Teenage Politics

Coming for the Internet

2012-01-20T11:29:00.002-06:00

The newest governmental attack against its citizens (on the behalf of its buddies at Hollywood) is aimed at the internet. Surprise, surprise.

The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and its fellow, the Protect IP Act (PIPA) are two bills currently being debated in congress and halls of internet wisdom. Their stated purpose is to curb online infringement upon intellectual property. Pending these bills, sites like Megaupload have been shut down.

Because, obviously, online piracy is so much more important than a balanced budget and dealing with an escalating sense of dissatisfaction with our foreign policy. Definitely more important.

There is a lot of fear that these bills would potentially shut down sites like Youtube, Wikipedia, and Tumblr, along with lesser-known sites like Fanfiction.net. In effect, the bill would take out legitimate sites just so Hollywood can make a bit more dough, and leave a bunch of people out in the cold as they find their online lives empty. (Doesn't that sound pathetic?)

On Wednesday, Wikipedia led a blackout protest that shut their sites and several others down for the day--I know my Tumblr blog was blacked out for the day--and a massive caller campaign began, people sending letters and calling their representatives and senators. (It's satisfying to note that the Congressional support for the bill has since dropped. Apparently they're realizing that if they pass it, the next civil war will be led by teenagers who have never seen the light of day.)

Just one more way the government wants to dictate to us. Silly people--thinking they can act like China and get away with it.

This is Not a Joke

2012-01-04T08:23:00.002-06:00

This morning, the Obama campaign sent out an email to all their supporters--plus two ardent libertarians who like to laugh at said emails--that was, of course, full of self-congratulatory propaganda. What else do you expect from the beautiful American election cycle? Freedom? Choice? A hassle-free consideration of all the options?

Of course not. That's naive and idealistic. No, what works far better is being beat over the head by how one side's right and the other's wrong...from both sides. But don't worry. It's for your own good. After all:

We also know that candidates who take these extreme positions can, in the right circumstances, win not only a primary but also a general election in just about any state.

It's true. And we just can't expect you to know who to vote for, so we have to kindly inform you that, number one, all the Republicans are corporatist hacks. Even though Barack Obama received more in corporate funds than any other candidate in the 2008 elections. Not to mention the horror of this:

The extremist Tea Party agenda won a clear victory. No matter who the Republicans nominate, we'll be running against someone who has embraced that agenda in order to win -- vowing to let Wall Street write its own rules, end Medicare as we know it, roll back gay rights, leave the troops in Iraq indefinitely, restrict a woman's right to choose, and gut Social Security to pay for more tax cuts for millionaires and corporations.

Yes. That evil, extremist Tea Party that's led by...Mitt Romney. Mitt Romney, who has all but said that he wants to do the same things as Obama, just dressed up in a facade of conservative Christian principles. Just like practically every other Republican. Including Santorum and Perry and Gingrich and Bachmann. And especially Huntsman. And other than the obvious that the troops were supposed to be brought out of Iraq in December--Wall Street isn't capitalist, Medicare is already broken, gay rights and abortion don't belong on the federal docket... and Social Security is both already gutted and bankrupt anyway.

In closing, it is interesting to note how, sometimes, the Democrats seem to realize more about the Republican party than the Republicans do.

But it's curious that no one can really explain how, when or why the 70-plus percent of Republicans saying in polls and in Iowa that Mitt Romney's not their candidate will suddenly come around.

Yes, that is a curious thing to try and explain. Which is probably why Mitt Romney shan't win, and Obama will have to contend either with the Flavor of the Day, Santorum, or Ron Paul--I mean, He Who Shall Not Be Named. We'll see how that works out.

Welcome to 2012

2012-01-02T20:27:00.001-06:00

We're all supposed to die this year. At least I will have died knowing who would have been the next President of the United States (*nudgevoteRonPaulnudge*).

That, and I'll get to vote against our representative for my district. I may or may not have to bite back a cheer when I get to do that. You see, he's a warmongering, statist hack who thinks nobody knows he voted for the PATRIOT act and TARP. Trust me, I know.

Welcome to 2012, may it treat you nicely, and may it bring us some good things. I will resume posting soon. I hope.

"Anyone But Obama"

2011-12-16T12:38:00.004-06:00

Last night's GOP debate sickened me. There were a few exceptions, of course--Ron Paul's answers were, typically, quite good, and Romney was surprisingly well reasoned in a few places. Gingrich was his usual slimy self, and I've discovered that Huntsman just doesn't sit well with me; he strikes me as too much of an oily politician playboy for me to enjoy listening to him talk. Bachmann regaled us with her usual ignorance and then protestations that she wasn't ignorant, sprinkled with several ill-timed jabs against Obama, Santorum trailed behind the rest of the candidates, and Ron Paul made everybody uncomfortable when he said Iran wasn't a threat--and was heartily ridiculed by the commentators, who set themselves up as "rational Americans".

And then we reached the end of the debate, and I decided that the Republican Party, en masse, has entered their bid for a personal vendetta. Because winning this election isn't about helping the American people. It isn't about lowering taxes. It isn't about bringing freedom back into our society. Heck, it isn't even about the triumph of civil discourse over the evil liberal hordes.

No, of course not. This election is about one man: Barack Obama, duly elected ruler of the United States of America. At least, according to everyone but Ron Paul at last night's debate. Apparently, the GOP field has only one goal, and that goal trumps all others: to beat Barack Obama on November 6, 2012.

Naturally, this sentiment was heartily embraced by Newt Gingrich, who is convinced that he (with his upstanding moral record and his proven ability to follow through on his political promises) is the only one who can beat Obama. In fact, he had quite the moment up on stage as he all but said--"If you don't vote for me, you're voting for Obama and you'll rot in hell." The others heartily backed up this sentiment (except of course for Ron Paul, who offered a somewhat inspiring speech about political discourse and its place), and every single one of them managed to put in a plug about their future administrations. Of course.

But what really concerns me is that so many people who aren't sitting on a cushion are buying into this idea. That is, the idea that anybody (absolutely anybody) would be better than Obama.

Hey, at least his replacement wouldn't be a Democrat.

Because that makes a whole ton of difference, you know. I mean, it kept Obama from starting wars--just like Bush--and giving out taxpayer money to wasteful businesses--just like Bush--and ramping up government control of things that aren't theirs to control--just like Bush--and used the media to propagandize the public so they'd accept ridiculous security measures--just like Bush. As we can see, having someone from a different party in office can completely change the government's policies. And changing from "Democrat" to "Republican" next year will completely reverse this trend. Because a Gingrich/Romney/Bachmann/Perry/Santorum administration would be utterly different from an Obama one.

Honest.

Let's just put it this way: If I see another "Anyone but BO" bumper sticker, I think I'll puke.

The Day I Was Called a Marxist

2011-12-07T15:13:00.004-06:00

Today I was called a Marxist.

Apparently, I'm for big government.

Because I think that the government shouldn't be able to take freedom away from a group of people for tribalistic reasons.

Needless to say, this was news to me.

The gentleman who formed this opinion about me in just a few minutes of debating with me and looking at my profile picture, later amended his opinion to state that I was a cultural Marxist.

Because I have the audacity to believe all people should live together in peace.

The horror.

A Cow-Based Economics Lesson

2011-12-01T10:28:00.002-06:00

SOCIALISM

You have 2 cows.

You give one to your neighbor.

COMMUNISM

You have 2 cows.

The State takes both and gives you some milk.

FASCISM

You have 2 cows.

The State takes both and sells you some milk.

NAZISM

You have 2 cows.

The State takes both and shoots you.

BUREAUCRATISM

You have 2 cows.

The State takes both, shoots one, milks the other, and then throws the milk away.

TRADITIONAL CAPITALISM

You have two cows.

You sell one and buy a bull.

Your herd multiplies, and the economy grows.

You sell them and retire on the income.

ROYAL BANK OF SCOTLAND (VENTURE) CAPITALISM

You have two cows.

You sell three of them to your publicly listed company, using letters of credit opened by your brother-in-law at the bank, then execute a debt/equity swap with an associated general offer so that you get all four cows back, with a tax exemption for five cows.

The milk rights of the six cows are transferred via an intermediary to a Cayman Island Company secretly owned by the majority shareholder who sells the rights to all seven cows back to your listed company.

The annual report says the company owns eight cows, with an option on one more.

You sell one cow to buy a new president of the United States , leaving you with nine cows.

No balance sheet provided with the release.

The public then buys your bull.

SURREALISM

You have two giraffes.

The government requires you to take harmonica lessons.

AN AMERICAN CORPORATION

You have two cows.

You sell one, and force the other to produce the milk of four cows.

Later, you hire a consultant to analyze why the cow has dropped dead.

A FRENCH CORPORATION

You have two cows.

You go on strike, organize a riot, and block the roads, because you

want three cows.

A JAPANESE CORPORATION

You have two cows.

You redesign them so they are one-tenth the size of an ordinary cow and produce twenty times the milk.

You then create a clever cow cartoon image called a Cowkimona and market it worldwide.

AN ITALIAN CORPORATION

You have two cows, but you don't know where they are.

You decide to have lunch.

A SWISS CORPORATION

You have 5000 cows. None of them belong to you.

You charge the owners for storing them.

A CHINESE CORPORATION

You have two cows.

You have 300 people milking them.

You claim that you have full employment, and high bovine productivity.

You arrest the newsman who reported the real situation.

AN INDIAN CORPORATION

You have two cows.

You worship them.

A BRITISH CORPORATION

You have two cows.

Both are mad.

AN IRAQI CORPORATION

Everyone thinks you have lots of cows.

You tell them that you have none.

No-one believes you, so they bomb the crap out of you and invade your country.

You still have no cows, but at least you are now a Democracy.

AN AUSTRALIAN CORPORATION

You have two cows.

Business seems pretty good.

You close the office and go for a few beers to celebrate.

A NEW ZEALAND CORPORATION

You have two cows.

The one on the left looks very attractive.

Happy Thanksgiving!

2011-11-24T17:02:00.003-06:00

Happy Thanksgiving to one and all! I'm currently vegging out and waiting for pie. :3 Here's to American prosperity.

Stupidity Knows No Bounds

2011-11-21T13:29:00.002-06:00

Even if you're a terrorist.

In the newest Big Bad Plot to Kill All the Americans, 27 year old Jose Pimentel was arrested for planning to bomb several targets in New York City--most notably, mailboxes during his practice runs. He's been under police surveillance for three years, and left a trail that all but screamed "come and get me 'cause I'm a bad person!"

When these idiots post on their open blogs just what they're going to do, one has to wonder, once again, just why we should be afraid. And then when the suspect operates an entire website centered around the subject...yes, they're living in the underground, coming to get us. Be very afraid.

And then there's some insight into just how far our wonderful law enforcement officers are willing to go to prove that there's still something to be afraid of.

Along the way, Mr. Pimentel began making incriminating statements to an informant who was working with the police, investigators said. Those conversations were recorded.

I suppose this shouldn't really surprise me. It doesn't actually--I mean, our government has already assassinated one American citizen, and didn't seem at all concerned about it--but it is rather worrisome. No, more than that: it's definite entrapment. We have an informant who was egging on Mr. Pimentel for the sake of the police, so they could build a more convincing case against him.

Of course, it just shows me that, once again, our government has a vested interest in scaring us back into submission every few months...just as soon as it appears that we might actually be starting to realize that there's not that much to be afraid of.

Frontrunners and Flops

2011-11-19T10:36:00.003-06:00

The GOP seems to be having a struggle of titanic proportions on a very important question: just who, exactly, should be the candidate for the Republican Party. After tossing Bachmann, whose inane chatter about fringe issues that don't matter, they passed to Perry, who's little more than a slimy lizard, as everyone in Texas could already tell. From there, they went to that wonderful fiscal conservative Romney, who was proven to be just a bit more socialist than we all originally thought. Then came Herman Cain: bombastic, a classic everyman, so long as every man is defined as pizza CEO and Federal Reserve chairman. He's your perfect candidate--strong, God-fearing, Amurika-lovin', and, by the way, he's incredibly arrogant--just like you!

My family was up at the library yesterday, and since I have a bad habit of wandering around and looking at books that I don't have time to read at the moment (I'm halfway through a 650-page treatise on medieval history), I happened upon this gem:

The title boldly proclaims: "This is HERMAN CAIN!" The subtitle quite humbly says: "My Journey to the White House."

It's your classic autobiography that will take its place beside Dreams of My Fathers and First Step 2 Forever, where people we don't really care about and who haven't really done anything write books and pretend they're something, confident of future success. In this case, Mr. Cain is quite, quite sure he's going to become the next President of the United States. In fact, he's so sure that he says multiple times that everyone will know just how much people love him when he takes the throne in January 2013.

