Hershey Anti-Competition

Hershey's Chocolate was founded by a man who was dedicated to high quality.  He founded the company in response to a lack of high quality chocolate in the U.S., and his company thrived as it met a high demand for the product.  He is now rolling in his grave.

Hershey's Chocolate was originally a company that competed by maintaining a high standard of quality.  Now, it is a company that competes by lobbying to change laws and by forcing competitors out of business through legal means.  Over the last few decades, Hershey's has worked hard to try to get the legal definition of chocolate changed, so it can market cheaper products as chocolate.  It has repeatedly changed its recipes, consistently lowering the quality of its products to decrease costs and increase profits.  What once was a smooth, rich, high quality chocolate is now coarse, salty, and low quality.  Without changing the law, if the quality of Hershey's chocolate was any lower, they would be forbidden by law from labeling it as "chocolate."

What is worse is that now, Hershey's has used trademark law to push out high quality British chocolates.  Further, Hershey's is trying to get U.S. manufacturing of British chocolate shut down entirely.  Not only is this behavior anti-competitive, it is also depriving American citizens of the ability to obtain decent quality chocolate in the U.S. without very expensive import orders from overseas.

Currently, the company that imports most European chocolate has been forced by Hershey's to sign an agreement not to import any Cadbury products into the U.S., as well as a collection of other chocolates that use similar color schemes or trademark names to Hershey's and its subsidiaries.  Hershey's is also working on getting all Cadbury manufacturing in the U.S. shut down as well.  The company has further convinced many retailers in the U.S. that it is not worth stocking Cadbury products anymore, so don't expect to see any Cadbury eggs on Walmart shelves this Easter.

Hershey's is no longer a quality chocolate producer.  It is a trademark troll that will go to any lengths, no matter how harmful it is to the American people (consider the jobs that will be lost when the Cadbury factories in the U.S. shut down), to increase its profits.  Hershey's chocolate is hardly even edible anymore (if you have ever tried quality European chocolate, you will understand), so there is no loss in not buying it.

I want to call for a nation wide boycott of Hershey's products, until Hershey's terminates their anti-competitive agreements and allows all European chocolate to be imported into the U.S. without reservation.


In the U.S., Hershey's subsidiaries as well as brands and products it is licensed to manufacture and sell include the following list:

• Kit Kat
• Rolo
• Y&S Candies (Twizzler's licorice)
• 5th Avenue Bar
• Many U.S. manufactured Cadbury products (not the gums and mints)
• Leaf Candy Company
• Mauna Loa Macadamia Nut Corporation
• Scharffen Berger Chocolate
• Artisan Confections Company
• Dagoba Organic Chocolate
• Brookside Foods Ltd.

Aside from this list, candies produced and marketed by Hershey's will typically have a line on the packaging stating that the brand is owned by Hershey's.  If you want to help bring quality chocolate back to the U.S., please join a boycott of all Hershey's products until the company either goes bankrupt or officially withdraws their objections and terminates their agreements that prevent the import of chocolate from outside the U.S.

If the Hershey's Chocolate company wants to compete in the chocolate market, it should compete fairly, by producing chocolate that is high enough quality to be worth buying and eating.  Of this company cannot do that, it should fail.  We should not allow it to limit our options to low quality products because it refuses to give the American people what they clearly want.

Limited Jury Selection

I just wrote an article about the Boston Bombing case's exclusion of Roman Catholics as a result of a religious opposition to the death penalty.  In that article, I discussed why this does not apply to this specific case.  I wanted to add more, but it does not fit that article, so I am writing one especially for this subject.

Jury selection is a complicated process.  Among other things, it is necessary to avoid bias.  For example, it would be a failure of justice to select a suspect's brother for jury duty for his trial.  The Boston Bombing case involves an especially severe crime, for which a possible sentence is the death penalty.  The problem is that the Roman Catholic Church teaches that there is almost no justification for the death penalty.  The result is that Roman Catholics who follow this teaching are being excluded from jury duty on this case, because ability or willingness to impose the death penalty, if necessary, is part of the jury selection criteria.  Some Roman Catholics are crying foul, while others are saying that this is a wise decision.  I want to explain why this criteria is necessary.

In Massachusetts, the death penalty is clearly a valid penalty.   This indicates that the majority of people of Massachusetts approve of it.  In other words, this penalty exists as part of the democratic process.  Now, if there is a jury, and one person on that jury is ideologically opposed to ever imposing the death penalty, and if the case may justify it (according to the law and the majority), then that one person is violating the democratic process by placing a limit that is not approved by the majority on the maximum penalty.  In other words, allowing a Roman Catholic who is opposed to the death penalty on this jury would undermine the democratic process.


