Rant

I spent a good portion of my early life in Canada, and so I have a decent understanding of the culture and history of the place. One of the things that was already beginning to fail, long before I left Canada to return to America, was the Canadian medical system. Let’s talk.

Let me start with a BLUF: American health care is great. American health insurance is fucking ridiculous. Canadian healthcare AND insurance is just whackadoodle.

I don’t currently have insurance. The hows and whys are not up for discussion, but the fact is I’ve paid much less for health care in the last 20 years than my family has through their insurance (either via what they pay off their paycheck alone, or what insurance pays… works for both). I get a “discount” when I see the doctor, get medication, have labs and scans done, etc. because I am uninsured. The quotes are there because the payment I make is frankly what everyone should be making, or rather it’s slightly higher than it ought to be but I can live with it.

American insurance causes people to overcharge on a regular basis, because if they don’t, then they could lose out on insurance payments altogether. I don’t even really understand it. It’s fekking complex. It’s the only industry in the world where MY broken leg and YOUR broken leg, despite being exactly the same, could have vastly different costs. Even when all other things are equal, a doctor’s office, surgeon, or anyone else in the medical factory cannot give you a price until after the work is done, and then they still can’t give you a price because Reasons.

Today, I had to go in and see my GP about my shoulder. I injured it several years ago, and lately it’s been giving me a lot of grief. It is time, even though I’m terrified of the bill for the MRI I’m about to get (anyone want to buy a cookbook? *sigh*). I went in and immediately she bundled together the visit I’d come in for with some other upcoming visits that I can now skip. Hooray, no paying for extra office visits! Win number one.

She looked at my shoulder, hemmed and hawed for a minute, and then started in. “Well, first we should probably send you to physical therapy…”

I stopped her. “I am self-pay, remember. What is going to be the best use of my money?”

“Oh! I forgot! Well, then we should go straight to the MRI. It’s possible they’ll refer you to therapy, but more than likely you’d have gone through weeks of expensive therapy only to be referred to get an MRI and have a different path forward. I’ll make out that paperwork right now.” And off she went. I came home with my papers for getting an MRI on my shoulder, and now I can shop around to find the cheapest place to get that MRI done.

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The differences are amazing.

A few months ago, somebody was shooting in the back forty. This caused somebody to report gun shots in the area. Must be some out of stater who has no ability to keep their nose in their own business.

Because it was a “shots heard”, the local cops, who I consider to be good guys, dispatched two officers in two squad cars.

They pull into the driveway. I go to the porch and say, “Hello! Can I help you?”

Per normal procedure, the cop doesn’t answer my question but asks his own.

“Were you shooting?”

“I don’t answer questions.”

If the police come to you, they are investigating a crime or potential crime. They are not there to “help” you, they are there to gather evidence to issue a citation, warning, or arrest somebody.

Anything you say can be used as evidence. It is a consensual encounter, which you can terminate at any time.

The next thing that will happen is the officer will repeat the original question. Most people can’t deal with the pressure of being asked the same question again and again.

My answer was again, “I don’t answer questions.”

The officer, per procedures, will then explain why they are there. They will then suggest that they are just “investigating” to find out what happened. They will then ask again. “Were you shooting?” “I don’t answer questions.”

All of this is per standard investigatory procedures.

At this point, the officer is likely to tell you what the crime was, “Did you know that you can’t shoot within 300 feet of an occupied dwelling?”

Notice the change in language, they are not asking if you did anything, they are asking for your knowledge of the law. Since they are not asking about you, it is more likely you will start talking to them. It doesn’t matter to them if you know or don’t know.

What they are doing is establishing “Mens Rea” or criminal intent. If the law you are breaking has a condition of Mens Rea, it can change what the charge is.

Alex Baldwin had no criminal intent to murder his camera girl. He had every reason to have constructive knowledge that pointing a real gun at a person, cocking the hammer, and pulling the trigger could cause death or significant injury. This is enough to establish Mens Rea for manslaughter charges. (IANAL)

At this point, the cop in question basically gave up and left. No fuss, no muss, no upset on my part.

Fast-forward to yesterday.

Somebody was out in the back forty shooting. I think I heard 16 rounds go off. So what? This is a freedom state.

I didn’t think much of it and went on with my life. This meant cleanup and then working on fixing the busted garage door and other metal working stuff, before being able to get back to wood working.