Of course, all of that has fallen apart quite spectacularly, which I find quite ironic given the hopeful, arrogant voice of his book. After sex scandals started popping up like Biden's gaffes, and Mr. Cain demonstrated that he really can't say anything of substance, even when he's trying to avoid saying anything of substance, I'm quite sure that Mr. Cain is going to take his place beside the other disgraced GOP racers.

Which, of course, leaves us with Newt Gingrich and Santorum...and that one other guy, that weirdo who always says the same stuff...can't think of his name.... While it's only a matter of time before Gingrich implodes (we all know about his baggage and his track record), the GOP is using him as a stepping stone to bring us to their last hope, the mighty Santorum. Of course, seeing as the only person who can sink lower than he is Huntsman, I seriously doubt Santorum will ever garner enough public interest to rise to the meteoric heights his fellows did.

Which, of course, leaves us with that one last guy whose name everybody always forgets: Dr. Ron Paul.

Tuition, Education, and OWS

2011-10-14T09:15:00.000-05:00

First off, this was quite possibly the most painful two minutes I've spent in...quite awhile. Since the last time I was forced to sit through an Obama speech. Or Rick Perry's ramblings. This gentleman seems quite confused as to what, exactly, a protest is supposed to be. When a protest/rally has degenerated to the point where, as the interviewer said, the protesters are "putting your Christmas list on a sign and waving it in the air," I think we can definitively say that it has sunk to the point where it will most likely achieve nothing of consequence.

Now, I know that this young man is only one among thousands. And my purpose in this post isn't necessarily just to nitpick on the fact that he doesn't seem to know what he wants. It's more to prove why his wish-list is pretty ridiculous, and why the wish-list of so many others in the Occupy movement are just as far-fetched.

Yes, corporations are bad. They restrict the free market, monopolizing market resources and pooling them into huge vats of capital that they can draw from at will. They also have a bad habit of forgetting the little guy in the midst of their financial orgy. I think it would be a very good thing if they ceased to exist entirely, to be replaced by something more friendly to the idea of liberty. At the same time, corporations and rich people are not necessarily synonymous.

There is a line that needs to be drawn there, in my opinion. Rich people may have gotten rich using a corporatist model. Or they may not have. And even if they did, they still earned the money. Perhaps not fairly, but since when has life been fair? The mere possession of money does not make a person evil or, in the language of my siblings and certain statist Democrats, "mean." It simply means that they were more clever and quicker on their feet than the rest of us. (Nor, I would add, is inherited wealth a bad thing. It was still earned, and should belong to whoever its original owner wants it to.)

What concerns me is not necessarily the idea that corporations or bad, or even the idea that rich people are bad. What does concern me is the very prevalent idea that the government should do something about the badness of corporations and rich people--usually, the idea goes, by stealing money from them and giving it to poorer people. Or, at least, giving it to the government so that it can give it to poorer people.

Or, as the gentleman in this video seems to want, to pay for his college tuition.

I totally get the value of a good education. I think that it is necessary to maintain our standard of living and the society we have now. I do dislike the idea that college is the only place you can get such an education (seeing as I'm probably not going to be attending college), but I also realize that there are some professions that require the specialized education a college course can give one. That said, I think it is far from the government's responsibility to ensure that everyone gets a good education. We've been trying that, through the public school system, for the past thirty years, and the quality of our education has only declined. Do we really want to get the government involved in our places of higher learning?

There is also the libertarian argument that for government to pay for college tuition would be utterly unfair, since it isn't my responsibility to make sure anyone else gets an education. Go get a job and pay for your own college degree if it means that much to you.

Now, this young man may be saying that he wants the evil rich people to pay for his college tuition. But that isn't right, either. If some philanthropic, wealthy individual does want to help him through college, more power to them. But they are under no compunction to do so, and they shouldn't be. That is called plunder, and whether legal or illegal, it is wrong. We simply can't take money from private citizens and give it to other private citizens--or rather, we shouldn't.

And that is my take on this subject.

And Iran is Next

2011-10-13T16:40:00.002-05:00

With the recent, most terrifying Big Bad Terrorist Plot that struck just a month after the tenth anniversary of 9/11, it seems that our government is quite ready to invade Iran. Or, at the very least, it's posing quite effectively, making us think it's quite ready to invade Iran. Apparently, two men with links to a Mexican drug cartel decided to try and kill the Saudi ambassador to the US, a target that even to my mind doesn't seem to make much sense. There's also their chosen method of execution.

The Iranians planned to employ Mexican drug traffickers to kill Jubeir with a bomb as he ate at a restaurant, U.S. officials said.

The logistics alone to this seem like a nightmare. From the use of Mexican drug traffickers (who might not even be able to get into the country, much less to DC, and run the added risk of being recognized and thrown in jail for the ignominious charge of marijuana possession), the fact that a restaurant is a rather iffy place to find the ambassador, liable to change at a moment's notice.

Not that it was ever much of a threat, anyway, since the United States Attorney has stated that law enforcement officers were guiding their sources the whole time, and no explosives were ever placed anywhere. In essence, we've arrested a man on the basis of what he might have been able to do if the CIA and FBI had let him.

As a result of all this, Eric Holder and Hillary Clinton have touted the need for further sanctions against Iran, because obviously not talking to them helps them come to our side, just the way social ostracism works in high school.

Throughout all my travels through the internet punditry and news sites, I've not seen any concrete proof of Iranian involvement, except the fact that Mansour Arbabsiar (a disheveled, disorganized, divorced man in never-ending trouble with a long list of creditors) might have had contacts with the Iranian Quds.

Overall, it just seems like a rather ridiculous assertion, and I hope nothing more than a few hurt feelings will come from it. For more, Glenn Greenwald wrote an excellent column on this subject. Enjoy.

Protests, Palin, and Polls

2011-10-06T10:40:00.005-05:00

Protests...

I'm sure all of us have had the Occupy Wall Street movement drummed into our heads over the past few weeks. Not that I mind the news media giving popular movements coverage. That's a good thing. There seems to be a wide range of people who are participating in the protests, from anarchists to democrats who just think government should give them more money. The people I especially don't understand--and the ones who seem to be most vocal on the movement's website--are the ones who are upset about their student loans and how evil Wall Street is because those evil corporatists don't pay taxes.

To the first, I would simply say that your choices are yours to make and yours to live with. You decided to go to college, with the idea that it would help you get a job. It obviously didn't, and now you're saddled with mountains of college debt that you have no way of paying off. Welcome to reality, where government doesn't pay for your shoddy decisions.

The second has a bit more justification, because the men who work on Wall Street are sometimes the ones who try to get out of every tax they can in quest of profits. I see this more as a commentary on the stifling nature of our tax code, and how easy it is to buy off the IRS, more than anything else. Should our politics and our money be separate? Sure. Will it happen anytime in the next six thousand years? Probably not. Six thousand years of past human civilization couldn't figure out how to wrest the two apart, and I have no delusions that our highly advanced technology will figure out a way for us to do it.

Of course, being the borderline anarchist that I am, I think our tax code is broken, period, and needs to be completely scrapped and rewritten, preferably in a way that will take up no more then ten printed pages and will be easy for the regular person to read. Hey, I'm allowed to be lazy with my citizenship. But once again, that's not going to happen anytime soon, because the IRS is far too lucrative an agency to be so curbed.

I identify far more with the protesters who are there for causes like ending the wars, or protesting the fact that our government is basically owned by the Chinese one because we owe so much money to them. Or even the people who are protesting the fact that corporate sponsors make up so much of the money given to our politicians (I'm still wondering why Rick Perry needs a whopping $17 million to prosecute his campaign...especially when Ron Paul is doing far better, and has only raised $12.5 million since he entered the race. I'm also wondering why people are still giving that shill money. But I digress). But, then again, as I said above, there's no way we're going to separate the two.

Palin...

Sarah Palin announced yesterday that she wouldn't be making a bid for the job of Spender in Chief. Democrats are disappointed, because their easy victory won't be quite as easy as they'd hoped, Palinites are mad/sad/in the depths of despair, and the rest of us are just happy we won't actually have to put up with her for the next thirteen months unless we are masochistic enough as to turn on Fox News.

I'm really not all that surprised by the move. She enjoys her role as media darling far too much to give it up for actual campaigning, and she knows she has more power as a pundit than she would as a prospective candidate for the highest office in the land. Mostly because she'd never get elected, and I do hope she knows it.

Polls.

With Barack Obama's approval rating down near 42% and his Rasmussen approval index at -24--again--I think it's safe to say that people don't really like him much. And it's not just our Democrat president, but also our Republican Congress that is drawing the ire of voters. According to a recent poll, only 14% approve of Congress' handling of recent business.

Not that Congress really seems to care. To individual congressmen, all that matters is that their individual popularity remains stable. And judging from my experience, that hasn't changed much. People in my district may not be fans of Congress, but they love Mac Thornberry, our valiant Republican knight who votes for bailouts and doesn't know the first thing about the Constitution, judging by his rhetoric. So individual congressmen get reelected, and Congress doesn't change, since people apparently don't realize that if you don't like what they're doing, it might be time to put new blood in there.

After all, it can't be our elected representatives who are statist curs. It's other people's representatives who do such terrible things.

The Markets Are Failing

2011-09-21T11:17:00.002-05:00

And, of course, the sole reason is that our Federal Reserve and other central banks aren't printing enough money. Or that governments won't help the big banks. Or both. Probably both. As a NYTimes article says:

"It is the fear that governments may not ride to the rescue that seems to have unnerved markets."

Ah, so now we have it. The government is no longer forming a (nearly nonexistent) safety net for the banks - the same banks that make risky investments on purpose, overextending themselves and keeping little money actually in hand so they can make more money, and then depend on the taxpayer when they inevitably begin to fail.

The fact is that, if banks would make better business decisions, they would have nothing to worry about. If they would just learn to say "no" when a risky investor came along, they would get into far less trouble. Sadly, the profit motive is too much of...well, a motive. But I see no reason why they shouldn't pay the price.

No Matter What Your Problem Is...

2011-09-18T21:55:00.007-05:00

Government is, obviously, the answer.

At least, if you're a Democrat. Or a Republican. Or a statist. But this list is becoming repetitive.

It's something I've slowly come to realize about the people around me: no matter what the question they are faced with, or the problem that is confronting them, government inevitably, at some point, becomes the answer. Or, more properly, government money. Which is, of course, only our money taken from us by force then being immediately regurgitated into a behemoth system of government agencies and programs.

That network of agencies and programs is precisely what people have come to depend upon. I'm convinced, at this point, that the "American dream" as it existed for our forebears on Ellis Island is nothing but a pipe dream, a quixotic fantasy that is fostered by the optimistic denizens of American suburbia. That dream has been strangled by the idea that, no matter what goes wrong, government has money for us.

Democrats live this out in their rhetoric - that is, blatantly telling us exactly how they think all problems should be solved. Poverty is rampant? Well, we should steal more money from every citizen in the country to (sort of) solve it. A teenager is pregnant and wants an abortion? Well, we've stolen some money precisely for that purpose! There are people who can't keep their opinions to themselves and live with other people? Well, legislation should fix that right up!

Republicans are, in some ways, more devious. Their ideas of government intervention are more subtle. Most of them actually think they are for limited government and free markets. But then a question arises as to how, exactly, to stop abortions, and it becomes clear how they think - obviously, government is the only entity that can stop that...not individual action, with people reaching out to their fellows. Saving corporate interests, protecting big money, stopping crime, fighting the forces of chaos...all those things are jobs for the government. Quite obviously.

But for the life of me, I can't understand why. Perhaps it can be traced back to the fact that people don't want to be responsible for things. It's far more comfortable to let somebody - or something - else take care of it. This might give rise to the apparent inability of any politician to put their money where their mouth is and actually help a poverty-stricken community or reach out to single mothers and help pay medical bills. Perhaps that's just how governments work; they are inherently designed to reduce their subjects' intellectual capacity to zero through entertainment and then become the answer to everything.

But given our federal government's track record, I can't fathom the overwhelming trust that is placed in it. Our government can't stop a cave-dwelling Saudi with a core base of a couple hundred followers whose sole assets are a satellite phone and an ego as big as Betelgeuse, despite a pantheon of security guidelines, two massive wars and, of course, denying that the Taliban ever offered to give him up. But we can totally and completely trust it to successfully stop a kid from shooting himself up on a cocktail of drugs in a back alley. And we can totally trust our government's plethora of health and safety regulations to never let a drug get recalled. Ever.

All that's not even touching on the fact that the government is the biggest advocate of legal plunder in this country. You can get fined for letting rainwater run off your property! (That's actually a measure being considered in my hometown at the moment. Apparently, my town gets little enough rain as it is, so we don't want it falling on concrete. Exactly how property owners are supposed to prevent that is anybody's guess.) Before we know it, they're going to be fining us for breathing.

Oh, that's right. We release CO2 at every exhale. Us evil polluters, breathing all over the planet.

