Gender Affirmation

America has a unique Constitution. When it was first introduced to the world it was actually laughed at by many foreign heads of state, kings, and autocrats. Many world leaders thought the idea that a civilian population was entitled to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” was a ridiculous foundation for a political system. A “right of happiness”? Indeed!. Hogwash.

Thus started the most progressive and insightful writings of the 16th century: Our Declaration of Independence (1776), The Constitution of the United States, and the Bill of Rights (1787 - together, the Constitution). Unequaled in its purported respect for dignity, rights, and individual liberty, the Constitution was far from a conservative document. From the right to carry arms to personal freedoms and equal justice under the law, these documents were bleeding-edge progressive in their time. 

Many of the provisions of the Constitution, however, were not readily accepted by the States or their representatives in 1787. To many U.S. politicians of the time, they were simply words on parchment.  From the enslavement of African laborers and religious persecution to the lack of voting rights for women and the attempted extermination of the American Indian, it has taken nearly 250 years to realize many of the promises that document made. And we are still far from its intended goals.

The LGBTQ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender/Transvestite, and Queer/Questioning) movement has been testing the limits of the promise of a right to happiness for several decades. I, for one, believe in the personal right to love whom you wish and marry whoever you please. I am a live-and-let-live straight white guy that has had many LGBTQ friends, acquaintances, and employees in my life. I respect their rights and choices as if they were my own. 

The self-RIGHTeous movement embedded in the Republican Party these last few years has now taken aim at ‘Gender Affirmation’.  For those of you not familiar with what that is, it’s simply the NEED for a person to be seen as the opposite sex (gender) from which they were born. I stress the word NEED. It’s not simply a “choice” as many straights like me once thought. It is actually a hormonal, physical, and psychological need. Gender-Affirming care is the medical term for evaluating and treating this condition.

Restricting gender-affirming care is an affront to the Constitution itself. It is NOT something a government should be meddling in. The medical community, mental health professionals and, for pre-adults, parents, should be the sole source of medical care decisions. 

But, as with all ‘rights,’ there are limits to what should be considered fair and equitable. That brings me to my ‘limits’, so to speak: Transgender athletics and gender-affirming medical procedures in children and adolescents.

Just as PEDs (performance-enhancing drugs) are banned from competitive sports, I believe PEG (performance-enhancing gender) should be limited as well. Now I sincerely believe it is the right of every child or adult to engage in athletics – regardless of gender. But we have always recognized the fairness of gender alignment, especially in team sports and competition. From gymnastics to the WNBA and WNT, women have been given their own athletic scholarships, statistical records, and awards. Allowing PEG to share in these artifacts would be quite unfair to those who were not availed of the genetic or medical enhancements available through transgender care.

It is also a medical truth that the human brain in general, and the prefrontal cortex in particular, is not fully formed or fully functional until around 24 years of age. The prefrontal cortex is the area of the brain responsible for performing reasoning, planning, judgment, and impulse control - all necessities for being an “adult”. While providing gender-affirming care is, I believe, very important for the healthy maturation of a young brain, surgical or other irreversible medical procedures to change gender artificially, should be limited and controlled, if allowed at all, for individuals under the age of 21.

Just My 2 cents.

Reference:

What is Gender Affirming care? Your questions answered. Association of American Medical Colleges. Retrieved from: https://www.aamc.org/news-insights/what-gender-affirming-care-your-questions-answered  - April, 2023

Gender Affirming Care and Young People. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Retrieved from: https://opa.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/2022-03/gender-affirming-care-young-people-march-2022.pdf  - April 2023

Maturation of the Adolescent Brain. National Library of Medicine. Retrieved from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3621648/ - July 2023

Artificial Intelligence: When the Real Thing is in Short Supply

The term Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been around for decades. Back in the day, if anything was automated, it was considered “AI”. From early computerized task automation and robotics to autopilot and cruise control, AI was anything an engineer or programmer wanted it to be. 

In 2023 a new level of AI was introduced in the form of an LLM (Large Language Model).  As the acronym may imply, an LLM has three major characteristics: It’s Large, it relates to a Language and incorporates learning Modeling. 

The Large in LLM takes advantage of recent advances in computerized storage in the petabyte (1,000 terabytes) range. With interconnected arrays allowing related storage in the exabytes (1,000 petabytes) range.

The Language function incorporates vast amounts of text data, such as books, articles, and web pages, in order to learn (store) the patterns and structures of a given language.

