Development Email Calendar with Production Deadlines MVP


Minimum Viable Product: Development Email Calendar with Production Deadlines

The goal of this article is to outline a barebones development email calendar with production processes and deadlines included. These emails are in addition to a Welcome Series which is automatically sent to any new subscribers, and may also be sent to current readers if they have not already received a Welcome Series. An article on that topic will be forthcoming.

The strategy starts with two essential email types (active fundraising and relationship building emails) and then adds in a third email (Fireside Chats) to move donors into a more active relationship with the organization.

Relationship building emails can include passive donate options -a Support Org Button at the bottom of the email- or exclude the donate option and focus entirely on the primary CTA for the reader. I personally like to pair relationship-building emails with fundraising asks later on down the line. This is a common strategy seen in Inbound Marketing and the NextAfter/MECLabs systems.

Calendar Rules

2–3 emails a month (1-2 Relationship Building, 1 Ask)

No more than 1 email should go out a week. In the case of multiple audiences, this rule should also apply. -EG if a supporter is also a client, they should not receive an email from both lists on the same day. Depending on the size of the multiple audiences, I’d recommend moving those emails to a third day and send out emails to both mutually exclusive lists on the ideal day).

Production on emails should be completed 1-2 days before the email date. (Note: Many email platforms will not allow you to send an email in a shorter time than 24 hours.)

Master calendar should be constructed to include all known email dates. Lists should be mutually exclusive to allow multiple lists to email on the optimum dates.
(Current research indicates Sunday evening, Tuesday morning, Thursday afternoon).
Emails that are included on multiple lists should defer to their primary lists and receive the second list email on a second date

Email Elements

All Development emails have the following elements:

  • Type: Relationship Building (Ask/No Ask), Donate, or Fireside Chat
  • CTA:  Donate or Edify
  • CTA Type: Survey, download free content, article to read,
  • Link: URL that the email will forward to
  • Writer: The person who is actively writing the piece. This person will also likely be the signer but in larger orgs likely won’t be.
  • Signer: This is the person who is putting their name to the email. Will likely be the org’s president, a department director, or a staff member who has high prestige
  • Editor: This is the person who reviews the piece, tests the links, and likely schedules the email to go out. This person should not be both the writer and signer. This is to make sure that at least two people review the piece before it goes live.
  • UTM Code: Useful for tracking the email’s performance

Special Type of Email (Fireside Chat)
Fireside Chats – This email is written by the president -or at least in the president’s voice- and specifically focus on financial supporters to build a relationship with them so that they see themselves as financial partners in the organization’s work.
This relationship is achieved by tying the mission, vision, values, and principles of the organization with products that the organization currently produces.

The short-term goal of the Fireside Chat email type is to edify the reader -mainly financial supporters- with content that will help them to more closely identify with the organization’s mission and give the reader a real understanding of what the organization does and accomplishes.
The long-term goal is that the reader identifies with the organization and feels a personal sense of ownership over the great work that the organization does. The financial supporter will feel a sense of pride and familiarity with the organization’s clients and the financial supporter will understand that they are not just passive investors but active partners in the organization’s work.

A note about language. While financial supporters can be called donors, I prefer to frame development as about converting financial supporters who passively invest in the organization into financial partners who share the organization’s values and see themselves as actively involved in promoting the organization’s work. You can read more about donors as financial partners here.

The Calendar

Month 1.

Week 1.

Week 2.

Week 3.

Week 4.

Week 5 (When applicable).

Month 2.

Week 1.

Week 2.

Week 3.

Week 4.

Week 5 (When applicable).

Month 3.

Week 1.

Week 2.

Week 3.

Week 4.

Week 5 (When applicable).

Month 4.

Week 1.

Week 2.

Week 3.

Week 4.

Week 5 (When applicable).

Month 5.

Week 1.

Week 2.

Week 3.

Week 4.

Week 5 (When applicable).

Month 6.

Week 1.

Week 2.

Week 3.

Week 4.

Week 5 (When applicable).

Month 7.

Week 1.

Week 2.

Week 3.

Week 4.