So I suppose it comes down to this.

Through some twisted process, government has become the ultimate solution to every problem. Because it's so good at solving things. And somehow, if we could just get a different person in there, real solutions would come along, and life would be dandy. If we could just squeeze a little more money out of somebody, all our problems would be solved. Jenny would have a good school that didn't fill her mind with fluff, Rob wouldn't be living in a tumbledown apartment complex in the middle of the Projects, Sarah wouldn't be pregnant at 16 and contemplating an abortion, and Timmy wouldn't be down the well.

Oh, and grandma would be baking apple pie.

If only.

Here's the deal, folks. Government has proven over and over again that it ruins everything it touches. The economy, the medical industry, schools, roads, puppies, the post office, important founding documents, libraries, other countries. They can't get involved in anything and it end up better than when they started. A new administration is not going to change that. More money and more power isn't going to change that. It will just give them more opportunity to twist more out of us.

We're all addicted to government programs. And we all know addictions aren't good. Let's break the government habit. Who's with me?

Muslim Hysteria. Rant.

2011-08-26T11:09:00.011-05:00

This is mostly a rant in response to some of the people in my hometown. They're of the "Tea Party" crowd - you know, the We Hate Obama and Hence Muslims Club? Yeah, them. The goodly dose of Muslim Hate they've got in them is mostly what this post is about.

Apparently, there's an Islamic university in Brunei, and someone in my town has a relationship with them. As he owns some land here, he decided to donate land to this organization for the purpose of starting a Muslim community center. Just a quick note: we have about 100 Muslim families in our town, and that number is growing. (We also have a pretty healthy Hindu community. It's pretty fun, but that's neither here nor there.) Currently, the Muslim worship center around here is properly termed a cultural center, and it's about the size of my house. Which is pretty tiny. It's probably some kind of fire hazard or something.

Edit: I have since heard from someone who actually went and talked to our local imam and Muslim clerics that the planned community center is not, in fact, affiliated with the Brunei university. Big surprise there. It's funded by a private individual whose name is Unissa, apparently. Fun times.

Anyway. No sooner did certain people in my town hear about this absolutely awful Big Bad Plot than they started talking about it anywhere they got the chance: on Facebook, on message boards, on news stories, at council meetings. Now, I'm all for getting your concerns out there. That's perfectly logical.

But dear people...why?

Of course, compounding all this is a government investment program geared towards immigrants. Our City Council is (quite misguidedly, in my opinion) planning a grand redevelopment of our downtown area. It's pretty ridiculous and wasteful, for multiple reasons, but I won't get into that here. The thing that is getting the We Hate Muslims Club into such a tizzy is the EB-5 program.

Quick overview of EB-5: it allows foreign investors to gain green cards much more quickly than they would otherwise. Basically, they have to invest no less than $500,000 in a struggling or new business in the US, create 10 stable jobs for 2 years, and they will then get a green card. Note that all regular forms and tests for citizenship have to be completed and performed, no exceptions. In effect, the only thing EB-5 allows foreign investors to do is get put at the top of the list for the 100,000 or so green cards we issue each year. (The cap for green card admittance into the US - that is, total, all the dependents who come with the actual holder, etc., is 480,000.)

There are a few different tacks people in my hometown are taking in opposing this:

It's "not fair"
We'll let evil Muslims in
Or possibly commies, which is even worse, naturally
We don't need foreign investment. Because, obviously, national investors are investing in our hometown. Obviously.

To the first, let me just say: life isn't fair. It's not been fair for many years. If you think people don't already buy their way into this country, you are very naive, and probably trust your government way too much. The fact is that people with more money will always get in first, or get preferential treatment, or be the only ones who get in. It's how it works. Yeah, it's not "fair"...but as I said, life's not fair. Get used to the idea.

As to commies and Muslims (or possibly commie Muslims, which is much worse than the two separately)...really?

First, let me make it clear that not every Muslim is radical. In fact, not even most Muslims are radical. The percentages for radicalized Islam are very low. They're rising, but that's more due to our actions in their countries and the foothold bin Laden's ideology took than anything. Just because someone calls itself Islamic - be it a university or a grocery store or a kiddie pool - doesn't mean it's radical. Seeing as there are over 1 billion Muslims on the planet, and only about 400,000 of them actually want to kill us - and probably less than 100,000 actually have anything near the capability to do so - I'm pretty sure we're relatively safe.

Furthermore, let's face facts. If you're bent on causing destruction and mayhem in as cheap a manner as possible (considering you've probably come from a poverty-ridden family in Afghanistan somewhere), are you really going to have the resources or inclination to invest $500,000 USD in a company, stick around for two years while you create 10 jobs, get your green card...

All just to blow something up?

Am I the only one who doesn't see the logic in that? It simply makes no sense for someone to go to all that trouble, especially considering it's not all that difficult to get into this country some other way. Just go to Mexico first, and you can practically dance across the border. After all, we do have such a big illegal immigration problem, it can't be that hard. Right? Furthermore, considering how much Muslims like making babies, they'll out-breed us long before they manage to blow us all up.

As to the communists: we've been there, done that. Get out of the sixties already.

Investors aren't coming to our hometown. There's probably a reason for that. I think it has something to do with the fact that nobody even knows where it is, and even though we're one of the larger cities in Texas, people prefer DFW or Houston to our town. Sorry, but them's the facts. Not to mention, our people make huge talking points out of things like EB-5. And you wonder why people think we're a little bit mad.

So in summary: America's still free, even for Muslims. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. And for the love of my sanity, please stop harping on things that don't really matter.

Edit 11/21/11: For a related, more Christian-oriented post, see this post on my personal blog.

Ron Paul Being Forgotten

2011-08-18T19:06:00.002-05:00

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

Indecision 2012 - Corn Polled Edition - Ron Paul & the Top Tier

www.thedailyshow.com

Daily Show Full Episodes

Political Humor & Satire Blog

The Daily Show on Facebook

And this is why I love Jon Stewart, because even if I don't agree with him all the time, he stands up against things he finds unfair...in his own unique way.

Also, he's right: Pew found that Ron Paul is mentioned less than other candidates, despite his popular support.

I Nominate...

2011-08-16T13:02:00.004-05:00

In the spirit of the "ABO" movement, I would like to make my own nomination for the office of President of the United States.

Bugs Bunny.

It makes perfectly logical sense, I promise. Because even though Mr. Bunny lacks the corporate and governmental experience most look for in a candidate, he looks really good in a suit. He's also from Brooklyn, which makes him really interesting and elitist for those of you who look for that. On the other hand, he acts in a casual manner and has an endearing, personable accent that makes him the perfect pick for those of you who like that sort of thing.

An entertainer during World War II, Mr. Bunny played the vital part of making sure children all over the United States retained a bit of their childhood, and also offered firm moral support for the mothers and fathers during that most difficult time.

Mr. Bunny disapproves of sport hunting, but has no interest in gun control, as he prefers to taunt hunters rather than remove the means whereby they pursue their sport. Mr. Elmer Fudd, his longtime antagonist, was unavailable for comment, but I am confident that Mr. Fudd would have nothing to say against Mr. Bunny's impeccable pro-gun rights record.

Mr. Bunny has a wide array of experience, including NASA expertise, an extensive knowledge of the world after travelling around it several times, usually very quickly, and is also very involved in environmentally-savvy activities, having expressed his support for Earth Day several times over the years.

Perhaps Mr. Bunny's most strong platform pillar is his ideas on the economy. As he is a strong fan of carrots, Mr. Bunny believes the United States economy should go completely carrot-based. Since carrots are essentially an infinite resource so long as people choose to plant them, the standard would never fail, and if for some unknown reason the market still crashed, we'd be able to eat our money.

For those of you who want a man strong on defense, Mr. Bunny is your rabbit! He never leaves a stone unturned in the pursuit of victory, and has a canny mind for outwitting the enemy, whoever that might be this episode.

All in all, it is my belief that Mr. Bugs Bunny has the potential to become the greatest leader the United States has ever known. Bugs Bunny 2012, folks. Count on it.

As this is a rather silly post that arose out of a conversation with my mother, I promise that something more serious will be coming soon. I hope. It might be a rant at Rick Perry, but it will be something.

Between Them Both

2011-08-14T12:24:00.004-05:00

Pending a post on the Iowa GOP debate and the ensuing drama over the Ames poll, I got into a debate. Sort of. It's not a very strident debate, more like a discussion about the GOP's presidential field and the economics surrounding it. It's with Democrats, a portion of the population I don't get to talk to much. (I live in the Bible belt, and that's obviously synonymous with "Republican Country." Sometimes I wish I could move to California, but I'm sure I'd hate it there just as much, except for the weather around LA which is lovely. New Hampshire, here I come!)

Anyway. Democrats apparently frustrate me just as much as Republicans, mostly because of the inherent contradictions I see in their stances.

Republicans want government to stay out of their pocket and businesses, but it's just fine if the government comes into their bedrooms and tells them what to do.

Democrats want government to stay out of their bedrooms, but if it feels it needs to interfere in money and business matters to keep us "safe," that's just fine.

And it seems to me that, between the two, we're pretty much doomed. The only way those two can compromise is to mandate both sectors. All in the name of keeping us safe and/or righteous, of course. Hush, little citizen. Big government knows best.

O, the Things that I've Missed

2011-08-08T12:26:00.005-05:00

And I don't really mind. A quick update - my summer activities are over, which of course means I'll have to start school soon. Sometimes being homeschooled is nice, though. I get to decide when to do my schoolwork. Haha. China was awesome, and I wish I was still there, except for the annoying fact that I couldn't get Facebook there. I love Facebook. But you don't really care about any of that, so I'll get into the interesting here's-what-I-think-about-all-the-junk-that's-still-going-on portion of this post.

Apparently the economy is fixing to crash. Again. In fact, our ole' friends Fannie and Freddie are even in the news again, as credit ratings on those institutions plummet. As if they weren't already in a 5-mile hole it had drilled in the crater made by the last market tank. The cause of the whole commotion seems to be centered around the fact that our Congress has finally realized that you can't expect to both borrow trillions of dollars and pay off trillions of dollars at the same time. (This is especially difficult with trillions of dollars in broken programs hanging onto the trillions of dollars in revenue the government brings in. Just pointing that out.)

In fact, it's apparently gotten so bad that Congress has realized bandaids aren't going to fix their bleeding head wound. They might have to cut more than the $1.5 trillion they'd planned on from the budget deficit. Over the next decade. Of course, we can't get rid of any really important programs like that extra aircraft carrier, Congressional salaries, or the Department on Aging, but we'll see what we can do.

Meanwhile, the 2012 presidential campaign seems to be getting started. Yay. Can't wait for that drama. Something I've observed: adult drama is just as tiresome as teenage drama, they're just older, and political drama is just as tiresome as adult drama, it's just the politicians have more money to spend. (We won't get started on celebrity drama; it's basically just teenage drama with more public scrutiny.)

Rick Perry, Texas' very beloved governor is cementing his run for President, most notably with a day of prayer he hosted recently. Of course, all the conservative Christians are now singing his praises, declaring that they'd love such a righteous president. Blech. Study what he's done to Texas sometime, then come talk to me.

The rest of the GOP field is just as depressing, with the hesitant exceptions of Ron Paul and Gary Johnson: Michelle Bachmann, Herman Cain, Allen West. It reads like a list of who's-who of warmongering Republicans. But I'm being unkind. Can't have that.

I've not really researched the Democratic field, but I'm pretty sure (quite positive, actually) that President Obama will be their candidate. Not only is he in a strong position as an incumbent president, no matter how unpopular, but he still has the hearts of quite a portion of the Democratic voting base. And so, this race will come down to Obama and the candidate who wants to get butchered in the polls.

Going Away...

2011-06-27T08:36:00.002-05:00

Yes, I know. It hardly matters since I haven't posted in a month.

Again.

I'm sorry. I've just been a tad busy. Tomorrow I leave for LA. From there, I will catch a plane into China, where I will be for the next month of my life. It's going to be pretty epic. So, there's no hope of a blog post in the next month. Sorry. I know you're all heartbroken.

On the Subject of Israel

2011-05-23T07:25:00.001-05:00

President Obama recently (as in Thursday or Friday, but I'm too lazy to go look up exactly when) stated that he believed Israel should return to their pre-1967 borders. That of course means that Israel would have to give up the land they conquered and are now holding in violation of a UN treaty that they did, in fact, sign, forbidding the occupation of conquered territory.

As a result, my Christian friends on Facebook have been in an uproar, shouting about how America is going to be cursed because we're not going to "support" Israel anymore.

Number one, dear Christians, the Bible says nothing about "supporting" Israel. It says if someone blessed Abraham, they would be blessed, and if they cursed Abraham, they would be cursed. This promise was only reiterated twice, to Isaac and Jacob, so to some people, it's up in the air if that promise even applies to the entirety of the Hebrew bloodline. Next, it comes down to what a blessing and a curse actually is.