The Model brings the enormous storage and the language functions together through programming. Large Language Programs and their parameters, however, require an equally large processing capability.  Only recently has this capability been enhanced through neural network architectures and will soon benefit further from quantum computing technologies.

The programming and the large relational database are combined with billions of parameters that can generate human-like text that is difficult to distinguish from text written by humans. This has led to a “self-learning” Q&A type of AI that has only been possible in the last couple of years.

A ‘Perfect’ LLM would be one that is only populated with facts. But if an AI is tasked with ‘talking’ to a human, the language model parameters must be capable of understanding human abstract thought – in the context of a conversation. A conversation among humans is rarely, if ever, based solely on fact – but rather the lack thereof.

So, the current ChatGPT LLM, which is taking society by storm, had its initial language model populated from years of content of an online chat service (Reddit). As it matures, the inputs and reactions from actual human conversation are meant to strengthen its interactive reliability and applicability. 

Reddit was not the only source of ‘information’ however. When I asked ChaptGPT: “Where do you get your facts? Is there a primary source like Wikipedia?” It answered thus:

“As an AI language model, I don't have the ability to browse the web or search for information like humans do. Instead, I have been pre-trained on a large corpus of text data, which includes a wide range of sources such as books, articles, websites, and other textual materials.

"The training data is carefully curated to ensure accuracy, diversity, and relevance, and it comes from a variety of sources, including but not limited to Wikipedia. However, it's important to note that while my training data is designed to be as accurate and reliable as possible, there may still be errors or inaccuracies in some of the information I provide.

"To help ensure the accuracy of my responses, I rely on a combination of statistical patterns and machine learning algorithms, as well as various natural language processing techniques. Additionally, my responses are generated based on the specific wording and context of each question or prompt I receive, so the information I provide may be influenced by the wording or phrasing of the original question.”(1)

Herein lies the rub.

The basis that the AI model has “…been pre-trained on a large corpus of text data...” and “The training data is carefully curated” - means program parameters, curators and trainers are the primary basis of information and interaction. Machine learning takes up the slack – as much as allowed.

So, what if the LLM programmers, curators, and trainers are all Chinese communists? And what if the platform for interaction with the LLM is monitored and censored by the government? Or an Islamic state was to launch and train a similar AI? Or a Jewish state, Or Christian... yada yada…. Humans have considerable biases that they are required or indoctrinated to accept as fact and truth. The LLM they create will contain the same biases and likely the same misinformation.

Reminiscent of the early days of the internet - when all that could come out of a global social network was seen as good and wholesome – the AI revolution could very well create even greater walls between cultures, governments, and the people therein, than ever before.

The internet of today is almost a religion in and of itself. Take it away from the population and you will likely see chaos. AI could be the next tech-religion and another way for those with power to control those without.

Be careful of what you wish for. 

JWB

(1) ChaptGTP 3.5 – March 23, 2023 – Captured & copied from https://chat.openai.com/chat, April 7th, 2023.

Crimes Against Humanity

In the last weeks of June in the year 2022 the Supreme Court of the Unites States (SCOTUS) rescinded federal protection of common sense gun laws and a woman's reproductive rights. In the act of doing so they also weakened the separation of church and state and endangered constitutional guarantees to such basic constitutional precepts as life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. 

And I'm all for it.

This is a simple case, and a common case, of fundamentalism taking over the judiciary. It happens. But it may be a blessing in disguise. 

First, let's look at the premise of these two cases:

1. New York's concealed carry gun laws (in effect for nearly 100 years). This law stated, among other things, that a person that wants to carry a firearm outside their home had to show cause as to why they needed to. 

SCOTUS interpreted the 2nd amendment of the constitution to mean, literally, a persons right to carry arms will not be infringed. Period. In other words, the onus is on the State to determine why a citizen cannot carry arms - it's not the citizens responsibility to show why they can. The Constitution says they can. Score one for SCOTUS.

2. The Roe vs. Wade (Row) decision that was interpreted to allow a woman's right to abortion was overturned. The Row so called "abortion rights" decision was actually based on a right to personal privacy - not on reproductive rights.

Again SCOTUS rightfully established that reproductive rights are not guaranteed protection in the Constitution, per se. They asserted the association of personal privacy to a reproductive decision in Roe was far and away too separate to be joined in a legal context.

