Thursday, June 28, 2018

The Development of Artificial Intelligence (AI)
  AI should be regulated but perhaps not by
  an elected, divisive U.S. legislative body


Which photo represents The Dawn of the Age of Artificial Intelligence?
    "Halt and Catch Fire (HCF): An early computer command that sent the machine into a race condition, forcing all instructions to compete for superiority at once. Control of the computer could not be regained." - title card for the TV series Halt and Catch Fire
    In computer engineering, Halt and Catch Fire, known by the assembly mnemonic HCF, is an idiom referring to a computer machine code instruction that causes the computer's central processing unit (CPU) to cease meaningful operation, typically requiring a restart of the computer. - Wikipedia
Greg Brockman is likely a name you do not recognize even though he is on the 2018 Forbes List 30 Under 30 - Enterprise Technology. He's 29. The Forbes entry reports his education as follows: "Drop Out, arvard University; Bachelor of Arts/Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (also drop out)." It tells you he resides in San Francisco.

Brockman testified before Congress Tuesday on artificial intelligence (AI). Thinking about Brockman reminded me of....

 

Halt and Catch Fire


In its first season, the TV series Halt and Catch Fire won the Critic's Choice Television Award for Most Exciting New Series. By the third season it had a 96% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. In its fourth and final season which received critical acclaim it held a 100% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

Per Wikipedia: "Taking place over a period of ten years, the series depicts a fictionalized insider's view of the personal computer revolution of the 1980s and later the growth of the World Wide Web in the early 1990s."

Halt and Catch Fire told the story of a few people who found themselves in the middle of the creation of technology that thus far has driven the 21st Century. It aired on AMC from June 1, 2014, to October 14, 2017.

On February 6, 2018, it won the Women's Image Network Awards award for Best Drama Series. For the show offered the best representation of women in tech and management in ways you would have a hard time finding elsewhere.

For someone who was involved with computers beginning in the 1970's and 1980's the show was a historical piece, a story of the late 20th Century, and well done. It also reminded me of how young and naive we were - unaware of the real implications of what we were doing.

One programmer observed: “I know that something’s coming, something big, like a train, and all I want is to jump on board. But it’s getting faster and faster and I’m terrified I’m going to miss it … I don’t want to get left behind.”

With foresight, another young staffer in his suicide note warned: “Beware of false prophets who will sell you a fake future, of bad teachers and corrupt leaders and dirty corporations … But most of all beware of each other, because everything is about to change. The world is going to crack wide open. The barriers between us will disappear, and we’re not ready. We’ll hurt each other in new ways. We’ll sell and be sold. We’ll expose our most tender selves only to be mocked and destroyed. We’ll be so vulnerable and we’ll pay the price.”

Airing in the second decade of the 21st Century, the series offers hindsight which sometimes provides us with insight regarding current activities. And yet, relatively few Americans watched it. And why would they?

After all as late as 2006 United States Senator Ted Stevens was reflecting the average American's understanding of the technology that could make or break their employer in that decade:
    Ten movies streaming across that, that Internet, and what happens to your own personal Internet? I just the other day got… an Internet was sent by my staff at 10 o'clock in the morning on Friday. I got it yesterday [Tuesday]. Why? Because it got tangled up with all these things going on the Internet commercially.
    ...They want to deliver vast amounts of information over the Internet. And again, the Internet is not something that you just dump something on. It's not a big truck. It's a series of tubes. And if you don't understand, those tubes can be filled and if they are filled, when you put your message in, it gets in line and it's going to be delayed by anyone that puts into that tube enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material.
Even recognizing that Stevens was just one member of Congress, most of us who were involved in the computer industry in the 1970's and 1980's, who also had governmental/political involvement, understood that the 19th Century U.S. Constitution was entering a "Halt and Catch Fire" condition. Because it is government, it would take about a decade before the need to "reboot" our federal government with all new "machine code" uploaded would become obvious.

And indeed in 2016 the need to "reboot" our federal government with all new "machine code" did become obvious, with the Russian interference in the Presidential Election based solely upon the use of primary goal of the American corporate internet - advertising to make corporations rich. And indeed in 2016 the need to "reboot" our federal government with all new "machine code" did become obvious with the effective use of internet social media by a reality game show host who had no previous political or government experience to get himself elected President.

The fact "it won't work anymore" came from knowning that Ted Stevens chaired the United States Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation. And because of his very limited knowledge about 21st Century technology he used the "series of tubes" metaphor to criticize a proposed amendment to a committee bill which would have prohibited Internet service providers such as AT&T, Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Verizon Communications from charging fees to give some companies' data a higher priority in relation to other traffic.

And today while Congress members are somewhat better versed on the 50-year-old technology, their median expertise level is only slightly better than knowing how to watch cat videos on YouTube. Even their staffers are most certainly not at the level necessary to begin the process of regulating Artificial Intelligence. The "cat video" level of knowledge (along with a predisposition to listen to corporate lobbyists in order to fund reelection campaigns) is why in the United States achieving privacy and security on the internet through Congressional action will never happen.


 