I'm sorry, but I do not think telling Israel that the IDF is nothing but a glorified hit squad and needs to be reformed is cursing Israel. I think that that is trying to save lives. Even if they are Palestinian lives, and obviously worthless in the eyes of God (honestly, I actually had somebody tell me almost exactly that. He later unfriended me because I had the audacity to suggest that the Palestinians and Hebrews were of the same value in the eyes of Jesus Christ). Nor do I think it is blessing Israel to continue playing both sides of the conflict over there and giving them all guns so they can even more effectively kill each other.

More than that, there comes a time when we just have to take care of ourselves, and forget about the rest of the world. Yes, that includes Israel. Israel has proven she can take care of herself without our help. She has the most highly-trained military on the planet, who have proven time and time again that they don't care how many people they kill, even if those people are innocents. Israel will be just fine, I promise you.

Meanwhile, America which is, by the way, our country (I'm not an Israeli, in case you missed that), is facing an ever-mounting national debt that nobody really wants to do anything about, unemployment that doesn't seem to be getting any better despite Obama's rhetoric about how quickly we were going to come back, and other conflicts abroad that were really stupid to begin with. Let's deal with our own problems, and let the rest of the world deal with theirs.

I'm pretty sure we're not going to get cursed for it.

Punditry and Confusion

2011-05-18T10:17:00.002-05:00

So it seems to me that the pundits nowadays don't seem to know what to say about the Middle East uprisings. They putter about the issue, trying to make it sound ambiguous so that, no matter what the official line ends up being, they'll come out looking good.

I don't think anybody is quite sure what to think. On the one hand, these popular uprisings are against tyrannical governments. Those same tyrannical governments have been involved in torture, human rights violations on a massive scale, etc. They also give us oil. These are popular movements that are tired of living under their tyrannical governments, and are trying to get rid of said government, following in the footsteps of other great revolutionaries like, oh, George Washington. Except they're Muslim.

On the other hand, gas prices have skyrocketed as a consequence of these uprisings, and that's not good. Furthermore, there's always the dire possibility that the people in these countries will decide that they *gasp* want a government founded upon the tenets of their religion. The horror! We can't have that! Because they hate us! And they won't do what we tell them! They might not sell oil to us!

But then again, if the pundits don't support the uprisings, they'll end up looking like radical Statists who want to take away all liberty from every human everywhere, thereby reversing the American Tradition that has upheld...something all these years. But if they do support them, they might end up looking like proponents of state-funded, radical Islamic terror.

What a dilemma.

The Weird and Weirder

2011-05-11T10:59:00.006-05:00

So after realizing that I've fallen sorely behind on blogging, I decided to do another combined post! I know, I know. I use these to excuse my lack of posting far too often, and I apologize. But today, I even come prepared with a theme! That theme is things that really make me go: O.o

So, without further ado:

Number one : The solution to national debt

It will never cease to amaze me how the first response to the phrase "we need to reduce the national debt" is "let's just raise taxes!"

Am I the only one who just flat doesn't get that?

I mean, I understand. We need more revenue coming in before we can pay off our debt. That would probably be a good thing. What isn't a good thing is assuming that's going to be the only answer...as we start spending even more money...and keep borrowing money from China...because any ten year old will tell you that if you keep borrowing, you're never going to pay off your debt. It doesn't work very well.

Of course, any ten year old would probably also be able to tell you that if any household managed their finances like the US government does, they'd be sent to jail. But I digress.

I suppose what gets me is that the "let's raise taxes" solution isn't accompanied by anything more concrete, like...reducing the astronomically large offense - ahem, I mean, defense - budget, or reducing/restructuring medicaid benefits, or cutting off/reducing planned social security payments to the upcoming generation, since there isn't really any money there, anyway. There a million places we could cut funding, yet...the first idea that comes to mind to reduce the debt is...spend more, but raise taxes to sort-of compensate. Not promote fiscal responsibility, and live within our means, but instead live just like we did before, and hope we can make more money to pay for it.

This makes tons of sense.

Number two : The Republicans

I've been consistently puzzled by the quandary formed by the Republican party. They seem incapable of finding a candidate that can actually compete in the national elections.

I mean, I'm beginning to think that it's like some sort of rite that goes on every election at the RNC. All of the super-rich people who make decisions in political parties like that get together around a table, stare at each other for a minute, and then say, "Okay, we have here the list of prospective candidates for our party. Now which one is completely incapable of doing anything but spouting talking points and looking stupid?"

I'm not a Republican. You know this. But still. I'd like to at least have some sort of somebody that I could cheer on and not sound like an utter loser. So really, GOP, would it be too difficult to nominate someone who's actually smart and has the ability to talk without sounding like an idiot? You know, like...Ron Paul. Or Gary Johnson. Or both of them together. (That combination, by the way, would be something close to political dynamite. I'm just saying.)

But I think it's pretty safe to say that people like Newt Gingrich (who is a laugh), Mitt Romney (who is a socialist), Herman Cain (who, from what I hear, is nothing but a warmongering talking-point machine), Sarah Palin ('nuff said) aren't really helping the conservative cause.

Number three : Osama bin Laden is Dead. Long Live the TSA.

I suppose it was rather idealistic of me to expect my freedom to come back when we killed the Big Bad. Perhaps it's just because I'm used to stories where, when we kill the bad guy, things go back to the way they were before. Yeah, that's probably it.

But it seems that in the aftermath of the death of the Biggest Threat to Mankind Anywhere, we have to increase security, not calm down because he's dead.

...

But isn't the single threat to America dead?

Oh, that's right. Bin Laden wasn't the only one. That's right. I remember now. Really, there's this faceless horde that he's been training, just waiting for the day when they can strike. Somehow. Hopefully not with bombs that don't work, because those are just too easy to laugh off.

This all goes back to the idea, I believe, that we have to be tremendously frightened at any given time that something is going to come and kill us, even when nothing is. And that something, of course, has to hate us simply because we're free, not because oh, they disagree with us ideologically, or they think our actions are imperialistic in nature and arguably illegal.

So, in order to feel safe from this mysterious threat, we have to continue our security efforts in our airports, and maybe even expand those security efforts to train stations, subways, and even your local grocery store. Because, after all, we can't ever be truly safe. You never know when bin Laden will come back to life.

So yes. Three things that make absolutely no sense to me.

bin Laden is Dead

2011-05-06T07:59:00.005-05:00

I am so relieved Osama bin Laden was killed. Because, you know, I never knew when I might be brutally killed. By him. In a plane.

I decided that it was high time I say something about this subject, especially since I haven't blogged in, oh, a month. I'm quite sorry. Really, I am. Life has been ridiculous. You see, my mother has this annoying habit of constantly surpassing my high scores in various Facebook games. So, it has become one of my quests in life to beat her scores. It's a long quest. On top of that, I currently have a very large stack of reading material, including "Our Man in Tehran," by Robert Wright, which I believe shall prove to be quite interesting. Oh, and I'm trying to read through my Bible in 90 days. I'm currently near day 50, and it's...going well. I haven't missed a day yet.

But you don't really care about that all that, and I don't know why I'm rambling on about my personal life, because if you wanted to know about that, you'd go read my other blog. So.

Yes, Osama bin Laden is dead. Yes. A great menace...threat...thing to humanity et al has been removed. Because...he managed to kill...so many other people after we started chasing him. With thousands of soldiers.

There's something ridiculous, to my mind, about expending literally trillions of dollars, thousands of soldier's lives, and ten years of time to catch one man. Of course, that's not including the hundreds of thousands of Afghani civilians we've killed, nor the other hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians we've killed. Although Iraq had nothing to do with Osama bin Laden.

So basically, not much is new. We're still not going to pull out of Afghanistan, because the big bad insurgency is still there. And God forbid the Afghanis like...try to defend themselves. That would be horrible. We're also not leaving Iraq anytime in the near future, and since we've just invaded Libya - while, of course, making it very clear that we haven't invaded Libya - there's still going to be plenty of Middle Eastern ridiculousness for me to comment on.

So yes, Americans. Osama bin Laden, our Emmanuel Goldstein, is dead. You can go to sleep now, and let the government take care of you. Because it knows everything.

Who Owes Who?

2011-04-04T11:53:00.003-05:00

I think my representatives here in Texas might potentially be idiots.

"As legislators, we owe it to our constituents and to all people in Texas to raise as much revenue as possible." (Elliott Naishtat, D-Austin)

Right. Which, of course, means that...

“What I am proposing without raising taxes or creating new taxes is collecting existing taxes that are rightly owed to the state.”

The measure on the table is imposing sales tax upon online purchases. Exactly how such a tax would be levied, with popular sites like eBay or Amazon, that are not only interstate but international in scope, I'm not sure. I suppose eBay and Amazon will just have to...register with the state of Texas?

But, of course, our legislators owe it to us to pry as much of our money away from us as possible. And of course, after that, the obvious conclusion is that we owe them money.

Such is the circular propagation of the governmental system.

"Oops, We Goofed," and Other Infamous Last Words

2011-03-10T13:59:00.005-06:00

The NATO forces goof. A lot. There was our "complicated" air-strike last year that killed several Afghan soldiers, Yemeni schoolchildren being killed, nine Afghan boys being shot...it's just not good. The latest goof strikes a bit close to home for one of our "friends." We accidentally killed Hamid Karzai's cousin, and he's understandably a bit miffed.

Now, I'm willing to give the benefit of the doubt to the NATO soldiers involved. I mean, obviously, when you're out in the dark on an Afghan side-street, your trigger finger is going to be a bit tense, and you might see one man as a threat. Unfortunately, Karzai isn't taking it so lightly.

""The president sees this as another lamentable case of loss of life," Omer said. "This was the result of an irresponsible and unnecessary night raid. His message is that they have to stop these irresponsible night raids that kill innocent Afghans.""

Karzai has apparently often condemned the night raids, and has decided that he's not going to stand for it anymore.

I think that within five years, our actions are going to drive Karzai over the edge. He's going to try to kick us out of his country, with the support of most Afghans. Of course, we're not going to be able to stand for that, because we can't just leave the Afghans to their own governance, now can we? They might degenerate into chaos. (But hey, at least it would be their chaos, and not ours.) So then, naturally, our forces will have to unseat Karzai, because we can't leave the Afghan people in the hands of such a brutal, freedom-hating man.

Irony, enter stage right.

Another Current Events Post...

2011-02-24T11:29:00.004-06:00

Because I'm too lazy to post with any degree of regularity, apparently. Not really. It's more that I'm ridiculously busy. To give you a view into my life: Sunday and Wednesday I have church. Tuesday and Wednesday I do after-school programs for kids. Monday I work. Thursday I work. Fridays are shopping days, and Saturdays usually have something going on. Yeah. My life is fun. v.v

Anyway.

I'm not quite sure what all the mess in Wisconsin is about. I guess it has something to do with unions and how they're awesome. Which I don't think they are. Once upon a time, they had their uses - back when Irish immigrants were derided for being immigrants and were practically ordered to return home (now what does that sound like?). People were taken advantage of. I understand that.

But does anybody seriously think that we're going to dissolve unions then instantly end up with 18 hour workdays and $1 an hour wages? Yeah. Right. Whatever.

I think unions can safely be classified with child labor laws: they're basically obsolete, and serve only to make money for the government when they're crossed. Nobody in their right mind is going to go up against the unemployment laws the government has in place, particularly not if they're a small business. Workers will probably be happier when they don't have to pay union dues that take a goodly portion of their weekly pay.

Basically, everybody but the union bosses will win. And I get the feeling that nobody but said union bosses would cry.

In other news, the Obama administration is actually going to maybe, kind of, sort of fulfill a campaign promise that wasn't absolutely ridiculous! DOMA is on the chopping block now, and even though it took two years for the President to set his sights on it, I'm glad. Maybe now that silly piece of legislation will get passed.

To all the people who will now proceed to yell at me because after all, gay marriage is "immoral," I just want to say - personally, I agree with you. Homosexual rights defenders, don't get mad at me. I do think gays should be able to get married. They are citizens of the United States, and as such should be afforded every privilege and right that every heterosexual person receives.

I am of the opinion that government should have no place in marriage, period, but that's not going to happen any time soon...so I'll just settle for equal protection.

The Arizonans are at it again, once again targeting immigration. This time, they're taking it one step further - illegals could be restricted from driving, sending their kids to school, and getting benefits completely!

Right. So...basically, we're just going to make Hispanics an even more targeted member group of society.

Nice.

Coupled with last year's bill, that made it possible for police officers to ask for a person's papers any time to prove they were, in fact, citizens, I see a lot of potential for abuse here. Once again. Considering you're more likely to be killed by a cop than a terrorist these days...

