Season 9, Episode 8 August 25, 2024

 On this episode, we’ll hear about the existence of the soul, and I’ll speak with a man about America’s Ethical Archetype.  Not the Headlines explores a possible origin to world peace, and a legal theft ring at the crossroads of America.

Transcript

Hello!  Thank you for putting your ear to the Listening Tube!  I’m your host, Bob Woodley.  On this episode, we’ll hear about the existence of the soul, and I’ll speak with a man about America’s Ethical Archetype ….but first, (Not the Headlines!)

Every year at this time, an international event happens that draws people from all over the world to a small town in Pennsylvania.  If you’re not a sports fan, you probably don’t know and don’t care.  But this isn’t about sports, it’s about diplomacy at a level many don’t appreciate, or even know exists.  It’s the Little League Baseball World Series.  Teams from around the world earn the right to travel to Williamsport, Pennsylvania to compete against the best Little Leaguers that can be assembled from cities around the United States and around the world.  Many of the participating teams aren’t even decided until days before, maybe a week at most, then the frenzy of planning begins.  The teams from Australia and Japan and places more afar are given a little more time to arrange things, but the teams from the United States usually have to get to Williamsport a little more quickly.  And there are many of them.  American teams come from places like Washington State, Texas, California, Florida and even Hawaii, not to mention those who are closer, from places like New York, Connecticut, and even Pennsylvania, the host state.  The international teams come from places like Italy, Poland, Russia, not every year, but those are just some of the places that have sent Little Leaguers to Williamsport to play baseball against the best the rest of the world has to offer.  This year, the aforementioned Australia and Japan are in, as well as Taiwan, Canada, Aruba, Cuba, the Czech Republic, Venezuela, Mexico, and Puerto Rico.  And yes, I do realize that Puerto Rico is an unincorporated territory of the United States, but Little League puts them in the International bracket, same as Guam.  Among those foreign lands are a few that may be a bit surprising.  For example, Cuba.  The United States government has a trade ban with Cuba, but Little League Baseball found a way to allow Cuba to send a team.  The United States government isn’t friendly at all to Venezuela’s government or it’s dictator.  In fact, our country says their country’s recent election was a sham and leader Maduro should recognize the will of the people there.  But Venezuela often represents that region by sending a team to play in the Little League World Series.  The team that I referred to as Taiwan is officially known as Chinese Taipei at the Little League World Series.  If you follow world events, you’ll know that there’s a lot of friction between China and Taiwan, especially since China thinks Taiwan is a part of China, and the people of Taiwan and its government do not.  Calling the team Taiwan would recognize it as an independent country, which the U.S. government does, but not Little League Baseball.  Little League Baseball did call Taiwan Taiwan before 1980, but has since changed the name to Chinese Taipei, as well as all the records going back before 1980.  And Taiwan was often the World Series champs, having won it 17 times in just over 30 appearances.  But if you watch the games on television or listen on the radio or read about them in the newspaper, you’ll often see Taiwan instead of Chinese Taipei.  But the International Olympic Committee and the World Baseball Classic refer to the Taiwan team as Chines Taipei simply for diplomatic reasons.  Little League Baseball does the same thing, for the same reason.
All of that is behind the scenes diplomacy.  There’s another, more obvious diplomacy going on.  It’s between the players, both on and off the field.  I don’t know anything about how they group or separate the players in the dormitories at the Little League complex, but there are common areas, I’m sure.  The cafeteria, hallways, recreation rooms and outdoor spaces are all opportunities for mostly boys and some girls to get to know each other.  Every game ends with the opposing teams shaking hands.  Someday, these kids are gonna grow up, and remember the good time they had in South Williamsport, Pennsylvania, and all the cool kids they met from around the world.  Those memories will influence how they look at the world and people from other countries.  Perhaps the greatest influence will be that they don’t look at people from other places with suspicion.  Even if they did before, now they know better.  Being a part of the Little League World Series gives these kids a perspective most of us never get.  And they’ve already shown us that they can perform under pressure, know the value of teamwork, have a level of intelligence at least equal to their level of physical ability, and have leadership qualities.  Their coaches though enough of them to guide them to the promised land of baseball.  
If there is ever world peace, it will not have started in Washington, D.C.  It will not have sprung from Jerusalem or Qatar.  A future without war won’t originate with a decree from Moscow or Beijing.  I believe that future historians will someday be able to trace world peace to a friendship that was made, a handshake that was given and received, or a game of ping-pong played in the rec room at the Little League World Series in South Williamsport, Pennsylvania.

