 0.2250 +/- 0.0015 above the trigger pin and 1.9680 +/- 0.0015 to the rear of the hammer pin.

1.9680 +/- 0.0015 to the rear of the hammer pin and 0.4980 above the hammer pin is a 0.1250 +0.0015 -0.0000 hole.

This hole is the difference between an M4 and an AR15 lower receiver.

If the ATF considers a piece of edgedetched steel to be a machine gun, and they consider a hunk of aluminum with a jig and instructions to be a receiver, what would stop them from deciding an AR15 receiver is an M4 receiver?

“Management Agency” is the key here.

In leadership courses we hear the phrase “Either lead, follow or get the fuck out of the way.” There is a strong reason for this, projects fail when leadership is weak.

“A bad decision now is better than a good decision too late,” is another.

What this means is that in a situation where leadership is needed, we need a good leader, and then we need to follow them. If we are not following, then we might be the de facto leader. If we are not following, and we are not leading, we are the problem.

If you want to see a prime example of failed leadership, consider your local PTA. There are reputations at stake, there is money on the table. And there are a dozen voices, all attempting to get their way.

A natural leader has an ability to lead that comes from their nature, and their upbringing. They might have augmented that natural ability with training. They are still few and far between.

Trained leaders are those that have been through training on how to lead. They might be able to lead, but they are likely to be uncomfortable leading. This causes failure in trust and mistakes.

In a disaster, leaders will step up at the time of the event. These will be those that who are natural leaders. The “trained” leaders are likely to be slow to step up, hoping that someone else will take on the mantel of leadership.

This is precisely what we saw in the current disaster. The natural leaders got up and did.

These people heard the call of duty, put their lives on hold, grabbed what they could and went into action. When they arrived at the scene, they self organized. That is to say, leaders stepped forward and did what was needed.

Because they are doers, things got done. The right people were in the right place doing the right thing.

When FEMA arrives, they bring two things with them, a checkbook and “management”.

If the management is good, then they will slide into the existing system, their natural or trained leadership skills will shine through, and they will make it easier for the doers to get things done.

The horrible truth is that the people that FEMA brings to the party are unlikely to be natural leaders. Natural leaders do not find themselves as low-level government employees.

These examples of petty bureaucrats arrive on scene and start following their scripts. Just like they were taught in class.

They start by making an inventory of the goods and capabilities they have on hand. According to the book, this is more important than actually seeing those goods and services being delivered to those in need.

A primary goal is to make sure that those most in need get the help they need. This means holding back on the supplies at hand, to have a reserve for when they find those in desperate need.

Because they are a management team, when they step in, they take over all the prepositioned goods and services.

Being management, they need to make sure that they are rested and prepared for the next day’s work.

As you might guess, this is written from the perspective of the petty bureaucrat. They believe they are doing good. They believe they know better. They believe they are the saviors.

The correct answer is that they should arrive with hat in hand and ask, “how can I help?”. Instead, they know they are supposed to lead, and leaders take control and bark orders.

FEMA is a failure at this point.

That, and they have been used to funnel money to illegal immigrants, makes it all the worse.

“We are from the government, we are here to help.” is a strong indication that it is time for SSS.

Or Cultures of Honor.

Most people in western civilizations understand the concept of Honor. Or, at least, they think they do. Most understand, “do the honorable thing.”

It is a question of right and wrong. It is a moral decision.

The honorable thing to do is to return the wallet you find on the sidewalk. The honorable thing to do is to protect the lives of the innocent over your own. The honorable thing to do is to put yourself between the bad guys and the innocents.

This is honor in western culture and civilization.

An “Honor Culture” or a “Culture of Honor” is not about doing the honorable thing. It is about personal honor.

Scotland was an honor culture for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. This is what led to clan wars. These people weren’t attacking other clans because they intended to take land or goods, so much as “honor demanded it”.

At some point in the past, the offending clan had done something to “dishonor” the clan. So the entire clan is at war with the offending clan.