Do we really want to do this? v.v

Bigotry and Ridiculousness

2011-02-17T19:08:00.002-06:00

"I do not speak to Muslims unless they want to ask me about something. I do not want to get involved with animals who would take my life for telling the truth. I say let the stupid be stupid and remain delusional. God makes them even more delusional because they insist on being ignorant. ... My family and I are saved. Those are the only people I need to worry and care about. In fact, there is a creepy jihadi who lives directly below me. I am not going near that demon unless if God sends him to me for the truth and to get saved..."

I'm not quite sure what to say. I have all sorts of rage I could let go.

One thing I will say: this person calls themselves a Christian.

And I am ashamed.

Egypt

2011-02-11T14:26:00.004-06:00

So I thought it was high time that I say something on this subject, since its been going on for weeks now.

I've heard some interesting things from both sides. The Republicans, as always, are taking the opposite side from President Obama. The President apparently decided it would look good politically, and earn us more friends, if he gave a nod to the "rioting masses" in Egypt. Since then, I've seen numerous Facebook comments from Republican friends saying something to the effect that Obama is stupid, Egypt should quell the uprising with deadly force, and that the people of Egypt should stop trying to contest the government.

A couple problems with that, Yoda has.

*ahem* Number one, you didn't see this kind of lay-down-and-take-it attitude when the communist government in China was blasting unarmed protesters in Tiananmen Square some years ago. Then, uprisings were wonderful. Uprisings such as that, movements of the people should be honored!

Number two, I think those people are forgetting their own country's heritage. People, America was founded on rabble rousers who formed...an uprising. And were none too quiet about it, either. They like, had guns. And were shooting people. Yeah.

So, to put it succinctly- Egypt's people have the right, just like all humanity, to choose their leaders. Isn't that one of the trademarks of the "American tradition?" Since Mubarak is a repressive dictator by all accounts, our wish to keep him in office is nothing more than the selective "freedom" we like to enforce. And as Mubarak wouldn't leave office quietly, the Egyptian people are doing their level best to make their intent and wishes known.

As to Egypt being a threat to us...what's changed, again? Get used to the fact that people don't like us, and it's probably because of us. That's how the world works.

Labels

2011-02-11T09:22:00.003-06:00

This is liable to be a very religious post. In fact, I know it is. So if you're not religious, and more specifically, not a Christian, then this isn't going to be aimed directly at you. But you might like it anyway. Whatever. This was reposted from my Facebook notes...yeah. It's very disjointed, because it's basically just a stream-of-consciousness sort of thing. Enjoy.

“American.” To some Christians, this label is all-important. It’s part of their identity. They sing rousing songs about how they’re “proud to be an American!” Now, I see nothing wrong with liking to live in America. America is awesome. Without America, I wouldn’t be able to run two blogs, both of which have criticized the government. I wouldn’t be free to do what I do best: cause trouble. So it’s not that I don’t love America or that I want America to die or something, far from it.

My concern comes from the fact that American Christians have gotten so lost in identifying themselves as Americans that they’ve forgotten what Christian means. They’ve begun worshipping America to such an extent that they’ve neglected Christ. They’ve managed to put their flag on a pedestal, and forgotten that the only thing they should be doing that with is Him.

To this accusation, some will respond “But America is a Christian nation! So we need to keep it and honor it!” Is America a Christian nation? Can America, with her record of killing and covering it up, of messing in other people’s business, of promoting violent dictators while casting others down and killing innocents…can a nation like that truly be called a Christian one when the Bible states we are not to kill, we are to love the innocent, we are to feed, clothe and nourish even our enemies (Proverbs 5:21)?! When Jesus said “love your neighbor as yourself,” did he add the stipulation that if your neighbor hit you, you could hit him back? That if your neighbor made you angry, he was fair game?

I tell you this: that it is impossible for America to be a Christian nation. It is impossible for any country to be “Christian” in that sense. A nation, a collective whole, a government, cannot ascribe to a religion. America’s actions, her government’s actions, show her to be unchristian. If we saw a fellow “Christian” doing half the things America’s government has done, we would run him out of church! We would turn him into the police! But somehow, it is alright for our “Christian” national government to do these things.

Christianity is, by its very definition, an individual pursuit. “Christian” means “like Christ.” How can a government and a collective nation be like Christ unless they give up everything for His sake? They send every resource they have out to the world for free. They open their borders for those who are hurting to come in. If someone attacks them, they respond with the willing grace of a Christian and say, “Hey, by the way, you forgot to come take this.” That is what a Christian nation would look like. But does America look like that? Does America forgive its enemies, bless those that curse it?

America is nothing. America is little lines on a map and a two-hundred year old piece of paper. Now let me introduce you to my God.

He is everything, the sum total of all that is, because He created it. He owns the world, the stars, and the infinite galaxies. It tells us in the Bible that He’s going to fold up the universe like it was a mere blanket. He is eternal, never beginning and never ending. His book is the Word of Life. And most importantly, He died for us. All of that splendor, that majesty, boiled down to mere humanity, all so that could become sin for us.

What is America, in light of that? Absolutely nothing.

The fact is, Christian, that you do not belong to the government. America has no claim on you anymore, not on your soul or thoughts or even your time. All of that belongs to someone way more important: the God of the universe Himself. You don’t even belong to yourself. Your sole pursuit now should be following Jesus Christ, following His commandments.

Many Christians in America today have forgotten what following Jesus Christ really looks like. Jesus didn’t come to us to promise a comfy church pew and manifold blessings. There’s a reason He told people to “take up their cross” and follow Him. The path of following Jesus is a hard one. It’s a narrow one. It’s one of those annoying mountain paths that, as you creep upwards, you just know you’re going to fall off at the slightest misstep. That is what following Jesus is like.

The nationalism many American Christians display is frightening. They put the concerns of their nation above those of their God. They hear of stories of the American military killing Yemeni schoolchildren, and they call it “collateral damage.” Do you think that Jesus Christ is looking down at that and saying “Oh well. Collateral damage. I understand why they had to do that; after all, they’re at war.” Do you think that Jesus Christ hears of children in Iraq and Afghanistan getting blown to bits and says “Oops. Misfire. Oh well. Collateral damage.”

Do you think that when you get to Heaven, Jesus’ first question to you is going to be, “So, did you support your government? Did you support your troops? Was your nation important to you? How ardently did you love your country?”

Or do you think His questions will go, “Did you follow Me? Was your every thought towards Me? Did your heart beat for Me; were your hands and your feet willing to go do great things for Me?”
Remember what following Christ is supposed to be like? None of it consists of nationalistic fervor towards a transitory government. None of it involves the “support” of a military. Christian, you are supposed to abide in Christ. In Christ! You’re supposed to be so wholly consumed with Him that the only thing the world sees is Him. That means speaking up against injustice, going and doing and being everything that He was here. Jesus can’t be here at the moment. But we are here. And what testimony are we setting, what is it that others see? Why is it that in many places in the world, Christian is a synonym for American imperialism? Why is that? Examine yourselves, Christians, and ask why that is!

Imagine what would happen if every professing Christian in America stepped up to the plate, returned to the foot of cross, and begged forgiveness for their hard-heartedness. Then imagine if every one of them stood up, stepped forward, and picked that cross up. Imagine if every one of them started doing instead of just being. Imagine if every one of them adopted a child from Africa, or went to Asia, or prayed for Latin America. Imagine if every one of them got on fire for God and looked to the needs of His Kingdom rather than the needs of America’s kingdom. Close your eyes and imagine what the world would look like.

The world was turned upside down with just two men in Acts. Now imagine what would happen if every professing Christian in America told about Him, lived about Him, breathed about Him. Imagine what would happen if every professing Christian valued Him above their own lives. We would turn this world upside down, inside out, then flip it all back around and set it on fire!

Some say it is too difficult, that the world is too far gone. I don’t believe it. Some say we should cut our losses, sit here in America, and pray for it to not fall to the forces of evil. They forget that we have brothers and sisters in Christ out there, some who have come on the receiving end of America’s wrath. We forget that elsewhere, revival is happening. We forget that we serve the mightiest being in existence.

Ladies and gentlemen, I issue an appeal today, and a challenge. I ask you to search your hearts, to see if these things are true. Don’t go into it with a preconception; don’t mentally decide what you’re going to come up with. Don’t give yourself trite answers which are just as bad as lies, or offer yourself half-baked excuses for behavior around you. Then learn to value “Christian” more than “American.” Learn to look at your country objectively, to see it has faults, and to work around it and beyond it and within it to transform the people who live in it.

Let’s turn this world upside down.

From Starbucks to Palin

2011-01-18T10:45:00.002-06:00

I've completely ruined one of those subjects now. Ah well. At least there'll be more Starbucks goodness. Starbucks is phasing in a new size- the Trenta. For those of you who don't know Italian and need that translated for you (like I did), Trenta is 30. Starbucks is going to be putting a 31-oz size on the market that you can fill with coffee, tea, or lemonade. I'm thinking a 31-oz strawberries and cream frappucino myself, but...yeah.

In other, far less important news, you can hop the border fence between here and Mexico in no less than 18 seconds if you are a roughly 20 year old, fit and trim young woman. Oh, and if you pick the right section of border fence. But don't you know, that fence is sure keeping those immigrants out. Um...yeah.

Iraqi "insurgents" detonated a bomb outside a police station in the midst of police recruits in Tikrit, Iraq. About 50 people died, to the best of my knowledge. Apparently, al Qaeda is trying to destabilize Iraq again. Sounds like a plan. Of course, if these attacks pick up again, we'll have to push back our departure date. Again. Because we can't leave the Iraqis defenseless.

Now to everyone's favorite subject: Sarah Palin. The woman has been constantly in the news lately because she used the term "blood libel" (and obviously doesn't understand the historical connotations of the term), and also perhaps because she used "shut up." Personally, I don't think we should give her the satisfaction. When she made up words, she made us laugh. When she misuses historical terms, that means we should start ignoring her.

A Bit Meh

2011-01-10T08:29:00.002-06:00

Lately, I've just sort of been...meh about the whole political scene. I think I have too many political friends on Facebook who are either die-hard Republicans, anarchists, or Democrats. They're ruining it for me. v.v

But, I suppose while I'm here, I could say a few words.

We had a shooting this past week, I'm sure you're all aware. As of yet, I can't decide whether I think the shooter was motivated by politics or not, though I'm betting not. Not that I actually bet, you understand, but...never mind.

Other than that, there's the typical Republicans-vs.-Democrats hubbub, with each side slinging vitriol because, of course, they're both out to ruin all that is good and right in the world. Somehow. Yeah. It gives me a headache.

Fox News is Watching

2010-12-30T09:57:00.001-06:00

If you're a recent Muslim convert, fly often, and have said bad things about American foreign policy, watch out.

Fox News is watching.

Although, I don't understand what Fox News has against this woman. She's on their side. She openly says that the current government is communist. C'mon Fox News. Surely you have more guts than to try to get rid of someone who so clearly agrees with you!

Oh, that's right. She's Muslim. So obviously, she must be evil. Duh.

I quite liked this lady's response to one of Fox News' emails (which I, quite frankly, would have spammed and left quite alone, because I don't like random people emailing me)-
"“The so-called 'jihadists' you have mentioned are actually personal friends of my husband from childhood. In the video he was expressing his love and gratitude to his friends, who have died fighting for freedom. Just like any other American or European citizen who displays pictures of soldiers who have died on their videos. There is no difference in gratitude and love. It is just that your government has deemed these noble men as 'terrorists' because they are not on the same side. Least us not forget the Mujahideen who fought the Russians for the U.S. They were deemed 'heroes' and lead by Osama Bin Laden at that time, and now because the government says so... they are "terrorists.””

Beautiful!

Quite possibly their biggest beef with this woman? She wouldn't accept a friend request from the reporter. On Facebook. Well, duh. Facebook even warns you with something like- "Unless you know this person, you should not friend them" or something like that.

The moral of this story is: be careful what you 'like' on Facebook. Because, after all...your postings and 'likes' can be proof of your terrorist tendencies. And Fox News is most definitely watching.

Merry Christmas

2010-12-26T13:55:00.001-06:00

O dear. It's been forever since I've blogged on here. I've been dreadfully busy with other things, and none of the news has interested me enough to blog, in any case. v.v

So, your Christmas post is late, even! :P Merry Christmas, Happy Saturnalia, Happy Holidays, all that fun stuff....hope everyone had a nice, uneventful day. My whole family vegged all day long. XD

Drama in High Places

2010-12-08T14:05:00.004-06:00

President Obama, in attempting to curry favor with the Republican bloc, has made his own party just a tad angry. The President finally reached some sort of compromise with the Republicans on the issue of tax cuts. To give you the short story- they're being extended. Again. And economists are predicting we'll be $900 billion deeper into our deficit before they expire again.