Week 5 (When applicable).


Applying OODA to Leadership (WIP Draft)

The OODA Leadership technique

In meetings, the first plan presented most often becomes the basis for the meeting’s deliberations with the rest of the meeting becoming a process of modifying the first plan to accommodate the other parties.

This has the effect that whoever has the most acceptable plan the soonest will most often set the agenda.

A reasonable model to use to guide this process is the OODA loop used in military doctrine. OODA stands for Observe, Orient, Decide, Act.

The individual, team, or organization which has the fastest OODA process will have the greatest role in determining the agenda.

  • Observe your surroundings
  • Orient yourself to understand what is at work and what that signifies
  • Decide on a course of action that will correctly produce the desired results.
  • Act to make course of action happen

An OODA Loop can be improved by improving any of the four stages. These improvements can be centered on just one stage or on multiple stages. In general, I would recommend treating each stage as a single unit that feeds into the other units. This is because treating the OODA stages as a singular unit can get bogged down in unnecessary details and qualifications.

Applying the above to a meeting, if you are able to quickly come to terms with a situation, circle back with all stakeholders -or at least the people with decision-making rights- and determine and draft an appropriate plan, your proposal is more likely to be adopted.

Aside from improving your own processes to achieve a faster OODA loop, there is also an effective but disingenuous and unethical strategy to be faster than your peers.

This method is to deprive others of all relevant information for one of the OODA phases so that you have the first viable plan. Two examples are if you deliberately fail to share relevant information before a meeting so that you have surprise data or questions to bring into the meeting and another is that you actively work ahead of an agenda and then force a conclusion within a limited timeframe. These methods are disingenuous because they actively deprive others of either information or time to develop their own thoughts and proposals.

A way to work ahead ethically is to allot time for groups to discuss new information. I find that postponing a final decision to a second meeting is oftentimes is an effective, if not wasteful strategy.

MM — PODO & Moves (September 2019)

MM — PODO & Moves

Prospect

Prospect Identified

Qualify wealth

Leads Mountain

Identification Stage —
*Minimum wealth (Measured by Wealth Screening tool score, other arbitrary markers)[Manual at first, then use integration with DB & Wealth Screening Tool];
*If in the News, move to the top of the List(If the PODO is in the news, Org President can use that fact as the lede for their letter of introduction. IE “I had the pleasure of seeing you on the Fox and Friends show. I especially appreciated when you said…”);
*If a celeb, earmark for qualification as a potential Partner;
*Earmark if the PODO has previous interactions with Org (EG has liked Org’s products, attended event, has had interactions with Org Executives or staff);

Qualification Stage –

*Add PODO to Org database and mark as a PODO.
*If already in DB, mark the record as renewed for attention.
*Clearly mark when the PODO has no interactions with Org and mark them as Do Not Contact until they have responded.

Stakeholder Checks — Stakeholder Checks: *Events= near an upcoming Org event. *Foundations = Connections to a mission-aligned Foundation or a private foundation[foundations whose missions are completely up to the foundation stakeholders];
*Org President = Unique connections to President, Org connections, High Prestige, Potential Partnership; *Partnerships/External Relations = Shared mission/orgs, previous connections to PODO;
*Donor Advisors= Connections to a Donor Advisory through which contact must go

Categorize PODO Type
Attempt to Identify the Best Approach for outreach by identifying PODO’s political, religious, and biographic information, + their connections to the Org/Org President, and established giving/projects in the Org’s mission.

Types of PODOs:
*Low Dollar ($1-$99);
*Mid Dollar ($100-$250)
*High Dollar ($251-$750-$999);
*Major ($1k+);
*President Only (Unique connections to President, Org connections, High Prestige, Potential Partnership);
*Foundations (Connection to a mission-aligned foundation or a private foundation);
*Donor Advisers=Connections to a Donor Advisory through which contact must go

Recommended First Moves:
*Event-Invite to Org Event if PODO lives near an upcoming Org Event;
*Send Org President Letter of Introduction with a point of connection/interest[EG a pleasure to meet you at the Big Whigs Gala/I read your recent article in the New York Times…] and a Call-to-Action[EG I often visit Missouri and would love to meet you when I am there next…];
*Send Collateral []

Cultivation Stage

Cultivation Moves:

· Intro Pack with customized Standard Letter

· Invite to Event (Via Letter/Email/Phonecall

· Invite to Meet — In PODO’s city, at Org’s office, at an event both parties publicly know they will attend,

· Phone Call — Phonecalls can follow after a written or digital invitation

· Email — Use standardized emails. Lowest expected return rate.

