What I saw at the Revolution

I have been very fortunate to be at the outskirts of two major revolutions in science while getting my Bachelor's degree. Each of them were very memorable as they showed a side of science that those outside of it do not see and often cannot fathom. Doing science from the inside is not what you see on the outside, and no program, no speech, no series of papers or even books can describe the actual living through of scientific revolutions. As it was in a period of a few years two major changes in geology and materials science would happen during a short span in the 1980's. What science is and how it works changed my perception of it during those few short years of undergraduate work and they remain with me to this day.

Heading towards a geology degree at that time meant I had started after the previous revolution had transformed the field: plate tectonics. Before plate tectonics there were static continents, raising and lowering of land forms that was not well understood, 'land bridges' to explain population distributions of species, and general patching up of the old concept of Uniformitarianism. By finding out that the continents did move, that they floated on the lower and more plastic mantle, and that had currents in it due to heat in the core... all of that wiped away the patches, the bailing wire and the 'we just don't know' of so much that it is hard to conceive of what the science looked like before the mid-1960's. With wartime geomagnetic data in the Atlantic and other places, a lot of unexplained phenomena showed up that needed research, and decade following WWII was a massive sea change for geology. So much was explained that it was thought that ALL the unexplainable would be given over to it for solution, and yet even once we understood what plate motion meant and how it changed our planet and effected life on it, there were STILL problems.

While the Permo-Triassic mass extinction seemed to have deep roots with plate motion, in particular the position of a single continent that was formed by the collision of all the continents and its direction thereafter, the Cretaceous-Tertiary (K-T) was helped very little by plate tectonics. The die-off of the Dinosaurs and much in the way of plant life, plus sea life still had no solution. The Deccan Traps, a large volcanic field in modern day India, had ongoing eruptions, but nothing that left a fingerprint of mass extinction. Our understanding and observation of different, yet highly related species, today saw little ability of any virus or bacteria to go against a whole array of species: being a species meant different genetic make-up while having many shared characteristics the differences meant differential immunity. As an example: West Nile virus is preferential to bird populations, but each bird species has a different level of immunity to it. There was ongoing climactic change, due to continental drift, yes, but the spread of species and the slowness of drift meant that Dinosaurs could be found from their arctic (about what we have on the coast of Washington State or Oregon) all the way to their tropics. Some uplift in the North American continent meant changes, yes, but species have demonstrated in the last million years to be very adaptable and that it was not expected that Dinosauria would have such a rigid environmental need that all would be wiped out. Finally the discovery that birds were, in fact, a type of Dinosaur, meant that they had not all died out. This question had been with geology for a century and looked to be with it for at least another fifty or so years.

I remember the day that our class' Paleontology Professor walked in and said:

"Today we get to do some REAL work."

The paper by Alvarez team had come out recently, a response to its critics, and the Professor had time to digest it and decided now was a perfect time to introduce us to the latest, greatest and, presumably, most likely to fail theory of the K-T Mass Extinction. Luis Alvarez and his son Walter Alvarez were known in the fields of science before their proposition, and Luis Alvarez was something of the 'Old Man' of particle physics who had also worked on RADAR and many other important technologies, and continued his work into the 1960's. His son was a respected geologist and field researcher, and established in the geological community. Their concept of a boloid impact causing the K-T event had raised an uproar in 1980 and a major response article with rebuttal had arrived by the time I was in University. These papers, though lesser known, were essential to geology as it gave the critics time to marshal a response and then get a rebut from the Alvarez's. Mostly Luis Alvarez, but by then he and his team were no longer alone in their stance on the topic. It would, sadly, be one of the last papers that would come out with him included.

Our Professor had told me, some time after, that what Luis Alvarez had done was send a shockwave through geology. Not a shockwave of 'truth' but the shockwave of a dinner gong. Here was a particle physicist coming to tell geologists what went on at the K-T event... and he had crossed all the various old battle lines of germs vs volcanic activity vs deadly gases vs climate vs lack of adaptability. He hadn't paid attention to ANY of that. Indeed that original paper went far, far beyond just the 'here is what we think based on these findings', which could easily turn into a kicked around football for a few decades. No Luis Alvarez was basically saying that the entire geological community had IGNORED the K-T boundary layer and that IT explained the extinction event, so you could easily check this out ON YOUR OWN and DISPROVE HIM if he was wrong. Essentially anywhere you had continuous deposition from the end of the Cretaceous to the beginning of the Tertiary you had the boundary layer. In fact many (if not most) geology labs, universities with geology departments, and museums had samples they could check immediately.

Why was this a dinner gong?

YOU could take down one of the best known physicists of the era by simply demonstrating that the artifacts you found did NOT agree with what he proposed. That was a meal ticket unlike any other in science.

In fact he said you would find OTHER things in the layer that are contingent WITH an impact that you will NOT get with any known volcanic activity of that era.

This may not seem like much to those outside of the sciences, but the attractive target of a Nobel Winning Physicist sticking his neck out in geology and challenging the entire field to disprove him using not only his data but your own data which was IN your labs or specimen collections, changed how geologists viewed the field. Luis Alvarez wasn't alone and, from all accounts, was a rather congenial man. By putting that first paper out his team had taken the just settling field of geology, shook it up and took it out of academic papers and listless arguing and turned it into a full body contact sport. All you needed was good, hard data based on field specimens in which you described their in situ position and how you processed them and what you examined them with. The amazing turn-around time (a few years versus a decade or more) was due to the fact that nearly every lab, university and museum HAD samples and were sending people out to get more. And investigate other things that are associated with the K-T event.

Those papers were the norm in science, but the takedown of the critics by pure analysis and reason was something that was hard hitting.

The Alvarez team did NOT hide data, but welcomed it.

The Alvarez team did NOT engage in personal attacks, but examined the data and criticized it.

The Alvarez team did NOT attempt to suborn journals and periodicals or try to create an in-group that would just check each other.

They welcomed every critic with data, every analysis and proposed alternatives, they welcomed, and I suspect with glee, being able to respond to their critics openly in the forum of scientific investigation.

It was brutal.

I remember field camp the next year and running into an older geologist who was still clinging to the Deccan Traps and volcanic activity, along with poison gases and just refused to see that his theory had chemical fingerprints that would be obvious in the record. From 1980-1987 the entire concept of what happened on Earth had to expand to include what went on in our solar system, which included impact events far after the formation of the planet. In fact, down the road, that would receive a shake-up that would yield answers to how the Earth did form and how the Moon was formed... but that would be some years later. Just like the K-T event, the Alvarez's had brought in a change of perception based on physical data that could be found anywhere the K-T boundary layer could be examined. Since then the detritus of a large tsunami was found miles from the Cretaceous coast in Texas and the actual crater was found just off-shore of the Yucatan Peninsula, and further examination of the layer reveals other artifacts not only of the asteroid but a massive amount of soot put into the air by fires caused by the event.

The other event, and it was far outside of geology, happened in the materials sciences area in the staid and quite dull area of ceramics. What had happened was that researchers investigating the ways materials conducted at low temperatures had formed a rare earths laced ceramic that exhibited superconductivity at higher temps than the previously known metallic superconductors. Something that would be an insulator, or at best a semi-conductor, at normal temps superconducted at lower temps. Within a few weeks physics and materials science labs in universities and commercial labs were cooking up the material and doing desk-top demonstrations. I remember walking into a meeting hall that would hold 700 and found it packed, with all the floor and table space taken, and stood in the back watching the live video feed overhead of the ceramics just created the previous day as they brought them to superconducting temps.

Reports from physics and materials sciences meetings in the weeks following the announcement were ones of all-night discussions and proposals to see if anyone could figure out just HOW this was happening. As that was going on, other researchers were cooking up their own strange brews of ceramics and testing them, and other materials were found that also did this.

Here the physics is subtle and there was no 'proven' method to get superconductive material: it was 'by guess and by golly', with the physicists trying to figure out just how a given material superconducted. As this could be done so widely, at so many sites, the field was awash in tests and still is as refinements on theories start to narrow down just how and why certain materials do this. There is no magic 'key' to this, no specific way to do this, and materials sciences started to see an influx of interested students based on this work, alone.

In this area, which I was purely on the near-outside looking in, as it is an interesting topic, the field had to be open to the freedom of movement of data, materials combinations and techniques. You might not hold the right combo, the right technique nor even the right methodology, but someone else with other materials, techniques and methods might learn from yours and progress further towards a goal of higher superconductive temps. That open movement of data and knowledge shuns in-groups and cliques and 'controlling' journals: if you did that you would KILL the research and slow it to a snail's pace. The reason is that if you can get superconductivity close to room temps, say down to liquid air temps, then you have a way to revolutionize electrical energy storage and transmission, and forms of energy production that would be uneconomical with current technology would be feasible with higher temp superconductors.

The rough and tumble, here, is to not just get the material, but to find out how it does what it does.

It is still trial and error, with proposals going up and coming down as they are tested and proven or disproven by testing materials.

And some materials that might not superconduct at one temp might superconduct at another... which really makes things interesting as researchers go through failed materials and give them a wider testing, often years later. Do you dare to throw away a material that just might be the one you are looking for, you just don't know it now?

This brings me to the recent activity in Climategate.

As a geologist, though not a current practicing one, I went through two Revolutions in the sciences: K-T Impact Theory and higher temperature superconductivity. Their hallmarks are touchstones in science as a whole, as they represent openness, welcoming of criticism (indeed even reveling in it), and the open by-play of scientists and labs as they work to see what is and is not there in the way of what can be found from examination and analysis of specimens. The data gathered is critical to how science works, and the open display of it and willingness to hand it over to critics is something you don't get from much of anywhere else in life.

The very first warning signs on Antrhopogenic Global Warming (AGW) and just plain old GW came from the paleoclimatologists who tried to run the models made for AGW/GW against known climates and what those models would predict for those climates. The models came through with junk, not even getting close to the actual climates they were tested against. When the paleoclimatologists asked for the datasets from those pushing AGW (mainly EA CRU, but elsewhere) they were stalled and rebuffed. Coming just after the K-T event and its aftermath, paleoclimatologists were not slow in criticizing the models, how they did not form into anything resembling known past climates nor did the models explain how those climates changed.