Two cop cars roll up, and an older cop gets out of his squad. I can see them through the open door of the shop.

He walks up and gets close to the shop but stops maybe twenty feet from the door.

This is intentional. He wants me to step out of the shop, which is part of my house. He cannot enter the shop without permission or a warrant. “Were you shooting?”

Wow, that sounds amazingly familiar. Almost as if it is SOP.

“I don’t answer questions.”

The cop then tries silence. Most people don’t deal well with silence. They want to fill it. So I just stood there smiling as he let the situation drag on.

He then asks again. SOP. I use my SOP, “I don’t answer questions.”

His SOP is in full display. Everything he says is according to the script. And he is getting upset that I won’t answer him.

“If I find out that you were shooting, I’m going to enjoy coming back here.”

“Is that a threat?”

“No, cowards threaten, I’m promising.”

You might think that the fat old man, with a pistol on his hip, (Oh shit, I just realized that even though I didn’t have my jacket on, I had still covered my pistol with my shirt. I thought I was open carrying at that moment) had gotten under his skin.

This is when the bad cop starts to show up in full force. “Why are you refusing to answer? Why are you not cooperating?”

“Because I have a right to not answer questions.”

Another part of the discussion is where they justify asking questions because I could have “potentially done something wrong.”

Notice that they don’t say “broke the law” or “did something illegal”. That is the correct translation of “done something wrong.”

I asked him, “Have you potentially done something wrong? How about him?”

Then the long silence, he could see that this was not going according to script, and the script was running out.

At some point, he switched from asking about potential crimes to “safety.”

“If you wanted to know about safety, you should have asked.”

“I did!” “Actually, you didn’t.” “Why are you being so difficult?”

“When I shoot, I always do it safely. I am always aware of what is beyond my target. I always have a good berm or backstop. I am well aware of the laws controlling when and where I can shoot, and I never violate them.”

The chief walked away. Refused to shake hands. His backup was a bit more polite. When I asked him if he would shake my hand, his response was, “Not now.”

I don’t blame him. If he had been willing to shake hands while his chief had not, it would have looked like he was backing me, and not his boss.

Keep your head on a swivel. Stay out of stupid places. Don’t be out at stupid times. Avoid stupid people. Stay strapped.

There are people who blame their actions on “The ’tism’.

I had not heard this term until recently. My oldest son is “on the spectrum.” He barely functions, not from emotional out bursts, but because he just isn’t mature enough.

My youngest son is also “on the spectrum”, he is high function, going to collage, doing well. His issues tend to be socal in nature. In other words, he has not had much success in finding new friends.

My youngest is also on the spectrum. She is very high functioning. You would not suspect she is autistic when interacting with her. She is social and she makes friends.

I was born before the great “autism” hunt. I do not have an official diagnosis of autism. There are many indicators that I am autistic.

A side effect of this was I was able to teach some of my coping methods to my children, to help them.

What does this have to do with making friends?

It means it is hard. It takes an effort.

What you might consider to be a friend is unlikely to be a friend in my eyes.

Just because we are co-workers, and we are friendly with each other, does not mean we are friends.

Most people would have no difficulty in ticking off a dozen friends. Maybe even a dozen close friends.

I’ve had 4 true friends in my lifetime. Two of them were good friends. I say “were” because one is dead, and I am out of contact with the other.

Of the other two, one I have not seen since I left high school. The other is in prison because he is a kiddy diddler.

One I thought was a friend decided that anybody who supported the Supreme Court’s Dobbs’ opinion was no longer a friend to her. And later went as far as to say that anybody who voted for Trump was not a friend and could just fuck off.

Ally tells me that there are people attempting to be friends. I can almost see it, but I don’t feel it.

In 2008, Obama was running for office. It is the moment when I felt my country start to fracture. Friends were starting to turn on each other in ways I had not seen before.

I went to speak to a black co-worker. “Who are you voting for?” “Obama”, “Why?” “Because he’s black.”

Anybody who expressed any hesitation or discomfort about voting for a one—term senator from Illinois, who’s most common vote was “Present” was a “racist”.

It was that bad. Since I was working in a deep blue state at the time, I kept my mouth shut. I didn’t care who they were voting for. I wish they had better reasons than “He’s black.” It was their choice.

Oh, it wasn’t just the black co-workers, it was all the lefties.

