Speaking freely

Saw a young feller stating that old truism, "You only have Freedom of Speech from the government."  The presumption is that since the Constitution and Bill of Rights only govern the limits to Federal government power, the rights listed there only apply in that context.  Which is true.  Sort of.   But...

The freedoms that are protected from Federal interference are protected in part because it would be very dangerous to allow the Gummint to interfere with those in particular.  And it is right and proper that they should be protected from such interference.

They are also listed there because they are valuable and desirable in themselves.  The founding fathers, if there ever were such animals, saw value in those freedoms, above and beyond the Federal context, and long before there was a Washington D.C.

We protect freedom of speech, and of the press, and of religion, because we Americans believe that it is important for people to be able to speak freely, to write freely, and to believe freely.   The Constitution only protects them from the Feds, true.  The remaining protections we have to provide ourselves, as a community and as a nation. I stand up for your freedom to speak your mind because it is important to the preservation of my liberties that yours be protected.  I stand up because it's right to stand up.

The founding fathers didn't spell that all out in the Constitution, because that's not what the Constitution is for.  If I recall, the Georgia delegation thought there shouldn't be a Bill of Rights because someday some fool would decide if a right wasn't on the list it didn't exist.  Demeaning the universality of freedoms, enumerated or not, is a similar sort of error.   The need to speak freely doesn't end at the Beltway.  The need to write freely doesn't end on the last page of the New York Times.

John Stuart Mill said it better in "On Liberty," I think.  Feel free to listen to the audio version I posted on Podiobooks.com.  The Federal government isn't the only force from which liberties must be protected.


Does that mean that every possible venue is in some fashion constrained by the Constitution to protect those freedoms for you?  Not at all.  They are constrained to preserve those freedoms because they are good and healthy freedoms for any open society like ours.  If one wishes to preserve that open society, by extension one wishes to preserve the attendant freedoms, even when the practice of those freedoms are ones of which we don't approve.

Are those constraints absolute, and must your freedoms in those venues be totally without bounds?  No, not really.  If you comment on my blog, that's your speech.  But overall, this blog is my speech.  What I include and exclude, what I bind and loose, is part and parcel of the message of my venue, my own speech, my own press. 

I can include those who agree with me.  I can also include those who intelligently disagree with me, where their disagreement adds value to the whole message.  But finally, the content of my speech in my venue must be determined by me.  Your freedom of speech is vitally important.  So is mine.  If I feel a comment doesn't add value, or worse, detracts from the value of my overall message, I'm free to exclude that comment from my message.

So speak freely.  And so will I.

There is too much at stake to stay home

Still not an LBJ fan, but what he said about responsibility....

This is an actor, in an ad paid for by LBJ's campaign.  And I was a bit young at the time, but LBJ was no great prize.

But I'm not the first to notice just how spooky this ad is in present circumstances.  Ya know what I mean?

Need a computer?

The folks at my Dayjob are updating the computers.  And they're giving away the old ones to employees like me.

So, today, I got yet another desktop computer.  Business-class, I guess you'd say.  Core 2 Duo the fella said, 2 gig of ram, 320 Gig HD, no OS on it, but I might be able to install Win7 on it -- still has the tag from the old Vista install, though the drive is wiped.  Then of course there's Linux, which I've never fiddled with much.

I now have in my lil bedroom two laptops, one of which is hooked up to two external monitors (mentioned elsewhere).  I have three desktops orphaned from Dayjob, with yet another monitor hooked up to the "newest" of those.  One conventional keyboard, one Bluetooth keyboard & mouse, two conventional mice not currently being used.

I also have my Fire 7 (discussed elsewhere), my new-ish Android phone, my previous still functional Android phone, my rooted Sylvania Android netbook (used to be WinCE).  The space program that went to the moon ran on the computing power equivalent of my cheap wristwatch.  I have an utterly absurd amount of computing power, and no practical use for it.

Well, podcasting, so that's one laptop.

Tempted to do those distributed-computing thingies, just to get some use out of all these devices.  Could try Bitcoin, but that mostly depends on a good GPU, and I'm short on those.

Might tap my friend Phred on the shoulder, ask if he could use a couple computers.  Not like I need 'em.

Resell?  Wouldn't think they'd have much resale value.

And I've only got one door, don't need this many doorstops.

It Can't Happen here

So, had one of those "uh oh" realizations this evening.

You may have heard, oil supplies are up a lot.

So, oil prices are down a lot.  So, people that process and sell oil & such are not making as much money.

As it happens, my dayjob is with a company that sells services to companies that sell energy.  I've been with them five years, as of a couple of days ago.  And the bosses are talking about efficiency and reorganization and whatnot.

Funny thing, before I started there I spent about six years working for another company, a multi-state phone center company like this one.  They got bought by a large southern company, like this one.

The tail end of that period was the start of that big economic slowdown we all remember.  Some said recession, some said depression.  Financial hard times.