AGW/GW advocates refused to come out an play in the full contact body sport that was geology.

They retreated to the hothouse of academia, environmentalism and seeking to 'extract' government grants for their perfect theory of how bad man was to planet Earth. Apparently they couldn't model how nasty Earth was to life forms during the Permo-Triassic that saw over 95% of all species perish... but then geologists don't put an anthropomorphic form of the Earth on a pedestal and worship her. If you DID anthropomorphize the planet it would come out looking far worse than Pol Pot and all other mass murderers, combined, with just a hint of Charles Manson thrown in for fun. But then those seeking to castigate man don't bother to look at Earth's history, either.

There is no single good source of science nor bad source of science: there is only good science and bad science.

Lysenko convinced Stalin that there was a 'Bourgeois' Science, that was BAD, and a 'Communist Science', that was GOOD. That moving of science into political ideology set the USSR back decades in genetics research which, given what they got up to in their later years, we can all be thankful for. Yet that marriage of politics and science that is Lysenkoism now runs deep in the West: environmentalists are above suspicion because of good intents, and those working in the petroleum industry are evil and not to be believed. Which is Lysenkoism, at its heart.

Science is simply getting reproducible results given a set of circumstances.

You can be funded by the worst possible institutions and still perform science, although it might be immoral (such as the Nazi experiments on concentration camp prisoners) which leaves you with a hard problem of what to do with methodical and repeatable results garnered by horrific and immoral means. Saying that you will give blanket trust to one scientist over another based on who funds them, outside of the Nazi example, means you are acting with a faith that there is good and bad science by its source. And that is Lysenkoism.

Do I 'trust' work done by environmentalist groups?

Show me the data, tell me the parameters and I will test that against the knowns of science and see how it stacks up.

But then I do the EXACT SAME THING with research from ANY source be it government, private, commercial... I may read results for interest in them, but they need to be cross-compared to other work in the field. Yet when any field is being tampered with by researchers seeking to shut some researchers out and only 'allow' others to be published and then seek to 'punish' journals that don't follow their wishes, I have problems. And when the groups doing that are backed by governments and 'international' groups, those become extreme problems.

EA CRU refused to show their data for decades.

They didn't welcome criticism nor engage with critics and examine data outside their realm of knowledge.

They, and their associates, attempted to stifle private and government inquiry, beyond that of their scientific peers, and shut down the free-flow of information that, like in superconductive research, is the life blood of science.

When heads of government agency collude to stymie that free flow of information, as has happened with both NASA/Goddard and NOAA, you get a chilling effect on the free flow of information by the use of the threat of government power, even if there is no reality to it.

Is there 'global warming'?

I certainly hope so as there is a marked difference in global temps between now and 12,000 years ago at the end of the last ice age.

Is what we are seeing human caused?

So far as I can see by all data from previous inter-glacial periods: nothing we see now is out of the ordinary. That 'ordinary' typically sees rapid and sudden swings in global temps up and down and there is no good model for it. As no values of measured atmospherics or temps are outside of previous inter-glacial periods, I would say we are within all norms for such periods. If it is 'human caused' it is not outside of those norms. Get back to me when there is better data. EA CRU lost a lot of current stuff and it needs to be re-gathered. Ditto on our government agencies.

Are we a threat to all species?

See the Permo-Triassic above? Earth is a threat to all species. Stop idolizing Mother Earth and demonizing humans as you are doing yourself no good running into the arms of a killer and away from those offering a chance at a better life. I trust Mother Earth to pay ZERO attention to mankind and continue on her normal state of affairs which includes a number of large scale disasters that WILL happen with or without us hanging around, and a few of them just might be OUR silver bullet with OUR name on it. I would like to get out of the clutches of Mother Earth, thanks. The planet needs no saving.

But isn't it right to assume that the Earth is warming?

Show me the data. EA CRU in their own files admit they can no longer: 1) Produce uncorrupted data sets, 2) repeat previous runs on data to get reproducible results, 3) have cherry picked data sets to get certain results. They now have papers with no underlying data, no way to reproduce the results and with artifacts of selectively chosen data sets that are not representative of larger data sets. That is not a good thing to base an assumption upon as it is indicative of fraud, not openness of scientific research. When fraud takes place you default to the last known good state prior to the fraud if you can. Here that means relegating a raft of papers to limbo until they can be re-analyzed. Anything based on the corrupted EA CRU, GISS or NOAA data sets past 1960 are now suspect and not to be considered valid until they are thoroughly re-analyzed in light of current findings. Papers without data, without backing and that cannot be repeated to get valid results are not papers that can be considered doing science. Science is a full contact body sport, no handicapping allowed. No padding either. The Alvarez team is one that I admire deeply as they waded right into the fray and defended themselves in the open process of science, and didn't resort to popular TV to make their case, nor to politicians, nor to issue advocacy groups. The Alvarez team did SCIENCE and joyously. Too bad the AGW/GW advocates can't do that and wish to stifle the free flow of information. That gets you where the USSR is today.

And that is not a good place.

Sphere: Related Content

If you could make a science of society

This is cross-posted from The Jacksonian Party.

What would a science of society look like?

This may seem a rather odd question, but it is one that has been knocking around with me for awhile. We talk of liberty, freedom and equality as subjects, things we do, and as objects, things we desire, and yet they must have a positive value to us for us to value them so highly in both regards. What are these things and how does our society allow us to manifest them in the way we do? And just how strong are they? What are their limits?

We have many works that examine these things from the theoretical or hypothetical side, that is as descriptive works, but very few of the empirical sort, that is placing actual numbers and definitions to these things to allow for measurements to be derived. If you do hand-waving and theory then you are working out definitions, but definitions that measure nothing or are relative in nature only, leave little to work with when trying to find out the magnitude of interactions. With that said, measurements and their attached meanings derive from definitions, and so that is the place to start.

From die.net, the Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) definition of liberty:

liberty

n 1: immunity from arbitrary exercise of authority: political independence [syn: autonomy]

2: freedom of choice: "liberty of opinion"; "liberty of worship"; "liberty--perfect liberty--to think or feel or do just as one pleases"; "at liberty to choose whatever occupation one wishes"

3: personal freedom from servitude or confinement or oppression

4: leave granted to a sailor or naval officer [syn: shore leave]

5: an act of undue intimacy [syn: familiarity, impropriety, indecorum]

When we think of liberty we most commonly think of 1-3, that concept of being free from servitude or the arbitrary exercise of authority over us, and the ability to use freedom to make choices. Having liberty, then, is the free will exercise of one's ability to choose to do certain activities or think without restraint.

Again from die.net, same source, this on freedom:

freedom

n 1: the condition of being free; the power to act or speak or think without externally imposed restraints

2: immunity from an obligation or duty [syn: exemption]

When we have liberty available to us, we are free. When we are not permitted liberty we are not free and are not in a state of freedom.

Once again, same source and die.net to help, this time equality:

equality

n 1: the quality of being the same in quantity or measure or value or status [ant: inequality]

2: a state of being essentially equal or equivalent: "on a par with the best" [syn: equivalence, par]

For us this is the concept of equality within society, of no man having more or less privilege than any other man. Thus our concept of being treated equally under the law is one that we enshrine and when we move from equal treatment we no longer treat individuals as equals.

The base state of man is to have perfect liberty, perfect freedom and perfect equality.

That is the state of man without any restraint upon him, with perfect ability to do anything with impunity save for the direct repercussions of the act itself. In that state all men are equal, save for differences in size, strength and cunning. There are no bonds upon man in this state of being, no holds upon him, no accountability save the direct and immediate sort. In its purest form this is man in the State of Nature and answering only to Natural Law.

Here I will use Bracton on the Laws and Customs of England at the Harvard Law School Library (attributed to Henry of Bratton) as the basic guide for our understanding of Natural Law:

What natural law is.

[019] 21Natural law is defined in many ways. It may first be said to denote a certain
[020] instinctive impulse arising out of animate nature by which individual living things
[021] are led to act in certain ways. Hence it is thus defined: Natural law is that which
[022] nature, that is, God himself, taught all living things. The word ‘quod’ is then in
[023] the accusative case and the word ‘natura’ in the nominative. On the other hand,
[024] it may be said that the word ‘quod’ is in the nominative case, so that the definition
[025] will be this: Natural law is that taught all living things by nature, that is, by
[026] natural instinct. The word ‘natura’ will then be in the ablative case.22 This is what
[027] is meant when we say that our first instinctive impulses are not under our control,
[028] but our second impulses are. That is why, if a matter proceeds only as far as simple
[029] sensual pleasure, not beyond, only a venial sin is committed. But if it proceeds
[030] farther, to the contriving of something, as where one puts into practice what he
[031] has shamefully thought, it will then be called a third impulse and a mortal sin is
[032] committed.23 And note that for the reason that justice is will, taking into account
[033] rational beings only, natural law is impulse, regard being had to

[001] all creatures, rational and irrational. There are some who say that neither will nor
[002] impulse may be called jus, jus naturale or jus gentium, for they exist in [the realm of]
[003] fact; will or impulse are the means by which natural law or justice disclose or manifest
[004] their effect, for virtues and jura exist in the soul.24 This perhaps is said more clearly,
[005] that natural law is a certain due which nature allows to each man. Natural law is also
[006] said to be the most equitable law, since it is said that erring minors are to be restored
[007] in accordance with [natural] equity.25

Mathematically this is the Ground State of Man, although there will be some provisos in that and a few things granted us by the Law of Nature and our inheritance as a species. Those changes, however, are 'built-in' and instinctual, just as the desire for perfect liberty is part of all animals so we, too, have that desire. Thus these things we get from our background and history as a species are part of the Ground State of Man. A Ground State can have many values, depending on what is measured, but for simplicity's sake we can set that at Zero.