There is new jargon, To “Dis'” somebody. This means to show them disrespect. To dishonor them.

Dissing somebody often escalates into verbal or physical violence.

You don’t disrespect somebody in an honor culture unless you are ready and willing to defend yourself. And to those members of an honor culture, you are the instigator.

Calling somebody the “N” word when not a member of that sub-culture is to dishonor them. It is to disrespect them. As such, you have invited violence upon yourself.

The Scots migrated from Scotland to the United States. Many of them came to live in the south. They brought their honor culture with them.

Thomas Sowell discusses this in —When it Comes to Education, the Federal Government is in Charge of ... Um, What? | Harvard Graduate School of Education, (last visited Nov. 13, 2024).

One of the signs of an honor culture is a tendency to “defend my honor”. Dueling. When the south was fully invested in being an honor culture, duels were common.

Later, as the honor culture dissipated, the number of duels, both gun, knife and fist, decreased.

According to Sowell, that honor culture didn’t just disappear, though. It was adopted by the slaves. When the slaves became freedmen, they didn’t forgo that honor culture. Instead, they took it with them.

That honor culture survives today in “the hood”.

For the most part, honor societies in the west exist as a decoration we wear. It is blustering over a football game. It is taking a joking offense at some perceived slight.

In an honor society, you do not joke about some ones honor. “Them’s fighting words”

Other primitive cultures still exist as honor cultures.

It is dishonorable for a woman to have sex outside marriage. The woman’s owner is dishonored by this. Because his honor has been harmed, he is entitled to punish her. Like having her stoned to death.

He is dishonored if _____. Fill in the blank. A Jew defends himself and stops an attack. They have dishonored the attacker.

When I use the term “honor society” or “honor culture”, I am not talking about an “honorable society” or even a society that is governed by being honorable. I am talking of the horrific, barbarous, back world “honor culture” that hangs gays from construction cranes, and kills women who have been raped.

There are two basic types of devices, an embedded system, and a general system.

There are embedded systems everywhere. Your smart TV. The Chromecast you have attached to your “dumb” TV. Your coffee maker, your washing machine or drier.

These are a few of the embedded systems you use every day. There are some that are “critical” systems. Your car, likely, has an embedded system. If that system were to be modified, it could cause “bad things” to happen.

Medical devices are also considered to be critical systems. The computers that control your IV medical drip, even the automatic blood pressure machines or any of the machines that are used for monitoring are critical.

While the blood O2 monitor, attached to your finger, might not seem critical, if the values it is reporting are in error, your health care professional (doctor) could miss diagnose something.

Other examples of critical systems include: many military computer systems, voting systems, systems processing classified information, alarm systems, spacecraft control systems.

Your computer and laptop are not normally considered to be embedded systems, yet they have a part that is embedded. That is the BIOS on your computer and laptops.

Your phone and tablets are a sort of hybrid, where a large part is embedded, but there is an easy way to add other software.

Update A System

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I grew up in an innocent age of TV and movies. The heroes were the guys in the blue uniforms and the white hats. The lawyers were evil men working for evil criminals, or they were good men doing good deeds. The press was there to expose the truth, to give us the facts.

The whole truth and nothing but the truth.

What I learned about the court system was that everything happened in the courtroom. It was where all the excitement was. Paying attention because some lawyer was going to expose the truth at the last minute to make their case.

Even modern legal dramas suffer from the same tropes.

As I have been reading and listening, I’ve found that most of the hard work comes long before the jury is sworn in. The excitement is buried in hundreds of words and page after page of motions.

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We are a society of instant gratification. You go to Amazon, click two buttons, and the next day that thing arrives at your door.

Your kid sends you a written message from a different continent, three times a day. You snap a picture of your cat, develop it, do some touch up, decide you can do better, reshoot the photo, edit, and share it with your 42 followers.

When I was doing photography, I stared developing my own film and processing my prints. That way, I could see what I shot within a day of shooting.

The courts are not instant gratification. Not even close.

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