Meanwhile, a different kind of war is being waged at the crossroads of America.  Any history buff will tell you that the best places to be throughout the development of civilization were always the trade routes.  That’s where the money was.  That’s where opportunity lay.  Turns out, little has changed sine the beginning of time.  Indianapolis isn’t called the crossroads of America for nothing.  No less than five interstate highways pass through or directly around it.  Not surprising, a lot of cargo passes through what many of us at Fort Benjamin Harrison called the cornfield with lights back in the 1980’s.  Today, the merchants of Indianapolis are a different breed.  Not visionaries or business tycoons.  This isn’t Constantinople.  This is Indianapolis, where law enforcement confiscates millions of dollars a year from FedEx packages that are just passing through from other states.  
You may be familiar with forfeiture laws.  They vary from state to state, but basically give law enforcement permission to confiscate cash and property used in the commission of a crime, or suspected of being used in the commission of a crime.  
These forfeiture laws were originally meant to be a deterrent to crime, in the hope that criminals wouldn’t want to risk the losses.  But what they’ve turned into is a legal way for police to keep your stuff.  You would think that they need to somehow justify keeping your stuff, but in many cases, they don’t.  That’s exactly what’s happening in Indianapolis.  We can’t blame the city of Indianapolis, though.  It’s the county of Marion and the prosecutor’s office.  It, and the state of Indiana are now the target of a lawsuit over the practice.
So, what triggered the lawsuit?  A jewelry dealer in California was waiting for a cash payment from a client in Virginia.  The cash was sent via FedEx, and its route took it through Indianapolis.  The cash was siezed by law enforcement.  Law enforcement claimed the cash was a violation of a criminal statute, and therefore subject to confiscation.  Which statue was violated was never stated.  Forty-two thousand dollars was intercepted in Indianapolis with no evidence of any laws being broken, and no request for assistance from either of the two states involved in the transaction that I could find.  The lawfirm of the Institute for Justice is fighting civil asset forfeiture laws in multiple states, and filed a countersuit on behalf of the jewelry store owners.  And, yes, I said countersuit, because the county in Indiana filed a lawsuit to keep the money in the first place.  It seems to be a common practice.  A story by C.J. Claramella  for Reason says The Institute for Justice claims the Marion County Prosecutor’s Office has claimed over two-and-a-half million dollars from over 130 packages at the FedEx facility there over the last two years.  None of it had anything to do with the county, or the State of Indiana.  All of the packages were going from a state other than Indiana to another state other than Indiana.  The story https://www.yahoo.com/news/lawsuit-claims-indiana-unconstitutionally-seizes-184749098.html quotes a lawyer for the Institute for Justice as saying, "This scheme is one of the most predatory we have seen, and it's past time to put a stop to it.  It's illegal and unconstitutional for Indiana to forfeit in-transit money whose only connection to Indiana is the happenstance of FedEx's shipping practices."
In the case of the jewelry store money, the Marion County Prosecutor’s complaint claimed that, and I quote, "seized currency was furnished or was intended to be furnished in exchange for a violation of a criminal statute, or is traceable as proceeds of a violation of a criminal statute, in violation of Indiana law, as provided in I.C. 34-24-1-1."  
The problem is the way the forfeiture laws are written.  They leave a lot of wiggle room for greedy Counties, cities or police departments.  Cash and property can be confiscated even if it’s just suspected of being used in criminal activity.  There doesn’t have to be a charge, arrest or conviction for a crime.  In other words, if Floyd Mayweather and I were headed out for a night on the town, and he wanted to bring a hundred-thousand dollars cash with us in case we end up at a strip club and he wants to make it rain, which would never happen, because I don’t frequent strip clubs, and we get pulled over for a burned out tail light on his Bentley, the police could take all that cash because they suspected we were about to commit a crime.  Oh, and they could also take the Bentley.  Just because me and Floyd wanted to show our appreciation of beautiful women.  And neither one of us has the Lyft app on our phone.
With 99-thousand packages an hour going through the Indianapolis FedEx hub, it’s the second busiest in the nation.  It seems that under the notion of “all those packages can’t be legal”, the Indianapolis Police Department can justify going on a fishing expedition, looking for packages that look like they might be suspect.  Maybe they suspect a crime, but they seem also to be suspecting a wad of cash.  When they do find cash, the reports are filled out as vaguely as possible as to why the package was flagged in the first place, or they just make stuff up.  It doesn’t matter, because all they need is suspicion in order to open the package and keep the contents.  
But the fight is on to end these practices.  The Institute for Justice lists reasons why civil asset forfeiture laws violate the 4th, 8th, 10th and 14th Amendments to the Constitution.  Among the arguments are that law enforcement fail to duly notify the owners of the property in the cases at the FedEx facility, as well as the county not having jurisdiction to confiscate property coming from and going to other states.  Their counter suit in Indianapolis, if successful, will render the policies unconstitutional.