GSM = 0

With the package of being human we get an affinity to form personal bonds and family groups, and yet many animals also have this as instinct, so we cannot say we are special from Nature due to this trait. What we do have is conscious control over the exercise of it, and in that we can say that this adapted behavior (personal bonds) can be exploited as an aptation to other things. A shellfish may not have control over the colors that its shell gains (and many don't) but when a predisposition towards coloration also gains a benefit, that trait is then one that is used as an aptation: it is not there due to survival characteristics, but may help to enhance survival just the same.

To us this personal bond capability that we get via instinct can be used to further our survival beyond what Nature has provided for. That aptation is part of the GSM. Our ability to consciously use it, and as members of homo sapiens sapiens that comes part and parcel of our heritage, is also part of the GSM, although a distinction with a difference that sets us apart from other species. That distinction is neither a plus nor a minus in moving from the GSM, but has been bestowed upon us as providence from Nature.

When we consciously choose who is our mate, and then when we choose by that decision to restrict our activities towards that mate, we then start doing something different than Nature has provided. While we may have instincts to stop us from doing harm to that mate, that does not stop such things in a sovereign way in Nature: Natural Law over-rides even that bond if the need for survival precludes it. Thus if threatened with death or injury, a being may offer up its mate to fate to survive and while it would instinctually feel loss that is only due to the absence of the mate, not the decision itself. Once we move to actually self-sacrificing for that mate, to preclude not only other pleasures but to withstand pain and even death for that mate to survive, we create something wholly new. This is Bracton on that topic:

What the jus gentium is.

[017] 33The jus gentium is the law which men of all nations use, which falls short of
[018] natural law since that is common to all animate things born on the earth in the
[019] sea or in the air. From it comes the union of man and woman, entered into by the
[020] mutual consent of both, which is called marriage. Mere physical union is [in the
[021] realm] of fact and cannot properly be called jus since it is corporeal and may be
[022] seen;34 all jura are incorporeal and cannot be seen. From that same law there
[023] also35 comes the procreation and rearing of children. The jus gentium is common
[024] to men alone, as religion observed toward God, the duty of submission to parents
[025] and country, or the right to repel violence and injuria. For it is by virtue of this
[026] law that whatever a man does in defence of his own person he is held to do lawfully;
[027] since nature makes us all in a sense akin to one another it follows that for one to
[028] attack another is forbidden.36

What manumission is.

[030] 37Manumissions also come from the jus gentium. Manumission is the giving of
[031] liberty, that is, the revelation of liberty, according to some, for liberty, which
[032] proceeds from the law of

[001] nature, cannot be taken away by the jus gentium but only obscured by it,38 for
[002] natural rights are immutable. But say that he who manumits does properly give
[003] liberty, though he does not give his own but another's, for one may give what he
[004] does not have, as is apparent in the case of a creditor, who [may alienate a pledge
[005] though the thing is not his,39 and in that of one who] constitutes a usufruct in his
[006] property.40 For natural rights are said to be immutable because they cannot be
[007] abrogated or taken away completely, though they may be restricted or diminished
[008] in kind41 or in part. 42It was by virtue of this jus gentium that wars were introduced
[009] (that is, when declared43 by the prince for the defence of his country44 or to repel
[010] an attack) and nations separated, kingdoms established and rights of ownership
[011] distinguished. Individual ownership was not effected de novo by the jus gentium but
[012] existed of old, for in the Old Testament things were already mine and thine, theft
[013] was prohibited45 and it was decreed that one not retain his servant's wages.46 By
[014] the jus gentium boundaries were set to holdings, buildings erected next to one
[015] another, from which cities, boroughs and vills were formed.47 And generally, the
[016] jus gentium is the source of all contracts48 and of many other things. What long
[017] custom is will be explained below.49

This thing we create is the law of nations and the first and greatest hallmark of it is that protection of others and NOT starting a war on one's own. Self-defense of that most basic bond we decide to form is immutable and a positive liberty. To wage war that endangers it on one's own is a negative liberty. Thus we get the next two parts of how we measure things:

1. Positive Liberty of War - Self-Defense which we keep to ourselves as an inborn liberty and right. Thus PL(W) = +1.
2. Negative Liberty of War - The offensive war against others is something that is still within us, but we vest it into society. Thus NL(W) = -1.

We get both of these from the GSM. Each value is your entire liberty in each sub-area.

Thus GSM = PL(W) + NL(W) = 0

This changes our Liberty Index (LIB), that measure of our Liberty with regards to the GSM, which has a neutral value. LIB is therefore the measure of Liberty with respect to the GSM. Each individual will experience Liberty differently, that is part of our nature, yet we each have a maximal amount of Liberty available to us and that maximal amount is absolute: no one gains more than what Nature provides. We may create different venues for expression, but those venues are, themselves, expression of our Liberty available under Natural Law. Thus we may not be able to conceive of ourselves utilizing full Liberty or experiencing it, which is subjective, but that we have it is self-evident with all men being born equal in potential.

Our Individual Liberty: LIB(I) = PL(W) = +1

Our Society's Liberty which is vested in Government: LIB(G) = NL(W) = -1

For us to be safe from NL(W) we must have society and its organs to govern it, and that allows us the ability to defend ourselves freely using our positive liberty to do so. For this to be done there must be an agreement by ALL individuals in the society to do this, or else we are all put at peril to the individual's whim. Thus we grant freedom to each other to not be fearful of war of man upon man and we, through that vestment of it in society with that negative liberty, increase our positive liberty.

Another division is seen with restraint of actions, and this is also one that divides into a positive and negative liberty.

1. Positive Liberty of Restraint - Self-restraint, the ability to check one's own actions with regards to our fellow man. PL(R) = +1.
2. Negative Liberty of Restraint - Restraining others for our own wishes or to enact our own desires, which harms society. NL(R) = -1

The Negative Liberty of Restraint is handed to society and its organ called government so as to allow it to restrain others that would endanger society. Thus we now have more positive liberty, even if we no longer have perfect freedom:

LIB(I) = PL(W) + PL(R) = +2

LIB(G) = NL(W) + NL(R) = -2

This formulation, while not done with math, is described in a way that we can understand it:

Some writers have so confounded society with government,
as to leave little or no distinction between them;
whereas they are not only different, but have different origins.
Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness;
the former promotes our POSITIVELY by uniting our affections,
the latter NEGATIVELY by restraining our vices. The one
encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions.
The first a patron, the last a punisher.

That from Thomas Paine's Common Sense, and it makes perfect sense when seen as a form of mathematics. In this case the organ of society that holds the LIB(G) is called government, while the rest of society is formed by our cooperative use of LIB(I). When we utilize government to restrain those activities that would cause harm to society, we exercise a positive value of control via our LIB(I) via our civil liberty. Thus the Liberty Index gains a Control Value that is necessary to keep our negative liberties lent to government via society in check. From that the CV must be strong enough to ensure that we are not put in danger by government that holds our negative liberties. In a perfect world that must be equal:

CV(G) = -1 x LIB(G)

At this point we get this replacement:

CV(G) = -1 x -2 = +2

That is, happily, the LIB(I) and thus we would feel secure.

Now I will step through a thought experiment and apply values as I go.

Our PL(W) is for all forms of self-defense, everything from a spit in the eye to a thermonuclear device. Now let us say that we are uncomfortable with the very high end of that scale and say that such things as war making aircraft, ships, and WMDs are to be restricted from our society as they are just too dangerous for the individual to use. Happily they are so expensive that they are out of the reach of most individuals, even the 'super rich' and thus this is a minor fractional impingement upon our LIB(I). Let us say that this Restriction is a mere tiny fraction of PL(W).

R(W) = 0.01 x PL(W) = 0.01

To do this requires that we must increase the magnitude of NL(R), that is put more Restraint into the system that is held by government and remove it from PL(R). This must be reflected in the control value of government.

Thus:

PL(W1) = PL(W) - R(W) = +0.99

NL(R1) = NL(R) - R(W) = -1.01

CV(G) = -1 x ( NL(W) + NL(R1)) = +2.01

LIB(I) = +1.99

LIB(G) = -2.01

When we want government to do more to restrain our positive liberties, we lose liberty and government gains control power over us. This does not make society safer as this is a function of control by government on our liberty and freedom and as it is taken away from all individuals society is lessened by that loss. Also, on this scale of liberty measurement, we are now lacking in an amount of control commensurate to the differences needed between C(G) and LIB(I). That is worrying as the restrictions we have coming from government are based on an unsupported control factor from our personal liberty. In short we begin to lack the essential back-up to the control of government which is our positive liberty: there is a liberty deficit equal to that difference or delta.

LIB(DEL) = CV(G) - LIB(I) = +0.02

That Delta between the necessary control of government and your personal liberty is a meaningful one, as when government restricts your liberty it needs greater control and you are feeling controlled by government. This is also called oppression by authority and such a government is authoritarian. Now for our social good all governments are at least mildly authoritarian so as to help keep order of society within society.

Another area of liberty is economic liberty and it, too, has positive and negative aspects.

1. Positive Liberty of Economy - Your ability to gain by your own hand from your own work through the utilization of freedom to work. PL(E) = +1
2. Negative Liberty of Economy - Your ability to take from others and steal their work or otherwise gain by their work by doing none yourself, the act of taking is not considered positive. NL(E) = -1

The sum of your economic liberty is: GSM = PL(E) + NL(E).

As with the previous forms of liberty, we put the negative form into that organ of society of government to control it.

LIB(I) = PL(W) + PL(R) + PL(E) = +3

LIB(G) = NL(W) + NL(R) + NL(E) = -3

CV(G) = -1 x (NL(W) + NL(R) + NL(E)) = +3

Government utilizes the NL(E) in various ways: tariffs, taxation, duties, imposts, and eminent domain.

If we postulate a case where all government taxation via all means and all governments is 30%, then that is the amount your PL(E) is impacted by government. This is the amount of burdening or restraint upon your personal liberty of economy to run the government.