· Invitations are best when sent through a mutual friend/connection.

Packet Content Options:

Standard — Org publication, Book written by Org President/Org Academic, Letter, Remit(Not recommend)

Low Cost — Org publication, Book Request Form, Letter,

High Cost — Org publication, Book written by Org President/Org Academic, Letter, High-cost Org related Collateral,

PODO Goals

Goal Setting Stage

1. Immediate Move: Low$/High$=Convert PODO to estimated dollar range, Major Gift: Make connection & start dialogue, VIP= Make connection & start dialogue

2. 1–2 Year Goal: Convert PODO to estimated dollar range or initiate diologue.

3. Long-term Goal: Create meaningful relationship and dialogue, empower the PODO to create meaningful social change via Org’s Programs,

Audience Categories
Once Standard Letter is drafted, edited, and corrected to account for feedback, develop audience categories that use modified language to connect Org’s Mission, Values, & Projects to the PODO’s personal interests and passions.

Speculative Categories: Libertarian, Conservative, Liberal, Progressive, Religious (Christian, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Muslim), Org Mission oriented [EG Cares about Civics, the Homeless, Legal Reform, etc].

The body of the letter will remain the same but will reference different elements of the Org’s Missions and Values and different outcomes from the Org’s operations depending on the motivations of the PODO. When in doubt, use the standard letter.

Moves Management

Current Donor Audit

Triage all Donors according to their gift amounts and then process through the PODO qualification & research process.

Order:

1. All Major Donors, Foundation Contacts

2. High Dollar Donors/High capacity Low Dollar Donors

3. Mid-Level Donors

4. Low Dollar Donors (Qualification only)

Moves Management Goals

4. Immediate Move:

5. Year Goal: Raise Donor to next highest dollar range. EG Raise a $50 annual gift to a $100 dollar gift. Raise a $100 dollar gift to a $250, $250 to $500, and so on.

6. Long-term Goal:

First Time Gift Moves:

· Receipt/Thank you Letter (Combined into the same letter)

· Thank you Call/Card

· Intro packet to Org’s Mission, Projects, and

o Low-cost Collateral: Org stickers (Maybe?), Pocket Constitutions (Every org has them), other low-cost & small piece of collateral

· Donor Research Process (Turn-around should be 1–2 weeks)

· If Email is available, subscribe them to an email campaign

Yearly Moves: Start with 6 moves, then move up to 12 moves. Half of the moves should be special/customized while the other half of the moves will be generic and standard for org outreach. All yearly calendars should change year to year. Rely on mass produced comms/techniques to manage large groups.

January-February — Thank You Letter/Call/Card for last year’s gift(s)

March-April — Org Publication: Either Donor Publication or Org Focused

May-June –

July-August — Holiday Card

September-October –

November-December — Year End Appeal

Optional Moves:

· Invite to event in their area

· Invite them to tour the Org’s facilities.

· Send a card during a holiday relevant to the Org’s mission

· Survey/Checking in call

·

Email Campaigns

Donor Intro Campaign — 4 week email campaign that introduces the Org’s leadership, Mission and Values, & Demos the types of work and impact Org’s Programs creates.

Example:

Week 1. Email written in Org President’s name/voice introducing the Org’s Mission & Values and establishes what to expect over the next 3 weeks. Include a kindly written invitation to unsubscribe from the email with an unsub page that asks for feedback on preferred means of comms etc.

Week 2. Email written by Programs with examples of the org’s events and resources. Make it visceral and meaningful. Focus on communicating their experiences and the changes created rather than the raw stats.