How did I spot a lefty? Those were the ones openly talking politics, expressing their opinion about anyone who wasn’t voting for Obama.

From that moment on, I have been called racist, for my beliefs, constantly.

Look at Rep. Hunt. Now there is a black man. I like him. Why? Because he echos my beliefs. He stands up for America.

Now compare him to the half white Obama.

Obama’s mother was white, his father was black, he’s brown.

He ran as a black man. So what?

If every single person of color had voted for him and every single white voted against him, he would not have become the President of the United States. A majority of the people of the United States decided that he was a better man to be president than McCain.

For the next 8 years, I wasn’t allowed to say a negative thing about my President. To do so was to “prove I was racist.”

When Hillary ran for President, I suddenly became misogynistic. No change of my positions, just a different candidate by the Democrats.

And every lefty screamed at me that I was a bad person if I didn’t support every belief they held.

There was a TikTok sketch Ally showed to me. A woman says to her Republican friend that she is leaving the GOP.

Her friend responds with, “I’m sorry you feel you need to leave. We’ve been friends all our lives. You will continue to be my friend and are welcome here, anytime.”

The sketch then changes to a woman leaving the Democrat party. “I’m leaving the party. They just don’t match my core beliefs. You’ve been my friend all my life. You will still be my friend.”

The remaining Democrat woman turns to the first and, with a sneer on her face, “I’m not friends with Nazis”

That is what my life felt like during the Obama era. It was worse under Biden.

Our friendships became defined by our beliefs.

Going out in public, I would hear leftists yapping about how anybody who wasn’t like them was horrible, evil people. Nasty labels were everywhere.

I’ve seen “DemocRAT” from time to time. I’m “MAGAot”, a “fascist”, a “racist”, a “white supremest”, and every other nasty label you can think of.

Those people won’t speak with me. They can’t handle being asked for examples. They can’t handle being called on bullshit. They can’t be bothered to verify any of the narrative they spout with no evidence to back them.

I’m sorry for Ally.

She is a good person. We are good people. If you are in need, we will do our best to help you. When a “co-worker” had an emergency, she didn’t ask, “What are your politics? I only help good people.” No, she opened her pantry to them. She did it with no expectation of anything.

When they tried to repay her, she said, “Pay it forward.”

Well, they did pay it forward. Until they had to treat people by what they do instead of what they were told they do.

Make sure you keep your friends close. Make sure they know you are friends.

Stay strapped. Keep your head on a swivel. Don’t be in stupid places at stupid times.

The district courts have been attacking the Trump administration wherever possible. Many have overstepped their authority to intrude on the Article II executive.

A judge in the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts decided that he was a final arbitrator of United States foreign policy. To that end, he issued a preliminary injunction stopping the deportation of criminal illegal aliens to third-party countries.

The criminal is detained in the United States. He is taken before an administrative judge, where he is given full due process. The judge can order the criminal released into our country with orders to report for further legal actions. He can decide that the person is not a criminal alien, and turn him loose or to other authorities. Or he can issue a deportation order.

At times, the criminal is not just here illegally, he has committed some other crime. In those cases, they are given a full trial. When they are found guilty, the judge can sentence them according to sentencing guidelines. After serving their sentence, they are then deported. The Article III judge will have ordered them deported, as part of their sentence.

In the alternative, the judge can just deport them. Make them someone else’s problem.

When we deport somebody, the rules say that they should be deported to the country of origin or to the last country they came through to reach the United States.

I’m not breaking it down. Some people hold multiple citizenships. Some people are citizens of their birth country and then move and become citizens in another country. Just assume that they are being sent to the correct country of origin.

Unfortunately, some of these criminal, illegal, aliens are nasty pieces of work. Many countries will refuse entry to people that they deem to be undesirable.

That includes many countries that feel that somebody convicted of murder is undesirable. Regardless of their citizenship.

My understanding is that under international law, a country is required to accept a deportee who is a citizen of their country.

As we well know, international law doesn’t really mean much. Countries have and do refuse entry to people that commit heinous crimes.

Having all of that in hand, let’s look at the facts of this case, according to Sotomayor.

The person being deported, O.C.G., had a removal order in place. He was being returned to his origin country, Guatemala.

When he learned of this, he begged an Immigration Judge to grant “withholding of removal to Guatemala”. Ok. This means that the next place he can be deported to is the last country he was in. Namely, Mexico.