R(E) = 0.3 x PL(E) = +0.3

PL(E1) = PL(E) - R(E) = +0.7

NL(E1) = NL(E) - R(E) = -1.30

Thus:

LIB(I) = +2.7

LIB(G) = -3.3

CV(G) = +3.3

LIB(DEL) = +0.6

When there is a positive LIB(DEL) > +20% LIB(I) then government is thought of as having more power than the people of society.

When there is a +/- 20% LIB(I) difference a government and its people are in balance.

When there is a negative LIB(DEL) -20% LIB(I) then government is considered to be subservient to the people in regards to Liberty.

Our CV(G) in the US has, as part of its arrangement, being from the 'consent of the governed'. With that said, the IRS acts as a mandatory agency with its own courts to decide tax issues quite separate from our civil courts, and those courts are rarely reviewed, rarely overturned and act as an arm of government collections. With 'consent of the governed' that LIB(DEL) on the imposition against personal economic liberty is supposed to be moderated, and yet the collections are most coercive and the one place hardest to get an acquittal is tax court. If tax problems were accountable to standard civil courts, then an argument could be made for civil justice, but as it is not that moderating influence vanishes and 'consent of the governed' goes with it. The ability to tax has become a true law unto itself, answerable to no civil justice. That is for the federal side of things, which is a percentage of the R(E) but a large percent of it, nonetheless.

That R(E) would be an average across all individuals in society. When we leverage disproportionate taxation, that is change the amount being taxed due to things like income, those who pay less or no taxes do not notice the R(E) or the LIB(DEL) due to it: the poor don't care much about the full taxation of those who pay taxes.

Inversely those who have great wealth and can shield it via an incremental use of tax gimmicks, hiding income and tax lawyers feel less of a bite than if they had their full share levied upon them. Every exemption that is useful to only the upper portion of those with income lessens their appreciation of the R(E) and LIB(DEL) via the amount they can shield minus the cost of the shielding. So long as that shielding yields a positive net result, the amount of taxation felt is lessened thus lessening concerns about those who cannot use such techniques to a net positive.

Thus the middle income individuals feel the full brunt of taxation, get only a few 'tax breaks' to mollify them, and have to pick up the load for the poor AND the amount the rich shield from tax collections.

The felt LIB(DEL) is thus changed for those paying taxes. If, say, 30% pay no taxes or no discernable taxes (this is not just income tax but things like sales tax, duties, etc. and is a net 30% as many of the poor do pay taxes, but they are not discernable beyond a modicum, so 30% is an overall net loss from this income bracket) then their LIB(DEL) effectively drops to zero and for those rich who can shield their money, they may only feel, say 80% of the remaining LIB(DEL), thus forcing the remainder LIB(DEL)(REM) to pay the share of the poor:

LIB(DEL)(P) = 0

LIB(DEL)(REM) = LIB(DEL) + 0.3 x LIB(DEL) = 0.78

LIB(DEL)(R) = LIB(DEL)(REM) x 0.8 = 0.624

LIB(DEL)(M) = LIB(DEL)(REM) + (LIB(DEL)(R)-LIB(DEL)(REM)) = 0.78 + (0.624 - 0.78) = 0.936

From this a nominal amount of overall economic liberty delta is not felt by the poor, only just a bit above the nominal average for the rich and predominantly upon the middle class. The rich, by being rich, can get in loopholes into the law via lobbying so as to bring their nominal rate down to near average (and some do pay no income tax but cannot escape other taxes) and the middle class gets the squeeze. In truth the LIB(DEL)(P) is rarely 0 but never reaches an effectively half-average until you get to be un-poor and join the middle class. Even then the lowest part of the middle class has some effects moderated thus shifting burden to the middle and upper income earners.

This system works so-so to explain the effects of taxation, but the effects of those who get taxed and feel that they have less control over taxation is, for them a much higher amount than average as the tax code favors the poor and the rich, simultaneously although in different ways. Until this point in time all individuals have been considered to share the burden equally, but due to tax policy we can no longer consider that as the case: by favoring some over others government creates inequality in participation and control over the government itself. This is the Equality Quotient (EQQ) which is a measure of the differences in burden from LIB(DEL).

Thus:

EQQ(P) = LIB(DEL) - LIB(DEL)(P) = +0.6 - 0 = +0.6

EQQ(R) = LIB(DEL) - LIB(DEL)(R) = 0.6 - 0.624 = -0.024

EQQ(M) = LIB(DEL) - LIB(DEL)(M) = 0.6 - 0.936 = -0.336

When one has a positive EQQ they are said to be Favored by government (>= 10% LIB(DEL)).

When one has a near zero EQQ they are said to be Neutral with respect to government (+/- 10% of LIB(DEL)).

When one has a negative EQQ they are said to be Disfavored by government (<= -10% of LIB(DEL)) .

As I have pointed out I am exaggerating with respect to the Poor which will change the position of both the Rich and Middle Class in regards to LIB(DEL). That may actually move the EQQ(R) into slightly positive territory and bring the EQQ(M) downwards, but perhaps not into the 10% range of Neutrality. As this is a difference from the Average a smaller variation in a system professing equality has a larger impact than the absolute comparison between LIB(I) and LIB(DEL) used for the absolute case. Still a government can have a rough correlation of power in balance with its society and still have EQQs that demonstrate unequal dispensation of the use of that power.

This examination is of a government that is given only our negative liberties to safeguard so that we may maximize our positive ones. When we put together a government that doesn't do that, we can start to see some major problems in the reduced liberty of the individual.

Examining a society that hands positive liberties to government changes that balance of Liberty, Control and Equality. To postulate, lets start with a position in which all handguns are prohibited, save for those made at home (along with ammunition), and rifles and shotguns are heavily restricted to the general population, and all other firearms are prohibited. With that we would see only a 20% available positive liberty of warfare for self-defense, and probably closer to 10%.

PL(W) = 1 x 0.2 = +0.2

NL(W) = -1 - (1 - PL(W)) = -1.8

Thus:

LIB(I) = +0.2

LIB(G) = -1.8

CV(G) = +1.8

LIB(DEL) = +1.6

To achieve this requires a highly authoritarian government. Compare this with a LIB(DEL) for the simple restriction of WMDs to the individual LIB(DEL) = 0.02, and we see a government that must be 8 times as authoritarian compared to that extremely mild government. In this all individuals are considered to be equal, although if the government preferentially allows one group to be armed, say a ruling group, then the EQQ would be very high between those that govern and those they govern.

To examine a society in which government is not only entrusted with the negative economic liberty, but also the lion's share of the positive, say 90% of the positive liberty, we get the following:

LIB(I) = +0.1

LIB(G) = -1.9

CV(G) = +1.9

LIB(DEL) = +1.8

When postulating a government run economy, one is said to have very little control over government nor personal liberty with respect to government with LIB(I) being a mere 1/18th the canceling amount to feel some security from government for one's liberty. This is very close the minimal case of slavery:

LIB(I) = 0

While having 10% control of one's economic future is better than none, it can in no way said that one control's one's own destiny in that realm. If this case were added to the previous case we would see the following:

LIB(I) = +0.3

LIB(G) = -3.7

CV(G) = +3.7

LIB(DEL) = +3.4

That is beyond authoritarian and what we would call a totalitarian state that dictates your life to you and then ensures that you can in no way defend yourself FROM government.

This has been an interesting thought experiment!

The drawbacks of this system:

1) It deals with the absolute realm of liberty in multiple areas, and then sums them, thus making any fast and easy analysis of a government or society difficult. Each area must be dealt with separately.

2) There are no hard definitions on restraint of positive liberty imposed by government. The cases I give are ones in which I just used numbers to represent approximations of restraints, and I used no hard and fast rules on them. Still that could be done given more time.

3) Subjectively each of us deals with our emotional and mental attitude towards our use of liberty differently. With that said it is very easy to assume that one's subjective approach is universal, which, thusly, puts one at odds with even a slight variation of one's outlook. If a large scale outlook is different, then valuations on restraint and even what positive and negative liberties ARE will change valuations. That is why I went the route of the ENTIRE of each, so that the most expansive view of positive and negative to their furthest limits are the full value of them.

4) Each society, beyond just individuals, will approach the magnitude of restraint of liberty by government differently. In trying to use a common, absolute, evaluation, the concept is to give a level staring point and then allow different societies to state their valuations of each restraint so that a cross-society system could be developed. My analysis is 'rough and ready' used to demonstrate some of the basics of how a system like this works.

5) As a society and individuals we have ignored wanting to put such valuations on our liberty, freedom and even such things as our personality. Yet these are not sacrosanct areas, forbidden to thought and analysis. By sequestering a comparative, objective system that encompasses human liberty from our scope of learning, we still wander in a region where the hypothetical rules and the objective, hard and fast definitions are left outside in the cold. While such analysis may seem cold at first blush, it actually helps to examine differences in societies and puts some order of magnitude understanding on the hypothetical works and allows us to review just what various authors are saying and cross-compare how they approach topics. If you want to get to a science of society and governments, then something like this will be necessary and hand waving and hypothetical cases will need to be made into rigorous postulations with numbers put against them that are clearly explained.

The pluses of this system:

1) Personally I was surprised at how some of the things we talk about in comparing governments and personal liberty immediately stand out. Simply putting numbers on these things we talk about helps to regularize understanding and create a cross-comparative review of not only politics but societal attitudes.

2) The interim numbers generated, like the CV(G) turn out to be interesting indicators of the relative power between society and government. While LIB(I) is for all individuals and collective, so is LIB(G). The examination of that Delta between LIB(I) and the positive control necessary for government to function with its negative liberties (or positive ones taken from individuals) is a highly powerful tool.

3) Even without extreme rigor on definitions there are clear indicators of liberty, freedom and equality quickly stand out. When we talk of government taking part in a large section of our economic lives, not only in the Health Care area but in all other areas that we get regulations put in by government, we can see how even small and incremental changes in the balance of Liberty have extreme impacts in our feeling of enfranchisement and if the government is going authoritarian. Thus an intervention on 16% of the economy would be a huge change in our personal Liberty and the necessary control by government is that we would characterize for authoritarian regimes. Under that view most of Europe is under authoritarian regimes.