Week 3. Email written

Week 4.

The Types of People You Work With from a Development Standpoint

Know your audiences, your clients, your partners, and your products

Development is more than fundraising because development is about creating relationships with your financial partners and developing each relationship to the point that your financial supporters see themselves as partners in your work. Development done right is finding people with a desire to see positive change and have the financial resources and bringing them together with the professionals who have dedicated their lives to making that change happen.

Development is not fundraising. Development is finding and cultivating partners who will support your work because they see your work as their own.

Audiences are anyone who will see your work or publications and is liable to interact with you directly or indirectly.
Audiences include people who like you, people who hate you, and people you want to like you.

Your audiences are a bigger topic than what fits into the question of development communications and I’d recommend tying your development comms strongly into your program and general public centered communications strategies. This is because what a donor needs to hear could very easily conflict with what a client needs to hear.

Many of these conflicts can be rectified by pre-emptive conversations but even if they can’t be cleared up, you need to know about it. As an example, the conservative-leaning strategy of rallying your donors around the scary idea that all college professors are Communists is a bad move if your clients are all college professors. The same can be said for your partners, for instance saying that Congress needs to be abolished is a hard sell if you frequently partner with Congressmen and their staff.
Point being, talk to your other departments, make it clear that everyone needs to be flexible and collaborate but that you Will Not sell out your clients or partners.

Clients — The people who your nonprofit serves. Donors and financial supporters are not clients because your services aren’t geared towards them. You might have an overlap between partners and clients, but that should only be because those people qualify for both categories for different reasons. IE, a lawyer can also be a donor because she gives to your work, but you shouldn’t try to convert her into a donor just because she receives your services. You aren’t in sales, you’re in development.

Clients really are the purview of programs and the executive leadership, so development should only really ever interact with clients in ways that communicate why they matter to financial partners so that the financial partners understand why your work matters.

You technically can try to convert clients into financial supporters but I’d recommend not doing that unless you have a really good reason to do so. If your clients are all billionaires, sure, go ahead and try to work out a fundraising model for them. But even then, you’ll want to make certain these clients still feel like you’re there to serve their needs.

Partners — Partners really come into two separate types which I like to lump together because of how you want to focus their attention. Those categories are financial partners -or supporters- and your non-financial partners.
Financial partners are all your donors, from the general housefile donors who give $5 dollars a year to all the way to your major donors and grant-making foundations.
Non-financial partners are really closer to your programmatic partners who work with your programs and external relations efforts. You don’t ask them for financial support but they do support your work with expertise, their networks, and through collaboration.

Now, I’ve said that these two types of partners are different but your secondary goal for financial partners should be to help them see themselves as your partners in your work. You want them to feel a sense of ownership and collaboration for your work. This is only partly to keep them as financial supporters as you will want these people to become brand ambassadors, volunteers, and to generally feel that they are a part of your team and not just the lonely aunt you selfishly ask for money and Christmas presents from.

Your major givers and foundations will likely already feel like they are your partners in the non-financial sense because they are actively discussing your projects, your goals, and helping you to set higher ambitions. So, keep doing that with them. And, try to figure out ways to communicate your high-touch communications to your general supporters in a way that makes them feel like a part of your community as well. The volunteer who shows up every month to help fold letters in your direct mail is actively taking a part in your work and you should be sure that they feel like they’re a part of the team, because they are.

Product — This is the category I like to place anyone who is served through your services to your clients. If your clients are doctors, the products are their patients. If your clients are lawyers, your products are their clients and laws, and so forth.
Your supporters will likely care more about the products than your clients, and so one of your supporter communication goals is to help them see how your clients serve the products.
It’s a complicated bit of distinction that I wouldn’t put too much thought into communicating. Supports shouldn’t need to understand these distinctions per se, although major investors will likely appreciate that backend insight, especially if it helps them see how your organization is different.

The Black, the Grey, the White and the Artist Who Decides the Palette

I recently spoke with a friend about ideas on how to connect socially progressive-leaning groups with the freedom groups. And the ever-present issue of C3 and C4 non-profit classifications. You see, non-profits cannot simply share and talk together, they are bound by so many laws and regulations that it requires a whole host of lawyers to keep one’s non-profit status.