If this is hard to understand, consider the following scenarios.

There is a guy who committed murder.  The maximum legal penalty in his region is life in prison without chance of parole or any other early release.  There is a group in his religion that believes strongly in mercy and repentance, and they will refuse to impose any sentence that does not provide some chance of eventually getting out.

There is a guy who accidentally killed a guy while committing another crime.  The maximum penalty is life in prison (with chances of getting out early).  There is a group in the area that does not believe in sentences of longer than 20 years (that is long enough that the prisoner will not "be the same person").

There is a lady who shot a guy during an armed robbery.  Her maximum penalty is 20 years.  There is a group of people in the area that believe all prison sentences should be directly convertible to community service, and they will refuse to impose any sentence that does not offer this opportunity.

Last, there is a drug dealer that was recently caught.  The maximum sentence for the area is 20 years in prison.  There is one guy in the area that does not believe in any punishment besides fines.  He will refuse to impose any jail time or even parole or probation.

Now, in which of these scenarios is it reasonable to allow a person with religious or ideological sentencing limitations to be on the jury?  None!  In all of these cases, the law is determined and supported by the majority.  In all of these cases, those with beliefs that limit their maximum penalty will undermine the democratic process and interfere with the democratically chosen definition of justice if they are allowed on the juries.  Juries have selection criteria for a reason.  That reason is to enforce justice as well as possible within the definition of justice set by the democratic process.  To allow people on the jury that cannot fulfill that definition is to allow religion or ideological beliefs to trump the democratic process.

A juror that cannot or will not impose the maximum penalty if the crime is severe enough to meet the criteria for that penalty should never be allowed on the jury for that trial.  This is not a matter of discrimination.  This is a matter of rule of law and protecting the democratic process.  Without this, no government or justice system can maintain stability or consistency.

Boston Bombing Excludes Catholics

There is some consternation among Roman Catholics over the jury selection criteria for the Boston Bombing case.  One of the criterion states that jurors must be able to impose the death penalty.  The catechism states that the death penalty should only be imposed when there is no other reasonable way for the government to protect society from a criminal.  In modern society, with much better prison security than the past, this is taken to mean that the death penalty is no longer necessary.  Roman Catholics who believe and follow this teaching are not eligible to be on the jury for this case, and this is causing some frustration and controversy.

Unfortunately, the problem is not with the catechism or the jury selection criteria.  The problem is with a fundamental understanding of the justice system.  The catechism has it right, with the strong implication that justice is about protecting society, not about handing out due punishment.  The problem is the assumption that an imprisoned criminal is neither threatening or harmful to society.  Aside from the current jury issue, this is manifested in the fact that the U.S. has some of the highest prison populations per capita in the world.  Prisoners are both a threat and a burden on the people, especially when they are in prison for life.

The problem here is that prisoners cost money.  In fact, they cost a lot of money.  Prison guards are not cheap to pay.  Prisons cost a lot of money to maintain.  Prisoners also require clothing, food, and other amenities.  In the effort to avoid cruel and unusual punishment, expenses for prisoners are not trivial.  Most modern prisons provide televisions, computers, and fairly nice recreational equipment for prisoners as well.  Prisoners probably cost more than the typical American barely surviving in poverty.  They certainly cost more (and have a higher quality of living) that the typical American college student.

Now, when a criminal is in prison for 6 months or a few years, and if that criminal comes out of prison as a functioning member of society, it is possible for him or her to eventually pay the debt to society incurred in prison through paying taxes and improve society in general.  Those in prison for life can never pay back this debt, and thus they are a permanent burden on society.  The money spend on permanent prisoners could, and probably should, be spent helping upstanding citizens who are in poverty due to any number of circumstances.  By spending this money on permanent prisoners, we are allowing those prisoners to remain a threat to the safety and security of society at large and specifically of those who need that money for their survival.  In other words, when there is no chance of reprieve, the harm that a prisoner will ultimately do to society completely justifies the death penalty, even according to the wording of the catechism.

That aside, prisoners themselves should also be regarded as part of society.  If a terrorist is put in prison with other prisoners, that terrorist becomes a threat to the safety of those other prisoners.  Even if you don't by the assertion that the cost to society constitutes serious harm, it is impossible to deny that especially dangerous prisoners, that may be a serious threat to other prisoners, constitute a threat to society as well (consider, what if the prisoner murdered by this criminal is your brother, who is serving time for some desperate but trivial crime).