The Dawn of the Age of Artificial Intelligence


On Wednesday November 30, 2016, Greg Brockman gave his first testimony on Capitol Hill to the Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Space, Science, and Competitiveness. The subject matter of the hearing was "The Dawn of the Age of Artificial Intelligence" and the Chair of the Subcommittee was a different Senator named Ted. Here are some of the hearing opening remarks from Senator Ted Cruz:
    Today, we’re on the verge of a new technological revolution, thanks to the rapid advances in processing power, the rise of big data, cloud computing, mobility due to wireless capability, and advanced algorithms. Many believe that there may not be a single technology that will shape our world more in the next 50 years than artificial intelligence. In fact, some have observed that, as powerful and transformative as the Internet has been, it may be best remembered as the predicate for artificial intelligence and machine learning.
    Artificial intelligence is at an inflection point. While the concept of artificial intelligence has been around for at least 60 years, more recent breakthroughs...have brought artificial intelligence from mere concept to reality.
    Whether we recognize it or not, artificial intelligence is already seeping into our daily lives. In the healthcare sector, artificial intelligence is increasingly being used to predict diseases at an earlier stage, thereby allowing the use of preventative treatment, which can help lead to better patient outcomes, faster healing, and lower costs. In transportation, artificial intelligence is not only being used in smarter traffic management applications to reduce traffic, but is also set to disrupt the automotive industry through the emergence of self-driving vehicles. Consumers can harness the power of artificial intelligence through online search engines and virtual personal assistants via smart devices, such as Microsoft’s Cortana, Apple’s Siri, Amazon’s Alexa, and Google Home. Artificial intelligence also has the potential to contribute to economic growth in both the near and long term. A 2016 Accenture report predicted that artificial intelligence could double annual economic growth rates by 2035 and boost labor productivity by up to 40 percent.
    Furthermore, market research firm Forrester recently predicted that there will be a greater-than-300-percent increase in investment in artificial intelligence in 2017 compared to 2016. While the emergence of artificial intelligence has the opportunity to improve our lives, it will also have vast implications for our country and the American people that Congress will need to consider, moving forward....
    Today, the United States is the preeminent leader in developing artificial intelligence. But, that could soon change. ...Ceding leadership in developing artificial intelligence to China, Russia, and other foreign governments will not only place the United States at a technological disadvantage, but it could have grave implications for national security.
    We are living in the dawn of artificial intelligence. And it is incumbent that Congress and this subcommittee begin to learn about the vast implications of this emerging technology to ensure that the United States remains a global leader throughout the 21st century. This is the first congressional hearing on artificial intelligence....
As did a number of leaders in the AI industry, Brockman gave an extensive presentation. Here are some key points:
    I’m Greg Brockman, Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer of OpenAI. OpenAI is a nonprofit AI research company with a billion dollars in funding. Our mission is to build safe, advanced AI technology, and to ensure that its benefits are distributed to everyone....
    The U.S. has led essentially all technological breakthroughs of the past 100 years. And they’ve consistently created new companies, new jobs, and increased American competitiveness in the world. AI has the potential to be our biggest advance yet.
    Today, we have a lead, but we don’t have a monopoly, when it comes to AI. This year, Chinese teams won the top categories in a Stanford annual image recognition context. South Korea declared a billion-dollar AI fund. Canada actually produced a lot of the technologies that have kicked off the current boom. And they recently announced their own renewed investment into AI.
    So, right now I would like to share three key points for how the U.S. can lead in AI:
    The first of these is that we need to compete on applications. But, when it comes to basic research, that should be open and collaborative....
    The second thing...is that we need public measurement and contests. There’s really a long history of contests causing major advances in the field. For example, the DARPA Grand Challenge really led directly to the self-driving technology that’s being commercialized today. ...Measures and contests help distinguish hype from substance, and they offer better forecasting. ...Good policy responses and a healthy public debate are really going to depend on people having clear data about how the technology is progressing. What can we do? What still remains science fiction? How fast are things moving? So, we really support OSTP’s recommendation that the government keep a close watch on AI advancement, and that it work with industry to measure it.
    The third thing that we need is that we need industry, government, and academia to start coordinating on safety, security, and ethics. The Internet was really built with security as an afterthought. And we’re still paying the cost for that today.
    Academic and industrial participants are already starting to coordinate on responsible development of AI. For example, we recently published a paper, together with Stanford, Berkeley, and Google, laying out a roadmap for AI safety research. Now, what would help is feedback from the government about what issues are most concerning to it so that we can start addressing those from as early a date as possible.
    ...The best way to create a good future is to invent it. And we have that opportunity with AI by investing in open, basic research, by creating competitions and measurement, and by coordinating on safety, security, and ethics.
Tuesday's joint meeting of the House Subcommittee on Research and Technology and Subcommittee on Energy offers insight into how it is when technology advances at the hands of young creators, even ones who are concerned about the deficits in the process. You can watch it on YouTube (note: the action doesn't start until 22 minutes into the video):


The problem is the expert witnesses are asking the technology challenged, AI-uninformed to create regulations, an ethics system, when the experts themselves are unable to know and describe what problems are likely to arise from a technology level that does not exist and has never been tested.

The baseline example is the so-called "autonomous" vehicle. In that case, the first step is to acquire a dictionary and discover "autonomous" means "existing or capable of existing independently, not subject to control from outside."

In other words, an autonomous vehicle will decide where it's going and what route it's taking, and also drive itself there. Would you climb into such a vehicle, perhaps right after you named it "Hal" (and if you don't recognize that reference, you do need to stream the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey).

On the other hand, a "self-driving" vehicle is capable of driving to the destination on the roads you tell it to, hopefully safely without your intervention through the controls such as the steering wheel or brakes.

Despite the fact that self-driving-capable vehicles exist, American governments are having trouble regulating them and there are no ethical nuances involved.

In 2016 Brockman observed: "The Internet was really built with security as an afterthought. And we’re still paying the cost for that today." That was after the 2016 election but before the full scope of the Russian interference problem was known. Unfortunately, we have no answers for the security problem that does not in some way interfere with either individual freedom or individual privacy or both.

I cannot even begin to imagine the operating assumption that will go into real AI, assumptions that will turn out to be false - you know, the ooops of technology. I cannot even begin to consider the complex ethical and moral issues that will arise even if the AI is not in the form of a Dolores (pictured to the right at the top of this post), Bernard, Maeve, or Teddy.

Government? In considering and effectively dealing with such a complex issue as AI and with the opinions of hundreds of millions of people slowly learning about AI, you're looking a two decades of debate. Then, of course, it will be too late to have avoided layers of crises.

If you think I'm wrong, you may want to read the paper prepared for the Academy to the Third Millennium February 1997 Conference Internet & Politics entitled "Regulation and Deregulation of the Internet."  Presented by Columbia University by professor of Finance and Economics and Paul Garrett Chair in Public Policy and Business Responsibility Eli Noam who is the director of the Columbia Institute for Tele-Information (CITI).

 In order to set context, let me return to the TV series Halt and Catch Fire. Episode 1 of Season 3. The year is 1986. The place is Silicon Valley. And Mutiny, the little internet startup that could, is celebrating a 100,000-person user base and independence from the outsourced servers it once relied upon to keep itself running. Let me repeat - the year is 1986.