4) Being nice to the poor and letting the rich get tax breaks means the middle class gets hit and hard by the authority of government. If we were to add to taxation the other regulations controlling our daily lives, we have probably reached a tipping point between a modicum of balance between the people and government and are now in a realm where authoritarianism is possible. While we know that as an intellectual exercise, when one begins to put numbers to it the actual reality of it sinks in much, much faster.

5) I do not deal with Liberties wholly retained by the people, such as religion. Still, as that is wholly retained by the people, and we are restricted on our negative liberties, that leaves us with talking about it, social exclusion and other means to express ourselves that preclude warfare and repression. ANY action taken by government in that realm is a negative... which is a lesson we have already seen in history. That does INCLUDE stopping historical and societal use of religious terms within government and on such things as our currency: as established they are perfectly allowable and trying to get government to CHANGE that basis is actually asking for favoritism. Yet we still have those that will not let sleeping dogs rest without poking them with a sharp stick.

In no way is this review an actual analytical tool.

It is an examination of what a good analytical tool would do if we had one for this purpose... which we don't.

I've been putting this together in bits and pieces over a few days, so the math may not be rigorous.

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Some first observations on sewing

The reasons why one takes up sewing are as numerous as the individuals involved.  For some this is a profession either of the individual fit sort, like a good seamstress or tailor making custom fit or custom adjusted clothing, or the individual works a larger firm where hand work is necessary as machines still can't do it all.  On the amateur side I wouldn't even venture to guess...

My reasons are relatively simple: I need some outdoor equipment custom made to particulars that are not available even at specialty stores online or offline.  As an example an interior waist pad that would fit above a standard MOLLE hip pad is not to be found, and yet for good weight distribution of a MOLLE frame on my back it is essential as my back is just a bit longer than average.  Similarly I have a Thompson WWII replica burlap carrying bag (found at International Military Antiques), but nothing suitable for modern hauling systems and lightweight material.  An Eberlestock Tactical Weapon's Scabbard is nice, very nice actually, but if I need to carry two or three long arms that can be made readily available, then I need a system to extract each on-the-fly.  Mixing and matching between WWII era equipment, Viet Nam war era equipment, ALICE system and MOLLE/PALS system means that I have a variety of adapters to get everything to hang together, but nothing fits exactly as it should or could.  Finally some equipment equivalents I can find are costly, very costly, and when I compare the cost to the cost of a sewing machine, thread, fabric, webbing, fasteners... the raw materials while still not cheap are cheaper than buying the few pieces I can find and then still not having the pieces I can't find.

Thus I'm not making clothing!

And the amount of skill I have at actual sewing on a sewing machine is relegated to truly distant memories and just learning a bit of the basics when I was a child, and zilch beyond that.  Yet my experiences in learning how to use equipment, be it radial arm saws, food processors, hand drills (manual/electric), planes, a dremel multi-tool for metal finishing, computer construction, and your basic hammer/screwdriver/wrenches, means that I am not afraid of actually learning how to do new things.  I am not always successful, particularly when little things crop up that prove to be insurmountable (like the amount of wiring I was trying to shove inside a tiny frame for my Pico-ITX project, and overcoming the obstacles is far more labor intensive than it is worth (as in the Pico-ITX project I'm just getting a small case and going forward with that).  That is always a hurdle to overcome, the unexpected, but when everything in a design is apparent from the start and only a few tool using issues get in the way, I tend not to turn pale with fear but just matter-of-factly start in on things.

I also lower my expectations as I don't expect professional results:  I'm not willing to pay for them, now, am I?

Sewing of equipment, particularly outdoor and military compatible equipment, turns out to be a land of many hobbyists and DIYers.  One of first places I  hit was MIL-SPEC MONKEY as it has a good overview of equipment, some of what it takes to customize equipment and a valuable list of places to get MIL-SPEC materials (fabrics, fasteners, webbing, etc.).  Picking up the terminology is yet another thing I tend to do well, and becoming familiar with acronyms, number/letter designations, and so on, is a past habit of my years working with computers.  Now THERE is a field with terminology attached to it!  After that one of the sites that is linked to, Outdoor Wilderness Fabrics, Inc., has a good array of materials but even better is their linkages to more generalized outdoor equipment modifiers and makers.  Top of the list from there, for me, was Specialty Outdoors and the most important thing I found was the Tips and Techniques  section on the basic 'how to' of outdoor equipment.  Before I even so much as bought a yard of fabric I learned what I was getting myself into, and the sites I hit after that were numerous, but Specialty Outdoors and Penny Schwynn still remains one of the touchstones of introduction to the topic that I recommend.

Of the first realizations I had by looking around was that getting an old sewing machine in good shape was just as good, and even preferable, to getting a modern one.  An older machine that had gotten its full suite of maintenance had definite benefits: you could find ones with more powerful motors (necessary for thick fabrics), they didn't have a plethora of options and outdoor equipment needs just a basic, solid, straight stitch with just a few minor times for zig-zags, having clearance between the feet and the feed dogs was essential, and the ability to handle higher tension thread is likewise essential.  As I was not doing embroidery nor any multi-thread work, I could eliminate entire classes of machine made for that work.  And as I understand the importance of standardized parts and replacement of same, getting a machine that was based on a well-known standard was critical: no off-brands with its own one or two year market presence.

That said an off-brand that was well made, kept to an industrial standard machine type and had a reputation for holding up well, meant that venue opened up for procurement.  And as I didn't want, of necessity, something modern I could haunt E-bay and other such sites, seeing what was available, how it was maintained and do some research at the same time.  Winnowing out the light duty home machines was a first priority, and anything that didn't have a 1 amp motor didn't make the cut.  A modern machine with all sorts of gearing could, in theory, do so, but the plastic gearing on many also made them non-starters.  In general I have nothing against plastic gears, and have used them, worked with them and appreciate them as part of modern equipment.  Something just does not seem right, to me, to see them on a sewing machine... even nice, hefty, thermoform plastic just doesn't sound right.  I would still keep one or two in my winnowing down list, but the lower the power the motor and the lack of telling me what was on the inside of a modern (post-1990) machine made me leary.  Also a real turn-off is when the sewing machine manufacturers started to change models every year or so and DIDN'T make their manuals and other materials readily available.  That bespeaks of planned obsolescence while I was looking towards long-lasting utility, and I was not buying for extras but just basic sewing.

I did consider some modern models by Janome and others, but passed due to pricing, lack of telling me what the specifics were on older models, and lack of power on the ones I could find specifics for.  Going back into the pre-1980 era meant fewer brands, more recognizable machines, better construction (often all metal) and decent power on the main motor.  I considered many different brands: Sears Kenmore, Singer, White, Husqvarna/Viking, Juki, and just about anything that looked to be in good condition, had recent maintenance or had my specific set of needs.  Ebay had a number of other machines, and many tended to be centered on the Singer Type 15 machine, which looked to be an industry standard for design and some parts that could be used by a variety of machines (bobbins come to mind).  The price range, for my needs, varied up to a $200 maximum and I read about many of the machines so I could get some familiarity with them.  One Ebayer had a nice White 565 machine and this article at Sew-Classic gives a good overview of it.  My deepest thanks to niftythriftygal at Ebay for her machines and the work of her husband to get them into top form, I can only say that a video demonstration of the machine sold me far more than just about anything else.

The machine, itself, is only part of the equation, and while it does come with all the essentials and almost every single accessory, I still needed my own supply of needles, thread, carrying case for the machine, fabric and webbing (also known as 'narrow fabric' although that may be a category that contains such things as ribbon).  Fabric and thread were top of the list and that meant looking for good suppliers.  MILSPEC MONKEY was used for some, but for others my personal experience buying surplus goods put me in good stead.  From that surplus list I was able to get Cordura fabric in various camouflage styles from the Barre Army Navy Store, and they had been my source for the stand-alone Tactical Weapon Scabbard some months before and are quite easy to work with, although their web interface is cranky, confusing and doesn't often do what you think it will.  Nylon webbing I've gotten from multiple suppliers, although Jon Tay comes out on top for MOLLE webbing, and I picked up some smaller lengths of other webbing from there, also.  For 'you take your chances with not fully examined surplus' I went to Colman's and the Billings Army Navy Surplus Store, both of which I had purchased a number of items during my emergency preparedness work.  I was happily surprised to find webbing at excellent cost at both and even if I did take a flyer from Colman's on the material (was it cotton or the preferred nylon?) their customer service has been superb with me and told me they didn't know and would just send it for my acceptance.  It was nylon and the cost was excellent.

Speaking of webbing, there is a distinct need to turn a lot of webbing into straps, and that requires buckles, sliders, ladderlocks, and a plethora of other bits and pieces that vary by what you need to do.  If have 'D' rings then snap ends that will allow the 'D' ring to get into the central area of the snap is required.  I decided to go easy on 'D' rings for carrying, although they do show up as a good way to slide webbing through them to then cinch a strap taught, thus stabilizing the piece the ring is attached to.  To that end was finding such across multiple venues, and it is a by no means complete listing as some items only came cheap through places I hadn't been to before, including Chinese overstock at Ebay which is, effectively, unknown sellers: Rockywoods Outdoor Fabrics was my choice for some Cordura and webbing supplies along with accoutrements, DIY Tactical where I picked up some good ripstop nylon and webbing odds and ends plus strapping components, Plastic-Buckle that has both metal and plastic webbing/strapping components, Country Brook Design for both components and looking at webbing,  A.H.& H. Specialized Outfitters and others.  The webbing/strapping components area also overlaps with the more generalized fastener category, and besides those mentioned, especially the last two in the components list, there is also Fasnap which has all the lovely grommets and snaps you could ever want for modern and even replica gear, and if 'lift the dot' fasteners were my thing I would start there for the necessary parts and hand equipment to make them.  If you need to retrofit older gear with modern fasteners, say to get rid of the old metal ALICE ladderlocks and put in Fastex plastic ones, then Supply Captain is one of the best places to go, and he also carries more generalized equipment making supplies generally in the clearance area when he has it.  I'm still looking for a decent zipper supplier and have a few places in mind, but the problem is (as with most of this stuff) that I'm buying on the retail level, not the wholesale level, thus for things like snaps and grommets getting the right size in under 100 pieces is difficult if not impossible.  There is a whole slew of folks willing to sell me thousands of yards of webbing, but less than 100 yards tends to be a bit of a bother to find.