In my opinion, any Roman Catholic who feels forced to opt out of jury duty for this case, because of catechism teachings, does not understand the justice system.  I am not trying to discriminate.  I am saying it like it is.  The U.S. justice system is no where near a point where it is so infallible that a terrorist that is put in prison for life is not still a significant threat to society.  Those who oppose the death penalty on the religious grounds that we should not impose that penalty if we can protect the people perfectly fine without it need to consider whether they may be "trusting in the arm of flesh" too much.

To Swear...

... is to admit defeat.

I have an enormous vocabulary, and I am something of a genius in logic.  Sometimes people pick arguments with me.  The first time they have to swear at me to make their point, I am done, because to swear is to admit defeat.  Typically, they don't understand this, so I am going to elaborate.

First, before I explain, I want to point out that the first time a person swears in an argument, they almost always open a hole in their own position.  While I consider swearing itself an admission of defeat, the holes typically opened are almost always easier to attack than the actual swearing.  With my rather large vocabulary, I never need to resort to swearing, even to insult someone in the most vile way possible (though, I stick to attacking their argument, the flaws in the argument, and the personal problems that lead to those flaws, as it is a logical fallacy to attack a person's character in ways that are totally unrelated to the argument).  It is typically unnecessary to point out the problem with swearing itself.

Now, why is swearing an admission of defeat?  Depending on the actual target of the swearing, it is one of a number of logical fallacies.  The most common one is ad hominem.  This is the logical fallacy of making a personal attack against the character of your opponent.  It is a logical fallacy, because the character of your opponent has no bearing on the validity and correctness of the argument.  When a person says "mother [extremely foul swear word that I am not going to repeat]," they are accusing their opponent of a particularly vile form of incest.  Whether this accusation is true or not, it has no bearing on the validity of the argument.  Almost as often, the swearing is directed at the argument itself.  Unless the swear word (or words) is being used literally (and makes sense in that context), the attack makes no logical sense.  This logical fallacy is called a non sequitur, which translates to "it does not follow."  For instance, "That argument is [crap spelled with an 'sh']," means nothing, and as evidence against an argument, it is a non sequitur (in fact, this could also be considered circular reasoning, "Your argument is wrong, because it is crap, because it is wrong..." which is another logical fallacy).  In nearly any other case, swearing amounts to the person making a non-sense statement because he or she cannot think of any more counter arguments that are logically valid (which also counts as a non sequitur).  In all three cases, the opponent has been reduced to either using faulty logic or giving up the argument altogether in favor of changing the subject.  These are all admissions of defeat.

The worst thing about swearing is that it is actually not that offensive.  When used in a non-literal sense or out of context, swearing is meaningless.  One religious leader once said something to the effect of, "Swearing is the sign of a weak mind trying to make a strong statement."  Swearing is most often used as an "intensifier."  An intensifier is a word or phrase used to emphasize another statement.  Swearing used as an intensifier looses all of its meaning.  It is only offensive because it is a misuse of language.  Saying a word that literally means feces to intensify a statement deliberately ignores the actual meaning of the word.  This confuses communication, which devalues it.

Now, the reason for the statement about swearing being the sign of a weak mind is quite straight forward: There is always a better way.  In verbal conversation, speaking with more emphasis is often a completely sufficient way of intensifying a statement.  In written language, italics or bold type is a good solution, and when these are not available, the judicious use of all caps can be effective (using all caps liberally makes them loose their effect, much like the excessive use of swearing).  When these are not sufficient though, a good vocabulary can beat pretty much anything.  A good vocabulary can be used to construct statements far more insulting and vile than any amount of swearing.  Likewise, a good vocabulary can get across any statement at any intensity, without a single swear word.  Even better, responding to swearing with a far more vile insult without using a single swear word is far more infuriating than just swearing back.  Let me be clear, I am not advocating being rude, insulting, or otherwise uncivil.  If you must though, do it right. 

The worst (or maybe best...) insult is not the one that your opponent immediately counters.  The worst insult is the one that your opponent does not realize was insulting until a week later (or even better, until he gets home and looks up one or more of the words you used).  There is nothing more petty than a comeback that is a week late, and there is nothing more humiliating than being the person who only realizes they have been insulted once it is far too late to ever respond.  Even one swear word can ruin the perfect insult.