Noam's presentation was given in February 1997, over a decade after real life young tech nerds like those depicted in Halt and Catch Fire were establishing the internet. His presentation was over a decade after the internet became obvious to many and nearly 20 years before the Russian interference in the U.S. Presidential election in which the only candidate who knew how to effectively use social media (because he was the only non-politician) won. In that 1997 context Noam muses:
    A myth is going around that has almost been elevated to the status of platitude: “you cannot regulate the Internet.” There is a related myth, that “a bit is a bit,” that no bit can therefore be treated differently from any other, and that attempts at control are therefore doomed to fail. Both claims, though originating with technologists who implicitly seem to believe in technological determinism, are wrong even as a matter of technology....
    Also, communication is not just a matter of signals but of people and institutions. For all the appeal of the notion of “virtuality,” one should not forget that physical reality is alive and well. Senders, recipients, and intermediaries are living, breathing people, or they are legally organized institutions with physical domiciles and physical hardware. The arm of the law can reach them. It may be possible to evade such law, but the same is true when it comes to tax regulations. Just because a law cannot fully stop an activity does not prove that such law is ineffective or undesirable.
    This, most emphatically, does not mean that we should regulate cyberspace (whatever it is). But that is a normative question of values, not one of technological determinism. We should choose freedom because we want to, not because we have to. And that choice will not be materially different from those which societies generally apply. As the Internet moves from a nerd-preserve to an office park, shopping mall, and community center, it is sheer fantasy to expect that its uses and users will be beyond the law. This seems obvious. Yet, for many, the new medium is like a Rorschach test, an electronic blob into which they project their own fantasies, desires and fears for society. As the Russians say: Same bed, different dreams. Traditionalists find the dark forces of degeneracy, as in everything. Libertarians find an atrophy of government. Leftists find a new community, devoid of the material avarice of private business. This kind of dreaming is common for new and fundamental technology, and it is usually wrong.
    A society’s choice of rules will depend, among other things, on its willingness to accept risk. The Internet is new and unchartedterritory.  The term “electronic frontier” is quite apt. As it happens, America has been in the frontier business for a long time. It’s good at it. It’s its defining characteristic,together with liberty and free enterprise. No wonder then that America is atthe leading edge of the information age.
    It is a common fallacy to over-estimate the short term but to under-estimate the long term.  Thus, we over-estimate the short-termability of electronic communications to be free of government controls, because it is believed that “you can’t regulate the Internet.”  But the long-term is another matter. The long-term leads to entirely new conceptsof political community. Just as traditional banks and traditional universities will decline, so will traditional forms of jurisdiction. A few years ago, it became fashionable to speak of communications creating the"global village."-- communal and peaceful. But there is nothing village-like in the unfolding reality. Instead, groups with shared economic interests are extending national group pluralism through the opportunity to create global interconnection with each other into the international sphere. The new group networks do not create a global village, they create instead the world as a series of electronic neighborhoods.
    Communications define communities, and communities define politics. Thus, the breakdown of the coherent national communications system reflects and accelerates a fundamental centrifugalism that will reshape, in time, countries and societies. We are barely at the beginning of this evolution, and the forces of resistance are only beginning to fathom the impacts.
It has been 55 years since Americans began to use something resembling today's internet. The earliest ideas for a computer network intended to allow general communications among computer users were formulated in April 1963 by computer scientist J. C. R. Licklider in memoranda discussing the concept of the "Intergalactic Computer Network". Those ideas encompassed many of the features of the contemporary Internet. In October 1963, Licklider was appointed head of the Behavioral Sciences and Command and Control programs at the Defense Department's Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA). Funded by ARPA of the United States Department of Defense,  ARPANET became the technical foundation of the Internet.

To put it simply, it has been over a half a century since the U.S. Government began creating the internet. In the face of various national security agencies needs for access to everyone's data which the private sector apparently already has, Congress is struggling with how to establish any semblance of security and privacy in the face of what was created by funding approved by...Congress.

In April the following headline appeared in Newsweek AI Candidate Promising ‘Fair and Balanced’ Reign Attracts Thousands of Votes in Tokyo Mayoral Election. That article seemed just about as informed about AI as Congress. In a different source we are offered a more prescient perspective:
    Whether it's samurai robots, a hotel staffed by robots, or AI girlfriends, it seems that it safe to say that one should keep their eye on Japan when it comes to developments in the field of artificial intelligence. So while it seemed a foregone conclusion that AI would eventually break into the world of politics, the way we're seeing it do so in one city in Japan is a bit surprising. The mayoral election of Tama City in Tokyo is featuring its first "AI candidate".
    At least, that's what one can take from the promise of mayoral candidate Michito Matsuda. Matsuda has chosen to throw his hat into the election but is deferring to an AI-powered robot avatar, as he intends to maximize the use of artificial intelligence and rely on it heavily in the running of his municipal administration.
    As he writes on his Twitter account (which is run in character in an AI persona), "For the first time in the world, AI will run in an election. Artificial intelligence will change Tama City. With the birth of an AI-Mayor, we will conduct impartial and balanced politics. We will implement policies for the future with speed, accumulate information and know-how, and lead the next generation."
Even though he lost the election, Matsuda's effort could lead to a possible discussion regarding whether politicians or AI could do a better job at governing. And so long as Americans keep voting for candidates they can socially relate to, the answer some day could be AI. Or not as discussed in AI 101: Why AI is the Next Revolution–or Doomsday.


I'm not sure which will be more disruptive to humanity - AI or Climate Change. But I can tell Greg Brockman and Dr. Fei-Fei Li that the Congressional testimony they gave earlier this week is almost a complete waste of time.

 

California Joins the EU



With all of that said, California - the home of Silicon Valley - is attempting to step in where Congress has failed essentially by adopting online privacy rules consistent with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) of the European Union that became effective May 25.

The GDPR begins with a simple statement: "The protection of natural persons in relation to the processing of personal data is a fundamental right. Article 8(1) of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (the ‘Charter’) and Article 16(1) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) provide that everyone has the right to the protection of personal data concerning him or her." The term "natural persons" is used to distinguish humans from corporations in emphasizing human rights over economic constructs.

And so this week the California Legislature passed the toughest online privacy law in these United States. However, it doesn't take effect until January 2020 though, in order to allow the Silicon Valley corporations to prepare.

Under the new law, California consumers will have the right to:
  • know all the data collected by a business and be able to transfer it twice annually for free;
  • to opt out of having their personal information sold (but companies will then be able to charge those consumers higher fees);
  • to delete their data;
  • to tell a business it can't sell their data;
  • to know why the data is being collected;
  • to be informed of what categories of data will be collected before it's collected and to be informed of any changes to that;
  • to be told the categories of third parties with whom their data is shared and the categories of third parties from whom their data was acquired;
  • to have businesses get permission before selling any information of children under the age of 16.

As the Los Angeles Times noted With the federal government missing in action, California should set its own rules for internet privacy.

Regarding Artificial Intelligence, Brockman, Li, and their compatriots should move their advocacy effort for an AI regulatory/ethics structure to the California Legislature. That is because, as we've pointed out on a number of issues, it is the Progressive Pacific Message that must be advocated:


The problem is that if individuals use the California online privacy law, it is very likely that the U.S. Supreme Court, with its membership reflecting the privacy preferences of most of the folks not in the Pacific States, would ultimately overturn it as a proscribed interference in interstate commerce. That is because the U.S. Constitution as literally written by the Founding Fathers primarily provides for (a) the conduct international relations including military defense and (b) provides for the regulation of interstate commerce exclusively by Congress. It took amendments contained in what we know as the Bill of Rights to have any provisions for human rights and online privacy was not included.