This is why I want a for-profit charity because paying taxes seems preferable to being told what to do.

It’s my brand of Austrian autism.

A form of anarchism if you will.

If someone says it’s illegal, my practical libertarian kicks in and I want to find a way to say no without breaking things.

I believe a lot of things should be legal but I know that they are not. So the trick is to either not get caught or engage in some creative destruction that pushes so far forward that the Pogues haven’t had the time to figure out how to regulate it.

Similar to how online stores broke brick and mortar and creatively destroyed physical store business models and evaded state taxes for two decades.

We are trapped in a game of what is allowed, what is not allowed, and what has not be done yet.

The system cannot condone grey markets because a grey market is something unregulated. All markets must be either white or black, legal and regulated or outlawed and persecuted. The grey market affirms a sneaking suspicion that the regulations are not necessary for a vibrant and safe world. Such a “delusion” cannot be allowed to persist.

In truth, we need laws and customs but rarely do we need lawyers and customs officials. Having a rule does not require a ruler. Yet, a ruler that abides by the rules and does not make the rules is not an inherent violation of people and individuals. It is just that a king often becomes a tyrant and a ruler often winds up breaking the rules.

“It is legal because I wish it.”

“I am the state.”

“I could sooner reconcile all Europe than two women”

– Louis XIV

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Original Available on Medium.com – Published Feb 22

Not Every Good Idea needs to be Mandatory

Not every good idea is an idea that everyone can support. People have moral convictions and they should not be forced to act against their convictions.

Clean needle programs are an empirically successful program for lowering drug rates and breaking up the drug abuse cycle. But a Christian who believes taking drugs is wrong should not have to support the program. Even if drug use drops in the long run, that person’s morals and convictions are violated and they should not have to support or accept the idea.

In Romans 15, Paul writes that those who feel free to do something in the name of God are spiritually free to do so. Those who do not feel free are not free, even if they look over at their brothers and sisters doing these things. This is not to say that they can never do whatever it is. Rather, this means that you have to have a spiritual understanding of some sort that makes the action allowable. It is like an alcoholic with a non-alcoholic friend who orders a beer. The alcoholic does not feel free to order a beer but he might make the excuse to drink because someone else is drinking.

And that is where the sin comes in, because following along without agreeing goes against their conscience. This is also why the inverse is wrong. To try to encourage someone to go against their conscience when they feel it is wrong is itself a sin because you are not helping them to feel that this thing is right, you are only helping them to do this thing. And because they feel that whatever it is is wrong, you are hurting their conscience and testimony by encouraging them to do so.

This is one of the ways in which we can be stumbling blocks to the people around us. Causing them to sin against their conscience and God with our freedom. Now, this is not to say that whoever has the most hangups is justified in expecting everyone to do whatever they want because they are taking the lesser role. By accepting the view of the weaker brother, the person is not claiming themselves to be right but rather to be put at risk by the other person. This dynamic is separate from whoever is actually right and will be approved of by God at the judgment.

That is one reason why I am fond of the phrase to each his own til we reach the Throne. It’s a temporary acceptance of liberality and the marketplace of ideas with the understanding that an absolute authority will one day show the truth.

And that is why a good solution does not have to be universally accepted and it is why we should not try to convince everyone that we are right and that they are wrong. Trying to force other people into accepting our views and solutions is backward because it does nothing to help them see truth and use it in their own lives And we could be very wrong in what we are proposing.

A marketplace of ideas where different solutions are put to work with honest hearts and good intentions is the better, and I would say more Christian, way of correcting the problems of our society.

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Original Version available on Medium.com -Published on

Voluntary Association as a Possibly Coercive Tool

The stopadvertising subreddit attempts to inform its largely SJW and socialist leaning subscribers of the economic ties between platforms, advertisers, and users. Their aim is to silence the users by identifying the advertisers and doing so through the platform.