Thread was not last on my list and #69 Nylon proved very easy to find amongst the various places mentioned already.  I will put in a plug for The Thread Exchange and Sportsman's Guide, and the latter's MIL-SURP area is one of the key places I've haunted for months for certain equipment.  Needles took me to Quilting-Warehouse which has an excellent selection of same for all sorts of needs, not just outdoor equipment.  Finally for notions, a walking foot for my machine, and a thread stand for the large spools of thread I was going to use, I wound up at All Brands, which has a decent selection for many machines and other areas of shopping I haven't checked out yet.

From all of that actually using the machine is easy once I spent about an hour winding some bobbins and then figuring out the thread path.

Winding bobbins.... the machine has its own, built-in, bobbin winding system... but... winding a tiny bobbin to put into a hidden compartment where you can't see the thread or the amount left on it?  The industry makes things so you get a lovely, tortuous path for the upper thread which goes something like this: Right to Left through this hole, Back to Front, Left to Right through this hole, Top Down Around Left to Right through the tensioner, Down Under then Up for this bar, Up and then Right to Left through this hole, Down through this hole, Down and a bit in for the next hole, then Down Front to Center through the next hole which has the thread go from Back Top to Front Down and then, and only then, Down to the needle and thread that Left to Right.  Yeah, all that for the main thread which you can watch, hand tension and play with and snarl to your heart's content.  The bobbin?  A hidden thing of mystery that suddenly runs out when you least want it to. Couldn't a second tortuous thread path from a separate spool be arranged for?  You know, one you could SEE and WATCH as it runs down?  Perhaps modern machines have that... no... wait... I see bobbins mentioned for those, too...

Apparently semi-automatic pistols, born about the same time as electromechanical sewing machines, got perfected faster for the end user than sewing machines have.  Still, I suppose that winding bobbins is the equivalent of loading a magazine.  I hate taking up range time loading magazines, too.  When I get to my last, full, bobbin, it is time to reload the others, I guess.

I love the light that shines down from the machine to the main plate area!  Can I get one that isn't so hot, please?  All these freaking 'green bulbs' and can I find one for a sewing machine?  For me it is getting rid of the heat, not saving energy.  I have a 1.3 amp motor on a sewing machine, the light bulb is definitely NOT about saving energy.

So how does my sewing look?  The first piece, that simple pad on the MOLLE frame looks like hell.  It does, however, do the job.  My first prototype for a Thompson 30 round mag with MOLLE isn't half bad, but I need a knife tip for my soldering iron to clean up the nylon webbing and the front snap isn't snapping.  For me looks are secondary, function is primary and over-riding.  I do know that good looks go along with good work and you get a better design, over-all, when you do good looking work.  I'm not there, yet, and will never be even a skilled amateur.  But if it does the job, I will be satisfied.

And that is yet another thing I'm doing in my time... sewing.

Isn't life grand?

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Two scandals, one theme

There are two recent scandals that have very similar themes to them, and their parallels are interesting.

Phase I : The Start

First is the Madoff Ponzi Scheme started by a then young and up-and-coming investor who demonstrated some knowledge of the market and decent returns. He decided on a methodology of using secret sets of data for market forecasting and putting out graphs that showed a steady return on investment, year on year, if you just invested with him. A few inside members of his family and financial coterie knew that was nearly impossible to do, yet he was able to show the payouts. If the market went up, he went up steadily and if the market went down, he went up steadily: Bernie Madoff obviously had a secret way to know just which companies to invest in to yield that steady return on investment. He could show graphs of market sectors and show how his earnings correlated with some, but not all, market segments and that by the investing system he had, he could show that his services could obviously steady out market fluctuations and do better than just track the market.

Second are the individuals who put out a paper in the mid-1990's that demonstrated that a group of trees in Siberia were following 'instrument' readings and that there was a steady amount of 'global warming' witnessed elsewhere, too. Indeed they could show that carbon dioxide was a 'secret ingredient' to global warming and that the trees tracked that perfectly and were good measures for temperatures. They then had a select sub-set of trees that were claimed to be representative of the whole and tracked the whole very well and were useful as indicators for whole forests. That secret sub-set of trees wasn't put out, and its data held outside of greater review by the scientific community. Whenever questions of temperature fluctuations arose, they could point to the predictive 'hockey stick' graph that proved that the entire system was warming year on year, regardless of fluctuations. Not all indicators could be explained away by this, of course, but the claim was that they had 'other factors' and 'weren't indicative' of the whole planetary climate. By using a secret subset of data and special interpretations, those pushing global warming claimed that their methodology was superior to any others.

Phase II: The Deception

Madoff flouted the regulatory schema, and even was able to win popular approval for his work from regulators who would over-look minor problems and even recommend that he address Congress on financial matters. That ability to ride out the internet bubble surely showed that he had some great way to beat the averages. Yet, even by the late 1990's, a market analyst and mathematician was showing that the financial numbers that Madoff published could not be right: they were based on market factors that demonstrated volatility and he was inflating numbers beyond what the market return would allow him to do. Even with that regulators would not examine the Madoff Empire, and he still had the ears of those in the halls of power in DC and easily continued his 'market beating scheme' for years, gulling people with his lovely numbers that were not sustainable when analyzed. Yet he convinced regulators who investigated that all was on the up-and-up and that his books were in order. Really!

Critics of global warming started to notice that there was a non-correlation between graph data actual data, that there was something badly askew from what those publishing the data purported and what the data showed. Yet, by then, those pushing the line of alarmist global warming had already won over the minds of politicians and power brokers, and used their power to stifle the opposition. They would use their names at prestigious venues to continue showing that their numbers were 'right' and that they were, indeed, on the up-and-up. As other global data sets acted in non-accordance with the hypothesis of 'global warming' those pushing it then resorted to culling data, showing incomplete data sets and purporting that they were the whole thing. Yet when publications came in to ask 'where is the data' and 'how do we know its verifiable', the supporters would show their sub-sets and show that their books were in order. Really!

Phase III: The Cat Let Out of the Bag is a Beast

The day came during an economic downturn when a number of investors in the Madoff Scheme needed their money. One or two Madoff could handle, but when heavy investors started to ask for their money, they got subterfuge, excuses, and partial payouts. Something was up and when those representing the individuals holding funds in the Madoff Scheme examined the record, they found the financial and mathematical analyst that had, for years, been showing that there was something seriously wrong with what Madoff was doing. Even with that regulators were put off, but not permanently, and as the number of customers grew, the hue and cry increased and Madoff finally had to do something. When the numbers started to come out the Ponzi Scheme was revealed, and it was massive, the largest ever seen.

The day came when a number of skeptics and journals started to demand the original datasets on tree rings, as later evaluation of the actual forests and trees revealed a non-correlation between long published data and the current data. Graphs had been broken down, analyzed and shown to have some data sets grafted on to others, and yet other sets 'adjusted' by yet other sets of data, all which tended to skew the results being shown. The day came when those holding the data had to respond, publish a paper and also release the data set to a third party. When that data got out, others started to raise questions on methodology and measuring practices, and if the original researchers had considered that there were systemic errors in data sets they used. Still the supporters used their contacts to put off such hard questions, and when governmental requests for information came in, the researchers stalled or claimed to have 'lost the data'. Finally, one day, the data sets that had been used for multiple papers were released, along with the documentation on what was being presented, what held back and why. The scheme to distort the numbers so as to get certain ends out of the political system, be it mere grants and contracts or larger payoffs via industrial regulation changes, were revealed to be a huge fraud in the scientific arena, far surpassing Lysenkoism and the Piltdown Man scandal. Truly no one had ever seen such a distortion of science before.

As I have always said: you must show me the numbers, that is the actual, real data, on global warming for me to even consider it as a hypothesis. Now the numbers are coming out and just like with Madoff, they don't add up.

Phase IV for Madoff was trial(s) and imprisonment for fraud.

Phase IV for 'global warming' is just starting and those involved in it will continue to use anything in their means to put of a day of reckoning. The reason there will be no Cophenhagen Treaty on Global Warming, is that there is something rotten in the State of Denmark that global warming activists have brought with them.

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Foundations of law

The following is from The Jacksonian Party.

The following is a white paper of The Jacksonian party.

After spending some time examining the historical documents that examine the law in practice and its basis, I have determined that a better way to describe what our modern, civil law has become should start at a more practical level starting at the basis of what we are, as humans.  From there proceeding to our more modern views of law should give some basis for further understanding what the strengths, limitations and limits of our laws are.  To any who have read at this site, this is more a summary article than one breaking new ground and may be of little interest save in that summary basis.  As there are many aspects of the universe that can only be answered through venues of faith, philosophy and religion I must, necessarily, put those aspects of what the law is off, at least to the point where mankind can formulate those things.  With that said, and not to exasperate phenomenology practitioners, we must understand that we do, indeed, have a form, an existence and a basis of time and space that we experience.

The question of what time actually is, or space for that matter,  I have covered elsewhere when looking at the problems of science in science fiction.  Whatever the general basis for time is, as individuals we must live with the consequences of our actions taken and the universe also reflects that events have happened in one way and not another, albeit others are acceptable in scientific terms, they are not the ones we have to deal with.  Thus our basis is that of natural beings in a natural universe that has had a series of events, large and small, happen to it with the least of that measure being our time alive at the current moment.  As we are physical beings in a natural universe, we partake of the aspects of that universe covering everything from sub-atomic interactions to the motions of galaxies, all of the chemistry, physics and time related events are what we are to contend with.  That entire gamut of forces, energy, space and time are summed up under the concept of: Law of Nature.