The U.S. Government because of its "machine code" known as the Constitution is simply not capable of surviving the 21st Century.

Monday, June 25, 2018

Time for a non-violent civil war
  Hey Retailers! New Supreme Court ruling
  confirms it may be ok to refuse to serve
  customers based on your belief structure

As you may have read, on Friday evening (June 22), Stephanie Wilkinson, the owner of Red Hen, a small farm-to-table restaurant in Lexington, Virginia, asked Donald Trump’s press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders to leave her establishment.
    "I’m not a huge fan of confrontation. I have a business, and I want the business to thrive. This feels like the moment in our democracy when people have to make uncomfortable actions and decisions to uphold their morals." - Stephanie Wilkinson, Owner of the Red Hen in Lexington, Va.
What you you might not have read is that today the U.S. Supreme Court sent a case back to the Washington state courts. They could have refused to take up the case. They could have heard it. It is a case in which a florist refused to do the flowers for a gay wedding. They sent it back for additional consideration, in effect vacating the Washington's Court's ruling.

The question these two news stories generated are:
  • Do Americans who deeply hold political beliefs have fewer rights than those who hold religious beliefs? And do those who believe in little green humanoid alien life forms instead of one or more gods or goddesses have fewer rights?
  • Can Americans who hold religious beliefs thumb their noses at anti-discrimination laws? But those who hold deeply political beliefs cannot?
The answers as of June 25, 2018:
    The Supreme Court on Monday told a lower court to reconsider the case of a florist in Washington State who had refused to create a floral arrangement for a same-sex wedding. The justices vacated a decision against the florist from the Washington Supreme Court and instructed it to take a fresh look at the dispute in light of this month’s ruling in a similar dispute involving a Colorado baker.
    The Washington Supreme Court ruled that Ms. Stutzman had violated a state anti-discrimination law by refusing to provide the floral arrangement. “This case is no more about access to flowers than civil rights cases in the 1960s were about access to sandwiches,” the court said, quoting from the plaintiffs’ brief.
As noted in the above New York Times story today, in its carefully reasoned decision the Washington State Supreme Court had noted:
    We agree with Ingersoll and Freed that "[t]his case is no more about access to flowers than civil rights cases in the 1960s were about access to sandwiches." Br. of Resp'ts Ingersoll and Freed at 32. As every other court to address the question has concluded, public accommodations laws do not simply guarantee access to goods or services. Instead, they serve a broader societal purpose: eradicating barriers to the equal treatment of all citizens in the commercial marketplace. Were we to carve out a patchwork of exceptions for ostensibly justified discrimination,21 that purpose would be fatally undermined.
    ...But the Supreme Court has never held that a commercial enterprise, open to the general public, is an '"expressive association'" for purposes of First Amendment protections, Dale, 530 U.S. at 648. We therefore reject Stutzman's free association claim.
__________________________
    21 Stutzman argues that discrimination cannot be "invidious"-and thus subject to governmental prohibition-if it is based on religious beliefs. Br. of Appellants at 40-43. But she cites no relevant legal authority for this novel theory. She also argues that the government has no compelling interest in forcing her to speak or associate with Ingersoll or any other customer. But, as explained elsewhere in this opinion, the WLAD does not implicate Stutzman's rights of speech or association.
The alarming truth is that today the U.S. Supreme Court simply ruled that the carefully reasoned Washington Supreme Court decision is in the same class as the Masterpiece Cakeshop case where, writing for the 7-2 majority, Justice Anthony Kennedy held that some commissioners on the Colorado Civil Rights Commission - not state supreme court justices - showed hostility toward Phillips' religious beliefs.

Justice Kennedy was born and raised in an Irish Catholic family in Sacramento, California. We here at California First know Justice Kennedy. In previous decisions, he has tried to thread the needle between the special sanctity of religious beliefs and what is right and justice. The problem is, the majority of the Court is conflicted regarding the extent of freedom to practice religion. I think for the majority witch burning is out, but I'm not sure.

My guess is the U.S. Supreme Court Justices, along with those in the liberal legal and news media establishment, were indignant over the weekend after  Stephanie Wilkinson refused to serve Sanders.

My guess is the U.S. Supreme Court Justices would rule unanimously against the restaurant owner for acting in accordance with her political beliefs because most of the majority are Catholic and don't consider that political beliefs rise up to the level of sanctity of religious beliefs even within the town square:

I have a real problem with the makeup of the court because there are no avowed agnostics, much less atheists. Again the questions are:
  • Do Americans who deeply hold political beliefs have fewer rights than those who hold religious beliefs? And do those who believe in little green humanoid alien life forms instead of one or more gods or goddesses have fewer rights?
  • Can Americans who hold religious beliefs thumb their noses at anti-discrimination laws? But those who hold deeply political beliefs cannot?
I hope I am wrong, but as near as I can tell, the majority of the Court would answer "yes" to the questions if they could decide solely based on their own gut beliefs about the world.

This reinforces my belief that we need a to broaden and more effectively engage in California's non-violent civil war for states rights! Or maybe even support #Calexit. Because in my California personal view religious or philosophical beliefs of any kind have no role in and cannot be permitted to influence the conduct of retail sales, the power of the Union of Washington and Lincoln notwithstanding.

I have to admit, in the cake case I too was initially diverted by the "artist" issue. Then it dawned on me. This is an artist's studio not open to the public offering no direct retail sales:


Below is a retail store subject to public access/accommodations anti-discrimination laws, not an artist's studio no matter what they put on their sign:


And the following retail stores are subject to public access/accommodations anti-discrimination laws, as they are not an artist's studio:


 And the description below is a retail business offering services to the public and therefore subject to public access/accommodations anti-discrimination laws:



Just as residents of Washington and Colorado can tell the difference, Californian's can understand the difference between art for creative sake and art for retail. But we apparently live in a Union of states in which members of the highest court in the land may not be able to clearly see the difference. This situation is testing those officials:


Wednesday, June 20, 2018

Tariffs: Trump's excise tax to be collected soon from his deplorably unknowing fans

A "tariff" is a tax on what you buy, not a war against China, Mexico, Canada, and the European Union. The use of the word "tariff" is a good way to hide a tax.

