Musings of One Trying to Visualize How the Ancient Romans Multiplied XVIII by LXX and got MCCLX

Thinking about the part of the First Amendment to the Constitution regarding freedom of speech, upon reflection it seems to me that the right is not absolute. As a Supreme Court justice once observed, it does not give one the right to shout "Fire!" in a crowded theater when there is no fire. Nor does it give one the right to indulge in slander or libel without penalty. Similarly, it seems to me, that the right is limited to areas owned or controlled by governmental bodies. For example, if one in charge of private property chooses to post a sign "No Profanity" that is his right; it does not restrict anyone's freedom of speech. Those who wish to engage in it are free to go out on the sidewalk and spout cuss words to their hearts' content (though they might arrested for disturbing the peace).

Musings of One Trying to Help an Ant Find Its Way Home After Being Caught in a Tornado

After many years of observation, I have reached the empirical conclusion that if you walk down the sreets of any large city except for Washington, D.C. and ask the first hundred people you meet to define the word "corporation", 95 would give a wrong definition or no definition at all. And the same would hold true of the terms "net profits" and "net earnings". Some individuals would probably consult the appropriate dictionaries and make a liar out of me. That's okay.

Musings of One Watching a Donkey and an Elephant Spar Over a HUGE Shipping Container Marked "Hundred-Dollar Bills",

but Actually Containing Slips of Paper Marked "IOU One-Hundred Dollars"

I wonder how much attention high school and college curricula give to the Constitution and its history, or if indeed they give them any attention at all.

Musings of One Idly Contemplating a Stopped-Up Gutterspout

With my usual keen and perceptive insight, I have noted that a great many people seem to have a subconcsious notion that government is some sort of big physical being with its own source of wealth. Wrong.

In its nature government is akin to a corporation: "...an artificial being - invisible, intangible and existing only in contemplation of law." (In fact, some governmental organizations are corporations.)

As such, government's affairs are conducted by fallible human beings who are no smarter than the rest of us, and certainly not qualified to manage or regulate the ongoing activities of three hundred million individuals of varied origins and backgrounds, multitudinous opinions and differing objectives. Nobody is that smart.

Government has no independent source of wealth. It gets its wealth from taxes and borrowings, and redistributes it in various ways. Often it gets a return for its disbursements, e.g. military service; in other cases, such as grants and similar disbursements, it doesn't get any return.

Moral: Take everything with a grain of salt and vote for those who at least claim fiscal responsibility.

Musings of One Loading a Turnip Truck So Someone Else Can Fall Off It

With my usual keen and perceptive insight I have observed over the years that in most elections votes are cast on the basis of emotion or political affiliation rather than on the basis of objective analysis and reasoning. This is not too suprising because the candidates and the media rarely produce any hard data on which an objective analysis can be made.

Usually, the candidate with the most charisma and the greatest number of promises wins. If nobody has any charisma then the one with the greatest number of promises wins and thereafter spends a goodly amount of time explaining why promises which were valid before the election became invalid after the election, usually blaming predecessors and/or the opposition.(These are empirical conclusions, but I think they're justified).

Moral: Demand hard data and then vote for the one making the least number of promises and advocating smaller government.