Now, Sotomayor says that the Immigration Judge granted that withholding of removal to Guatemala and not to Guatemala and Mexico because there was no removal order to Mexico.

There is no record of why the Judge did this, only Sotomayor’s statement. The Judge knew that O.C.G. didn’t want to go to Mexico. He could have granted a withholding of removal to Mexico at the same time.

The judge did not.

Under the Trump administration, they looked at what they had. They had a legal removal order. It is legal to send him back to Mexico or Guatemala by statue, but he can’t be sent to Guatemala.

Bingo, he’s now on his way to Mexico.

When he arrived in Mexico, they said, “We don’t want your ass here.” and promptly deported him to Guatemala. It appears that there was no Immigration Judge in Mexico willing to grant a withholding of removal to Guatemala. Poor O.C.G.

From someplace in Guatemala, O.C.G. reached out to lawyers in the United States to start a class action suit to stop the administration from deporting criminal aliens to third-party countries.

Lacking in Sotomayor’s dissent is anything about O.C.G.’s criminal record. Nor was there was no evidence in the record that O.C.G. suffered any torture in Guatemala.

There is only O.C.G.’s claims.

The Immigration Judge who granted the withholding of removal found that O.C.G. was likely to suffer if deported to Guatemala. Therefore, the United States did not. The United States has no say on what Mexico does with its criminal illegal aliens.

This district judge feels that the United States is responsible for making sure nothing bad happens to these criminals after they are kicked out of our country.

The case is, DHS v. D.V.D. et al., No. 24A1153 606 U.S. ____ (2025).

The title is from Miguel.

I’ve written about “Black Fatigue”, a physiological condition of being done with “that” shit. It is that entire situation where I have gone from a person who doesn’t see skin color to somebody that treats it as a threat indicator, every time.

I’m old, I’m tired of this game. I’m tired of fighting to be left alone. I don’t like having to tell my wife what path to take to work to avoid the potential riots downtown.

I want to be a quiet man, left alone.

It appears that every week there is another group of cosplayers claiming that it is my belief that they all be put in a subservient position, to fulfill my needs. What utter bullshit.

It is Freudian projection. I don’t know a single conservative woman that would put up with being placed in the position these deranged girls suggest.

They might meekly put on the costume, but if you tried to put any of my women into that costume, you better have a dipstick to check fluid levels because you will have a major leak. My daughters are not going to submit to that shit. My wife is not going to submit to that shit.

You will only find out just how “meek” conservative women are if I’m already dead. At which point I will have my honor guard.

These same girls, playing out their fantasies, will also scream to disarm themselves. Oh, and me as well. If they don’t want to be the sex toys of their fantasies, then they had damn well better be ready and willing to standup to anybody that would attempt to make their fantasies real.

But it isn’t just these girls cosplaying their sick fantasies. It is the entire left-wing of our body politics. The screaming about Trump doing this or that. It is the fantasies they have. Of what they would do.

I’m tired of these mentally ill children trying to use emotional blackmail on me and mine.

Be strapped, keep your head on a swivel, be where they are not.

Your repressed fantasy is showing its hem

1. There will likely be runs on banks, grocery stores and gas stations no later than Monday.
2. Make sure your fuel tanks and propane bottles are topped off TOMORROW, meaning Friday (I’m writing this at midnight Thursday night.)
3. If you need groceries, get them TOMORROW, Friday!
4. Get some cash out of the bank and keep it on hand.
5. Traveling, especially air travel, should not be considered for the next week or so, until we see how this goes.
6. AVOID CROWDS AT ALL COSTS!
7. Above all, stay alert! Don’t assume or take anything for granted. If you see something that looks out of place, don’t ignore it, let someone know.
8. Some of you carry guns, some of you don’t. Right now would be a damned fine time to start!
9. This is in addition to the preparedness items that you should already have. If you haven’t started preparing yet, you’re too late, forget it.
10. I hope I stayed up until 1am writing all this for nothing, but I don’t think so. If it doesn’t apply Saturday, it might apply next week, or a month from now. But be assured, your efforts will not be wasted!

Minor edits for formatting and suggested grammar fixes.

Ms. Google will try to get me to read “news” from different sources. Yesterday, she showed me one of many articles claiming that the Trump administration is reacting differently to the riots in LA than they did to the “riot” on January 6th.