Ramifications of overturning Row:

If reproductive rights are not associated with personal freedoms or privacy in the Constitution, then there may be a complete set of religious social "anti-choice" targets (atheism, adultery, same sex marriage, LGTBQ rights, transexual medical procedures, sex education,...) that States can now legally impose laws against. 

Likewise, other states and private parties, individuals and corporations that defy another State's anti-choice laws could be liable, under said laws, to be sued - and individuals that aid and abed those seeking rights elsewhere could be fined and/or imprisoned in the subject state.

The Blessing:

With a clear majority of American's supporting the right to personal choice - from reproduction to firearms, the time may be right for the progressive left in this country to move our congressional makeup back to the center - where the rest of the western world has been for some time.

With enough votes, we can update the Constitution with reproductive rights and place restrictions - if not replace entirely - the 2nd amendment. But the 2nd amendment is really the harder one to address.

2nd Amendment Details:

The actual wording of the second amendment has always been ambiguous:

“...a well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

It's that darn comma between "State" and "the right". It's almost as if it denotes a parenthetical clarification as to what allows an effective Militia - not a singular pronouncement for all citizens. If the word "and" was used in place of the comma, there would be no question as to the intent of the amendment. The author HAD to know that this was going to be scrutinized endlessly for centuries. So why the ambiguity?

The answer may be in the document that inspired the U.S. Bill of Rights in the first place. The English "Bill of Rights" of 1688. It declared: 

"Protestants may have arms for their defence [sic] suitable to their conditions and as allowed by law." 

If this truly was the inspiration for the 2nd amendment, it is clear that the Right was indeed meant to subject to some laws. The author of the 2nd amendment may have simply assumed the "allowed by law" clause was as unnecessary as the reference to "Protestants".

In any case, the amendment has made the U.S. into a sick Wild West show with innocent civilians and children paying the price.

Citizen militias (not controlled by the State as suggested in the amendment) are arming thousands, carrying guns to protests, and mounting insurrection at the bidding of mentally ill leaders. It's time to clean it up and make it relevant to the modern world. Or the amendment that was supposed to prevent an armed overthrow of democratic government may very well be the cause of it.

JB

Ivan the Terrible

Most school children have heard of Ivan the Terrible. Ivan IV Vasilyevich was famous for two things: First, establishing the Russian Tzar as a dangerous, powerful, and formidable autocrat; and second, the transformation of the city-state Moscow into the first Russian Empire.

Born Grand Prince of Moscow in 1531, Ivan the IV ruled from the age of three. He was made ruler as a dying whish of his father, Ivan III.  His father’s death spawned a series of plots and intrigue by powerful "advisors" to the ruler - including the poisoning of his mother when he was eight - and finally culminated in his ascension in 1547, at the age of 16, to Tsar.

In early life he did many very progressive and popular things, like revising the Rule of Law, establishing the first Russian parliament, expanding Christianity, standardizing orthodoxy, and introducing the printing press – to name only a few.

In older life, he personified the axiom: “Absolute power corrupts absolutely”.  Whether it was dementia or power mad brutality, we may never know. But in time he helped characterize the position of Tsar as one accountable to no earthly authority - but only to God.

His wars in Crimea, Siberia, Poland & Turkey, among others, were brutal attacks on citizens and rulers alike. His military exploits crippled the Russian economy, and at his death, Russia entered what was called the “Time of Troubles” where people starved, and the oligarchs took divided control of a devastated country.  

Today a modern Ivan the Terrible is at the helm of Russia. Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin has stolen the playbook of Ivan Vasilyevich. In his autocratic position of absolute power, he yearns to rebuild the communist Soviet Union by any means necessary.

Vladimir the Terrible is writing his legacy in real time – as we watch.  Unlike the Tsars of the past, today’s power mad dystopian ruler can put his evil on display for the world to see. As he laughs and threatens nuclear war if he is opposed – the 5 o’clock news details the brutality and suffering of a nation that posed no threat.  No threat in any way. Their only fault: Serving as a reminder of the power that was once the façade of the USSR.

Held together by force, fear and propaganda, the old USSR could not endure in the face of increasing challenges to its antiquated economic and technical shortcomings. Many of the western regions of the failed USSR sought independence once again – and that, to Putin’s way of thinking – was a wrong that needed correcting.