The only thing better than the week-out insult is the insult that is recognized immediately, but which there is still no comeback for that is not petty.  If you want to gain some skill in this watch (or better, read) Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility (actually, any Jane Austin), and Taming of the Shrew (I am sure Shakespeare has other good stuff as well) multiple times (you will not catch all of the veiled insults the first five or so times).  The Mikado, by Gilbert and Sullivan, has some good stuff as well, but make sure to get the Stratford Festival version (none of the others do it justice).  The British upper class evidently raised this to an art form.

"Be a Man"

I am male.  I am 33 years old.  I am married to a woman, and we have five children.  I am not a "man."  In the live action version of the movie "The Jungle Book" (the 1994 one), Mowgli says, as he flees from a British party in India, "I am not a man.  And I am not an animal."  Having very recently experienced what is the common human cultural ideal of a "man," he was determined that he was not one.  I am not a man in the same way that Mowgli, in the movie, rejected being a man.

In my experience, the phrase "Be a man" is spoken almost exclusively by those do not respect others.  These "men" swear when the don't get what they want, and they constantly try to dominate others.  The last time someone told me to be a man, he had just gone back on his word to my wife (and had lied to both of us a few days before that), he had proceeded to swear at me when I repeated what he had told her, and then he told me to "Be a man."  I hung up the phone.  In my head, I thought to myself, "If this is what I man is, I will never be a man."

Being a man is all about domination.  The "man" in a relationship is the one who dominates it.  The person who "wears the pants" (which is just a veiled way of saying "the man") is the one in control.  The phrase "A man's home is his castle" refers the idea that in his own home, the man dominates.  While some people use the phrase "Be a man" to mean "take responsibility," I have never heard a person use this phrase who was actually a responsible male human.  They are almost exclusively people who are using the phrase to dominate others.  What it really means is, "If you don't do what I want you to do, then you are an inferior human being."  I don't buy that, and I will not be a man, if it means allowing myself to be dominated or to dominate others.  I am a free human being, and I believe in freedom for all human beings (at least, so long as they are not a serious threat to other humans).  As such, I will not be a man, and I will not submit to men.  No social pressure to "Be a man" is going to convince me that it is right to dominate others or allow myself to be dominated.

Hedges Around the Law

The ancient Jews were constantly building hedges around their divine law.  God told them that the Sabbath was a day of rest.  He told them to keep it holy.  He also commanded them to allow their servants to rest on the Sabbath.  By the time of Jesus, the Jewish government had a large and complex set of laws based on this fairly simple commandment.  A specific distance was set, beyond which it was illegal to travel on the Sabbath.  The people were required to prepare their Sabbath meals the day before, to avoid the work of food preparation on the Sabbath.  Specific activities were forbidden by law, including many charitable activities, to avoid work on the Sabbath.   (Jewish leaders even accused Jesus of Sabbath breaking for healing someone.)  This one law, to keep the Sabbath day holy, was surrounded by a thick hedge of additional laws to avoid even the smallest chance of breaking God's law.

The Sabbath was not the only law that the Jews built hedges around.  Practically every commandment had something in Jewish law to clarify or extend it.  Jewish leaders were so afraid of the people breaking commandments that they hardly gave them room to think for themselves.

Sadly, this hedge building is fairly common today as well.  It is even becoming common in government, not just religion.  The Catholic Church has laws against using birth control, based not on commandments, but rather based on two unrelated scriptures.  The first is God's command to Adam and Eve to multiply.  The second is an isolated incident where Judah's son Onan was killed by God for using a very primitive form of birth control (which is, ironically, the only form of birth control considered permissible by modern Catholics).  (Note that Biblical experts contend over the actual reason for God's wrath.  The most likely reason for God's reaction is not the use of birth control.  Onan was required by law to impregnate his dead brother's wife, to give his brother offspring, and he deliberately used the birth control to avoid fulfilling this responsibility.)

Now, I want to discuss a few hedges found in the LDS (or Mormon) Church.  There are probably fewer official hedges in the LDS faith than many other churches, but the culture within the Church has spawned its own hedges.  As much as 50% of Mormon's believe it is forbidden by Church doctrine to drink caffeinated beverages.  This is based on LDS scripture forbidding members from drinking "hot beverages" (later clarified as meaning coffee and tea specifically).  Around the early '90s, Church leadership published a press release stating that no such law (forbidding caffeine) existed, and that rather, the Church discourages the use of any addictive substance in a case where it would cause addiction (in reference to caffeine, this merely means to consume it only in moderation, with good judgment).  Despite this press release, Church culture still regards the consumption of caffeine as sinful.

