Everywhere I look, today, large numbers of people are taking things to extremes, and declaring they’re exercising their Constitutional rights. Some are; and quite a few are carrying the exercise of those “rights” to extremes. Even when the extremes are legal, and many aren’t, is this always a good idea? Even when one can make a case for such excess, is it good when so many “rights” are being pushed to the limits… and beyond?

The first amendment grants and protects the “right of the people to peaceably assemble,” as it should, but all too many assemblies these days are anything but peaceable. The first amendment also prohibits abridging the freedom of the press, and with each year the media pushes out more obnoxious, vulgar, intolerant, and generally inflammatory content, with less and less factual substance. It’s become more and more about “stirring people up,” as a fictional politician in the movie Primary Colors once declared.

And somehow, the Religious Right seems to believe that: (1) allowing women to decide whether they want to be pregnant or not violates religious rights of the Religious Right; (2) private corporations are individuals that can impose their beliefs on their employees; (3) while insisting that every zygote be carried to full term and born, they also insist that government should provide no aid or support for all those unwanted children once they are born. And they honestly feel that these beliefs are not in the slightest extreme.

Then there’s the second amendment. Now that there’s no doubt that any gun-lover in the United States can own and shoot semi-automatic weapons with fifty bullet magazines, what’s next? Private armored personnel carriers [after all, the police now have them] or your own suitcase A-Bomb?

How about a little self-restraint? Not that our media will allow that, because restraint doesn’t sell. As a matter of fact, at least one media outlet has suggested just such restraint – and has been roundly criticized in some quarters for betraying “freedom of the press.”

Charlie Hebdo carried freedom of the press to extremes; the gunmen who brutally assassinated twelve people at the newspaper carried their beliefs to extremes. Is this the world we wish to create, where extremes battle extremes, and the one with the most firepower wins?

And, please, forget about declaring that extreme use of words and cartoons isn’t the same as extreme use of bullets. No, it’s not, but what the extreme users of words and symbols so easily forget or ignore is that such extreme use of words shapes social and political structures, and that shaping influences those with bullets, just as the words and “teachings” of extremist Islamists influenced the killers of those at Charlie Hebdo. Being one step removed from causing violence doesn’t remove all the blood from your hands. Like it or not, people are swayed by words and symbols, and the extreme use of either all too often results in disaster. Just look at what Hitler accomplished, and it all began with words… just words.

What’s the reason for all this extremism? Is it because we’re all so busy trying to be heard and to make our points that the din we’ve created drowns out all our efforts… or is it because we’re so preoccupied with what we’re doing that we’re not listening… or is it because we’re so convinced of our own “truth” that we disregard the “truths” of others?

Whatever it is, the result is the multiplication of extremism in all forms, and that is the road to hell, superbly paved with our good intentions based on the assumption that we know best, and that only we have the truth on our side in exerting our “freedoms” and beliefs to their extremes.

Recently, following the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner, signs have sprouted in numerous places and at a number of rallies and protests concerned with “police brutality” and the way in which police are alleged, and certainly do at least at times, to deal with minorities, particularly those of African-American descent. Those signs read “Black Lives Matter.” Since I cannot read the minds of those creating and parading the signs, I will assume that the full meaning of those signs is that black lives matter just as much as white Caucasian lives, especially in the administration of law by the police. That is certainly an appropriate and understandable principle.

Except… principles in theory and administration in fact are two different things.

In point of fact, I know very few people who value all lives as equal in meaning and value. The vast majority of us value our own lives highly, and those of our nearest kin highly. Some parents value their children’s lives more highly than their own; some do not, but almost all individuals value the lives of those near and dear to them more than the lives of those they do not know, or know but slightly.

People also value the lives of those who have accomplished worthwhile goals more than the lives those who have not. They may deny that, or even say something to the effect that, in the eyes of whatever Deity they worship, all lives are equal. That’s a polite admission that they don’t place equal value on all lives.

While the laws of the land, and those who enforce those laws, should in fact treat all those innocent of wrong-doing equally, and should presume someone innocent until proven guilty – or, at the very least, observed in wrong-doing – that does not mean that all lives are in fact equal, or that we truly value them as equal.

At the same time, the fact that we place differing levels of value on life, depending on who we are and where we live, does not justify differing treatment under the law. Laws are meant to be applied fairly and evenly to all. Unhappily, often they are not, and at times, as I have noted before, sometimes the laws themselves have been written in ways that disadvantage one group or unfairly advantage another.

Equally unfortunate, however, is when laws are applied equally, and some group or another believes that they are not.

Then, too, there is the very difficult problem of dealing with those apprehended for breaking the law when such individuals do not wish to be detained or arrested. The Garner case is an unfortunate, but illustrative, example. No matter what anyone claims, Garner was not choked to death. One cannot say he “can’t breathe” a number of times if his airway is blocked. That doesn’t mean that the police efforts didn’t result in his death. Based on the situation, his ill health, and the autopsy reports, he most likely died of an internal violent asthmatic reaction to stress and to his attempted arrest. The simplistic explanation that he was choked to death, unfortunately, obscures the more difficult problem facing police officers. To what degree should force be used? How are officers to know if someone has a health problem, as Garner did, especially if they resist arrest? Garner’s situation is truly unfortunate, but it’s also an example of how complicated the issue of “rights” can be.

While one can and should expect police officers to treat people equally, what exactly does “equally” mean when they are dealing with individuals whom they have either witnessed committing a crime or who they have strong reason to believe have committed a crime – as in the case of Michael Brown? The recent case of the two New City detectives who were shot by individuals committing a burglary is an illustration of the other side of the issue.

What also seems to be overlooked is that mandate laid upon police officers is to keep the peace and apprehend law-breakers. Are they supposed to ignore less violent crime because the perpetrator is black or another minority? Perhaps they should, given that current law certainly doesn’t require the immediate arrest and hand-cuffing for white-collar crime, a less violent form of crime committed disproportionately by whites. And maybe, just maybe, we might then see some “interesting” results.

Either way… the issue is anything but simple, and simple slogans, by themselves, won’t resolve it.

While Cedar City does have winter, often bitingly cold, if not nearly so cold as Canadian winters, it does reach below zero [Fahrenheit] temperatures a handful of times most winters, and most winter nights have sub-freezing temperatures. We also have lots of wind. Because at almost 6,000 feet, Cedar City is high desert, we don’t get huge amounts of snow, but it does tend to stay around, and we usually get 2-5 significant snowfalls, significant being more than a foot where I live. And because I do walk a lot for exercise, half on trails and half on streets/sidewalks, when this occurs, as it has in the last few weeks, I do notice which houses evidence snow removal, which do not, and how much is cleared, either by shovel, snow-blower, or plow.

There are those houses, thankfully a minority, where no snow ever appears to be shoveled, and where the inhabitants merely pack down the snow into a solid mass on driveways and sidewalks. Eventually, this turns to ice or a reasonable facsimile thereof. In time, in our dry air, it eventually sublimates, but not before causing slips and falls.

Then there are those houses where only the driveway is shoveled, clearly indicating that the thought that anyone walks anywhere except from or to a vehicle has never occurred to the inhabitants. Next come the houses where the sidewalk to the street and/or mailbox is shoveled, as well as the driveway, but nothing else.