Of course, the one thing everybody is forgetting is that, if we didn't have so much darn spending on our plate, to the tune of some 3,500 billion, we might not have to levy so many taxes. But since that logic is soooo fourth grade, we're not going to go that route. No siree. It's so much more fun to dig ourselves deeper into debt, but hey, at least we'll be happy while we do it! Sort of.

On another note, I thought I'd say something about the drama surrounding the Wikileaks fiasco.

Heh. I find it ridiculous, the furor that's arising over all this. Our government is paralyzed with fear that, horror of horrors, we'll figure out what backroom deals they've been negotiating, where our money is being sent, and what they've been doing in other countries all these years.

In any case, I don't understand why some people are calling for Assange to be either thrown in jail to rot for all eternity, or, alternately, to be hunted down like an al Qaeda operative. Meh. If we're going to hunt him down like we do the leaders of al Qaeda and the Taliban, Mrs. Palin, he's quite safe. Trust me on this one. Of course, if we're going to hunt down Assange that way, then it would also make sense to hunt down some New York Times writer or editor or somebody. Yes, indeed.

In any case, I think much of the blustering is just attempted distraction. Our government doesn't want the rest of the world to suddenly realize that we've been total junior-highers and have been saying bad things about them behind their backs, not to mention trying to pull all sorts of shenanigans. That would be bad. v.v

And 2012 is Upon Us

2010-12-06T10:38:00.002-06:00

Only, not really. Of course, you couldn't tell it by the eagerness of the New Generation of Republicans. They've already begun lining up for the senate seats that will be up for grabs in two years.

Now, I will say that I've been guilty of wondering who will run for President in 2012 (I'm probably going to be rooting for Gary Johnson, if anybody cares), but I find it rather ridiculous to be worrying about the same races we just got done with. v.v

Depressing Current Events

2010-11-26T10:29:00.004-06:00

North Korea attacked South Korea. We were all duped by a shopkeeper in Afghanistan. Tom DeLay was arrested for money laundering or some such. The TSA is still being a pain in the neck. I found out that each aircraft carrier we have commissioned carries the equivalent of many countries' actual air force. And we have these all over the world. And we wonder why people feel threatened by us. I wonder why we feel threatened by them.

Just your typical, happy-go-lucky Thanksgiving week, in other words. I hope everybody had a good one...I got to cook nearly our entire Thanksgiving dinner because my mom wasn't feeling well. It was actually pretty fun- I ran down the battery on my iPod and got to get very hungry cooking it all.

Since all that was going on, I don't actually know that much about the whole Korea thing. As near as I can tell, North Korea apparently shelled a small South Korean island, which of course made South Korea a little angry. North Korea subsequently issued a warning that war could follow if things got too heated. Like, if we got involved, things might get a little tense.

But, of course, we have to stick our big noses where they don't belong. Why we have to conduct military maneuvers with the South Korean navy in the first place...I have no clue. But I think that qualifies as butting in and getting involved. Just a little.

I still don't understand why we think we should have to be involved in every thing that happens on the planet. Or why, like the substitute on the Glenn Beck Program said this morning, other countries should "fall in line" with us. Yeah. Because we're the world's mommy. We have to save them from themselves.

Of course, I don't think North Korea will actually do anything. With the power shift currently going on there, I'm inclined to believe this is just saber-rattling to make sure people don't think that now, as their power structure is changing, would be a good time to attack them. Amidst all this, China isn't even trying to get involved. They don't want war breaking out in their backyard. Again. And I understand why not- they're in the middle of prosperity. They don't want to mess it up. ^.^ If we only had as much sense.

In the Name of Safety

2010-11-22T11:51:00.006-06:00

I'm sick of this subject. Which is why I'm going to proceed to rant about it for a minute. Or more.
I love how much is done in the name of "safety." We have to be "safe." After all, we wouldn't want to be...uh....unsafe, right?! It's for the children! So that they can...uh...well, be seen naked by creepy TSA people you can't see! Yeah! Save the children from...

Inept and slightly stupid terrorists. Who won't even blow up their own seats. I'm not sure why I should be scared of that. But okay.

Safety. What is safety? The absence from fear? Yeah, right. People are always afraid of something. It's practically a rule from the Human Handbook. And if there's nothing logical and concrete to be afraid of, our minds will make something up. Classic example: vengeful, angry ghosts. Throwing away billions of dollars and tons of privacy in the name of making people "feel safe" is absolutely silly from that standpoint.

If we define safety as merely being able to get on a plane without being blown up...well, since the chances of your dying in a terrorist attack are pretty near non-existent, I think we have that all wrapped up. Mission accomplished. The TSA can go home now. Leave us alone. Buh-bye. Let us go back to regular fears, like possibly dying from heat stroke or electrocution.

There's also the logical hilarity of the arguments used to support these new measures. The "Underwear Bomber"? Please. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab didn't even embark on a plane in the United States, but rather in Amsterdam. How was that a failure of our security services, and how could any heightened security measures here have stopped him in any way? (Except of course, for that little measure we could have taken of revoking his visa, but that would have been way too simple!)

The other two "major" terror attempts in the past few years have also not been connected to commercial flights departing from the US- the "Times Square Bomber" which was in no way connected to airplanes or airports, and the Terrible Cartridge Bombs of Death, that were sent through the cargo and baggage areas of the airport. On a FedEx plane. Tell FedEx they must submit to rigorous security protocols. FedEx can be used to initiate terror plots against the United States!

Yet despite all that, the government continues telling us that, in the pursuit of "safety", it is essential that we ignore every area of transportation and mail that might actually prove to be a threat, and instead focus on the civilians of America. In other words, us. Somewhere along the way, we became the enemy...if we ever even had a real enemy in the first place. Which I doubt. We created a phantasm in our minds, and now shy at it reflexively. But like nightmares, the danger is very real.

But only in our minds.

Civilian Trials (once again)

2010-11-18T07:53:00.003-06:00

Ahmed Ghailani, one of the men supposedly involved in the embassy bombings in Tanzania and Kenya (that occurred, um, twelve years ago) was brought to trial Wednesday- or at least, that was when he was acquitted of all but one out of 280 charges.

Yessir. Those poor prosecutors were unable to use statements he made under duress (the outrage!), and unfortunately their trail had gone cold since, apparently, terrorists are unlike regular people, and we can't bring them to justice immediately. Oh no. We have to wait twelve years. Actually, only six, since he was captured in 2004. And then sent to Guantanamo.

Yeah.

Despite the acquittals, Ghailani is still looking at anything from twenty years to life in prison. Go us. We now know that if you conspire to mess up a pretty government building, you can get life in prison.

Right. Okay.

In any case, the response to this is pretty typical. In fact, it's laughably familiar. Didn't we already go through this? The Republicans are mad because they only had circumstantial evidence to throw at him, and hence he's not...uh...going to go to jail for a long time. Guys, let me acquaint you with one of the beauties of the American justice system:

You can't send somebody to jail if you don't have proof. It doesn't work. No matter how much you absolutely know, deep down in your little heart, that Ahmed Ghailani committed grievous crimes against us, without proof, there is absolutely nothing you can do about it. That's a good thing. It keeps innocent people from going to jail.

This does not prove that civilian trials won't work for terror detainees. It just means that we have a cultural block, and we need to get over it and realize that these people are just that- people, who deserve just as much courtesy and justice as any other human being. We afford the worst kind of people civilian trials.

And on that note, I'd also like to, once again, challenge that little thing. "They're not civilians!" people cry. "We can't try them in civilian courts!"

But... "They're not a military! We can't afford them the protections of the Geneva Conventions!"

....

This proves it. I know what these men are.

They're figments of our imagination. *nods seriously* This has all been a big trick played by our minds. 9/11 didn't happen. Guantanamo doesn't exist. Because there is not a netherworld between military and civilian, and hence these men must not exist.

In any case, and all joking aside, I have decided that most of these trials are merely a sham, in any case, as this quote from the NYTimes aptly illustrates:

"Had he been cleared of all charges, the administration would probably have been forced to take Ghailani back into military custody rather than see him released."

And there you have it, ladies and gentlemen. It just flat doesn't matter. Nothing matters in this crazy country we're living in now. According to the government (not only this administration's, but past ones as well), convictions, or non-convictions, by a jury duly appointed can be turned over at the whim of said government.

People ask how they can see us naked and pat us down in incredibly invasive ways for the mere crime of *gathp* wanting to travel?

That's how. Welcome to America.

Political Celebrities

2010-11-15T11:09:00.004-06:00

So I suppose it was to be expected. Doesn't mean I can't enjoy the hypocritical irony.

You see, during the election (and after, and now) I remember people blasting President Obama because he was acting like a celebrity. I mean, he like, had TV cameras following him around all the time! He like, was feted like he was Brad Pitt or something! He had his own fan club! That evil man! How dare he think he's a celebrity or something? Politics isn't supposed to be a celebrity sport!

.....

And now, the same people who said all that are lining up to fall down in loving adoration at the feet of the new political celebrity: Sarah Palin and "her Alaska". Maybe she'll take them out on that island so they can see Russia, and prove she's still fit to be President of the United States.

Sorry. That was low.

In any case, I find the hypocrisy there quite interesting. Hilarious, actually. Oh, the joys of American politics.

Randomness

2010-11-11T14:26:00.003-06:00

Well. It's been awhile since I posted, and for that I'm (sort of) sorry. Life has been nuts for me. ^.^ My mom and I attended a Students for Liberty conference in Austin, Texas on the 6th, which was awesome...except for the eight-hour drive to get there. Thank God for iPods and big books. (In addition, I'm participating in NaNoWriMo, and planning for another missions trip next year...and trying to raise money....but that's a whole 'nother subject, and we won't go into it.)

In any case, I figured I'd be a good blog author and post some stuff, just because I think that would help make my blog more interesting...and stuff.

The Pentagon has decided that repealing DADT would do practically nothing to the nature of our conflicts overseas and the makeup of the military. Really now? How surprising. Imagine that..."people are people, no matter how..." uh.... "strange." There we go. There are some pretty strange people in the world, let me tell you. Anyway, I don't think this study comes as a surprise to much of anybody except people who think gays are a literal abomination and that they should all be railroaded out of the military, along with Muslims.

In other news, a couple people in Washington are beginning to see that, hey, if we want to cut spending...we're going to have to give up some stuff! Like, we might have to stop handing out money like it grows on trees, or something. Huh, imagine that. That's...weird. I'm wondering when more people will catch onto the truth that we're not going to be able to have a utopia where we spend tons of money and reduce the deficit. Sorry, folks, it doesn't work that way. So, future retirees, buckle up and start saving money, because you're going to need it if you want to retire. Kids, save for college. Single mothers, find a good guy and settle down. Because this isn't going to be pretty, and people are going to be hurt in the short term. Loss and having to live a less exorbitant lifestyle sometimes is part of life. Get used to it.

However- and this is a big however- it would be far better to both cut $200 billion (or more) from our budget....but not increase taxes and "squeeze" an extra $100 billion out of Americans. Because people aren't going to like it. It's not going to go over well. "Yeah, we're cutting spending...but we need more money to do it!"

....Right.

My favorite quote of this whole article? "It would stabilize borrowing within the next three years, balance the budget by 2040 and bring the debt more in line with historical norms."

We're going to stabilize borrowing. Not stop borrowing. Stabilize it. Yeah. We're going to stabilize the Titanic after that.

Oh, and don't forget this one: "Spending cuts outweigh revenue increases by about three to one, a ratio Sen. Richard J. Durbin (Ill.), the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate, called lopsided."

Wait. Isn't that...the point? That...you don't have enough revenue. So you're cutting spending. Yeah. Wouldn't that be sort of the purpose of this venture?

Well, there you go. Your daily spurt of cynicism.

In other news, today is Veteran's Day! In the spirit of the holiday, I thought I'd copy my Facebook status from this morning relating to it:

A thank-you to all our veterans. Your sacrifice is appreciated, even if our politicians are dingbats and have put you (and are putting the current generation) in unnecessary danger.

Yay

2010-11-04T09:00:00.002-05:00

So...the Republicans took the House. Big surprise, whoopiee. In Texas, my home state, Rick Perry got elected to a third term. Awesome. I'm so proud of the voting Texans in this state. They averted....uh....Rick Perry's virtual carbon copy, Bill White, from getting into office. Go ya'll. Thank you so much for saddling us all with that man for another four years.

Mac Thornberry, our representative for the House also got reelected. For the ninth time. This'll be his tenth term in the House. Once again, I'm so proud we voted in a small-government candidate from the Republican party! You go Mac, keep voting for legislation like the PATRIOT act, TARP, and all that stuff, and reduce the size of that government!

Yeah. I'm....very excited about the outcome of this election, in case you can't tell.