When a 25% tariff is collected on a product entering the country, that increases the wholesale price by 25%. Importerspay U.S. import tariffs to the federal government and the cost is passed on through the wholesaler and retailer.

This is similar to an excise tax which, as explained by the Tax Foundation, are "included in the final price of products and services, and are often hidden to consumers." But one doesn't have to take the word of experts on such things or some "fake" news source.

It was two years ago this month that Trump started bantering around the phrase "trade war" in a speech in Monessen, Pennsylvania. There he threatened Canada, China and Mexico.

And it was there that he made it clear he intended to use taxes Americans would pay to benefit some American businesses stating: "Our original Constitution did not even have an income tax. Instead, it had tariffs emphasizing taxation of foreign, not domestic, production."

The problem with that, of course, is taxes (tariffs) on imports don't tax "foreign production", they tax domestic consumption - you pay the tax. When a 20% tariff on imported goods is collected at the American port (not in the foreign country), the wholesale price of those goods is increased 20%. Now, perhaps the cost of Apple products depicted at the right above might not be increased the full amount of the tariff as Apple's retail markup is extremely high and they could afford to absorb some of that tariff cost.

But consider the hypothetical Walmart receipt depicted at the left above. In all likelihood a person buying clothes for their kids which would have cost $64.91 including sales tax would cost an additional $9.48 which represents about a 15% tax paid to the Trump Administration. And that's also true of stores like Macy's and Costco.

Of course, Costco members are considered wealthy, or "affluent", with only 15% just "getting by" or "poor." The average Costco member is college educated, owns a home and earns about $100,000 a year, while Walmart caters to low-and-moderate income families.

As noted in Wikipedia, tariffs "were the greatest (approaching 95% at times) source of federal revenue until the Federal income tax began after 1913. Before Trump's new tariffs, existing federal taxes on imports contribute $44 billion to the federal budget. It is unclear where to even start to calculate how much of his personal income tax cut will be recovered from consumers through increased tariffs.

Tuesday, June 19, 2018

"This is the United States of America. It isn't Nazi Germany, and there's a difference. And we don't take children from their parents, until now and I think it's such a sad day. "
                                                                              - U.S. Senator Diane Feinstein (D-Calif.)
This I awakened to read an explanation by the Attorney General of our "more perfect Union" as to why his policy of concentrating "unacceptable" children in camps was different from that of Nazi Germany. You can click on the image below to learn more:


Fox News host Laura Ingraham on Monday played footage of former CIA director Michael Hayden and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) comparing the Trump administration's policy of separating migrant families with the practices of Nazi Germany. “Well, it's a real exaggeration, because in Nazi Germany, they were keeping the Jews from leaving the country,” Sessions replied adding "Fundamentally, we are enforcing the law. Hopefully people will get the message and not break across the border unlawfully."

The U.S. Attorney General just explained actions taken as "ok" according to the law because he wasn't working for the German government in 1938 trying to solve the Jewish problem, he is working for the U.S. government in 2018 trying solve the brown people problem. That's an explanation he could use for building concentration camps with gas chambers and ovens.

After all, he is just following orders.

Unfortunately, earlier that day Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said at a meeting of the National Sheriffs’ Association in New Orleans: "“This department will no longer stand by and watch you attack law enforcement for enforcing the laws passed by Congress. We will not apologize for the job we do, or the job law enforcement does, or the job the American people expect us to do.”

This is what is known as the "Nuremberg defense" where in Nazi Germany genocide was the law and people were given orders pursuant to duly passed law. And much like in Nazi Germany, there is no immediate threat to the health and safety of the American public that would justify that defense.

Enough is enough. It is time for a non-violent civil war to reestablish states' rights. We can't protect people in Alabama, but we can protect them in California.

Back in 2005, I created a website Three Californias dedicated to dividing California into three states. It soon was used as a reference by others on the web because there is a surprising dearth of focused information on my state. And this November California voters will have the opportunity to vote on a ballot measure to create three California's.

A discussion of what today is known as a #Calexit was included. I knew then that obtaining Congressional approval to allow California to become a separate nation-state was likely to be laughingly referred to as "tilting at windmills" task.

Even seeking approval to create three states out of California would be an uphill battle at best. And it would only slightly improve for Californians a grossly unfair situation that the inherently undemocratic U.S. Constitution gives each voter in Wyoming, Alaska, and North Dakota three votes for President for every vote cast by a California voter. The cost would be a serious disruption in the economy.

In 2005 it was clear to this writer an effort to reorient those living in the other 49 states had to be made. What happened in the 2015-16 Presidential election cycle, seemed to add urgency to that goal. And on June 17 in my other blog I was still trying, with a very long post An American 21st Century Kaleidoscope versus a Civil War? Saving the Union is a struggle against pots, bowls, and mosaics, between individuality, identity, and assimilation, amid unprecedented wealth disparity.

But with this new "discussion" it is clear. Americans east of the Sierra Nevada range have a worldview, even the establishment class, one which could not be changed without a revolt.

Yes, in April of last year in the post here The Chilling Blurt-Blats of Trumpists: Jeff Sessions' Hawaii Incident reminds  us to heed Sun Tzu's The Art of War I expressed a strong concern about the Attorney General of our "more perfect Union" known as these United States:
    But as a fellow American whose frame of reference is Californian, I must consider Jeff Sessions' frame of reference in the context of his childhood and adolescence from the facts....
    It isn't just that Sessions was born and raised in, and lived most of his life in, Alabama, a geographic region historically different from California, though that might give a hint. It isn't just that since the early 1700's no male in his paternal lineage ever called home a place outside the southernmost part These United States.
    Rather it's all that plus the fact that his great-grandfather died at the Battle of Antietam fighting for the South in the Civil War, and that his grandfather, his father, and he are all named "Jefferson Beauregard" Sessions...
  • as in Jefferson Davis was selected as President of the Confederacy at the constitutional convention in Montgomery, Alabama.
  • as in Confederate General P.G.T. Beauregard.
    Now I know those names were commonly used among white families in the South after the Civil War. And I know that Jeff Sessions didn't name himself. But most other people likely will not share a perspective, a way of looking at things, with Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III - including most any American whose lineage includes no one from the Slave States
But Sessions is just an obvious symbol of a system gone bad.

By 2005 I had concerns about the Bush Administration versus California. But at no time did Bush, in order to win an election, attack trade, migration, or California's history, culture, and largest ethnic group. In fact Bush in speeches after 9/11 took great pains to protect Muslim-Americans from discrimination.

The 2016 election discourse set off loud alarms and the second minority-vote-elected President in the 21st Century was disconcerting.