Finally, there are the houses where every walk and driveway is shoveled/cleared. Ours fits this category, except for the redwood deck that’s effectively unusable in winter and inaccessible except from inside the house – although I do clear the access to the bird feeder.

In observing all the different stages of snow removal or lack thereof, certain thoughts have occurred to me. First, clearing sidewalks – especially the walks other than those providing access to house, mailbox, or vehicle – is essentially a matter of both courtesy and safety to others.

Second, snow removal appears to be largely deficient in those dwellings harboring teenagers and young adults, except as necessary to obtain vehicle access.

Third, a high percentage of older couples still manage snow removal, although, understandably, it often takes them longer.

Fourth, after one or two winters, a certain percentage of retirees who moved here from California decide to move south.

Fifth, I’m really glad I have both a snow-blower and an ergonomic snow shovel.

The other day I read a reader review of Heritage of Cyador which stated that “Modesitt’s Utah heritage and belief system comes through in his writing.” That’s about half right. My books do reflect to a greater or lesser degree my beliefs. I believe that to be true of almost all writers, although it is more obvious with some writers and less so with others.

“Utah heritage,” however is another question, since I am neither of the LDS faith, nor am I a native-born Utahan. In fact, if we’re talking “heritage,” I’m a fourth generation Coloradan, who didn’t even move to Utah until I was fifty years old, years seasoned by nearly two decades spent in Washington, D.C., and whose beliefs are probably best described as Anglican/agnostic, and the reason I say Anglican rather than Episcopalian is because whatever religious traditions I do have are rooted in the King James versions of the Bible and Book of Common Prayer, which the Episcopalians abandoned years and years ago.

Why any of this matters is because it reflects on the human tendency to jump to conclusions based on inadequate or inaccurate facts… or even ignoring easily available facts. Since I write in a certain style and have lived in Utah for a number of years, this reader has immediately pigeon-holed me and assumed that my heritage is entirely based on my locale. This is obviously just one reader, but I could have given many examples of other equally erroneous “deductions” buy readers and others. At the same time, several more perceptive readers have deduced my “Anglican” aspects from the ritual passages describing the anomen services in the Imager Portfolio books, but such deduction requires more knowledge and thought, especially when there might be multiple explanations.

One reason often cited for jumping to conclusions is Occam’s Razor, which states that among competing hypotheses or ideas, the one with the fewest assumptions should be selected, but all too often those who think they’re operating accurately under Occam’s principle fail to consider the linkage between a fact and the assumptions made based on those facts. Just because 62% of Utah’s population happens to be LDS, and 62% of the current population happens to have been born in Utah, doesn’t automatically or even statistically mean that because I live in Utah my heritage is Utahan – especially when my biography says I was born in Colorado. But it’s so much easier to assume I’m LDS and have a Utah heritage because I live in Cedar City and my writing meets a preconceived notion of what “LDS writing” is like. I explore moral themes. So do other writers. Some are LDS; some are not. To assume that a writer “is” something because of perceived similarities and where the writer lives, especially when there are published facts to the contrary, is not only intellectually sloppy, but also reflects a culture that wants quick and easy answers without much thought or research.

Then, too, it could also reflect the simplest interpretation of existing facts. My wife graduated from a Utah university, and has taught at two separate Utah universities for quite a number of years. I’m clean-shaven, don’t drink or smoke, and generally don’t use blasphemous curses in my writing [other kinds, definitely so]. We have far more than the average number of children… all of which suggests – erroneously – a certain religious affiliation.

And all of this also suggests why I tend to be most skeptical of people who cite Occam’s Razor, especially when they jump to conclusions. Life and the universe just aren’t that simple.

In his book, The Meaning of Human Existence, the noted biologist Edmund Wilson calls for what amounts to a return to “the Enlightenment” with the unification of the sciences and the humanities in the quest for meaning. He argues that the initial thrust of the Enlightenment “stalled” essentially because the sciences alone could provide no real explanations that would fulfill the human desire to find meaning in the universe, and, in response the humanities, especially the founders of Romantic literature, turned away from the sciences in their quest for meaning.

Wilson goes on to argue that a unified approach to discovering the meaning of life is necessary and vital because the conflicts between and within belief systems and religions cannot be resolved otherwise. [This point does assume that human beings will eventually accept factual discoveries that conflict with beliefs, an issue that I’ve raised more than once, since I suspect many humans will find it difficult to abandon belief in a faith-based supernatural.] He also points out, if quietly, that the rate of scientific advance has slowed and will continue to slow as more is discovered, and as more resources are required to research and develop subsequent knowledge and technology.

More to the point of the role of science fiction, Wilson points out that science fiction already plays a key role by using aliens as a means for us to reflect on our own condition. I frankly believe that Wilson ascribes to SF far too narrow a role in regard to charting the future course of human endeavor, although I’m glad to see a recognition in print of at least some of what speculative fiction has done and what I hope it will continue to do.

The Romantic movement sought to find the “truth” about the human condition and “reality” through everything from drugs to the elaborate use of metaphor, apparently because science did not provide an adequate and immediate answer. In a sense, the aliens of science fiction are indeed a metaphorical device for investigating the human condition, but SF also addresses more directly such basic questions as the role of science and technology in society in a way that is far more accessible than any scholarly or academic treatise can hope to do… and in fact in a fashion more accessible than even Wilson’s book. This exploration of the still-widening gulf between belief and scientific grounding in the existing reality of the universe is becoming more and more necessary… but at a time when harder science fiction is being written and read less frequently.

At the same time, I do have to admit that I am concerned about the swelling of interest in fantasy, particularly in the United Stated and particularly fantasy based on permutations and variations of the supernatural, and, equally, about the diminution of overall interest in science fiction grounded directly in scientific precepts and verified facts, perhaps because a great deal of supernatural-related fantasy appears to reinforce the existing dichotomy between the humanities and the sciences, or more bluntly, between romantic/religious faith/fantasy and a fact-based view of the universe.

If that seems a harsh judgment, consider that tens of thousands of people, if not more, have been slaughtered over the past decade by the suicide attacks of “true believers,” many of whom deeply believe they will achieve a paradise in heaven where they will be waited on, served, and serviced by seventy-odd virgins, based on extrapolation of teachings supposedly founded on the words of the Koran. Or consider the hard-core Christian fundamentalists who insist that the world is less than ten thousand years old. Clearly, there is a certain lack of even fundamental understanding of science, suggesting that such beliefs are about as far as one can get from the rational understanding of the human condition sought by Francis Bacon and the early proponents of the Enlightenment.

All of which suggests to me that there needs to be more good science fiction read by more people, particularly those of school age… but then, what else would a F&SF writer suggest?

Last month, Tor re-released The Soprano Sorceress in a trade paperback edition, but the Amazon Soprano Sorceress webpage that linked to me and my other books never showed the trade paperback edition. I brought this up to Tor, because what’s the use of publishing a new print edition if no one knows it’s out there, and, even if they do, they can’t order it? It took Amazon over a week to get back to Tor, and when the Amazon people did, they said it would take a week to fix the glitch. They informed Tor that there is a page that shows the trade paperback edition, but I can’t find a way to get to it, except through the link that Amazon provided. So far, almost two weeks later, the glitch has only been partly fixed. That is, is you search for The Soprano Sorceress, you can find the trade paperback, but if you search for me first, the only webpage for the book that comes up doesn’t have access to the trade paperback [at least as of this posting].