Ukraine is a nation of the proud and the imperfect. It’s only been independent from the USSR for thirty years. Many of the old communist influencers are still there. It still struggles to balance a thirst for democracy with a history of communist political and economic corruption. But they were making progress. Real progress. Progress the entire world was monitoring – from the European Union to NATO – and yes – to Putin.

Putin and his oligarchs once felt that Ukraine would slowly dissolve back into Russia. The eastern provinces were already break-away areas that Russian military "advisors" propped up. Russia took the Crimea by force in 2014 as a display of their resolve. Putin clearly expected the rest of Ukraine would simply fall in line in time. Once it became obvious that his wishes were not being honored by the Ukrainian politic, he resorted to the only tactic absolute corruption has left.

Russian armed forces are capable. While they still may lack the organization and control of a democratic force, they are more than Ukraine can reasonably hope to defend against. Over time, the shear force of destruction and death will make it impossible to resist.

Many politicians and pundits in the U.S. have tried to figure out Putin’s “End Game”.  What is he trying to achieve? Nothing. What has Ukraine done to deserve this? Nothing. What does Ukraine have that Russa desperately needs? Nothing.  What will Putin do with Ukraine once he is victorious? Nothing.

He simply wants to rule it. Period. He does not care if it is a pile of rubble and blood stained streets. It will be his.

I can see why Trump thinks so highly of him.

JB

Anti-truth Vaccine Politics

I have done a couple posts on my take on Anti-Vaxx politics.  In my prior post, Death to the Heroes, I opined that first responders were the most important group that MUST vaccinate against Covid – for the protection of the population in general, and their patients in particular. In my Anti-Vaxx II post, I warned against generalizing the reasons for not vaccinating.  There are people who feel it’s an abundance of caution – or fear of negative reactions – or fear of needles – that keeps them from getting vaccinations.

But the data is clear. Ninety-five percent of those refusing vaccines are not cautious. They are politically aligned with a ‘personal right of refusal’.  It’s their constitutional right to refuse. It’s as simple as that.

These people are predominately Republican, white, and biased. They are over 80% Trump supporters and avid followers of Fox News and similar biased right wing news sources. They hold a palpable hate for liberals and progressives – and the scientific institutions or policies they support.

It’s not important that they can never cite any progressive program, decision, law, or regulation that has affected them personally. It’s not about actual facts, experiences or outcomes. It’s about politics.

I saw this graphic (scientifically developed and peer reviewed) from the CDC. Digest it.

Source: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/mm7105e1.htm

The CDC is a civilian body. It is NOT a government agency and cannot be controlled by the President or Congress (Trump had many frustrations with the CDC but was powerless to control it).  The right-wing media – and even some left-leaning media – get this wrong. They think the CDC and the FDA are controlled in the same way. Nothing could be further from the truth. The CDC was intentionality made to be independent from governmental and political pressure. It’s pure science. Pure medicine. Pure research.

The illustrations show – beyond any doubt – that the Omicron strain of Covid was an unvaccinated pandemic. It took a highly contagious variant to illustrate the truth. The first illustration above is based on positive tests; and the second on hospitalizations.

What these illustrations DO NOT show is how many of the vaccinated or vulnerable were infected by the unvaccinated. The contagion level of an unvaccinated person is many times that of a vaccinated person. Enough to break-through the fragile immune barrier older, or immunocompromised, individuals have - even with a vaccine. Nor does it show how many hospital beds were occupied by the unvaccinated that were desperately needed by the ill or injured.

How many deaths, I wonder, due to these people’s need to practice a political ‘right of refusal’ account for?

We will never know.

JB

A Glimmer of Hope

I’m a bit of a news junkie. As if that were not apparent to anyone following my posts. But my news gathering regimen has taken quite a few turns over the last few decades.

Back in the day – before cable TV – the news was mainly what I read in the Sunday paper and saw on the nightly TV broadcasts (ABC, NBC, CBS,.. that was about it).  As new media was added in the age of the internet and satellites - along came cable channels like CNN.  A news junkies panacea of “Nothing but news 7x24”… I loved it.  Never had to wait for a news broadcast to catch up on the latest events.  CNN was followed by other similar formats, but CNN pretty much set the standard in the early days of cable. They were followed in short order by other topic driven channels like ESPN: Sports 7x24; Bloomberg: Business 7x24; etc.

The age of genre specialization was off and running and internet content was not far behind.  From YouTube to FaceBook the new social media platforms offered content so granular that individual genre in the form of ‘influencers’ has made what was once a source of information, now a source of uneducated opinion, speculation, conspiracy, and largely unrestrained hyperbole.