This concept often comes with the tag line 'red of tooth and claw', and such is the Natural Universe and its Laws as they play no favorites.  Nature, like Justice, is blind, save that the tools of Nature trump those of Justice as something being 'Just' is a biased view of Nature and Nature, above all things, is unbiased in the whole.  One of the great and age-old questions is 'why do bad things happen to good people?' and never is asked 'why do good things happen to bad people?' or good to the good and bad to the bad.  While our presence in this universe of Natural Law is biased, in that we have personal bias towards certain ends, the universe, in its whole, doesn't care about that, about us or about Justice.  We flee from injustice aimed at us and head towards Nature as it is unbiased and we can craft survival on our own and worry about biased others as part of our greater survival needs.  When we are threatened with doom by unjust society, Nature in its even-handedness towards the Just and Unjust, alike, is preferable to injustice perpetrated upon us by others.  In trading the Tyrant for the Wolf, we go from a decidedly biased organization to one that is merely Natural and we understand that our status varies by our own hand and is determined by our skills, not by our value to a Tyrant.  Thus if we bemoan when 'bad things happen to good people' then we must also recognize the succor and relatively safety of Nature in being unbiased and without Justice.  We cannot cheer for the Partisan resisting Tyranny from Nature and then bemoan that Nature plays no favorites and visits ill upon the Just and Unjust alike, as well as good fortune upon both.

Survival in Nature requires working with what Nature does in the Laws of Nature, and then finding ways to mitigate the actions of Nature or use them to advantage.  Reproduction allows this and reproductive strategies have many facets for survival, although we are used to thinking that only one is best, that is the outcome of a long series of events that get to our using one method and being temporally successful in the present.  Yet examination of Nature shows that many other species use many different modes to reproduce, and they all have varying degrees of success and failure that cannot be predetermined as being successful in the future.  Thus plants give off pollen during their pollination season in the hopes that one, tiny, pollen grain will find its home in the receptive parts of another plant of the same species so as to fertilize it, and that then allows for a seedling to form, drop and suffer the vicissitudes of Nature.  It is not a guaranteed success, per plant, but for all plants it has proven to be a wonderful means of spreading species and causing allergies.  Many sea animals release thousands if not millions of egg to be fertilized by the sperm of their species counter-parts and then those eggs, fertilized and unfertilized, find their fate in Nature.  Some species find this to be ill-suited to survival and tend the eggs until they released a juvenile of their species, and for some that is the extent of their caring.  Fewer still will create bonds between themselves and a mate or their young, or both, so as to spend time and energy ensuring the survival of a few of their young.  All of these strategies are sound, utilize what their beings have as internal structures, and then exploit venues that allow for successfully passing on genetic material from generation to generation.

Most species fail.

Nature's harvest of species represents 95%+ of all species that have ever existed now being extinct.  That is the way of Nature, and no species is immortal just as no natural being is immortal, either.  Our race against death and extinction is temporary, although we do try to make our existence worthwhile and to ensure the greatest chance of survival to our offspring.  This latter, as we have seen, is a survival strategy bequeathed to us by our lineage both ancient and recent.  Within Nature animals within a species have used the raising of offspring as a major way to ensure genetic heritage being passed onwards.  Also within Nature we observe that numbers of individuals of a species of diverse genetic background can come together for self-protection.  Some that do this do it without conscious thought, while others have conscious discrimination although it is driven by instinct.  Evidence of this behavior crosses all lines of species, and is not held just for herbivores or omnivores or carnivores, and even plants that cooperate between members of a species to crowd out other species can be thought of as having this instinct for survival.  Thus man is an animal of nature in that way and our distinctive characteristics are few and telling.

At one time the ability to use tools and create tools was thought as distinctive to humanity, however observation of primates, great apes and avian species now demonstrates otherwise, as they are able to form tools to go after insects in hives and otherwise create direct use tools to do things.  What separates hominids from this is the ability to use tools to create tools and then extrapolate that outwards as a meta-concept.  Recursive tool creation, making tools to make tools to make tools to craft a final, useful item, is something restricted to hominids, of which humans may be the last of that lineage.  That, however, is a hard characteristic to determine and while it sets us apart in thinking it does not set us apart by Nature, which is to say it is a distinguishing characteristic of hominids but not determinative of being human.  Even something like the use of fire and creation of fire falls into this category of distinguishing sole characteristic, but not a determinative one.  You can tell a human does these things which makes that animal a human, but this does not speak to those things which create humanity.

If our tools, use of fire and artifacts do not create humanity, then we must look elsewhere into our nature as being that do so.  This must then be in our social nature as individuals and how we utilize that beyond other animals.  At base our decision for mating, keeping a mate and raising children is not one that is truly unique amongst species, as many species have this in evidence across all species types, although there is difficulty in finding this in the plant kingdom due to the nature of plants being rooted in one spot and having little choice of mates.  Plants may have community, indeed a climax forest of one plant dominating all others points to just such a thing, but it is not one driven by more than suitability to climate and habitat, with some characteristics to crowd out other species for that climate and habitat.  In that the Law of Nature holds.  Amongst other animals we do see conscious choice in mates amongst individuals and this happens in many species.  What is seen with that, however, is the push by intrinsic nature upon conscious decision making, to that end of nature of procreation.  There is an ability to reject mates in many species, and pick and choose amongst suitors from those present and even to bond with a suitable one for life is not unknown.  Humans are not tied to a mating season, however, and our conscious quest for a suitable mate goes beyond any single season or year, and until we can do that and find a way to find good mates via conscious means, we can do without such a mate.  When our means are enacted, either by the further creations that we make to get that decision or directly, we then establish that direct link and create something wholly different from the Natural world.

Our formation of society rests not upon instinct but upon conscious decision outside of the realm of mating.  We may create many things to do this for us in that final creation of society, such as 'matchmakers' but that is also a conscious decision and our ability to say otherwise, as individuals, can still be upheld.  When that decision over-rides personal decision to our detriment, the system is determined to be tyrannical and inimical to us and must either assent to our declining it or we must find suitable society that supports such decisions.  Here the creation of something to sustain that choice, something that is not driven by instinct but conscious thought, creates the thing that few others in the animal kingdom have: society.  Forming society is conscious, driven by our thoughts, and voluntary in that we may choose not to be in a society that upholds certain forms and yet we do uphold that society is necessary to uphold those forms we desire.  While we do create this society in the Earthly realm, it is not held to the Law of Nature alone but to our own conscious creative spirit that is held within all individuals who uphold that society.  When we recognize that we can do this and do so consciously, we set ourselves apart with a distinguishing and determinative characteristic of that subset of hominids known as Homo Sapiens.  To extrapolate out, to add the meta-thought that this is an actual new creation by us within the realm of Nature is something that makes us unique beyond physique and tools, thus creating Homo Sapiens Sapiens and a new order of Law.

This is the Law that allows societies to be created and for our mutual bonds to be upheld by society and to use our natural liberty to seek out societies that uphold such bonds.  This is not Civil Law which is an outgrowth of society, but a greater Law that is one we must hold voluntarily to have society.  At that moment we consciously recognize that we seek out others to be with consciously, that we put a single meta-structure that describes the creation of other structures over those structures we have created a man-made form of Law that is separate from the Law of Nature and yet built upon it.  We could not have such Law without Nature and yet Nature does not provide us with this Law and it is one we must make and discover for ourselves within the Law of Nature.  This Law of creation of society forming at our bond with another person consciously, and consciously creating that bond between us has a name unique to it that is neither the Civil Law nor the Law of Nature.

It is the Law of Nations.

If any other species, no matter how primitive, utilizes conscious thought to create bonds amongst individuals and then seeks to create a further structure to uphold those bonds, which we call society, then they are voluntarily committing to the Law of Nations.  I have examined the fact that we recognized such back in the 13th century and what that means to us, today, in a previous piece.  This concept is foundational to all societies and to all of mankind, and is voluntarily committed to by us, even if we do not know we are doing it either through lack of forethought, lack of knowledge or lack of introspection on the meaning of these things we do.  Yet, even if it is not recognized, not taught, not written it is a Law that is easily described and defined, and as the creation of any society rests upon the Law of Nations it can be rediscovered even if forgotten or even if it is actively not taught by those seeking tyranny over us.  The reason that latter is true, is that it is true in the long run, not the short run.  A successful ideology seeking to enslave all peoples may be able, for a time, to erase the written signatures of the Law of Nations, but because it is founding a society it, also, rests upon the Law of Nations and cannot do without it.  This is why those civilizations that seek to put the imprimatur of a God upon a mere mortal will assuredly fail over time: that we are of Nature is self-evident, and that man is not Divine is likewise self-evident.  Any society that allows such rests upon a deep lie that is contrary to our nature and to Nature itself.  Likewise, any society that tries to 'remake' man into 'perfection' will find the absolute imperfection of the mortal realm as its long-term lethal enemy.  As we are of Nature we cannot be made perfect and will always remain creatures of Nature no matter what we change ourselves into be it a workers paradise or a silicon based platform for thought, neither can do without Nature and has the flaws of Nature within it which is self-evident to thought.

All other orders of Law be it Civil Law created by society to uphold its norms or National Law to unify multiple societies into a Nation State or International Law between Sovereign Nation States, all of them must uphold the Law of Nations as that is foundational to them just as Nature is foundational to the Law of Nations.  What the Law of Nations does is describe those things that we, as individuals, set aside to have in common as a society so that we may have society.  The Law of Nations then becomes the structures that grow up around those set aside liberties and freedoms that we voluntarily acquiesce to having common governance over in society.  There are a large number of things that we voluntarily give up to have society: Private Bondage for Crime, Private War, Private Execution of Law.  Thus we agree that we, as individuals, are not judge, jury and executioner and must abide by the laws created by society, which are the Civil Laws,  as part of being members of society.  Likewise we cannot wage war Privately, which is to say without the sovereign grant of our society, as that would quickly lead to the downfall of all of society.  So momentous an action would quickly dissolve society back into Nature as we set man against man, society against society by individual whim.