They can find and ship a book in minutes or hours, but it takes a week to find a glitch that’s already been brought to their attention… and another week to fix it?

And this is the high-tech master/monster of bookselling? Except, I forgot. It’s only concerned about obtaining books and ebooks as cheaply as possible and getting as many as possible to consumers as fast as possible. Fixing a problem with a reissued backlist title? That can wait.

And then, there’s still the elephant in the room, or the bookstore… Amazon’s treatment of ebooks and their authors. There’s one factor that’s so obvious to authors and publishers that it’s really been overlooked in the discussions, or those I’ve seen. Under standard contracts, royalties paid to authors for physically printed books are calculated and paid based on the list price of the book. It doesn’t matter to the author financially whether that $27.99 hardcover is sold for $27.99 at the small local independent bookstore, or at $20.99 at Barnes & Noble, or at $17.45 at Amazon; the royalty is the same. On standard ebook contracts, the royalty paid is effectively a percentage of the actual price paid, and it matters a great deal to the author whether that ebook is sold at $14.99, $12.95, or discounted to $9.99… or less.

Series mania seems to be continuing. Fewer and fewer authors are writing and publishing stand-alone novels. Practically every new author that appears debuts with the first book of a series. Now I realize that I have lots of books in series, and a fair number of series, but, given the way I write series, I’d submit that bulk of my series books can be read as stand-alones. If we’re talking pure stand-alone novels, twenty percent of my published work consists of stand-alone novels [all SF, I will admit], and I’ve continued to write them over the years, despite the sad fact that stand-alone books seldom sell nearly as well as series books. The bottom line here, literally, is that if you as readers want more stand-alone novels, you need to buy them, lots of them, because most writers, especially mid-list writers, can’t afford not to write series, and even if they’re not supporting themselves entirely on their writing, their publishers can’t afford to publish many stand-alone books by newer writers.

Several years ago, Southern Utah University named a small room in a campus building after Senator Harry Reid, who had graduated from S.U.U. years before. Earlier this year, a city councilman and the Iron County Republicans mounted a campaign to have the senator’s name removed on the grounds that his name on one small room was discouraging conservative donors from giving money to the university, which is a state institution. The university president capitulated, and Reid’s name was removed. At the time, Reid said nothing. Last week, when he was asked about it as part of a much longer interview in Las Vegas he simply said that the effort to remove his name had been the work of “right-wing whackos.” The Iron County Republicans, an extraordinarily conservative bunch, were incensed by his rather accurate characterization of them as extremists, apparently ignoring the fact that they’re among the most conservative Republicans in the most conservative state in the Union. They’re not extremists; they insist they’re true Republicans who believe in the Constitution… or their interpretation of the Constitution, which includes believing that Obama should be impeached for doing the same things that Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush did and that all federal lands in Utah belong to the state and not the federal government.

This rather small episode got me to thinking, because that’s a pattern we’re seeing more and more of these days. Whatever the brand of extremism, the extremists aren’t extreme – they maintain that they are the followers of the true way, and establishing and maintaining that “true” way justifies whatever behaviors or tactics they employ.

Foremost among such extremists, of course, at least at present, are Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and ISIS (but certainly the Catholic Church in the 1500s wasn’t any better) in that they insist that they need to establish and maintain the true faith and that killing unbelievers and infidels is totally justified. They weren’t and aren’t extreme, but just doing God’s work.

Correspondingly, the leftwing ultra-feminists who declare that every sexual act between a man and a woman is an act of rape are merely pointing out “the truth.” Just as every right-to-life type who believes murdering doctors who perform abortions is justified in order to save the unborn is following his “truth.” Cliven Bundy and more than half the state legislators in Utah who declare that federal lands belong to them aren’t extremists; they declare they’re true patriots. Ultra-liberals who embrace all change and the newest thing as good are extremists, as are the internet extremists whose truth (“information wants to be free”) effectively embraces the extremes of socialism/communism with regard to intellectual property, but insist that they’re merely empowering the people.

All in all, as we’ve become more polarized in our attitudes, all too many of us have also come to believe that “our way” is the only way… in everything.

A while back I mentioned that I’d almost hit a skateboarder with my car when he, wearing earbuds in both ears, turned off a sidewalk right into oncoming traffic… and had the nerve to look outraged when I had to swerve frantically to avoid him. At least twice a week, on her way to work, my wife has to stop her car because someone, with earbuds and a smartphone, steps into the street in front of her car, oblivious to anything else. Because, after all, it’s their right to communicate where and when they want, regardless of the consequences.

And then there all are the cellphone and smartphone addicts, who feel that they have the right to communicate instantly, and often loudly, anywhere and at any time, even when driving in high-speed urban freeway traffic or after the airplane doors have been closed, or the texters who employ their smartphones in darkened theatres and opera houses, making it difficult for those beside and behind them to concentrate on what most people are there to see and hear – despite pointedly being told that texting and electronic devices are not permitted during the performance. Along with them are the talkers – who obviously feel they have the right to punctuate and comment on the performance while it is in progress.

Others who overextend their rights are the “information should be free” types, who insist it’s their right to pirate electronic versions of music or books, or to enjoy pirated versions, thereby depriving the creators of income from their creations.

Elsewhere in the fabric of “my right” activists are those who employ the highways to demonstrate their belief in solipsistic superiority – either by driving well below the speed limit, especially in the left-hand lane, or careening through traffic well above speed limits, or racing to the merge point and honking madly to part traffic, or engaging in some other vehicular activity that suggests that the rights of others are markedly inferior.

Among other “my rights” activists are the parents who insist that their child is always right, and that the teacher, professor, police officer, employer, or other authority figure is always wrong… or just “misunderstands” the needs of their most wonderful offspring.

Add to that the second amendment fanatics, who insist that it is their right, and everyone else’s, to obtain and carry more personal weapons in the U.S. than all in the armies in the world – without any real requirement for competency and with no real restrictions on who can purchase and use those weapons.

On top of all those people are those who believe that the laws of the land don’t apply to them, that they’re “special,” as illustrated by the fact that, according to FBI statistics for 2013, there were 49,851 assaults on police officers, meaning, that on average, one in every eleven police officers was assaulted in a single year. While I’d be among the first to admit that there are bad apples among police officers, no matter how well applicants for those positions are screened, there are bad apples in every profession, but bad apples or not, what do fifty thousand assaults a year on law enforcement personnel say about the great American public?

Isn’t it about time to stop asserting “my rights” and start looking out for the rights of others?

I understand the concerns over excessive use of force by police. I understand the fact that statistics and a wealth of data show that minorities are harassed more by police than are non-minorities. What I’m having a very hard time getting my head around is the degree of outrage created by the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner.

As I’ve noted before, and as there is indisputable evidence to demonstrate, Michael Brown committed theft and assault and most likely physically assaulted a police officer and tried to grab his gun. If I’d done all that in any jurisdiction I can think of, even as a white male American, I’d most likely be dead as well, and you can bet that there wouldn’t be hundreds of protests across the country.