Paraphrasing Mr. Dunn, “Orange man bad. He pardoned those evil J6ers that admitted to …”

This is an absolutely true statement. Many of the people who were detained for their actions on January 6th did plead guilty to multiple crimes.

What was not said was that these were people who had been crushed by the juggernaut of the Department of inJustice. These people were often arrested in S.W.A.T. type raids, early morning dynamic entry. They were then held without bond awaiting trial.

There are multiple reports of these people being held in horrible conditions for many months. There were people who served multi-year sentences before their trial even began.

They were offered a chance to plead out and if they did not take the plea deal their court date was frequently pushed back.

It was never about justice, it was about punishment and sending a message.

So people did plead out. They took the plea so they could get out of the damn gulag. They wanted their lives back. They knew that they would continue to be punished for maintaining their innocences.

One of the hard things for anybody to understand is that these were people that had never expected to be locked up. They aren’t prepared for prison/jail.

These aren’t gangbangers that expect to do a few years behind bars to gain cred.

These were just regular people that were abused by the inJustice system to make a despicable point.

Yesterday’s article was a surprise to me. I started the post with one mindset, and ended in a different place. Occasionally, it helps to talk out your issues.

It started with my statement, Snope should have been GVRed.

Why? Because the Supreme Court has already done a gun ban case. It is a slam dunk, easy case.

Slam dunk, easy cases, don’t make good law. Just like bad facts make bad law, easy cases don’t advance the law.

Every case the Supreme Court takes is important. They intend it to be important. While every case is important to somebody, or to a group, not every case is important to the country or the Court.

Every Second Amendment case is important to me. I want every court at every level to make a good ruling based on the plain text of the Second Amendment and this Nation’s historical tradition of firearms regulation. To do anything less is to flaunt the rule of law and our founding documents.

Too many judges are agenda-driven hacks, black robed wannabe tyrants, operating their rogue inferior court as if they are the supreme authority of this nation.

When an inferior court makes a bad decision, their superior court should step in and set them right.

If every inferior court judge had every bad decision slapped down, there would be many fewer bad decisions. On Monday, the court decided 116 cases.

Of those, three cases were an invitation to the Solicitor General to file a motion on how the US Government stands in the case.

Two were, “You can proceed as a pauper, you must pay to play.” One denial of cert had two dissents written. The rest are denials. Most of which are dealt with by being put in a column titled “Denied”. Nothing more.

If the Supreme Court was capable of dealing with more cases in a meaningful way, then I could see them taking these slam dunk cases.

Unfortunately, the court has painted itself into a corner in what they feel they can say. I can wish all I want that a GVR would say more than “in light of Rahimi“, but a GVR never has more than “do it over obeying this new opinion”. This should be happening with more targeted language.

But they don’t.

Instead, they hear 65 to 70 cases per term. They decide which cases will have the most impact on our country. Which cases will bring common understanding across all the circuits.

They choose. And right now, Roberts is not going to let more than a couple of Second Amendment cases be heard per term.

I agree with Thomas and Alito, the Court should have dealt with Snope in some way other than ignoring it.

Dealing with it now might make a difference in the next few years.

More likely, it would not have accomplished anything. The Court is supposed to set guiding principles. It isn’t supposed to be fixing individual results.

Assume the Court said, “AR-15s are arms under the plain text of the Second Amendment. They are in common use. They cannot be banned.”

What would change in the Ninth Circus court? The First, Second Third, Forth and Seventh Circuit? Nothing.

“The Supreme Court has said that Semi Automatic rifles are arms under the plain text, they are most similar to machine guns which can presumptively be banned.”

Or they require a permit to own an “assault weapon”. It is no longer “banned”. Instead, you are required to register as an assault weapon owner, pay $1000/year per assault weapon.

They didn’t ban those evil assault weapons, they are just making sure that people treat the ownership of such weapons seriously.

We need to see advancement in the Second Amendment.

When Bruen was decided, multiple cases were GVRed. Those cases are making their way back to the Supreme Court. If the Court takes any of them and produces a major opinion, like Heller, or Bruen, then we are on track.

So I’m licking my wounds and preparing to fight for the rights of The People to keep and bear arms.

During the term, the Supreme Court has multiple conferences. The Friday conference is when they decide which cases will be granted cert, which will be denied, and other issues relating to cases, outside of opinions.