Let’s go Back liner

This week in 1926, Professor Charles Henri of Sorbonne, near Paris, France, confirms the existence of the soul through radiation readings.  Interestingly, the only references I could find of this event were a couple of New York Times articles that were behind a paywall.  Other than that, there was no mention of Professor Henri and the soul anywhere, even on wikipedia.  That might lead someone to believe that it’s all poppycock.  And it may be.  You’ll never convince the faithful that there’s no such thing as a soul.  But science has pretty much abandoned the search for proof of the soul, and instead settle for what Psychology Today calls the old physico-chemical paradigm of life.  We’re all just atoms and particles, and the only part of us that comes close to being a soul is our thoughts.  As a result, science sees brain activity research as the true window to the soul.
It was the same year, 1926, that Nobel laureate Max Born demonstrated the different behaviors of particles when they are and are not observed.  And how the knowledge of the experimenter can determine the behavior as well.  Those results suggest that a part of our minds, which some interpret as the soul, does exist.  Not only that, but the soul exists in an unobserved state somewhere outside space and time.
Perhaps radiation readings don’t prove the existence of the soul, as Professor Henri’s experiment showed, but our current understanding of the mind suggests a very real possibility that the soul does exist, even if it can’t be observed.

Phone and email liner

 My guest this week is the author of a book about ethics and morals in society and government.  In it, Damien Terrence Dubose digs deep into the individual psyche, and how each of us can improve the world in which we live.

Interview

According to wikipedia, Jungian archetypes are a concept from psychology that refers to a universal, inherited idea, pattern of thought, or image that is present in the collective unconscious of all human beings. The psychic counterpart of instinct, archetypes are thought to be the basis of many of the common themes and symbols that appear in stories, myths, and dreams across different cultures and societies.  The concept of the collective unconscious was first proposed by Carl Jung, a Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst. 

Damien’s book, America’s Ethical Archetype, is a much deeper dive into the subject.  What are your thoughts on individualism and collectivism?  How are your elected representatives demonstrating ethics or morality?  Are they consistent with your ideals?  Drop me a line at the listening tube dot com with your thoughts.

The Listening Tube is written and produced by yours truly.  Copyright 2024.  Thank you for putting your ear to the Listening Tube.  Subscribe today, or text me from the home page!  I’m your host, Bob Woodley, for thou ad infinitum.