Eric Garner wasn’t shot. He was wrestled down after causing a scene when police tried to stop him from continuing an illegal practice. The practice of selling untaxed loose cigarettes wasn’t what led to his death. His physical resistance and refusal to stop selling the cigarettes led to an attempt to restrain him, which proved fatal because of two factors – Garner’s underlying health conditions, of which the police had no knowledge, and the use of a supposed chokehold, which had been banned for police use some twenty years earlier, although the officer involved has denied that the hold was a chokehold. But Garner was no innocent, either. He had a criminal record with more than 30 arrests dating back over thirty years on charges such as assault, resisting arrest, and grand larceny. But the “failure” to indict a policeman ignited another round of protests.

Why is there all this outrage, as if the two individuals who died were innocents and paragons of society? They weren’t. Yes, they were human beings, but they made bad decisions, repeatedly, and they are being made out to be innocent victims of a brutal system, and all too many of the protests are attempting to pin the entire “blame” on the police. Granted, the system is at times brutal, and it needs reform in many geographical areas, but riots, demonstrations, and making saints out of people like Garner is likely to make reform even more difficult.

From a very personal point of view, these kinds of protests also anger me because they not only glorify people who don’t deserve it, but they also ignore the true innocents. I don’t see hundreds of protests for the schoolgirls and schoolboys killed every year in drive-by shootings across the country, most of whom, unfortunately, are minorities. I don’t see hundreds of protests for the truly innocent children gunned down at Sandy Hook; instead I see well-heeled and well-dressed middle-class Americans protesting that their rights to bear arms will be infringed if any sort of measure requiring weapons competency is enacted. I don’t see protests about the failure to indict financiers on criminal charges for fraudulent use of robo-signatures that have illegally thrown tens of thousands of Americans out of their houses. I don’t see hundreds of protests again natural resource companies, such as those in West Virginia, who have poisoned millions of truly innocent people.

And in the case of Ferguson, Missouri, there’s one other truly remarkable and unanswered question. Every story I’ve seen indicates that the town is sixty-five to seventy percent black, but the police force is ninety percent white, and while the mayor is black, only one of the town’s six council members is black, yet, according to news reports, less than ten percent of the black population voted in the last election. If this has been an ongoing problem, which is what all sources report, why haven’t all those minority voters turned out and voted for officials to change the system? If that low turnout is because of illegal political restrictions on voting, why hasn’t that been brought up? Either way, why aren’t the local blacks using the system by seeking the vote or voting? It would be a lot more constructive than burning down local businesses in rage, which, by the way, is in fact a crime. But then, rioting and demonstrating is a lot easier and more flamboyant than the drudgery of registering and educating voters, and then getting them to the polls. That takes work, lots of work… but that sort of work is also what brings lasting improvement and change. It also doesn’t bring headlines, which is what the media and agitators all seek.

One of many things I’ve learned in over forty years as a published science fiction and fantasy writer is that while readers span a great range of interests, backgrounds, and enthusiasm for the printed word, and some of those readers enjoy varying types of work, a great many readers have a fairly narrow comfort zone. Years ago, when I wrote The Towers of the Sunset, my editor, the venerable David Hartwell, asked, “Could you write this book in the third person past tense?”

“Why?” I asked. “It’s a better book in the third person present tense. It wouldn’t work as well in the past tense.”

“Because most readers are more comfortable reading books written in the third person past tense, and you’ll lose readers if this book is published as you wrote it.”

I persisted; David accepted the novel as written in the third person present tense, except he did want an expansion of the last part, and he was definitely right about that. He was also right about a number of readers not liking the use of present tense, especially when the book was first published, but those who liked the use of the present tense really liked it, and, as a result, I’ve gotten the impression, over the more than twenty years since Towers was published, that it has tended to be a reader’s most favorite or least favorite book in the entire Saga of Recluce, despite the fact that, since then, I’ve written other Recluce novels in present tense as well.

Then a number of years later, I wrote another book – Archform:Beauty – in which I told the story from the viewpoints of five different characters – in first person past tense. It got great reviews… and sold only moderately well. At times, a differing approach upsets both readers and reviewers, as was the case with Empress of Eternity, where the interweaving three narrative lines set in vastly different future time periods is based on an actual theory of time [not mine] suggested by Einstein’s work.

Readers also have expectations of a writer, and this was made very clear by the five books of the Spellsong Cycle and by Arms-Commander, the sixteenth book of the Recluce Saga, all of which were told from the female perspective, and all of which sold at lower levels than comparable books of mine told from the male point of view. I actually got comments and emails from male readers saying that they just couldn’t identify with a female point of view, that they weren’t comfortable with it.

Over the years, I’ve done a number of books that have incorporated, shall we say, departures from standard third person, past tense, straight line narrative, and there’s a definite bottom-line cost to continuing to write such books.

In general, the greater the degree of separation from “standard narrative,” the lower the comparative sales numbers were. For those of you who bemoan the “sameness” of so many books, you might bear in mind that professional writers do need to make a living, and when innovation reduces the publisher’s income, and correspondingly, the writer’s income, both tend to become more conservative. There are, of course, exceptions to this, but not, generally, among writers whose works support them. In fact, I’m probably one of a very few self-supporting full-time writers who produces a relatively divergent range of books, under the same name. I know a few other writers who try to avoid the sales drop-off and market to distinct classes of readers by using different pen names for different kinds of books, but I guess I’m just a bit old-fashioned, because, to me, that’s catering a bit too much to readers’ comfort zones.

In the end, I not only want to entertain and hopefully enthrall my readers, but also at least edge them out of their comfort zone to some degree, if not more, to get them to consider anything from a slight to a far different perspective, and like all writers, I doubtless have mixed success. But it’s still worth trying.

Last week several Utah state legislators proposed giving “incentive funding” to those state universities who most increase the percentage and numbers of students completing their undergraduate studies and graduating in less than six years. While the goal is certainly noteworthy, because all too many Utah students do take more than six years, the remedy effectively places the blame in the wrong place and would be almost laughable, if it weren’t so tragic, because the colleges aren’t the ones to blame, not in Utah, anyway.

The population of Utah is roughly 70% LDS [Mormon], and roughly 75%-80% of all college students in Utah state universities are also LDS. Of that number close to 80% of the male LDS college students undertake a two-year mission during their “college years.” Depending on what month in which their “mission call” arrives, the male student can spend 2-3 years out of college serving his church. Roughly 30% of female students also undertake missions, which removes them from college for two years.

Add to this the fact that the head of the LDS church has made an extremely strong push for male students to get married within a year of completing their mission… and a great number do, as many as half, if the percentages observed at the local university are replicated at other Utah universities. Those married students then often have to work, not surprisingly, to support their families and their studies. This delays their completion of studies, and, in some cases, particularly for women, keeps them from even getting a degree.

The real question is just how universities and university professors are supposed to get students through the degree programs faster when religious commitments leave those students in a situation where it is either difficult or impossible to finish a four year program in six years, considering that the students are absent from 2-3 years. The university most likely to improve their “6-year graduation rate” is going to be the University of Utah, simply because it has the lowest percentage of LDS undergraduates, and in general, the most highly qualified in-state students, while the regional universities with the highest percentage of LDS students, and the greatest percentage of first-generation college students, will have the hardest time… and yet those students and colleges are the ones who are already getting far less funding from the legislature.