The Terrible Cartridge Bomb of Death

2010-10-29T17:25:00.003-05:00

In today's news, the UK police discovered what appeared, on first glance, to be a bomb. Only, it probably wasn't. Or it was. Whatever. You know, it amazes me how al Qaeda always manages to pick plots that can be so easily encapsulated in little two-word catch phrases. "Underwear Bomber". "Times Square Bomber". "The Cartridge Bomb". So easy for dumb Americans to remember and chant.

On top of that, there's the idiocy of current al Qaeda operatives. We had Abdulmutallab, whose bomb wouldn't have taken out more than this own seat. We have the Times Square Bomber (whose name escapes me now that I think of it) whose bomb wouldn't have done...well, much of anything, actually, seeing as it wasn't really a bomb to begin with. Now we have The Infamous Terrible Cartridge Bomb of Death that...

Was so obvious officials could spy it as suspicious from the outside of the packaging because it had white powder and wires. On the outside. The only thing that was missing was the ominous ticking of a Time Bomb. (BTW- don't click that link unless you want to spend many hours of your life on a website that is epic in its ability to suck you in...and because it's just sheer awesome, but anyway.)

It's hard to be shiveringly fearful of an organization that consistently manages to (once again) prove just how idiotically inept and impotent it really is. Dear al Qaeda people- please make all this government control in my life worth it and prove that you really can pose a threat to us. Please.

Elections...

2010-10-25T12:35:00.003-05:00

are almost upon us. The impending big day has been greeted with much speculation about how bad the Democrats will end up- not "will they", notice, no. They're going to do bad. It's just a question of how bad.

You know, it's rather frustrating. We had an election two years ago. Things aren't going to magically change/get better/even get worse in 2 years. We could, oh I don't know, stick with one side for awhile just to see how it'll end up before we automatically switch...and end up getting the same thing as we had before.

Rather closer to home for me, Texas is having the time of it's life. Rick Perry is probably going to win (again), have another term in office (again). Yay! I'm so 'cited. His most prominent opponent, Bill White, wouldn't be any better. But, of course, those are the only two people focus on. And whine about. The mantra is "Oh we don't have choices, so we'll just vote party."

Because, after all, voting with da partay has fixed our problems so effectively in the past. That's why America's in a drawn-out recession. Yeah.

The problem is, my dear fellow Texans, that you do have choices. So they're not great choices. Kathie Glass may have gotten the Libertarian nomination for governor, but that doesn't make her an ideal libertarian. (I'll leave you to go do the research on that one...) And the only other one is some Green Party candidate named...Deb Shafto, I think.

Not amazingly wonderful choices. But anything's better than the Perry/White choice at this moment...

Didn't we already do this?

2010-10-21T14:00:00.001-05:00

Right. So now we're about to sell $60 billion in weapons to our very near and dear ~~radical Muslim~~ friendly friends in Saudi Arabia! Because it's so smart to do that. It's worked so well in the past.

I mean...Iraq never turned on us after we sold her weapons. Nor did Russia. Or Syria. Or Iran. Or Pakistan.

Not at all. Why, selling our weapons to other people just makes them love us so much! They think- "Wow! America really loves us! Let's not attack her now!"

If only...

DADT

2010-10-21T11:49:00.003-05:00

The don't-ask-don't-tell policy is back in the news. Again.

Frankly, I find the significance of this policy questionable. I mean, what do you want? Should we make everybody in the army carry a big sign clearly proclaiming their sexual orientation, that way everybody's clear and we all know whether you like guys, girls, or both?

Frankly, I just flat don't see how this should matter to much of anybody. As far as I understand, in the military, your sexual orientation just doesn't really matter that much, seeing as you don't go there to find a date: you go there to go kill people, or whatever else it is the military does. Where, exactly, does having the ability to tell which sex you like better matter in any way in that setting?

Marijuana & Social Security

2010-10-16T08:31:00.003-05:00

Fun subjects, right? You bet.

First up, Eric Holder issued an announcement that the DoJ wouldn't back down on marijuana law enforcement even if California (a sovereign state, did I mention that?) legalized said drug. Holder seems to be conveniently forgetting, in his push to keep it illegal so the federal government can continue enforcing drug laws, that the federal government has pretty much failed at either containing drug use, drug proliferation, and violence related to drugs.

Of course, one of the most hilarious (or sickening) parts of this thing is that the Republican party is against it. A state can't pass a law like that! They'll imperil the ability of the federal government to enforce laws! While...uh....Arizona is doing the same thing. Yeah! .....Right.

In other news, the Social Security Administration is reporting that payments to beneficiaries are once again staying at the same place, instead of going up as they apparently should. I wonder why that could be? It couldn't be at all because costs are increasing in other parts of the government, and so there's less money to devote for Social Security? It couldn't be because the Social Security system is bankrupt?

Oh no, of course not. It's just the recession. Yeah.

So there's your depressing fix for today. ^.^

Free Market?

2010-10-10T13:14:00.003-05:00

Only so long as companies stay here. If they want to leave, forget it. We hate them and we hate the elected representatives who gave them the freedom to leave.

It will never cease to amaze me, the hypocrisy here. Especially on the Republican side. Republicans, sit down and think about this for a minute. The free market is good. The free market is our friend. The free market regulates corporate behavior and makes sure that companies go where profits are. In the end, everybody's well off. But now the free market is taking businesses to China. Bad. The government should stop them because only the government can fix the free market, even though the government can't fix the free market so they should get out of it.

....Riiiight....

Recomputing.

Now, on the Democrat side. Obviously, giving companies an incentive to be here (tax breaks) means they're going to outsource and lay off workers here. But if we just...raise their taxes...and make it astronomically expensive to operate here in the States, they'll stay here.

Mm-hmm.

What planets are you all living on, again?

In any case, its become fashionable now to bash one's opponent in a midterm election race with the fact that they'll "send jobs overseas." Seeing as that's the one thing they all can agree on- that the other side is going to make jobs disappear overseas- I say we just get rid of all of them.

Life Goes On

2010-10-08T16:10:00.003-05:00

Even in the middle of evil terrorists being tried. Well, well. Four trials prosecuting terror suspects were held in the past two weeks.

I'm sure some would like to say that there was mass rioting and much badness happened as the evil terrorists spouted anti-American rhetoric and thousands fell under their sway via their evil Sith mind tricks...

Unfortunately, nothing like that happened. People nearby, in the city, outside the city...were just fine. They didn't even hardly notice. It was a normal day. Birds singing, people talking, cars honking...

And the best part? It didn't cost New York City billions of dollars in security or trial fees. It didn't cost any more than any regular trial on any other regular case. 'Magine that. (H/T to SunTzu for this story. :) )

In other news, a Michigan judge ruled the health care law Constitutional yesterday. Oh, the joys. The judge's argument? He used the Commerce Clause, which is an innocuous line in the first article of the Constitution. It reads: "[The Congress shall have power] To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes." (Emphasis added)

How, exactly, that gives the federal government the leeway to mandate people must buy health insurance I don't know. You might be able to say that would justify the government making health insurance companies cooperate and like, let their policies carry on over state lines, because that's just smart and all. But not to demand that private citizens must carry some form of insurance.

Also, for those of you have been following the story of the soldiers who repeatedly staged combat deaths of multiple Afghanis for some strange, demented reason, court-martials have now been "recommended" for them. Really, now? You mean we might now want to court-martial them?

Meh. The military's inner workings will probably remain a mystery to me far into the future, and I really don't mind that. I don't want to know.

So, from terrorists...and back to terrorists. Peace.

Islam: Taking over Campbell Soup

2010-10-07T12:50:00.005-05:00

Yes sir, that's right. Campbell Soup apparently decided it needed to cave to the pressures of those evil Muslims (who want to kill infidels) and make sure its canned soups were halal-friendly. Dietary halal is a set of rules about what Muslims can and cannot eat, obviously non-infidel friendly, as it restricts the eating of the beloved bacon and spiral-cut ham and also the gorging typically exercised in all-you-can-eat restaurants that are, of course, near and dear to the American heart.

This is, as you can see, yet more proof that all the Muslims want to kill all of us infidels. What will it be next? Will all-you-can-eat restaurants begin closing down? Will pork become scarcer? Will Jews be forced to eat halal foods instead of kosher? What will it be then?

How much will be too much? Will our government continue to let these private companies do what they can to make money, and accede to the demands of the evil Muslim conspiracy that is infiltrating our society bit by tiny bit? Will they let the Muslims use soup as a wedge to drive yet more space between themselves and the rest of American society?

Stop the Soup. Boycott Campbell Soup.

Using God

2010-10-05T10:54:00.002-05:00

So, I'd like to get a little...religious...here for a minute. Yes, I know. Don't run away screaming, pweese?

Christine O'Donnel, the new Republican/Tea Party darling, has definitely stated that God wanted her to run for public office. And do something.

Yeah. Right.

And He came to you in a cloud and told you this, did He not?

You see, I really don't buy into that kind of thing. Something tells me that God, at the heart of it all, just...really doesn't care who is in office. I'm reading an excellent book right now, "The Myth of a Christian Nation" by Greg Boyd. Wonderful book. In it, he talks about the kingdom of the world (Satan's world, which he owns and rules) vs. the kingdom of God- the heavenly kingdom God runs and owns. His whole point is that God doesn't concern Himself so much with the kingdom of the world because it's all fundamentally Satan's. He's more concerned with Christians showing Calvary love to those around them and showing the kingdom of God in everyday life.

Add to that the fact that Jesus Christ never once encouraged political action. In fact, he discouraged it, and refused to talk about political issues of the day. When people tried to get him to take a stance on taxation by the Roman empire, he pointed out that since, according to the people around him, Caesar was an idolatrous phoney, why not give the idolatrous phoney what he wants- that is, his money back?

As a Christian myself, I get antsy when people claim God's endorsement when they're running for office, mostly because I see it as superficial. As this gentleman pointed out, it's a copout on some level, because it makes it so that the candidate doesn't have to take a stance. "Where do you draw your inspiration?" "The Bible." "Who's your hero?" "Jesus."

Really? Are we in Sunday School now?

More than that, I regard it as using God. Politicians use God to reach a goal. They know that by appealing to the broadest base of public support- religious Americans- they can get power. Because, after all, what will get you more votes- answering the question of why you want to be in office with the honest "Power and money" or "Because I want to turn America back to her roots, back to God"?

Which is sad, of course. Americans eat it up, not realizing the fundamental hypocrisy that goes on there. American politicians who call for God's endorsement also often seem to support the most contrary things- they support big business, which keeps millions of people the world over in bondage to a system of virtual enslavement. They support wars that are unjust and that foster rhetoric like "kill them all and let God sort them out."

Somehow- and this might just be me- I don't think that Jesus Christ, the same man who said that the greatest should become least and that all should love their enemies, would quite approve.

So perhaps it isn't so much that politicians use God...they just create their own that approves of everything they do. As Anne Lamott said- "You can safely assume that you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do."

Hmm

2010-09-28T08:58:00.002-05:00

Sorry it's been awhile since I last blogged...my life has been pretty boring lately, and hence I've been too bored to actually write a blog post. Although, in my defence, I was out of town from Thursday to Sunday night (actually, Monday morning if you want to be technical), and so I couldn't blog.

So...in the news this week, local police officers are now going to have even more license to make eternal nuisances of themselves, as their job descriptions are now going to be expanded to "watching for precursor activity to terrorist activities" or something like that. (And an hilarious image of Barney Fife trying to apprehend a terrorist just popped into my head...)

From this article: "But this initiative represents the administration’s first thoughtful steps in fulfilling President Obama’s commitment to defining a lasting rule of law for this brave new world. We must make it work."

We "must"? Oh yeah, that's right. So we can be safe, yada yad. Right. I forgot that part. Of course, there are other options. Like, you know, we could, like stop bombing and invading sovereign nations without cause and stuff. You know. Be smart and courteous and all that good stuff. Stop hitting other children on the playground.

But oh wait. That would be the smart thing to do. We're Americans. We aren't smart, so we're not needed to be. That's right.

In that same vein, our government is now trying to control the internet- oh wait. Not control it...just make sure...you don't say something stupid, using the vehicle of fear. There goes half of my Facebook activities. Sarcasm? Out the window. Joking references to terrorism and your plot to blow up the 2011 Comic-Con? Don't even think about it.

You see, apparently the government has decided that Americans don't use phones enough anymore. We've all migrated to the internet, so now, naturally, the government is going to have to start imposing rules upon the internet. Well, to be fair, not quite rules. They just want to team up with social networking sites to get information about their widdle citizen's activities. Because we all need to be babysat, of course.

"Essentially, officials want Congress to require all services that enable communications — including encrypted e-mail transmitters like BlackBerry, social networking Web sites like Facebook and software that allows direct “peer to peer” messaging like Skype — to be technically capable of complying if served with a wiretap order. The mandate would include being able to intercept and unscramble encrypted messages."

