Balance is a key part of life. From an ecosystem, to one’s health, from a work/life balance, to physically being able to balance. Balance is imperative for good mental health. Can’t just be all hunky dori all the time, pretending everything perfect, but you can’t stay in the dark too long being consumed by gloom and despair.
Balance is how one addresses the financial situations in life, you bring in roughly this much, this costs this much, my spending needs to be in this range. Even balanced substance abuse is how one can do a little something something, but not spend all their money and time on it, and still go to work. It’s ok to have a drink, or a puff here and there, it has to stay in balance with the other aspects of life or it becomes a problem.
Balance can be broke down on a global scale, rain is good, but too much rain is bad. Certain creatures on the lower levels of the food chain are important to feed creatures higher on the food chain, but too many lower level creatures are an infestation.
Balance brings harmony. The ying and the yang of existence. Everything In equipoise brings stability to its surroundings.
The United States basks in a state of asymmetric volatility on nearly every aspect except the split down the middle of political affiliation. There’s no concinnity harmonizing vital elements of society, justice, governance or economics.
The top 10% of earners own 67% of the wealth in this country, and the top 1% earn 31% of the nations wealth. It’s complicated with percentile vs percentile, so let’s break it down to a more conceivable scenario. Let’s say the earners in America is 100 people, and Americans yearly generated income was $100. Off the top $67 goes to ten people, with ninety people still needing their cut of the remaining $33. From the 90%-50% range of earners in our scenario, that’s 40 people, they split between them $30. That leaves us with 50 people who still need compensation for their labor from the 50% mark, to the lowest percentile, to split between them the remaining $3.
To recap. In our 100 person America, with $100 wealth distribution, 1 person gets $31. Nine people split $36, evenly distributed that $4 per person. Then 40 people split $30, which evenly distributed is 75 cents per person. Then 50 people split $3, which evenly distributed is 6 cents per person. There’s nearly 345 million people in the United States so those numbers are obviously massively simplified but you see what I’m getting at.
In our scenario as someone of 50 people receiving $0.06 I’m pissed! Even the next 40 people receiving $0.75 I’m not pumped about it. Take those top 9 earners making $4 each while one guy gets $31! It’s like, what the heck!?
That distribution is the lack of balance, and the very example of disproportion.
Now let’s take a look at incarceration.
The United States has the highest rates of incarceration in the world. While only representing 4% of the world’s population it harbors 25% of the world incarcerated people’s.
Let’s be clear. There are crimes that warrant (no pun intended) severe consequences. There are some crimes that ruin or take lives of the victims upon which they were conducted. Sex crimes, hate crimes, crimes against children, certain assaults, domestic violence, murder, drug related vehicular manslaughter, and some variations of fraud, are life altering or ending and should be judged as such. Yet one in five inmates being incarcerated for drug offenses is absurd.
Let’s be honest. Imprisonment equals profit. In 2023 the cost of incarceration to the American taxpayer was nearly $80 billion. Every state has different costs, and there’s different security levels of prisons, but the U.S. average per inmate is over $39,000 yearly.
Then There’s the nearly 10% of prisons that are “for profit prisons”, meaning they’re owned by private corporations and not only do they receive subsidies from the federal government but they charge up to $24 a phone call, they have unpaid inmate labor, selling the goods or services for profit, and charge exorbitant amounts for over the counter medications such as Tylenol or antihistamines.
The statistics change yearly and the variation of “crimes” is immense. Statistics show that between 44%-65% of incarcerations are drug related. The numbers for violent offenses are similar, 41%-68%. I realize these are more than 100%, and/or in contrast with each other but there’s county jails, local jails, state jails, state prisons, federal prisons, men prisons, female prisons, a significant amount of people in jail who have yet to be sentenced, migrant camps and so on. So finding solid, it’s THIS percent that makes up THAT percentage is nearly impossible. But hey! The price of admission for the article was fair 😉
Overall roughly half the jailed population is for drug offenders. Roughly. Drug use, and most drugs, were not wholly illegal until the 1970’s with Nixon declaring drugs as “public enemy number one”, thus began the war on drugs.
In 1994, Richard Nixon’s Domestic Policy Chief John Ehrlichman, would tell journalist Dan Baum, that the policy was primarily for Nixon’s reelection, saying Nixon had two major obstacles, “the antiwar left, and black people”. He would go on to say in the interview, “We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course, we did.”
The population of Black Americans is a little over 12%, and Caucasian is a touch over 60%.
In 2022 the prison population by race was, 32% black, 31% white, 23% hispanic, 10 % multiracial, 2% Native American/Native Alaskan and 1% Asian.
If 12% of the population is Black American, that’s roughly 42 million Black Americans. Of those 42 million black Americans, 13,440,000 are or will be incarcerated. At 32% of the incarcerated population that breaks down to almost 30% of the Black population as a whole, are, or will end up incarcerated. White people are 60% of the population in America at 210 million. Of those 210 million white people 31% of 210 million is 65,100,000 that equates to 6.5% of whites are incarcerated per capita in comparison to 30% of the 12% out of 350 million. I think... I’m a plumber not a statistician, and that math was friggin painful so we’re just going to leave it at that.
So, even if my math is off a bit, it’s plain to see how the disproportionate incarceration percentage of black people being a smaller portion of the overall population, than the larger populations percentage in comparison to the incarceration rate. 😵💫 If that makes sense.
The balance between the two races outweighs one another significantly.
Let’s take a look at political power in this country. We’re going to make this one a little less mathy. 😅
As of November of 2024, there have been 2,004 people who have served in the United States Senate. There’s been over 11,000 members who served in the United States House of Representatives. There’s has been 45 individuals who’ve had the honor of serving as The President of the United States of America.
Of those 2,004 individuals who have served in the Senate, with the addition of two excellent women of color in the 2024 election, by my count, 14 have been of African descent. With the addition of 3 new female members to the Senate, there has been 63 women who have served this nation as a U.S. Senator.
My brains all mushy from the statistical math from the incarceration segment, so we’re going to stay away from percentages but, it’s obvious the disproportionate amount of white men who have served in the Senate versus women and those of color.
Of the more than 11,000 Americans who have served in the United States House of Representatives, only 167 have been African American. With 6 of those being from either D.C. or U.S. territories. Of the more than 11,000 representatives 385 have been women, with the first trans woman elected to the House in 2024 making it 386.
Lastly, and sadly. Of the 45 people who have served as President of the United States of America, 45 of them were men, with one of those men who served two terms being that of African descent. There has been only 2 major party candidates that were women to run for the highest office in the land. And, in a incredibly messed up and cruel twist of fate, both were “defeated” by one of the most grossly incompetent, misogynistic, sexist, racist, conman, cheat, sexual assailant, fraudster, B-list reality tv personality, piece of garbage f*ck, Donald J. Trump.
When things are in balance, everything sits just precisely where it belongs. Beyond a physical realm, beyond what’s known. Harmony and peace coincide as one in a state of euphoria. Like being weightless on a cloud. Not overly ecstatic, but more than content.
Personally I think I’ve seen this most in nature (particularly with a little psychedelic accompaniment) everything existing in its own realm, doing what it’s intended to, unaware of its importance while simultaneous insignificance. Just being, together as one, perfect wistful bliss.
That is certainly not where we find ourselves today. Both as Americans and humanity. We are seemingly in endless conflict. Conflict with each other, conflict with ideology, conflict of nations, religions, practices. We even find we are in conflict with ourselves.
If we could find that balance, one day the endless turmoil would cease to be. Yet. That seems to be in contrast to human nature.