On the following Monday, they publish their order list. This is a list of all the cases they have an action on. Some of those a denial of cert, others are denials of moving forward as somebody that can’t pay filing costs, others are invitations to the federal government to speak up on the case.

The only people in the conferences are the 9 justices. There are no law clerks, no bus boys, no secretaries. It is just the nine of them.

When evaluating a motion for a writ of certiorari, it only takes 4 justices to grant the writ.

A case that is granted cert can be quickly handled by vacating the inferior court’s decision and remanding the case back to the inferior court. This is normally accompanied by instructions to “do it over, right, in light of a recent opinion”.

I would have loved to see the Court GVR Snope with “in light of Heller and Bruen“. Not that it would have done anything when dealing with the Fourth Circuit, but it still would have been an interesting method of dealing with these rogue inferior courts.

If they are not GVRing a case, but simply granting cert, they will schedule oral arguments and set deadlines for all briefs to be filed. They never state a dissent or make a statement when a case is granted cert.

If they deny cert, most times it is a simple list of cases with a short sentence at the end, “the motion for certiorari is denied.

The Snope case is ripe to be heard by the Court. It has been kicking around since 2013. It was one of the cases that was seeking cert while Bruen was seeking cert. It could have been the case to move Second Amendment jurisprudence forward.

The Court did the right thing in taking Bruen. Snope, known as Bianchi at the time, was a simple repeat of Heller. Bruen advanced our cause significantly.

The holding was that the Second Amendment extends outside the home. That is huge. It is much bigger than saying, “It is a gun ban case, we decided it in Heller, you can’t ban guns in common use for legal purposes.”

The Supreme Court only hears 70 or so cases a year. That is across all parts of the legal landscape. First Amendment, Fourth and Fifth amendments, environment and a host of other subjects.

The question becomes twofold, how many Second Amendment cases will the court hear in a term, and what are the best cases to take?

The Supreme Court heard Rahimi in the 2024 term (current term) as well as VanDerStok.

Was Snope the right vehicle for the next major Second Amendment opinion?

Maybe not. If the Court could hear every Second Amendment case presented to them, then yes. This was a slam dunk case for The People.

It would not have advanced Second Amendment jurisprudence in any significant way. It would be a redo of Heller.

Justice Thomas would have written, either as the author of the opinion or in a concurrence, that the plain text is plain, there is no evaluation to do. But it would still just be another Heller.

We have other cases coming forward. My feelings were that an opinion in Snope would have addressed these other cases, but maybe we need to have the court look at sensitive places?

When the Bruen opinion issued, I remember focusing in on “sensitive places”. It was obvious to me that many of the rogue states would laser focus on making as much of their state “sensitive places” as possible. The goal isn’t to make every place illegal for you to carry, it is to make it so legally dangerous that you don’t bother.

Every time something comes up on Craigslist that I want which is in MA, I evaluate it in terms of drive time and danger. Because I have to leave my firearm behind when I travel into Mass. It is painful.

There are two east-west roads near me. One is faster to certain towns in NH. But, it dips into Mass for part of that trip. I refuse to use that route, even if it adds 15 to 30 minutes to trip time.

Now imagine thousands of little “legal guns prohibited” areas in a state. What happens if you’re driving to pick up a rabbit hutch, and you drive past a school. With the way some states work, that could be a felony.

So the Court could be looking for a sensitive places case. Or, one that I would like to see, a reciprocity case? How cool would it be if the court found that whatever requirements my state requires is all it takes for me to be able to carry any state?

I’m disappointed. I never expect anything of Roberts. I was hoping for better from Amy.

This is a war. It is better to not lose this battle and continue to make headway in the Supreme Court.

Boy am I disappointed.

I was in 2nd grade when I decided I was going to make a table and chairs. I had watched my grandfather make things. It couldn’t be that hard. With my mother and grandparents providing the material, I made a table and chair.

It was a success. Was it sturdy enough for an adult to stand on? No. Regardless, for a 2nd grader, it was very much a success.

As a 4th grader, I watched my father rebuild the engine of our VW Microbus. He used the original “idiot” book to do it.

From my father, I learned how to break concrete, how foundation forms were put in place, how concrete was poured and how to frame in a room. When I say, “I learned”, it means that I had my hands on the tools doing. I had the blisters to show for it.