But then, this latest legislative “initiative” at least recognizes the problem, if pointedly ignoring the causes.

… has almost nothing to do with Michael Brown. Nor does it have all that much to do with “police brutality.” Those who focus on either are missing the underlying point and will only make the situation worse by polarizing the fear and hatred without doing a damned thing to address the underlying cause… and that cause is not just the unfair treatment of blacks and minorities. The unfair treatment of blacks and minorities and women is just one aspect of something much larger. And no, I’m not a socialist, or a communist.

I’m a firm believer in personal responsibility at all levels, and the overall problem facing the United States and, from what I can see, all too many industrialized nations is that we have institutionalized and effectively legalized a system that all too often absolves those with resources from personal responsibility, and in some cases decriminalizes certain forms of unethical or irresponsible behavior on their part while retaining penalties on those who are poor, or otherwise economically challenged.

The great legal innovation that made possible the rise of large corporations was the development of limited liability or incorporation, whereby organizations gain the legal status of individuals, thereby shielding the officers or owners of corporations from both damages and direct responsibility for acts committed by the corporation. In practice, that means no individual can be prosecuted for murder, manslaughter or any other equivalent charge as a result of the faulty GM starter switch, the unsafe placement of the Ford Pinto gas tank, the sudden acceleration of certain Toyota vehicles. No individual in the banking establishment has ever been nor could they ever be prosecuted for developing and implementing the widespread financial tools that crashed the economy. Over the past century, company after company has engaged in acts and behaviors that have killed or ruined the health and environment of millions of Americans, and after more than twenty years in the environmental regulatory field, I’m not aware of a single prosecution of any corporate decision-maker on environmental grounds. Oh, there have been prosecutions of and successful damage lawsuits against corporations, but those violations and damage were paid out of “corporate funds,” i.e., revenues generated by corporate operations, usually the same polluting and/or unsafe operations that were found to be illegal. Slightly ironic, isn’t it, and more than a little hypocritical.

I’m not opposed to capitalism. In fact, I’m in favor of “pure capitalism” as opposed to the “unfettered” capitalism that so many business types claim as the pure thing… and isn’t. Unfettered capitalism was what the robber-barons of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century practiced, capitalism without rules or restrictions. In practice, this meant minimizing costs by paying workers as little as possible, providing few if any benefits, paying the lowest taxes for government services possible, not worrying any more than absolutely necessary about product quality, and despoiling the environment, and thus dumping the environmental costs on everyone else. In short, unfettered capitalism thrives on pushing off as much of the costs of production as possible on everyone else. Under “pure capitalism” [which I admit freely isn’t yet possible], businesses would be required to cover ALL the costs of production in the price of their products, including total environmental clean-up [zero pollution], safe products and working environment, and livable wages for workers. While a handful of businesses today meet this standard, most don’t, and possibly can’t under current economic and legal structures, especially with the insatiable American demand for goods and services at the lowest possible prices. As result, we have a considerable number of large corporations that employ huge numbers of part-time workers and send jobs overseas, where labor costs are lower and environmental requirements far less stringent. None of this translates into better wages and jobs for economically disadvantaged Americans, a significant percentage of whom are minorities.

In a sense, the same structural mindset is also true of government, in that no member of Congress or group of members of Congress can be prosecuted for giving tax breaks to specific firms [appropriately couched in general language that boils down in practice to applying to one or two or only a few corporations or individuals], even though such “tax breaks” that apply to a minute few of all taxpayers essentially amount to theft from all other taxpayers, which is ethically definitely a form of corruption.

As a result of this kind of governmental and legal structure, we have developed a business and societal structure that rewards unethical behavior by those with great resources, removes those individuals from personal legal sanctions and responsibility for actions that damage if not kill anywhere from scores to millions of people, and minimizes the impact of criminal penalties on those in the upper middle class and upper class. The legal penalties for so-called white collar crime are so much less stringent than the penalties for what might be called street crime, and even drug laws are effectively aimed at the economically disadvantaged.

Education falls into the same twin-level structure. Those with resources can obtain a better education for their children by either living in an affluent community with good public schools or sending their children to private schools. The poor – and the bulk of most minorities are poor – have no such choice. Add to this the fact that almost all the education “reforms” so far implemented [as I’ve discussed in great depth over the years] are largely ineffectual in improving education for anyone who is not affluent, except in the case of a comparative handful of charter schools, and “more” education isn’t helping the majority of the poor and middle class all that much. The skyrocketing levels of public college tuition [fueled largely by the reluctance of state legislators to maintain past levels of state contributions because of an unwillingess to raise taxes] impact, again disproportionately, those students who come from middle class or lower economic backgrounds, especially minority students.

Then add in the growing income inequality in the United States, which reduces even more the ability of those without resources to climb out of poverty and otherwise succeed.

Michael Brown was no angel. He wasn’t even close. But that isn’t the point behind all the demonstrations. In effect, Michael Brown was shot because he wanted more and stole a box of cigars to get it. That theft set off a chain of events which led to a confrontation during which he was killed.

On the other hand, Ken Lay and Jeffrey Skilling, who definitely wanted more, weren’t killed for destroying Enron and devastating the lives of the 4,000 employees. And recently Skilling effectively “bought” a reduction in the jail time he’ll have to serve. GM and Ford upper management weren’t prosecuted for approving cost-cutting designs that killed people. Although coal companies have polluted and rendered undrinkable almost a quarter of the surface water streams in West Virginia, causing thousands of health problems, and likely hundreds of deaths, if not more, I haven’t found evidence of a single criminal prosecution that has been undertaken against an individual. Not a single individual could be prosecuted under current law for the banking and financial manipulations that almost crashed the entire U.S. economy in 2008 and led to the Great Recession. These are just a few examples of what is a wide-spread pattern of corporate behavior.

But we can criminalize minor drug possession, and throw people in jail for life for three crimes, not involving murder, that might affect as few as three people.

The outrage over Michael Brown’s death, whether all those protesters realize it consciously or not, is an outrage over a system that has become more and more closed and more and more tilted toward those with resources.

So many of the news headlines today reflect both — another aid worker beheaded; hundreds of villagers of a different faith beheaded; kidnapped schoolgirls forced into marriage because women shouldn’t be educated; Republicans decry President’s amnesty executive orders, but refuse to pass legislation that isn’t 100% of what they want; and pretty much the vast majority of elected officials ignore anything they don’t want to believe, regardless of the amount of evidence to the contrary.

The sad part of this is that so little of it is new. Five hundred years ago, in England and across Europe Catholics were burning Protestants as heretics, and Protestants were killing Catholics in various ways because each was absolutely certain of the supremacy of its faith, and the evil of the other guy’s faith, and it was guys, because women didn’t count for much back then.

Not only that, but all of the various religious beliefs, past and present, are based on the teachings of men, and one woman, who have attempted to assure their followers that they knew, absolutely, the will of the Deity… and that in all too many cases, the will of that Deity was to slaughter and/or enslave all who did not share their beliefs. Despite the fact that there is no empirical evidence of such a Deity, and the fact that a great number of beliefs based on such teachings have been found to be totally inaccurate, if not completely baseless, tens of millions of people are ruled by such absolutist believers, and U.S. history has its share of such.