In popular culture we have made caricatures of Stalin, Hitler, and Mussolini. That is foolish. Hitler, for example, was a struggling veteran of WWI who decided to become a politician, ultimately running for national leadership. In free and open elections at his peak he won 43.91% of the vote in March 1933. By most estimates he had a 40% core popular support and, by 1938 when the economy was going well, only had about a 20% fearful residual opposition. Using today's polling methods, the other 40% were "independents" meaning they had no idea what was going on.

This old Native Californian thinks it is time to recognize just how different California is from Ohio and North Carolina and why California needs to insist on a traditional view of citizenship based on the Constitution and states' rights. California needs to build a mythology around individuality and achievement.

Let's begin with a statement of historical facts. Migrants created the California we know today while white illegal aliens from the United States made California a part of the Union. What 96%+ of Americans don't recognize is the United States government run by the ancestors/predecessors of the current Deplorables and the establishment who...
  • from 1880-1943 prevented the families of one group of Californians - the U.S. citizen children of Chinese immigrants - from bringing their family members into California, targeting only this ethnic group of Asians, 
  • from 1930-1946 in the Mexican "Repatriation" rounded up and deported one group of Californians - American citizens of Hispanic heritage
  • from 1942-1945 rounded up another group of Californians - American citizens of Japanese heritage - and put them into concentration camps, and
  • in began 1954 Operation Wetback which resulted in 1,078,168 arrests and deportations by the U.S. Border Patrol resulting in several hundred United States citizens being illegally deported without being given a chance to prove their citizenship.
Sorry America, but we Californians cannot permit a repeat of this kind of bigotry, discrimination, and violence against our people. Since the election, as well as during the campaign, we observed that focused violence and bullying is growing in the U.S. as a result of Donald Trump.

These are signs that what few elements of a democratic society exist in the United States are endangered, a fact which has been confirmed repeatedly.

As noted in How Stable Are Democracies? ‘Warning Signs Are Flashing Red’: "Americans who say that army rule would be a 'good' or 'very good' thing had risen to 1 in 6 in 2014, compared with 1 in 16 in 1995" and offers this disturbing chart:

Which brings me to Hillary Clinton who said (emphasis added):
"I think we know what we're up against. We do, don't we? Donald Trump has pledged to appoint Supreme Court justices who will overturn marriage equality, and if you have read about the ones he says he's likely to support, he's not kidding. In fact, if you look at his running mate, his running mate signed a law that would have allowed businesses to discriminate against LGBT Americans. And there's so much more that I find deplorable in his campaign: the way that he cozies up to white supremacists, makes racist attacks, calls women pigs, mocks people with disabilities -- you can't make this up. He wants to round up and deport 16 million people, calls our military a disaster. And every day he says something else which I find so personally offensive, but also dangerous....

"...You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump's supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right? The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic -- you name it. And unfortunately there are people like that. And he has lifted them up. He has given voice to their websites that used to only have 11,000 people -- now 11 million. He tweets and retweets their offensive hateful mean-spirited rhetoric. Now, some of those folks -- they are irredeemable, but thankfully they are not America."
Perhaps verbalizing that observation was a foolish mistake for a Presidential candidate. But now because over 50% of Americans under age 50 apparently cannot bring themselves to say that it is essential to live in a democratic country and 1-in-6 Americans think they would be better off under a military dictatorship, I have to go where many Americans don't like to go in their political debate.

Clinton is a policy wonk who understands what the difference was in Germany from 1934-1939 between (a) those who were were in political power, (b) those who were members of unacceptable minorities, and (c) those who were neither. Most of those who were neither, which was most of the populous, saw a slight improvement in their economic status and were quietly accepting-to-supportive. Those who were in power flourished. Those who were members of the unacceptable minorities were sent to concentration camps where most were murdered by the state.

And Clinton knows that the ancestors/predecessors of the current Deplorables of her parents generation offered up the same attitudes as their Deplorable descendants towards refugees as demonstrated in this survey done just before WWII:

As the Fortune article Here's Fortune's Survey on How Americans Viewed Jewish Refugees in 1938 says about this result so similar to today's attitudes regarding the Syrian refugees: "So much, then, for the hospitality of our melting pot."

Oh, we're not that bad now - we wouldn't let them get slaughtered, you might say. Here are the Gallup poll historical results that show the numbers haven't changed much:


By political party we see just how the results skew with Democrats favoring allowing refugees while 84% of the Deplorables prefer to allow the children of Syria to be slaughtered just like their grandparents did the German children in 1938:


California in the 21st Century is, of course, the Bluest of the Blue states. In the era of Trump bigotry, Democrats gained a super-majority in both houses of the Legislature, it has seven partisan state executives offices all filled by Democrats, two Democratic U.S. Senators, and 39 of 53 (almost 75%) of its House members are Democrats.

And, of course, California Leads The Nation In Resettlement Of Syrian Refugees.

We cannot participate in a nation that is dominated by a political party which has 84% of its members advocating allowing innocent children, women and men to die in a war for which that party's previous President is responsible for inciting.

We cannot accept Trump, supported by the Deplorables, ordering a defacto reinstatement the 1929-1936 Mexican Repatriation carried out by American authorities which forcibly sent 1.2 million U.S. citizens into Mexico, most of whom didn't even speak Spanish but just had "the physical distinctiveness of mestizos."

And, as a Pacific Rim economy, we cannot risk Trump destroying the value of our trade and migration reality.

Trade, migration, and the economy are not the only issues Californians need to evaluate. California's social and cultural policy orientation was broadly attacked with Trump supporters threatening violence.

Though we Californian's have struggled at times with social and cultural policy issues, the fact is since the Gold Rush California has been a leader in creating equal opportunities and a safe community for any migrant from any place - Ohio, China, Chile, Samoa, India, Oklahoma, Japan, Honduras. We have generally tried to provide a fair approach to what we know as civil rights issues.

Today, whether the civil rights issue is abortion, same sex marriage, legalization of marijuana, gun safety regulation, workers' rights, climate change, expression of religion, minimum wage, higher education, use of technology, etc., Californians seek fair answers and work to implement fair solutions. Settling for the status quo has never been a comfort zone in California.

Consider the abortion issue. On June 14, 1967, then California Governor Ronald Reagan signed the groundbreaking Therapeutic Abortion Act. If a "Trump Supreme Court" simply nullifies Roe v Wade, as the Washington Post article What abortion could look like in America under Donald Trump notes only a few states have Pro-Choice laws following California's example while many more have Pro-Life laws:


It is time to protect all those living in California. We need to push hard to wrench back as much of California's sovereignty as we can.