The large southern company decided if they were going to trim, they'd protect their own job security by trimming as far from headquarters as possible.  And northern Minnesota and Wisconsin was as far from headquarters as possible.

So they closed the office where I worked, and I ended up a displaced worker for two years.  A Wisconsin state program offered to pay for me to go to vocational school to get into a different field.  And I'd always wanted to be on the radio...

Now during that period I did most of the episodes of most of my podcasts.  I also graduated from Media Studies & Production at Lake Superior College, and having a ridiculous amount of podcasting experience helped a lot with that.

When I got out of school, I couldn't get that broadcast job I'd hoped for and gone to school to qualify for, but I came across this temp assignment, indirectly working for MPR, with my current company.  I took it, temporarily.  I did well enough that they asked me to stay permanently. 

That almost always happens when I take temp jobs.  I'm lousy at applying for jobs, and lousy at interviewing -- Asperger syndrome, remember?  But give me to chance to do the work, I got Mad Skillz as the kids used to say.

Pretty early on, I noted the previously mentioned similarities to that earlier job, and mentioned them to the folks who'd convinced me to stay.  "But this is completely different!  That won't happen here..."

 All of those folks that hired me are gone now.

Hm.

Better check back in with the temp agencies.

Woulda been nice, though, huh?

There's qualified, and there's qualified.

I got an email back from Minnesota Public Radio regarding that radio host job I applied for. Unfortunately, it was that sort of email one hopes not to receive.

We appreciate you applying, we've found the candidates we want to consider further, you ain't one of them. Maybe we'll find someplace for you later. Maybe.

I could get angry about it, and sad. I already have for a while. And I hate it, but I really kind of get their point, too, although they didn't say it in so many words.

I've been podcasting for nine years. I'm reasonably good at that, I guess. I know how to do the things I've done and the things I do in the way I do them. For a self-taught audio guy, I'm pretty talented.

When they posted the job they were asking for someone with at least a Bachelors college degree "or equivalent experience," as well as experience with various broadcast-specific tools and technologies.

Nine years of anything is a whole lot of experience, and maybe that means I'd be able to do that job. But it is not only possible they could find someone with exactly the qualifications in the original posting. It's nearly impossible for them to not find such a candidate, probably several. And can I honestly say they'd be wrong to hire someone with the qualifications for which they asked in the first place? Given they're confident those qualifications would indicate an ability to do the job, are they wrong to hire someone like that?

Is there some particular reason to hire someone who only maybe could manage the job reasonably well? Someone who might well be thrilled to have the opportunity, but might well be only adequate in skills, even if sounding good on a microphone?

Hate to say it, but... nope.

Sure, it leaves me sad, heartsick and hopeless. But how I feel isn't a legitimate driver for their hiring decisions. I wanna work on the radio, and not work doing what I've been doing since 2003. But if I was the fella doing the hiring, given someone who had the specific qualifications, detail by detail... yeah, I think I'd hire them, too.

Maybe someday. Maybe someday. But at this moment, I can't say it seems likely I'll ever see that someday.

Good luck to the young college kid they'll give the job to.

Maybe someday.

As if you were a god to punish

I was mostly impressed with Scott Monty's post on Medium about Donald Trump, comparing him to Coriolanus.  As Mr Monty says, Coriolanus was "a general from the 5th century BC in Rome, who was recognized for his exceptional valor at a battle in the Volscian city Corioli.  He was later exiled from Rome for his anti-plebian (perhaps fascist?) views, and he subsequently led the Rome’s enemies the Volsci to attack Rome itself."

A bit harsh comparison.  But I can see it, yeah.  I see it more from the Shakespearean character.  "That's a brave fellow; but he's vengeance proud, and loves not the common people."  

CORIOLANUS Are these your herd?
Must these have voices, that can yield them now
And straight disclaim their tongues? What are
your offices?
You being their mouths, why rule you not their teeth?
Have you not set them on?
Coriolanus was no lover of the common people, fair enough.
BRUTUS You speak o' the people,
As if you were a god to punish, not
A man of their infirmity.

Harsh.  And yet...

He demanded honor for his bravery in battle.  But at least he had fought and earned those honors.  I'm reminded a bit also of George Patton, at least from the movie.  Arrogant, but his was fought-for arrogance.

Trump is arrogant because...

Help me out here.  Seems like the one thing about which he's got a basis for arrogance is being arrogant.  He's got a real talent for that.  Oh, yeah, he's rich and owns buildings and he's been on TV.  Thanks.

But arrogance isn't the only trouble.  The final question anyone must ask about any Presidential candidate is can this candidate be President of all Americans, after expressing disdain of so many?  Can he or she represent all our values, while condoning behavior we abhor?

If a candidate is running for President of his admirers... well, that's not the job.

If we're not careful, we'll get the President we, perhaps, deserve.