The process stopadvertising is using is an example of how targeted boycotts can undermine the advertising model that many major businesses use. Fortunately, they do not appear to have apps set up to tell their followers what to and not to buy/read, but it illustrates a part of the mechanisms at work in current social trends.

This is all voluntary association, which is why we need to be actively involved in the process or accept that big businesses and big government will mandate solutions. When an action is one of voluntary association, it innately sets itself in line with the law because no one is forced into a situation except in ways that are legal and fair.

30% of a population deciding that they will not buy a product because of the social message behind it is absolutely permissible within a just law framework. Despite the legality of this, a question remains as to whether or not it is a morally just thing* to do as it amounts to actively silencing other people.

People who want to resist the pull towards intolerance need to know how to encourage tolerant speech and recognize when groups are silencing others. We need to do this not because we agree with the actions other take but because we agree with the ways they are taking action.

If we do not defend voluntary association in all of its forms, we lose the concept as a human right. It then becomes a sort of black market value that is pruned of all of its unique qualities until only certain social groups retain its values, and often only for their own people.

The stopadvertising subreddit is wrong in its goals but correct in its methods. For that, I would prefer to counter them with dialogue and a cohesive social movement that uses the voluntary methods while protecting the social framework that people use to communicate and socialize.

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  1. The issue of legally permissible and morally/socially permissible ties into a concept of legal and social tolerance. This may in part be a perversion of definitions as the concept of tolerance has a history of being treated like the Constitution of the United States. In other words, a thing is tolerant when I like it and intolerant when I don’t like it.

Original Version available on Medium.com – Published 

Empowering by Allowing

Juan Macias was working hard outside a UC Berkeley football game selling hotdogs when a campus police officer told him his cart was illegal. What Juan did wrong is that he did not have a license. Rather than tell Juan to just leave, the officer demanded to see Juans’s wallet and proceeded to take out all of Juan’s cash, $60 dollars, saying it was “suspected proceeds” from an illegal act. The police do this to “punish such vendors and protect public health”. This is occupational licensing. Now, Juan Macias has received a crowdfunded $87,000.00 to pay his legal fees and start a new business

Occupational licensing is tied to prolonged poverty. Research by Professor Steven Horwitz at the Mercatus Research Center found that licensing fees and business regulations are one of the primary reasons why those below the poverty line lack upward mobility. UC Berkeley, CA could take a bold stand in defense of the financially vulnerable by relaxing their licensing fees. UC Berkeley could empower the financially vulnerable to provide for their families simply by making it easier for entrepreneurs to supplement their income.

Occupational licensing tries to keep people safe, but it only hurts the people who need work. There are better ways to keep people safe and occupational licensing does too much harm to the people who need to feed their families and make money to get away from poverty.

Only 15% of Hispanic males have licenses, versus the 27% of non-Hispanic white males. The Institute for Justice has found that the average cost for just getting a license is $209 dollars in fees, at least one exam, and approximately nine months of education and training. Without the money, Juan would have had no time and no ability to get those licenses. He only had $60.00 dollars in his wallet and he needed an interpreter to talk about his experience with the campus police.

But, is licensing people the best to keep them safe? The reason we say we make people get licenses is to, “to protect health, prevent disease, and promote healthy practices among the public” but a 2014 CDC studyconducted on food poisoning incidents found that food poisoning incidents at restaurants were nearly double that of food poisoning incidents taking place at private homes.

And all of these food poisoning incidents at restaurants were happening under licensed businesses. If licensed food venues are more likely to have food poisoning, occupational licensing does not keep people safer.

Loosening occupational licenses have been one of the hardest things to achieve. Connecticut, Florida, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota Missouri, New Hampshire, North Carolina, and Texas have all tried to stop or lighten up occupational licensing, but they all failed. Even though most of the efforts were raised by Republicans, it was not Democrats who fought them the hardest. It was businesses with licenses.

The Institute for Justice found that when Louisianan licensed florists were put in charge of passing and failing new florists, fewer than 50% were likely to pass. This meant that a person was more likely to pass the Bar and become a lawyer than becoming a florist, a person who arranges flowers into beautiful bouquets. As a florist put it, “You can’t really hurt anybody with a flower.”