Or we could just sit back and continue to watch an old, white Alabaman determine what civil rights people have and a rich, super-religious, anti-gay-marriage white Michigan suburbanite privatize our school systems.

And we could allow government officials to abuse children because it is the law. Though it really isn't.

Sunday, June 17, 2018

Why factually these United States is a more perfect Union, not a country, nation, or state

One cannot understand the range of emotions experienced - and related opinions held - by Americans, without having an awareness of the world of the men we call the Founding Fathers of the United States. Particularly, we need to understand the language they spoke, the meaning of the words they used. Late 18th Century Colonial English might seem to resemble the language of 21st Century America, but it is not the same language. 

Political disinformation in the United States for 230 years has created confusion about certain words important to an understanding about what was new and different in the world after the Revolutionary War.

Key to the confusion is the American jumbling together of words that once had truly different definitions and implications - country, nation, state, and union.

For purposes of clarity and simplicity, as used here from this point on the following words have specific meanings based upon pre-17th Century concepts:
  • "Country" means "any considerable territory demarcated by topographical conditions."
  • "Nation" means "any distinctive population with a common language, culture, and considerable history."
  • "State" means "a central civil government or authority that exercises the legitimate use of force within defined geographical boundaries."
  • "Union" means "a number of states or nations joined together for defined purposes to be accomplished by a separately created autonomous authority."
Using those definitions, the Cherokee Nation is a nation. Italy is a country and a state. Japan is a country, a state, and a nation. The United States of America is none of these. It is a union of states.

 

It's not a country - here's why


Again, "country" as will be used here means "any considerable territory demarcated by topographical conditions."

As explained in Wikipedia:

    In English the word has increasingly become associated with political divisions, so that one sense, associated with the indefinite article – "a country" – through misuse and subsequent conflation is now a synonym for state, or a former sovereign state, in the sense of sovereign territory or "district, native land"....
    The equivalent terms in French and other Romance languages (pays and variants) have not carried the process of being identified with political sovereign states as far as the English "country".... In many European countries the words are used for sub-divisions of the national territory, as in the German Bundesländer, as well as a less formal term for a sovereign state. France has very many "pays" that are officially recognised at some level, and are either natural regions, like the Pays de Bray, or reflect old political or economic entities, like the Pays de la Loire.
    A version of "country" can be found in the modern French language as contrée, based on the word cuntrée in Old French, that is used similarly to the word "pays" to define non-state regions, but can also be used to describe a political state in some particular cases. The modern Italian contrada is a word with its meaning varying locally, but usually meaning a ward or similar small division of a town, or a village or hamlet in the countryside.

For purposes of sharing an understanding of the political world as understood by our Founding Fathers, here is a map of Europe at the time of the creation of the United States of America:



Fundamentally, Europe was divided into constantly warring empires with shifting boundaries. While topographical conditions may have slowed some conquests, our concept of "country" did not set boundaries for kingdoms and empires which are "states" by our definitions. And that was an attitude that Europeans brought to the Americas and which has resulted in a blurring of the terms "country" and "state."

As can be seen on the map below, North America is a large geographic area with significant topographical conditions:
Click on image to see a larger version!

If a people whose only mode of transportation on land is walking "discover" such a geographic area and through walking logically divide it into more than one division without intent, it is reasonable to assume that the dominate shape for divisions would most likely be in a north-to-south direction,  more or less. And indeed, the result of an actual natural migration produced this map:


Further some predominantly English-speaking Europeans came along and, initially struggling just to survive, began to occupy a land bounded by topography:



But these folks were Europeans used to warring empires with shifting boundaries not constrained by topography. So over the next 150 years in defiance of the idea of a topographically-defined "country" they and their descendants drew some lines dividing that continental topography in illogical ways...


... and, more irrationally, even further like this:


To summarize, the United States is not a "country" defined by obvious topographical extremes. Even the oceans did not stop it from including Hawaii as one of the internal "state" governments even though it is 2,500 miles from the American Continent. In fact, the Rocky Mountains were known as the Continental Divide but even that didn't suggest creating separate "countries" based on topography. The United States is not a country as we define it.

 

It's not a nation - here's why


As it will be used here "nation" means "any distinctive population with a common language, culture, and considerable history." And it is this map that indicates a division of the North  American Continent by "nations" of indigenous peoples...


As already discussed, the American "melting pot" did not include those indigenous North American nations, African slaves and their descendants, and the indigenous Spanish speaking residents of lands purchased or conquered by the United States. Not only that, the United States encouraged immigration from around the world, such as from China to build the Transcontinental Railroad, resulting in these maps today...


...which makes it very clear that the United States is not a "nation" by our definition as "any distinctive population with a common language, culture, and considerable history."

As a reminder, as explored in another post Saving the Union is a struggle against pots, bowls, and mosaics, between individuality, identity, and assimilation, amid unprecedented wealth disparity the historical fact that the term "melting pot" was a concept to encourage immigrant "English, Scotch, Irish, French, Dutch, Germans, and Swedes" who back home in Europe constantly fought wars with each other to form an English-speaking culture. Had anyone before 1920 suggested adding other races, they would have been met with incredulous laughter.

So it is a perfectly logical outcome of this history that emotionally for many within the United States "nationalism" means only white English-speaking nationalism. But that doesn't reflect the population born and living here.

Again the United States is not a "nation."
 

It is not a state but rather a union - here's why


As it will be used here "state" means "a central civil government or authority that exercises the legitimate use of force within defined geographical boundaries." Given the definitions accepted here, most would want to say the United States is a "state."

Except, of course, within the defined geographical boundary that is the United States pursuant to Constitutional law there are 50+ "state" governments which independently exercise the legitimate use of force within defined internal geographical boundaries. There is nothing confusing about the wording of the 10th Amendment to the Constitution:
    The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
So the United States is not even a "state" in the our use of the word (for this discussion entering into the arguments over the so-called "implied powers" is not relevant). Rather, it is a "union" which means "a number of states or nations joined together for defined purposes to be accomplished by a separately created autonomous authority." The following is the Preamble of the Constitution of the United States (emphasis added):
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
And here is where the confusion exists. In that document, the Constitution of the United States, a "Union" was formed. That "Union" meant "a number of states or nations joined together for defined purposes to be accomplished by a separately created autonomous authority."

The existing real states jointly assigned the Union the limited authority to use a very few of their powers and functions while retaining the vast balance of powers of a state to themselves.