Faced with sensory overload and few bona fide fact-based sources I went into a sort of sensory shutdown. I deleted my Facebook account altogether; removed CNN and like networks (all were slowly becoming pits of opinion rather than news) from my favorites on my ‘Smart TV’; and basically, returned to where I started. I bought digital subscriptions to the Washington Post; LA Times, yada,… Started recording the news broadcasts of CNBC’s Shepard Smith and the weekly CBS 60 minutes series. Still needed a good conservative source though. CNBC was just not enough. FOX & Newsmax were jokes. Then, last weekend, CBS 60 Minutes had an interview with someone I had never heard of:  Andrew Sullivan (sincere apologies sir).  Apparently, I had been living under a conservative rock for decades.

As I listened to Mr. Sullivan’s story and philosophy, I could feel the cool breeze of fresh conservative air being brought back into my lungs. I subscribed immediately to ‘The Weekly Dish’: Mr. Sullivan’s blog. Then I read his latest (November 19, 2021) blog post and realized I had found my source of conservative integrity.  

He is the first bona fide conservative I have read that understands that the American form of Democracy is liberal by design. That true conservatism is a rudder not a sail. That the Constitution of the United States was – and should continue to be - one of the most progressive experiments in governance ever developed.

I never expected to be caught up in a modern day social influencer’s take on current events and political discourse.  But this man’s thought leadership is exactly what the American Right needs right now. I hope that, in some small way, I can help him be heard. 

JWB

 

 

The Next Crusade

I’m an atheist. Let’s get that out of the way up front. Those that are offended by others’ religious views can stop reading right now. Saves us both time and frustration.

For those still with me, I want to offer a serious challenge to each of you and our country as a whole.  I have no skin in the Religion game. I find all religions lacking truth, facts, and relevance. But I do have a home, family, and a country I love. And that's where our paths cross.

After the January 6^th uprising in Washington DC, there was talk from the far right of a civil war brewing. A Zogby poll taken shortly after, found that 46% of likely voters believed the country could experience civil war.  And not just republicans; both parties and independents held the same view.

On November 13^th, 2021 while on a ‘ReAwaken America’ tour with other like minded haters, Michael Flynn, a former Trump administration official, said, and I quote: “If we are going to have one nation under God, which we must, we have to have one religion. One nation under God, and one religion under God,…”. Of course, he was talking about the One true God. You know, the one attributed to Judaism.

While I’m sure Christian revisionist history is well preserved in this ‘tour’ of the self-righteous; the one religion all in attendance assumed he meant was, of course, Christianity.

Much of the recent talk of civil war in America centers, as it did 150 years ago, on bigotry. And it’s nothing really all that new. During Barack Obama’s presidency, racist GOP leaders in eight southern states wanted to secede from the union rather than live in a country with a black president.  

Not to be outdone by the racists, after the 2016 election of Trump, there was a secessionist movement by liberal elites in California.

Racism in and of itself is not going to spark a war. Civil unrest, maybe, but no one thinks basing a war solely on political divide or racial bigotry will ever succeed. However, religious bigotry has a long history of success in starting and fueling conflicts. Big ones.

Add to all this a recent ‘woke’ movement to remove or destroy all civil war relics and memorials; defund police departments; etc… and you have a heat building in the conservative heartland.

So, there’s a lot of civil tinder and accelerant lying around right now. All it needs is a spark.

Giving a platform and pulpit to the likes of ReAwaken America is as dangerous as it is traitorous. Our Constitution recognizes that only religious freedom will ensure civil freedom. It espouses the rule of law and equality for all. With CNN, Qanon, Facebook, Fox News, Newsmax,… yada, yada at their disposal, the perpetrators of civil conflict – on both sides - can get the upper hand in spite of the Constitution. We must stop giving these haters a voice.

All the media that these haters need to be heard and become powerful rely on advertising to keep them solvent. If enough people say ‘enough’ - and we stop buying from their advertisers (and we let the advertisers know Why we stopped) - the platform on which these traitors stand will soon collapse.

The religious Crusades of the eleventh and twelfth centuries were brutal conflicts that killed and maimed millions of men, women, and children. Fueled by the church, religious brainwashing, lies, bigotry and power mongering; this formula will still work today.

I challenge America to stop it while it can.

JB