A few years later, 6th grade or so, I purchased my first motorcycle. When it needed work, I am the one who tore it down and rebuilt it. And then got it back together and running.

That was my success. My father didn’t lay hands on that motor or motorcycle. It was mine, and I was going to do.

Did I mess up? You bet I did. I don’t remember the failures because they were mine. I learned from them. Then I went and tried again. Today, 50 years later, I can still hear the sound of that MX-80 screaming back to life.

My parents let me own my failures, they let me own my successes. They never stole my success nor my failures from me.

Years passed. It didn’t matter what it was, I was willing to try. I was willing to fail. I tried learning how to draw. I spent four months drawing hands. In the end, I decided that I preferred photography.

When my brother and I needed to work on the VWs, we pulled the engines ourselves. We could tear down and rebuild an engine on the side of the road. How do I know we can? Because we did. It was in a gas station parking lot. Bro and I pulled the engine from the VW, tore it down enough to get to the broken, removed and replaced the broken part. Put the whole thing back together and put it back into the bus.

We did it between 1700 and 0200, then we drove another 400 miles the next day to get to my grandparents.

“Can do” isn’t the correct version of our attitude, it was more like, “We’ll make it work.”

Today, children aren’t allowed to fail. Even in simple things. My son made a wonderful meal the other weekend. I was asking him what went into it. We are about done, but still discussing things, when my wife pipes up to tell me a spice that was in the meal.

I knew it was there. I wanted my son to tell me. She stole his success.

I’m lucky, my kids do know how to succeed because they also know about failure.

My second wife refused to try new things. She explained the reason thus:

As a child, her mother would look at what she was going to attempt to do, then her mother would tell her, don’t bother to try, you can’t do that.

How can you succeed if you don’t try? How can you fail if you don’t try?

It is said that Edison said, “We didn’t fail, we just learned another material that doesn’t work as a filament.”

We learn so much more from failure than we do from success.

Consider a class of 20 students. We can fit a bell curve to those students. There will be a mean and standard deviation for those students. From that, we can determine which will get As, Bs, Cs, Ds, and Fs. It is standard statistics.

We do this by using an instrument to measure something about those students. If we have an instrument that gives every student a 100%, we know nothing. That instrument is useless.

We want an instrument in which nobody gets 100%. At the same time, we need to be careful of the outliers on the high end. If you have somebody who gets 100% on a test where everybody else is getting 50% or lower, you can’t design your test/instrument to have the outlier get a 95%

One of the interesting things my mentor taught me about digital cell phone communications is that the protocols strive to match a 90% raw error rate. If the error rate is higher than that, the phone uses more power to get a cleaner signal. If it is better than that, the phone reduces power until it is running at that 90% error rate.

At 90% error rate, the algorithms can repair the damage and give a perfect digital signal.

If we were running at 100%, we would never know when we were using too much power.

We live in a society where the ego of a student is much more important than long-term success. We give out participation awards. We have games where we ‘don’t keep score.’

There is an old joke: A man walks up to a baseball diamond where some kids in a youth league are playing. He asks one of the fathers/couches, “What’s the score?” “We don’t keep score. We play for the joy of the game.” One of the kids yells over from the dugout, “We’re ahead 5 to 3.”

My children know that if they ask for feedback, they will get honest feedback. If they don’t ask, they will get a proud parents’ response. My kid’s friends know the same.

It also means that when I give out a “well done”, it means something. My kids know that their mother will always praise whatever they do, no matter how bad it is.

“Everybody makes mistakes!” is something I’ve had shouted at me.

Yep, that’s true. But not everybody learns from their mistakes. You cannot learn from your mistake if you don’t know you made a mistake. You can learn from your mistakes if you’re not allowed to make mistakes.

I’m learning how to turn wood. I’ve learned not to stand in front of the work when I first apply the cutting tool. Why? Because that damn bowl coming off the spindle at 1300 RPM HURT. I’ve learned a little.

I have seen some people decock the hammer of a firearm with their thumb between the firing pin and the hammer. I thought it was stupid. It is how I do it now. I had the hammer slip one time with a loud bang when the hammer stopped moving. It will not hurt all that much to have the hammer fall on my thumb if it stops a round from going “that-a-way”.

It is easy to see how stealing their successes can be bad. Stealing their failures is worse.