Another Mormon hedge is forbidding women from working outside the home.  Thankfully, Mormon culture has largely gotten over the idea that even single women should not work outside the home, but it still holds that married women should not.  LDS Church policy provides only mild support for this, but it also explicitly recognizes that this is subject to exceptions, and it is really only the business of the couple and God.  Many Mormons, however, still believe that other couples' personal choices are their own business in this regard.  First, I need to clarify: The point of this Church policy is not that "women belong in the home and men should be the breadwinners."  The point is that children thrive more when cared for by a parent in the home than they do in day care or in the care of baby sitters.  Since women are typically better suited to this task than men, it makes the most sense, in the typical situation, for the mother to be the one that cares for the children.  Now, a female friend of mine discovered, with her husband, that he was better at caring for the children than she was, when he lost his job, and only she could find work.  They are both quite content with her working and him being a stay-at-home dad, but her mother-in-law has taken this hedge to the extreme, telling them that they are sinning by having her work instead of him.  This is perhaps Mormon cultural hedges at their worst.  As with caffeine, this is not Church doctrine or even Church policy.  This is entirely cultural, and it actually violates Church policy, which specifically states that there are exceptions to this policy which are only the business of the couple involved.

There are a few hedges more I want to discuss.  One is the opposition to Dungeons and Dragons.  D&D is a table top role playing that got a lot of flak in the past because of some extremely stupid acts taken by some people who played it.  It was blamed for some murders as well as some other crimes.  Many churches during that time took up arms against the game, claiming that it was evil because the rules included the mention of demons and devils (they were mentioned as potential enemies for the players to defeat, but the opponents of the game left that fact out; they also left out that the Bible itself mentions such evil entities more frequently than the D&D rules).  Supposedly, at some point, an LDS leader said that the game was evil and should be avoided.  I have searched for this reference on multiple occasions, with no luck.  The most reasonable person I have talked to about this told me that what was actually said recommended that Church members use good judgment when playing games (D&D, as an example), because it could be easy to get sucked into some games.  Dungeons and Dragons has become a common game among Mormon gamers, and thus far, there have been no reports of harm caused.  One beneficial part of Mormon culture is a focus on spending time wisely, and it is likely that this tempers the potential risk of becoming too focused on a game.

The most prevalent game based hedge in Mormon culture is playing cards.  A Mormon leader once asked members of the Church to stay away from "face cards."  (I also have been unable to find this reference.)  This has lead to a widespread belief within the Church that playing cards are forbidden.  This is actually completely wrong, and it is based on a misunderstanding of language.  One reason for the immediate assumption that "face cards" meant playing cards is that the Church already forbids gambling.  The assumption here was that the Church leadership was building a hedge around the gambling law, to "help" Church members to avoid the temptation.  This is not what actually happened though.  The LDS Church does not build hedges (and has taken pains over the last few decades to eliminate the hedges that have managed to get in).  It expects members to govern themselves (and frequently says as much).  The misunderstanding was in the simple fact that "face cards" did not mean playing cards.  The royalty in playing cards are sometimes referred to as face cards, but this term was hijacked from another type of cards: Tarot cards.  The Church leader was not telling people to avoid playing cards or to remove the royalty from the deck first.  He was telling people to avoid what was becoming a common method of fortune telling, and since Tarot cards are not used for any other purpose, it was easier to forbid "face cards" than to explain in more detail.  Most of the people at that time understood, so no explanation was needed.  Since then, Tarot cards have declined in popularity, so few modern Mormon's recognize that "face cards" does not mean the royalty in playing cards, in this context.  Consequently, many Mormon homes forbid the use or possession of playing cards within the home.

These are not the only hedges in Mormon culture, but they are some of the most prominent.  There are plenty of other hedges, like the opposition to government welfare on the grounds of Church policy encouraging self sufficiency (or worse, on the grounds of personal responsibility, which has been proven to not apply to a vast majority of those in poverty).  In the LDS Church, we sometimes even discuss the hedges of the Jews, but few of us recognize the hedges withing our own religious culture.  To be clear, these hedges are not doctrinal hedges like those of the Jews.  They are not supported by Church leadership.  Nearly all Mormon hedges are entirely cultural in nature, and they are often the result of misunderstandings or incorrect assumptions from Church membership.  The result of this is almost always unrighteous judgment of others, which is forbidden by Church doctrine.


(I am LDS, I drink caffeine on long drives to stay awake, I play games with playing cards, and I play D&D, when I have time.  Judge me if you dare.)