Four hundred years ago, European colonists began a two-century campaign to conquer North America, and in the process to displace the native American peoples because they were “inferior.” Slightly more than a hundred and fifty years ago, the leaders of the Confederacy began a civil war because they believed their way of life, based on slavery and “states’ rights,” was superior to a federal government had the temerity to suggest that perhaps enslaving other people might not be such a good idea – and at that time the federal government had only restricted the extension of slavery to new states. We still have those people who believe in the unlimited right to have and bear arms, despite the fact that the United States has one of the highest rates of civilian deaths by firearms – and certainly the greatest absolute number of such deaths.

The consequences of such absolutist beliefs have always been deadly, and usually terrifying, and that hasn’t changed, either. That was a lesson the Founding Fathers understood, and understood well. Because they didn’t want an absolutist government, they did their best to come up with a system that required a certain amount of compromise to work.

Well… now no one wants to compromise, and guess what… the system doesn’t work. What about that, exactly, is so hard to understand?

Recent archaeological discoveries in Central America have revealed a great deal about the fall of the great Mayan culture. That culture flourished in an area where the rains only fell from May to October. To keep the gods happy and the rains coming, the Mayans offered human sacrifices to the gods. Then in the late ninth century, the weather changed, and there was almost no rain – anytime. The Mayans began to increase their sacrifices, but the rains still didn’t return. Then came the wars… and more sacrifices… and finally the collapse. Sad to say, all that true belief didn’t matter at all, but the mindset of true believers is to claim that that is because the other guy believed in the wrong god and faith. That’s the all-too-human reaction – the other guy is wrong. Add to that the problem that very seldom do most people understand that following a belief that doesn’t have a grounding in facts is likely to cause problems, if not lead to disaster.

Americans have progressed… slightly. We now follow politicians whose views comfort us the most and give us the reassurance that the other guys and gals are wrong… and we can’t really understand how people can kill for religion… even as close to seventy thousand Americans die every year because of our belief in the freedom to drive automobiles at high speeds even while drinking, distracted, and texting and for virtually everyone to bear firearms, regardless of their capacity to use them wisely.

Apparently, Missouri governor Jay Nixon has declared a state of emergency and alerted the National Guard in preparation for possible violence in Ferguson, Missouri, because the grand jury is close to a decision on whether to indict policeman Darren Wilson for the murder of Michael Brown.

Heaven knows that the Ferguson Police Department is not up there with the best of police departments. Reports from everywhere seem to suggest that, while the department is better than it was years ago, it has a long ways to go. And some analyses of the way Darren Wilson handled the beginning of the confrontation with Michael Brown suggest that there might have been better ways to approach Brown.

That said, let’s be honest. No matter what Brown’s friends, family, and supporters say, Brown was not the innocent near-angel portrayed by his supporters. Minutes before the fatal confrontation Brown stole cigars from a local convenience story and brutally shoved the clerk and owner out of the way. This was caught on the store surveillance camera. The owner reported the theft immediately and described Brown. Police were looking for him. No one knows for certain what happened in detail after Wilson stopped Brown, except that Wilson did suffer injuries, that a quantity of his own blood was found in his squad car, and that Brown was fatally shot.

Some sort of confrontation occurred; Wilson was injured enough to bleed and have minor injuries; Wilson shot Brown. An autopsy performed by the former chief medical examiner for the city of New York, at the request of Brown’s family, found that the shots had all been fired at a distance of from one to four feet; this finding was consistent with the other medical examinations.

Now…for a moment, forget about the race card. A six foot four inch young man weighing 292 pounds who has been identified as a robbery suspect strikes a policeman… for whatever reason. The policeman shoots him at short range. This is not a violation of civil rights. It may have been an unwise split-second decision by a panicked policeman facing a giant of a young man who had just committed a crime, and that decision resulted in a fatal shooting. Or it may have been self-defense on Wilson’s part. In any case, Michael Brown was no innocent. Most likely, Darren Wilson wasn’t either.

But, however the grand jury rules, this shouldn’t be a case for rioting and great clamor over civil rights. And by the way, what about the civil rights of the shopkeeper who was robbed and assaulted by Michael Brown? I haven’t heard a word about his rights… anywhere.

No… I’m not talking about discrimination, at least not racial or gender discrimination, but about the growing inability of younger Americans, say a huge percentage of those under fifty, to integrate information and knowledge into their studies, lives, and social and economic behavior.

This is scarcely just my personal evaluation. Since my wife is a university professor, and one daughter a secondary school teacher, and two others graduate school professors [one in law and the other in medicine], and all of them interact with others in their fields, the data-base from which I’m drawing is both broad geographically and in terms of fields. And all of them, and the vast majority of their colleagues, all agree on one point – the majority of U.S. students cannot integrate information. They cannot offer a coherent, fact-based oral or written presentation that is both organized and logically supported.

This deficiency goes well beyond education. We have far too high an unemployment rate, and an especially high underemployment rate, in this country, yet we have business after business claiming that they cannot find skilled employees and, often, not even potential employees who can be trained. Why not? Because pretty much every job above the basest form of manual labor requires a degree of information integration.

In the case of students, the majority of them are not stupid, nor are they inherently slow. They couldn’t be with the speed at which they text. But they’ve never been taught how to take discrete bits of information, to evaluate them, and then to integrate that information into their world-view, or even just into their work-view or school-view.

Not only is this lack of information integration prevalent in schools and universities, but it’s now pervading everything, from politics to business to entertainment.

What is overlooked so often today are some very simple points. Without facts to back it up, any viewpoint is just prejudiced opinion. Without knowledge of how a tool works and what its limitations are, the worker who uses it is an accident waiting to occur.

According to poll after poll, around 90% of all Americans are displeased, if not furious, with the American Congress. Yet in the last election, over 96% of all incumbents were re-elected. A little bit of cognitive dissonance there? If you’re that displeased with Congress, why did you reelect the same folks you’re so displeased with? Take your choice – (a) people are incredibly stupid, (b) they can’t put the facts together, i.e., they can’t integrate information, (c) party loyalty supersedes factual information, i.e., most people are illogical, or (D) some combination of the above.

Now, polls show that the majority of voters in any given district/state have a favorable view of their own representative or senator, even when that elected official continually votes against the voter’s declared interests.

As I’ve noted more than a few times, all too many businesses seem unable or unwilling to integrate data and events that indicate that the insistence on higher short-term profits puts them on a long-term course for disaster and lower profits. GM’s faulty starter switch was a perfect example. Saving less than a dollar a car by installing substandard switches in roughly 30 million cars for more than ten years “saved” GM something like $30 million. GM has already paid the National Highway Transportation Board more than $35 million in fines and faces more than one billion dollars in costs, not including additional lawsuits by almost a thousand claimants.

The last thing the United States needs is another generation that is even less adept at integrating and analyzing information, but with schools clearly not being able to teach such skills and the instant-media-communication thirty-second news bite and the growing popularity of Twitter and texting, I’m getting the distinct feeling that information integration and analysis is falling even further behind in the list of skills valued by Americans.

