Laws, Damn Laws, and Policies

I used to think that, if something was the law, you had to do it or go to jail but, over the years, I found out that it's more complicated than that. A lot of the laws that have been passed in our lifetimes are civil laws, not criminal laws. A civil case is easier to win than a criminal case because you only need to prove it by preponderance of evidence instead of beyond a reasonable doubt. I believe that civil laws were originally intended for one civilian to sue another civilian, but nowadays the government frequently initiates a lawsuit against a citizen or corporation. Generally, you can't go to jail for violating a civil law, but you can be served with a court order and, if you refuse to comply, you can go to jail for that.

Then, there are policies, which are none of the above. A policy is a statement of an organization's operating principles, and it is frequently written with enough wiggle room that the organization's leadership can weasel out of actually doing anything while piously proclaiming that "we have a policy in place......", which is intended to give you the impression that they really are going to do something even though they are not. What they are hoping is that, by the time you realize that they aren't really going to do anything, you will have calmed down to the point that you won't pursue the matter any further. The full text of the agreement reached between the civil rights people and the Chicago Establishment in 1966 is printed in Appendix II in the back of the book. The agreement promises that this policy and that policy will be put in place, but it doesn't guarantee that anybody will actually do anything. So much for affirmative action!

I think that most of Alaska has permafrost, but it's not all at the same depth. In the Matanuska Valley, where I worked briefly on a pig farm, we could dig down two or three feet before we hit the permafrost. At his depth, it doesn't interfere with most agricultural activities but, farther north in the Fairbanks area, the permafrost was frequently only a few inches below the surface. Before they could plant crops, they had to plow up the surface layer to expose the permafrost to the sun so that it would thaw out in a year or two. I can see where burning off the duff would have the same effect, although you would lose most of the organic soil in the process, making it harder for new plants to gain a foothold, which would make the land more vulnerable to erosion.

I don't know a lot about Donald Trump, but I've never heard anything good about him. I can understand why you would want to see him get the Republican nomination because it would make almost any Democrat look good by comparison. If he does get nominated, it won't be with my vote.