Americans seem to be confused about that. Perhaps that is because political history is not something we think is as important as, say, how to use technology to see cat videos to make us laugh. But sometimes we need to consider the concept of a "union" in the context of the American Revolution and Constitution which happened in the last quarter of the 17th Century. It literally was all the latest in government.

"Founding Father" Benjamin Franklin was born in 1706 which meant that even our oldest Founding Father had a clear understanding of the then new, cool British concept of a "union." That is because over the first two years of Franklin's life the concept of a political "union" was formalized during the process of creating Great Britain which most Americans probably think was created by the Romans at the time Jesus was alive.

Wikipedia provides a brief insight into what we frequently shorten to Britain:
    The Kingdom of Scotland emerged as an independent sovereign state in the Early Middle Ages and continued to exist until 1707. By inheritance in 1603, James VI, King of Scots, became King of England and King of Ireland, thus forming a personal union of the three kingdoms. Scotland subsequently entered into a political union with the Kingdom of England on 1 May 1707 to create the new Kingdom of Great Britain. The union also created a new Parliament of Great Britain, which succeeded both the Parliament of Scotland and the Parliament of England. In 1801, Great Britain itself entered into a political union with the Kingdom of Ireland to create the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.
    Within Scotland, the monarchy of the United Kingdom has continued to use a variety of styles, titles and other royal symbols of statehood specific to the pre-union Kingdom of Scotland. The legal system within Scotland has also remained separate from those of England and Wales and Northern Ireland; Scotland constitutes a distinct jurisdiction in both public and private law. The continued existence of legal, educational, religious and other institutions distinct from those in the remainder of the UK have all contributed to the continuation of Scottish culture and national identity since the 1707 union with England.
    In 1997, a Scottish Parliament was re-established, in the form of a devolved unicameral legislature comprising 129 members, having authority over many areas of domestic policy....
In a different Wikipedia entry we can also learn:
    The Acts of Union were two Acts of Parliament: the Union with Scotland Act 1706 passed by the Parliament of England, and the Union with England Act passed in 1707 by the Parliament of Scotland. They put into effect the terms of the Treaty of Union that had been agreed on 22 July 1706, following negotiation between commissioners representing the parliaments of the two countries. By the two Acts, the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of Scotland—which at the time were separate states with separate legislatures, but with the same monarch—were, in the words of the Treaty, "United into One Kingdom by the Name of Great Britain".
    The Acts took effect on 1 May 1707. On this date, the Scottish Parliament and the English Parliament united to form the Parliament of Great Britain, based in the Palace of Westminster in London, the home of the English Parliament. Hence, the Acts are referred to as the Union of the Parliaments. On the Union, the historian Simon Schama said "What began as a hostile merger, would end in a full partnership in the most powerful going concern in the world ... it was one of the most astonishing transformations in European history."
It might surprise many that within the Constitution of the United States the term "country" never appears. The term "nation" appears only in reference to "Commerce with foreign Nations" and to "punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offences against the Law of Nations." The term "state" does appear, but always in reference to the proposed union of 13 states - you know, the real states per our definition which was the definition understood by Benjamin Franklin and the other Founding Fathers.

On the other hand, besides in the preamble quoted above, the term "union" is used as follows:
  • New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union...
    The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government...
  • He shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union...
  • Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers...
  • To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union...
In the lifetime of the "Founding Fathers" prior to the Revolutionary War, Great Britain was clearly understood to be newly created as a "union" which was a revolutionary acknowledgement of a political idea. Because of the words used in the Constitution, it would be fair to say that the United States was created as a "union" of somewhat diverse states, where "state" clearly referenced 13 central civil governments that exercised the legitimate use of force within 13 defined geographical boundaries. This shouldn't come as a surprise, as for the Founding Fathers a "union" was a new and improved concept of political organization.

And is it surprising that the winning army in the Civil War was the Union Army? Was not the Union Army a land force that fought to keep and preserve the Union of the collective states? Did you never wonder why they called it the "Union" army?

In fact throughout the 19th Century, the Union was known as "these United States" which is a plural designation meaning more than one state. Titus Munson Coan who in his 1875 article "A New Country" in which he coined the term "Melting Pot" uses "these United States are" a decade after the end of the Civil War while trying to argue that it is a country, though what became the American Melting Pot "transforms the English, the German, the Irish emigrant into an American" creating a "great nation of Christendom."

Coan's piece was written after the 1849 approval of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ending the Mexican-American War, which permits Spanish-speaking brown folks to remain in the United States entitling them "to the enjoyment of all the rights of citizens of the United States, according to the principles of the Constitution; and in the mean time, shall be maintained and protected in the free enjoyment of their liberty and property, and secured in the free exercise of their religion without; restriction." Coan's piece was written after the Civil War when the slaves were freed and the 14th Amendment to the Constitution was adopted which begins: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside." But Coan had no confusion about who is in the American "nation" which is similar to most today's Americans of European descent living in the Red States indicated above.

But still, Coan wrote "these United States."

Linguist Mark Liberman in When did the Supreme Court make us an 'is'? noted that, contrary to one of his previous posts indicating the change to "the United States is" may have been made after the Civil War, he learned that Minor Myers of the Brooklyn Law School prepared a study Supreme Court Usage and the Making of an 'Is' which examined the use of the phrases “United States is” and “United States are” in opinions of the United States Supreme Court from 1790 to 1919 and determined that the plural usage was the predominant usage in the 1870s, 1880s, and 1890s and did not disappear until the 1920's.

As one comment speculated it is likely the plural persisted "at least through Reconstruction, and I'm afraid it hasn't entirely disappeared in some quarters."

No it it hasn't disappeared, and sometimes the use of the plural in the 21st Century creates a political buzz. For example, on Thursday, April 25, 2013, speaking at the dedication of the George W. Bush Library,  then President Barack Obama asked God to bless "these United States."

Don't dismiss this as if it were Bush fumbling a speech. Obama taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School for twelve years. In his 2013 inaugural address he closed with "Thank you, God Bless you, and may He forever bless these United States of America." Obama understands that those who drafted the Constitution never intended that the Union be other than "these states." When he says "these" states Constitutional Law professor Obama knows full well that it is "these" states that make up a Union.

Again, the singular usage "the United States is" did not become the "common" form until after World War I when it became obvious that the Union functioned as an "is" in a complex international scene where people could kill each other in the millions based on their "is-ness."

We need to understand "these United States" is a union created solely for purposes of a common military defense and assuring economic success of the numerous and separate states, not regulate mundane issues such as who can have sex with whom. That's one reason why in 1792 Americans insisted on leaving establishing government churches to the real states.