Last week the New York Times book section led off with a review of a book whose title I’m not about to name, for reasons that will become obvious. The book in question was a “science fiction” novel by a “mainstream” author and was highly praised. The reviewer opens by stating that just as the Apollo missions showed the beauty of our planet, in the same fashion a “comparable journey takes place in the best works of science fiction – an imaginative visit to speculative realms that returns the reader more forcibly to the sad and beautiful facts of human existence.” So far, so good.

But then, even as the reviewer admits, the author breaks no new ground with his tale of a missionary’s trip and experiences on an alien world [with no reference to The Sparrow or A Case of Conscience, I might add], but praises him as “a master of the weird” and, after summarizing the plot of the novel, concludes by comparing the author to Hilary Mantel [whom he declares has made the historical novel “newly respectable”] and saying he hopes the author “can do something similar for speculative writing.” The author is, of course, an international seller with several movies based on his books.

All of this gave me the almost insane desire to borrow weapons – as many as I could – from Larry Correia and go on my own monster hunt against the so-called mainstream literati, such as the reviewer, who clearly feels that no existing F&SF writer, no matter how good, can possibly do what this author, as an outsider, may be able to do. The sad part is that the reviewer just might be right, not because there is not a great deal of highly literate and well-written F&SF, but because there seems to be a view among literary reviewers that such literature does not exist.

In the case of such “mainstream” reviewers, I just can’t forgive ignorance and/or total disregard of an entire long-standing genre, particularly when that ignorance has existed so long and so willfully. Praising a novel that clearly examines issues and tropes that have been examined in detail in F&SF for years, if not longer, often brilliantly, as if no one has ever done it before, in the hopes that a talented outsider can bring more readers and “enlighten” them to the fact that within &SF exist a great many brilliant works of literature, seems to me to reveal that the so-called mainstream literati continue to exhibit either ignorance beyond ignorance, or ignorance compounded by arrogance.

And for those reasons, I’m not about to give ink or mention to either the reviewer or the author,

… and the test results are in. Utah high school students just received the results of a new test that measures achievement in language, mathematics, and science… and on average, less than half the students met the standards in any of the test areas. Two things about the new test were especially interesting, first that the standards and what was being measured didn’t change and, second, that half of the new test required answers from the student – no guessing from choices provided. While there were schools whose overall student mastery levels reached or exceeded 90% mastery, there were also schools where the mastery levels averaged in the 10%-20% range.

What to me is so obvious, but what has been overlooked for years by both parents and educational bureaucrats, is that multiple choice tests don’t accurately show student subject mastery – they’re far more likely to reward speed readers with moderate subject mastery and great test-taking ability. And multiple choice testing certainly doesn’t measure the ability to reason out a mathematical concept or to write an accurate and grammatically correct paragraph.Those students who excel at multiple-choice testing are generally those who (1) have learned the material and can regurgitate or recall it quickly; (2) those able to read and process the questions quickly, (3) those with a comprehensive understanding of common and standard language and society, and (4) those with higher levels of self-discipline. Not surprisingly, those abilities tend to be associated with families with higher incomes and with students from more demanding schools [most of which are either schools in high income areas or charter schools with extraordinarily dedicated and highly professional staff, as well as generally better resources. There are exceptions, of course, but exceptions, as the saying goes, often prove the rule.

The other long-standing problem with multiple choice tests is that they provide an unrealistic view of the choices in life outside and after schooling. Sometimes, usually very infrequently, life presents you with clear and multiple choices. Most of the time, your choices either aren’t obvious, tend to be between less obnoxious alternatives, or you don’t have a real choice at all. Even when choices seem obvious, they often aren’t, because the most appealing one in the short run may turn into a long-range disaster.

The “advantages” to multiple-choice tests are that (1) they’re theoretically more objective, since whether one adequately written paragraph is better than another can result in subjective grading; (2) theytake far fewer resources and are far easier to grade; (3) they allow theoretically more objective comparisons of teachers, schools, and school systems [except most really don’t measure how much a given teacher has improved the skills of a particular student or set of students].

The fact that Utah test scores dropped drastically across the board when open-ended questions were added underscores dramatically just how limited multiple choice tests are – as almost any veteran classroom teacher can explain.

But then, since multiple choice tests are graded on the immediate answer, and we have two generations in a row raised on multiple choice tests, is it any wonder that we’ve become a society dominated by instant gratification and superficial knowledge, with a continuing decline in true critical thinking?

Last week, just a week before the election, two candidates for an open Utah congressional seat got into a “contest” of sorts in which each claimed to hold the most “Mormon/LDS” views, although the assertions weren’t quite that boldly stated… but enough so that the headline from the Salt Lake Tribune played it that way. The idea of claiming “values superiority” isn’t something unique to Utah, unhappily. I’ve seen more than a few elections over the years in which candidates vied to prove who held the more “Christian values.” And for that matter, isn’t the primary cause of ISIS in the Middle East to create a land governed by the most “Islamic” values? Didn’t England suffer through centuries of internal conflict over which church’s values would be predominant? Not to mention the bloody conflicts that wracked Europe immediately after the Reformation?

Just what do people really mean by such assertions? Let’s see. “Most Christian” — today is that code for right-to-life, anti-feminist, pro-gun rights, anti-minority, and thoroughly patriarchal? If it is, that’s rather at variance with the doctrines of that carpenter on whose name and deeds Christianity is theoretically based. On the other hand, Joseph Smith was a patriarchal polygamist who was definitely a right-to-life type, but is that what those two candidates meant?

Or were they just trying to claim, “I’m just like most of you.” But… if most of their constituents want a supremacy of religious values in government, where does that leave all those who don’t share those values?

Like the Founding Fathers, I’m rather skeptical of putting religious values ahead of everything because one immediate question arises – whose religious values? And the second question is of even greater concern – to what degree will a candidate or incumbent attempt to use government to strengthen or impose those values on those who do not share them? All of which brings up a third question – if a candidate doesn’t intend to strengthen or impose those religious values he or she is trumpeting, exactly why bring them up except to gain an advantage. And if that’s the case, what does that reveal about how far the politician or candidate will go to obtain or maintain power.

As for me, I tend to vote against candidates who trumpet religious values – unless their opponents have even greater flaws, which, these days, is more often the case than I can ever recall… and that’s a sad commentary as well.

Amid all the political posturing and smears and counter-smears, one underlying aspect of American politics that is accepted without question by most Americans is the practice of lobbying, although a great many Americans rage against lobbyists for views they don’t believe in or for government programs they oppose. That is, lobbying for the “right” causes is fine, just not for the “wrong” ones, but lobbying itself tends to be accepted as a necessary evil.

Should it be?

James Madison worried greatly about “factions” marshalling votes and influence to shape government unwisely, but felt that restricting the “petitioning” of government allowed by the Constitution was a remedy worse than the illness, and felt that the competition of interests would restrict the influence of any one faction. In a sense, for most of the history of the United States, he was largely correct.

Except… reported annual expenditures for lobbying the federal government have gone from less than $200 million in 1975 to almost $4 billion last year, and the actual numbers are far higher, as I can personally attest, since I spent time as a “consultant” in Washington. D.C., where my earnings were not counted as lobbying because I was merely “analyzing” the effect of potential laws and regulations on business and the economy. Nor were most of the other consultants with whom I worked then classed as lobbyists.