Occupational licensing has become a bigger issue than public safety, which it admittedly fails to accomplish. Licensing has become a system in which those who have licenses can keep people out of the market. The people who we want to get jobs are literally being fined and arrested.

Occupational licensing is not a necessary part of the public good. Legislators can take this challenge as the opportunity to alter and relax occupational licensing to both cut costs and boost social services to remedy issues. Entrusting the public with more choices allows the people to become

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Original Version available on Medium.com -Published 

Boycotts and Undermining Free Speech

 

There has been a recent splurge of boycotts and counter-boycotts centering around the anti-firearms advocate David Hogg and his critics. After Laura Ingraham made a deprecating joke about Mr. Hogg’s getting rejected from four high ranking universities, David Hogg called for a boycott of her sponsors.

The challenge I see with this boycotting disagreeable free speech is that it forces us to explore the old issue of legal liberty versus social liberty. If you watch the video of Bill Maher in this article, you will see multiple people give similar iterations of the argument that free speech does not mean a guarantee to advertisers paying you to say your free speech.

John Stuart Mill, argued in the book On Liberty that the true challenge against individual liberty was not the law but society and its authority over the individual

Max Boot of the Washington Post said, “”She can talk all she wants. That doesn’t mean that all these big companies have to underwrite her speech to millions of people.” To which Maher responded, “It is a very chilling atmosphere because it could happen to any of you”

A philosopher from the 1800s, John Stuart Mill, argued in the book On Libertythat the true challenge against individual liberty was not the law but society and its authority over the individual. We are seeing this today as people try to influence and modify the opinions of all Americans without engaging in meaningful dialogue or debate. By trying to bend and play at the rules of our system, these debatable tactics are undermining the playingfield.

This is reflected when Bill Maher said, “Effectively, it(boycotts) is the modern way of cutting off free speech”. Bill Maher is touching on the fact that this boycotting strategy is a recent development and it is aimed at preventing people with contentious ideas from speaking to the public. I would add that these boycotts are often times a PR attack rather than a withdrawal of service as it is debatable about how many of these boycotters and tweeters are actually doing business with these companies on a day to day basis.

By BDS movement (BDS movement) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

What strikes me as odd is that these people are all, to the best of my knowledge, in support of other social justice issues like respecting LGBTQ+ groups, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the equal opportunity laws. These laws go above and beyond the civil liberties espoused in the Constitution and the Amendments. They assert positive obligations on people over and above the rights protected by our core legal system.

These laws run against the spirit of the argument that free speech does not guarantee the right to receive funding without social opposition because the spirit of the Civil Rights Act and similar acts is to guarantee a civil liberty that is being frustrated by voluntary association because they leverage social opinions towards forcing others to obey or suffer.

I do not believe that these people are intentionally trying to create a double standard. I think that the issue is that our nation, the United States of America, was based on negative rights of what others and the government could not do and not on positive rights except when voluntarily agreed to.

The United States people are not in the right frame of mind to begin reviewing and changing how our system works. There is too little respect for differing opinions. Yet, we are rarely ever ready for what needs to happen and it falls on individuals to lead the way.

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Original available on medium.com – Published 

Authoritarian Elitism and Violence

Out of all the intellectual social circles of the 1700s, the French salons allowed for authoritarian ostracism, via the salonnière. Could that be a variable to the violent overthrow of the French revolution? That because only the rich and accepted were allowed to speak in the French social venue, the undesirables felt compelled to violence?

At the salons the salonnière chose her guests and thereby determined the ultimate composition of the room. Guests were there by the grace of the salonnière… and could still be evicted if the salonnière decided they were no longer beneficial to her salon. — Bonnie Calhoun

Britain had violence, yes, but they never resorted to killing off all of the social elite of their society, and they drank coffee, a known upper narcotic.

Perhaps allowing even the least desirable of a society to have a voice prevents violence and social revolution.

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Original Version available on Medium.com – Published on

A plausible analogy for Macro Evolution

A plausible analogy for Macro Evolution.