At this level of the Law of Nations we find that there is no creation of government as this is the Law necessary for the creation of government, not of government itself.  Some of the provisos, actions, penalties and such that form the Law of Nations do get passed upwards to the organs of society made to administer our few relinquished liberties and freedoms in order to have society.  With society comes governance and the creation of organs to execute those things held in common for our self-protection and the protection of our creation which is society.  These things we enact then have their own realm of Law which is the Civil Law.  By being the laws created by society and common practice of that society, it is local law.  Civil Law varies from location to location, from place to place, from society to society and there may even be multiple different venues of local Civil Law within one locality.  Town, Municipality, City, County and Province or State all overlap each other on local law venues and all execute Civil Law that is local.  Whenever an issue is to be decided by members of society the proper local Civil Law must be utilized to address those needs.  If a local venue at its lowest form of government is not suitable to an issue, it must then either be recognized as not incorporated into the local law or incorporated into a higher level of local law.

Local law is often referred to as 'customary law' and may have areas of it that are unwritten.  The unwritten nature of local law makes it adaptable, flexible and capable of changing due to the changing nature of society.  When such unwritten or 'customary' law is enacted as scripted or written law, it becomes much, much harder to change as it gains structures of government, administration and oversight by the organs of government that are made responsible for it.  If all of life was to become law that is written down, then individuals would lose their civil liberty and become mere automatons of script with no conscious choice left to them.  Yet the creative nature of man is such that not everything can or should be scripted and written down into law for government to oversee.  To do so has been attempted in the past, in India with the Mahabharata and through the various Empires in China in which the administrative class once served as that class that kept absolute restriction upon society so that the structure ruled over the individual.  Such deeply scripted societies can last for decades or even centuries, and yet when one unscripted event happens, the society is at a loss for how to deal with it and creativity is put to use to figure out what is happening.  Some events may fit within the realm of what can be dealt with, say the Shogunate restricting coastal trade with medieval Korea, and yet may collapse entirely, as when Admiral Perry forced an opening for trade in the Shogunate.  Medieval Europe could well be sustained with a numerous feudal class, but when war and plague wiped out a large percentage of that class the survivors were then relatively wealthy having inherited the wealth of the dead and that started a chain reaction that broke that feudal society asunder. 

Thus, as in nature, a society that is scripted may have staying power but little resilience and succumb to the unexpected, as so many species have since the beginning of life on Earth.  Be it Soviet Union, Sun Empire, Shogunate, European Medieval society, Roman Empire, Pharaohonic Egypt, Hittite Empire, Alexandrian Empire, Babylon, Sumeria, Persian Empire, or India under the Mahabharata's dictates, those societies have not withstood the test of time due to the heavy nature of the scripting between classes and individuals.  And each of these conformed to having refined Civil Law at the National level, thus creating National Law.  When local Civil Law has wide agreement within a larger organized Nation State, then those laws may be codified into National Law that is upon all parts of a Nation.  Beyond that there are necessary Public Laws that must address the entirety of a Nation, such as trade, commerce, and how the Nation addresses sustaining the National government.  As highly structured Nations seek refuge in that structure, so they become brittle by leaving too little to local variation.

From the structure of laws at this point, there is the following larger to smaller subsets seen:

First is the Law of Nature, which encompasses all of Nature, entire.  It is the foundation for all laws made by Natural beings and is unbiased.  It is involuntary law and all must abide by it.

Second is the Law of Nations, which is that law which allows societies to form and, from that, Nations.  It is built upon the Law of Nature but separate from it as it is consciously made via our interactions with each other.  This law is voluntary and to be a member of a society, any society, one submits to the Law of Nations so as to ensure one's own safety, the safety of other members of society and the safety of society itself.  While unwritten law, it is easily recreated the moment society is formed and, thusly, is universal to all beings who possess liberty and freedom to form associations and create society consciously. As a structure the Law of Nations is unbiased, although individual societies will emphasize some parts of the Law of Nations over others.  All societies, however, are governed by the Law of Nations and voluntarily abide by it.

Third is the Civil Law or customary law, which is local law of society.  This is built upon the Law of Nations and is the method by which society creates those organs necessary to regulate the body of society on a local basis.  By becoming a member of a society one agrees to abide by the Civil Law and to do so as long as one is a member of that society.  When one is born into a society, one has no choice but to abide by the Civil Law and its consequences.  Upon reaching an age of conscious understanding of society, one may seek to leave one's birth society and seek another society that is more in agreement with the beliefs, attitudes and life outlook of that individual.  That is supported by the Law of Nations via the self-evident ability of man to consciously choose his form of outlook and join with a society that is agreeable to him.  This is the realm of State Law, which is to say the organs of government representing localities that are delegated by society for such government to preside over.

Fourth is Public Law, which is Nation State law, and is the law for an entire Nation as a whole, not in its parts.  Public Law represents the sovereign government of a Nation and that Nation State must abide by the structures set up for human interaction that are defined by the simplest of interactions via the Law of Nations.  Any Nation State is a high stature creation of large societies or multiple societies having broad common agreement on governing principles or other societal venues that bring them closer together.  As such the Public Law needs address the entire Nation State it represents in the continuum of other Nation States.  Thus the Nation State is a similar organizing unit in concept to the local government, but gains absolute independence due to the fact it represents an independent society or set of societies with high common agreement amongst them.  There is no larger or more sovereign power than a Nation State.

This then brings us to the fifth area of law which is International Law.  This is the form of law governed by the universal and voluntary Law of Nations as any Nation rests upon the Law of Nations for its existence.  As such Nation States as representative of independent societies are the sovereign organs of their societies and no Nation State is given preference or higher status within the Nation State system.  With such a system of equals there is no other power to turn to as each society has its own biases, preferences and outlooks that are represented by the independent and sovereign Nation State.  Thus all agreements that Nation States make are enforced only by those organs of society that create the Nation State, and any enforcement mechanism is likewise agreed-to voluntarily.  As such any Nation State may break an international agreement unilaterally, on its own, without compunction nor reason given.  The only repercussions faced are those imposed by other sovereign Nation States, not by a higher authority as there is none.  In this widely recognized accords become familiar to societies and agreeable ways to function between Nations is found, yet this does not mean that they become beholden to those ways.  Any society that finds the ways burdensome, alien or dangerous can, and should, rightly reject them especially when they put an entire people of a Nation at extreme risk and danger.

Summing up International Law, then, requires a recognition that it is a form of sovereign to sovereign contract law with either able to nullify the agreement at a moment's notice as that is the right of sovereignty.  The dream of there being a world state is one that comes against that sovereignty and is a notion that is relegated to the form of state known as Empire.  Any Empire that rules over a disparate set of subjects, climates, ethnicities and so on, soon finds the burden of trying to manage something that large to be impossible due to Civil Law at the local level.  Some Empires have kept such local establishments going with over-arching provisos of the recognition of the Imperial State as the Supreme ruler, but they, too, have fallen time and again throughout history.  The cracking point of all such grand schemes, be it a religious ideology of a single mass religion or a political one of a single world government, fall straight into the diversity of mankind at the local level.  Smaller Nations can, for a time, impose top-down rule as can Empires, but even in relatively limited geographic circumstances the ability of such Nations to continue on without local upheaval dissolving such government is recognized to be nil.  One dictatorial system may replace another, of course, and that has been seen in China, Russia, and elsewhere, which indicates some problems in societal understanding and cohesion more than an affiliation with the love of Tyrants and Despots.  Even then such dictatorial rulers must abide by the fact that they, even in their extreme self-indulgence, must cater to the entirety of their ruling domain.  Anointed Kings have found themselves in the hangman's noose or the mob's guillotine due to such lacks, and today the bullet becomes the end of those who believe that they are appointed to rule, not govern, for they have forgotten their place as an organ of society and in breaching the Law of Nations they find themselves at its sharp end.

If our modern era has any lacks it is understanding that most basic of laws that we create to separate ourselves from the Law of Nature, which is the Law of Nations.  That the Law of Nations only deals with Nation States as a function of our ability to create society, itself, is lost upon our modern culture and society.  There is a deep, dark space in our way of thought that presumes that the Civil Law or Public Law is the most supreme of all laws, and we even ignore the Law of Nature and presume to say that we can now rule Nature when we can not even govern ourselves well.  It is in that darkness that we hear the voice of corruption and tyranny, whispering softly to us that just by entrusting more of our liberty and freedom to governments that all will turn out well.  It whispers to us that mankind can, against all evidence against it, be perfected and is perfectible.  The great sorrow and bloodshed that comes from the voice of unreason sweetly whispering to us is denied time and again, yet the copious dead to the pyre of perfection smells just as rank even if you call it sweet ambrosia.  In believing that we can blame all our lacks on society and all our good will to government, we invert the actual nature of ourselves and forget that what we are saying is that government comes first, society second, while just the opposite is true. 

In this mortal realm we are bidden to seek to be 'more perfect' and understand that the Law of Nature that brings us forth creates imperfection within us and all things that cannot be removed.  No law has been so good that its best practitioners have not obeyed it, and even Moses, upon casting down the Tablets, ordered his fellow Israelites killed against the exact, same dictates he had just carried from the Mount.  Yet when we seek to practice imperfection, to loft up the power of government over society and over the Law of Nations, we will find that this can be done... and then that great and awful edifice will fall, with great loss of life in both directions.  No government is so wise as to be deemed all powerful, as it is made up of men and the creations of man, which are fallible, biased and prone to our corruption to ill ends.  No leader is so wise as to be able to understand the daily lives of each of his subjects nor to rule over them in such a way as to tell each how to live.  No people have created an eternal government full of wise and charitable leaders, that lead a penniless existence and only serve the ends of their Nation State.  It would be humorous that there are those that hint that this is possible, if we could just ignore the gore and horror attendant to each and every time that is tried.  Those preaching this are so wise that they have forgotten the founding Law that makes their existence possible, and then transgress the Law that makes such society as they live in possible by suggesting we don't need it if we only trust the infallible, all powerful, all knowing government that we, poor, frail and imperfect man creates.  And the epitaph of those who preach this seems to be invariant:

"It seemed like a good idea at the time."

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