If Madison were correct, lobbying wouldn’t be the problem it’s become. The problem is that it takes money, big money, to analyze and determine the impact of policy and laws… and to package and present such analyses in easily understandable format to legislators and federal bureaucrats. The result is that close to three quarters of all lobbying expenditures are made by large businesses and business organizations. It also takes a continual presence, which requires more money, and the most effective lobbyists are those who know the system – such as former bureaucrats, former staffers, and former members of Congress, all of whom have greater access.

When I left my position as a Congressional staff director to become Director of Legislation at the U.S. EPA, I was thirty-seven years old, with ten years’ experience in politics, and I was one of the older Congressional staff directors. Legislative aides were usually far younger and paid much less. From what I’ve been able to determine, this situation hasn’t changed, and isn’t likely to, not when staff directors’ pay is statutorily capped at far below that of lobbyists and consultants and when most senior Congressional staffers work 60-80 hour weeks, and sometimes longer, with no overtime, and can be dismissed literally instantly [I saw this happen personally several times].

The Congressional staff workload is incredibly heavy; most staffers are young and with little experience, especially compared to the lobbyists, and they don’t have enough time to research anything in depth, while the lobbyists do and can also rely on long experience.

The result is a foregone conclusion, and exactly what we see today, a legally permitted lobbying system heavily slanted toward those interests with the most resources, predominantly but not exclusively those of business. Unhappily, there’s another aspect that Madison and the Founding Fathers didn’t and probably couldn’t have foreseen. It’s simple enough. Because society has become incredibly more complex since 1789, the federal government has expanded into regulating and influencing almost every aspect of American society, and while “purists” insist much of this is not necessary, in fact much of it is, unhappily.

Before we had food and drug safety laws, buying food and medicines was often the equivalent of Russian roulette, especially in cities. The growth of industry meant that state laws were inadequate to deal with trade and industrial problems, and legal conflicts required resolution. Before there were environmental laws, rivers literally caught fire and swimming in some could literally kill you. Before finance legislation, bank failures were a common occurrence, and borrowers neither had access to information on which to make decisions nor recourse if a bank failed.

The upshot of all this is that there are a multiplicity of individual interests as the result of an expanded government and an economy with international impacts, and each individual interest competes with every other interest for getting the attention of government. Those interests representing the most money or the most votes generally are those pushed most successfully by lobbyists, and the overriding problem is that the sum total of those “noticed” private interests doesn’t equate to the overall public interest.

Over time, while there are times when governments need to run deficits, public revenues, i.e., taxes, need to come close to the level of public expenditures. That’s a definite overall public interest. Breathing clean air and having clean water to drink is an overall public interest. Not having mine wastes spill into drinking water is a public interest. Having a taxation system that doesn’t give special breaks to some industries and not to others might also be considered an overall good. But we’re running massive deficits and have for years; we still have air unfit to breathe in many parts of the country; and we’ve had massive drinking water pollution from failures of mine tailings impoundments and from agricultural impoundments. We have a crumbling transportation infrastructure, an increasingly fragile electric power distribution system, and municipal water systems that leak and waste incredible amounts of water… and those are just a fraction of the real problems out there.

But comparatively few lobbyists are out there pushing the public good, and all too often those “public interest” lobbyists are attacked and ridiculed for being anti-business, or opposed to someone’s “rights” to run an organization or as business as they choose. Even the “go-gooders” apparently pushing for public interests tend to focus on the popular causes, and there’s nothing new about this. Some twenty years ago, the U.S. EPA did a study on funding for environmental causes, and discovered that the environmental problems that caused the most deaths and health problems were far down the list, while high profile problems that actually affected comparatively far fewer people topped both federal appropriations and public concerns.

In the end, lobbying costs money, and businesses have more of it than anyone else, and that means they most often have most of the best hired guns, access to the best information, and the best systems for presenting their cases. That doesn’t even account for the impact of campaign contributions.

The real wonder is that there are as many cases where government actually tries to promote the overall public good as there are, but those instances are becomingly increasingly rarer… because most lobbyists aren’t interested in the public good, only in pushing for favorable treatment for their private good… and as the increasing welter of special interest provisions in law and regulations indicates, private interests are increasingly trumping public good.

Recently, the Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman published a column critical of Amazon, further fanning the flames over Amazon’s tactics in dealing with its suppliers, including the furor over the current Hachette-Amazon conflict.

Amazon’s actions, however, don’t appear to be confined to just the United States. More than 1,000 authors from Germany, Austria and Switzerland have signed a similar open letter to Amazon which accuses Amazon of improper tactics in setting e‐book prices with Bonnier AB, a German publishing trade group. Last June, Bonnier filed a complaint with German authorities stating Amazon delayed delivery of its books to force Bonnier to accept lower prices for ebooks.

The issue of buyer control of suppliers, i.e., monopsony, isn’t all that new, although the height of the controversy is and there are legal texts on the subject dating back more than twenty years. In a more recent 2008 article in the Utah Law Review [“Predatory Buying and the Antitrust Laws”], Roger D. Blair and John E. Lopatka summarized the issue just raised again by Amazon’s efforts to force Hachette to lower ebook prices below ten dollars:

“The fact that an increase in monopsony power may have little impact on consumers does not mitigate the antitrust concern, because the negative impact on sellers by itself warrants equal antitrust concern, a point oddly unacknowledged by the Supreme Court in its Weyerhauser decision. Just as monopsony and monopoly are economically symmetrical, predatory buying and predatory pricing are legally symmetrical…”

Or as several other legal scholars have pointed out, an illegally obtained monopsony might well violate U.S. antitrust law, but, to date, no U.S. court has ever found a single company guilty of an illegal monopsony. Or put more bluntly, so far, the U.S. legal system and the Department of Justice seem to believe that any action resulting in lower prices for consumers is socially beneficial, regardless of how those prices are obtained, and what economic damage is wreaked on the suppliers and producers.

The problem with the “lower prices are always better” argument is that it focuses solely on one aspect of economic social good. Both Walmart and Amazon exert monopsony power, and both arguably keep total compensation for employees low, while also forcing supplier prices lower. Both do so in markets where profit margins are narrow. This requires cuts in expenses by suppliers, and that means, in turn, that the suppliers can pay their employees and suppliers less.

Overall, despite stories of individual writers and suppliers who benefit from Amazon and/or Walmart, the emphasis on low prices regardless of the consequences translates into lower incomes for millions of people, ranging from minimum wage workers through struggling writers all the way to best-selling authors. Best-selling authors can obviously take a hit in earnings, even if they don’t much care for it, but for every best-selling author there are tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of lower-compensated individuals whose earnings are reduced by this sort of illegal market manipulation. And monopsonies that depress supplier earnings below a free-market level are in fact illegal under U.S. law.

So… what’s the ethical difference between Amazon and Walmart, who use monopoly/monopsony market power to keep prices down, and thus wages and payments to suppliers artificially low, and all those companies who outsource manufacturing to low-paid workers in third world countries?

After all, aren’t low prices and high profits the great American dream?