Here is an example to show the value of the theory of evolution. There once was a lady who had just purchased all the ingredients for a cake. She was walking home when a pickup truck hit her at 50 miles an hour. The old lady did not die and is now living off the proceeds from her recent lawsuit in Palms Beach, Miami Florida. However, this story is about a cake.

The shopping bag she was carrying however was thrown into the air. The impact broke all of the soft paper bags that contained the ingredients and all the ingredients then fell into a bowl, which had fallen out of the pickup truck. There was a strong wind blowing which siphoned off the excess flour, sugar, powdered milk, it was very fortunate that the wind picked up most of the salt. The strong wind then settled down, leaving the bowl with just the right amount of what it takes to make a cake, but not before having mixed the contents up evenly.

It turns out that the strong wind was preceding a storm. The rain water, which was completely untainted by pollution or the like, began to fill the bowl. It stopped at just the right time so that there was not too much water in the bowl nor was there too little, it was just right.

After the storm had died down and eventually stopped, the sun came out and began to heat the bowl. Fortune shined again by way of the bowl having landed on the tarmac, which was now quite hot from the sun. This all amounted to heating and baking the cake.

By now, you might be wondering how the frosting got on the cake, but there is a very good reason it got there. You see, the bag of frosting had been thrown higher than the other ingredients and had become stuck on the stop light, the one that the old lady had failed to heed. The sun, which had heated the cake, also heated the frosting, the bag that contained the frosting then became too hot and split and began to cover the cake. Fortunately, for all, the wind picked up again and blew the frosting bag away before it put too much frosting on the cake.

That is how it is completely a hundred percent possible to have a cake made by nature. I hope this helps you to understand the marvelous theory of evolution. When I get the time, I think I might expand on this to show that if we change the cake to ginger bread and add some thunder, that it is possible to make the uncatchable little talking ginger bread man.

The market is shaped by what is sold

The market is shaped by what is sold

A little stream of consciousness. A little too 101 for my tastes but it’s interesting.

The issue of this selective marketing is that it tends to funnel the unprofitable market out of the mainstream market. This then has the effect of collecting these scattered people into generalized groups, which then creates new markets which can be marketed to.

This is why we end up with these “unexpected” genres like “alternative rock” and “hipster”. Both of these genres were founded by people who were not popular in many cases did not want to be, but as more and more people became disgusted/dissatisfied with the generic mainstream, the outsider groups’ ranks would swell until a critical mass was reached. After this, the media would then be able to capitalize on the newly formed markets and turn a profit.

The alternative groups will then be appropriated by  marketing by the musicians who hired to produce their music. In this way, the media is able to produce alternative music that can be relied upon to appeal to the largest demographic and be the most profitable(IE, generic).

This is why sub-genres will lose their edge with successive albums and new bands, because the media has managed to shape the consumer by the products produced which are then consumed.

So, alternative groups and mainstream pop are actually both the products of the marketing tactics employed by the media industry leaders. As the alternative market becomes more and more mainstream, they will begin to cater more and more to the generic, non-specific consumer, rather than the esoteric consumer.

The eventual effect will be that the genuine outsiders and “trendsetters” who lead the way for the alternative group will be pushed out by generic stereotypes and will either become proverbial hermits of their particular genre, “sell-out” and learn to benefit from their positions in the new generic subculture or move on to prepare the way for the next “outsider” group.

So, the media is based on the principle of exclusion and inclusion. It creates deliberate gluts of generic product to maximize sales and then moves on to incorporate and assimilate the outsider groups which are formed in opposition to the generic mainstream.

It would be fully within the media’s abilities to create a balanced, successful market which allowed for and

encourage both trendsetters and generic content to coexist, however the media’s marginal lines are set at unrealistic levels to create the ebb and flow that produces high returns as quickly as possible.

This model takes advantage of the natural tendency of the “American” culture’s to create cliques of the “in crowd” and the “loser crowd”.

It is a fast and violent system that encourages people to exclude and judge others with the aim of creating volatile class distinctions and ensure that the individual groups have a strong sense of loyalty to their particular culture and tastes. That is terrifying.