Mm-hmm. Because it's always good to tie the hands of independent companies that operate on the free world of the internet so that they have to cooperate. At least Google went into willingly.

Once again along that tack, the Obama administration (which is, of course, for terrorists and against anything akin to intel gathering or the wars) wants to have more control over banks, not for the purpose of money, but so that banks have to report money transfers out-of-country.

But always remember- Obama is soft on terror.

In a rather ironic twist, atheists and agnostics score the highest on a poll on American religious knowledge.

Right.

That's sad, Christians.

The midterm elections are approaching, which is rather...well, not exactly exciting, per se, since I am fixing to make a prediction about who's going to take the Congress. Before I do that, I'd just like to say that this prediction kind of stinks.

Because I'd really rather the Democrats lose their majority, but the Republicans not gain one.

I dream of a better world where the true interests of the people are represented by a four, five, six party Congress...

I dream big, in case you couldn't tell.

There's lots more I could talk about. But I don't really want to. I'm already depressed enough.

Wall of Separation

2010-09-20T12:55:00.001-05:00

‎"The wall separating church and state has functioned as a one-way wall, primarily restraining government and doing little to restrain religious individuals or religious organizations that are accorded the same rights to free speech, publication, association, a redress of grievance that other secular entities and individuals are accorded. So that has allowed religion to robustly serve as a moral code to the conscience of the country. No restriction on the ability of religion to speak to political issues, nor should there be. The limitations that are built in come the other way. The government cannot impose religious views on any person. Cannot choose up between religions, cannot choose religion over a nonreligion, can't endorse religious messages or oppose religious messages. It definitely shouldn't be funding overtly religious activity."

Rabbi David Saperstein, quoted in "The Holy Vote" by Ray Suarez

So I have to say: I agree with this guy. He states what I've tried to say numerous times quite simply and eloquently.

Short-Term Memory Loss

2010-09-19T14:37:00.008-05:00

You remember Dory, the little blue fish in the Disney-Pixar film Finding Nemo? According to her, she suffers from short-term memory loss- an unfortunate predicament that leads to some very interesting plot twists along the journey she takes with the clownfish, Marlin.

Anyway. Hilarious fish aside, I am of the opinion that Americans suffer from a bad case of short-term memory loss. Why?

Maybe it's because American Conservatives seem dead-set on forgetting that their golden boy, George Bush, began the bailouts back in '08. Maybe because liberals consistently forget that they hated the wars not so long ago. Maybe because conservatives also always forget that not too long ago they were marked as possible terrorists...and then cheer on the deliberate expatriation of terrorists and the stripping of Constitutional rights from them.

Maybe all of that...

There's a video my mom found during the '08 election cycle. It featured parodies of George Bush and Clinton, with a "baby" John McCain and Obama, and Bush and Clinton were giving their two prodigies political advice. At one part in the song, they are singing about how their political plans are failing, people are getting upset...

"But if efforts at deflection aren't succeeding/And you feel that your career is on the brink/you've one trump card to play before conceding/As the details of your scandal become more than they can handle/They will surely seek relief and with memories oh so brief/With but one cycle of the news they'll find trivia to amuse/*gasp* Brittney's back in rehab!"

Yes folks, that is exactly what America is like. And this is what we're doing to ourselves.

Welcome to the world of one-week attention spans.

Time-Out

2010-09-16T14:30:00.000-05:00

So I figured it might be good to inject a little bit of humor into the blog for a moment...not only that, but I think this is a viable argument for amnesty. ^.^

(Notice the slight sarcasm. However, I will say that I've had some excellent burritos from ethnic Mexican people...ah, it's like heaven...)

Sharia

2010-09-16T11:04:00.006-05:00

Thanks goes to Megan of "The Mom and Wife Life" for her hard work and research on this article, originally posted on her blog. This subject is one that should be spoken about more often, but without the hysteria often provoked by conservative talking heads. So without further ado:

Sharia. It seems to be the new "buzz word" that people, particularly conservatives, keep getting all up in arms about. I am not going to say other people do or do not do their own "homework" because honestly I don't know, but as a Magic 8 Ball would say, "signs point to no." Why do I think that? Because it seems while this word is thrown around so much, largely as a scare tactic and a way to oppose anything having to do with the Muslim religion and culture in America, nobody I've come across personally can actually correctly define Sharia law. And so, to better grasp what it is in the first place, and why people are so opposed to it, I went in search of answers. And after hours upon hours of research, I still barely understand it. But here's my feeble attempt anyway, for whatever its worth.

The argument I hear by conservatives is that Sharia law is leaking into both American culture and her courts, and that the powers that be are allowing it, and that pretty soon Sharia "law" is going to basically take over America as we know it.

First of all, from my understanding, there is moral/personal Sharia - the moral, ethical, religious, and highly personal governance of one's own life by Sharia law. And there is legal Sharia - Sharia as it applies to legal matters. Yes, they are intertwined somewhat, but that doesn't mean they share the same function. The way I compare it to make it relevant to myself is the differentiation between Christianity being the framework by which I govern my own personal life, and the Constitution being the framework by which I abide by my country/culture's laws.

Secondly, Sharia itself is largely hard to define - both personal and court Sharia - because so much of it isn't "nailed down." Some comes straight from the Koran or other esteemed Muslim writings. But a lot of it also comes from.... Honestly, nobody knows where. It is based in large part on tradition and things accepted as "Muslim," however much of it appears nowhere in print. At least Christian Americans can say their convictions come from written sources - morally/personally from the Bible, and legally from the Constitution.

Read -here- for excellent information about this, including passages taken from the Koran and other Muslim writings. (Just be forewarned, some pop ups may come up when you click on the page...annoying and detracting, but I promise, the article is well worth the read.)

Now maybe its just bacause I am a Christian American, but I find the whole idea of a moral and legal code that isn't in written form unsettling. A code of any kind that isn't defined is one that is open to biases, corruption, usage for personal power and/or notariety, personal gain, manipulation, inaccurate translation and application...and the list is endless. Therein lies the fundamental flaw, in my eyes, within Sharia, and why I don't believe it will EVER be tolerated by or used for legal purposes within our courts. Even in matters pertaining to one's personal ethics. And here's why.

NO citizen in America, regardless of their religion, gets a free pass on murder (honor killings) or spousal or child abuse. Pre-meditated murder = life imprisonment or death sentence - end of story. People make the argument that honor killings have been permitted in America. This is absolutely untrue to the best of my knowledge. There is one case I know of where a man has been convicted and is on the run, but once caught, that man WILL be brought to justice for his heinous crime. Further, as for "eye for an eye retribution," that is also shot down hard by the Eighth Amendment's guideline for fair trials and justice to be carried out. "...nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted." A court would never allow someone to enact retribution on another that is "cruel and unusual," such as, for example, crashing their car into someone because they killed their relative in a drunk driving accident.

In other countries, yes, some heinous acts of Sharia have been permitted or "swept under the rug" based on what I can only define as "religious exemptions." However, in America, that would be unconstitutional. It would be showing religious favortism, which is contrary to the Constitution's First Amendment:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."

This protects our rights to our religion, but it also protects one religion from being esteemed over another. To make an exception/exemption on a moral or legal matter which violates Constitutional law, would be in and of itself unconstitutional. So to permit or downplay honor killings, spousal abuse, child abuse, eye for an eye retribution, or anything else that is prosecuted by the law of the Constitution based on one's religion would be unconstitutional.

Still not convinced? Think of it this way... This is America. In America, regardless of whether or not you're a citizen of this country, if you're on our soil and commit a crime, you answer to our laws and legal process - NOT that of the country from which you immigrated or are visiting. And most, if not all, countries around the world have that same structure. Most other countries' legal processes/customs are a lot more harsh and their systems are a lot more corrupt and biased, but ultimately, you are to answer to the legal process of the country in which you commit the crime. It may not seem right, and it may not seem fair, but that's how it works. To ask that your own legal process be used in another country's courts is ludicrous to begin with! You would be laughed at for even asking!

But for the sake of argument, let's look at what would happen if we even tried to allow Sharia in our courts.

To cross-reference, here's the Sixth Amendment:

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.

And here's the Sharia. These references are taken from -Wikipedia- but have been collaborated by a number of other sources. I am going to break it down with my own comments/dissections.

-- Sharia courts do not generally employ lawyers; plaintiffs and defendants represent themselves.

So a Muslim wants to use Sharia. Great, then they waive their right to legal representation. In my opinion, that is a really stupid legal move, but okay, fine, that's their right. It probably won't work very well in their favor - it will make for a VERY weak case, since an "Average Joe" doesn't know the court system the way an attorney does - but whatever, that's their choice. If they want to waive the right and have little to no strong case and probably therefore lose their legal battle, then fine. No skin of my nose.

-- Trials are conducted solely by the judge, and there is no jury system.

So much for a "public trial, by an impartial jury." The Sixth Amendment pretty much shoots that down to begin with, which is enough right there. But for the sake of argument, even if it was decided that a jury not be present, that is putting your fate in the hands of one person - one person who may have missed things, has biases, etc. In my opinion, not wise.

-- There is no pre-trial discovery process...

This would not lead to a fair trial AT ALL! Things would be VERY skewed! Without a pre-trial discovery process, crucial evidence isn't obtained, so never entered into court. This could cause a guilty person to go free, or an innocent person to be charged. It is crucial to the process in order to maintain an "unbiased" trial! I just cannot foresee our courts, under constitutional law, EVER conducting a legal proceeding without it.

-- ...no cross-examination of witnesses...

Again, this is integral to the Sixth Amendment's guidelines "to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor..." And without cross-examination, you are only hearing one side of the story. This could either exhonerate a guilty party, or convict an innocent one.

-- ...and no penalty of perjury.

No penalty for lying?!? Well, if lying is permitted without penalty, then you know there will be a LOT more liars in court than there already are! Wow, can we say corruption of justice?? If this were ever to happen, then yes, that would be a scary thing, because it would undermine the entire legal fundamentals of American justice!

-- Instead of precedents and codes, Sharia relies on medieval jurist's manuals and collections of non-binding legal opinions, or fatwas, issued by religious scholars (ulama, particularly a mufti); these can be made binding for a particular case at the discretion of a judge.

Non-binding opinions? Issued by religious scholars? Made binding at the discretion of a judge? Did these stick out like sore thumbs to anyone beside me?!? This would mean an ever-changing, ever-open-for-discussion, nothing-set-in-stone legal system. The Constitution IS set in stone! It cannot be changed on the whim of one judge or religious leader, and is hard to misinterpret, especially since our legal guidelines are pretty airtight. I take comfort in knowing what (hypothetically) would be facing me BEFORE I stand trial, and not be at the mercy of the judge, based on what the religious "scholars" are telling him/her! And fortunately, with the Constitution, I can go into any court knowing what to expect, and knowing its not subject to change based on the "gospel" of any religious leader or the discretion of any judge. Shot down by the Sixth Amendment once again!

-- Sharia courts' rules of evidence also maintain a distinctive custom of prioritizing oral testimony and excluding written and documentary evidence (including forensic and circumstantial evidence), on the basis that it could be tampered with or forged, or possibly due to low levels of literacy in premodern Islamic society. A confession, an oath, or the oral testimony of a witness are the only evidence admissible in a Sharia court, written evidence is only admissible with the attestations of multiple, witnesses deemed reliable by the judge, i.e. notaries. Testimony must be from at least two witnesses, and preferably free Muslim male witnesses, who are not related parties and who are of sound mind and reliable character; testimony to establish the crime of adultery, or zina must be from four direct witnesses. Forensic evidence (i.e. fingerprints, ballistics, blood samples, DNA etc.) and other circumstantial evidence is likewise rejected in hudud cases in favor of eyewitnesses, a practice which can cause severe difficulties for women plaintiffs in rape cases.

Sorry for such a big chunk on this one, but it all makes pretty much the same points over and over, but better than I can, so there ya go. Basically, with Sharia law, any evidence other than verbal testimony is rejected. No forensics, no circumstantial, no written, nada. However, the majority of the most heinous crimes, such as murder, rape, etc., HAVE NO WITNESSES!! So we're supposed to reject forensics, physical evidence, cirumstantial evidence, and written evidence in favor of the testimony of a suspected murderer or rapist?!? Are you kidding me?!? Basically, all the evidence says the perp is guilty, but he gets off scott free because, well, he says he's innocent?!! Oh, and I'm sure his cronies testifying on his behalf are all credible witnesses who are telling the truth and were there to witness him raping some poor woman. Yeah...of course they were. And obviously, their testimony is better and stronger than the victim's because, well, they're men, and men are always so much more honest and credible. Of course they are. (That was sarcasm, if you couldn't tell.) Sarcasm aside, this would NEVER fly in an American court of law! NEVER! We find the evidence, process it, and USE it, and let the EVIDENCE have a voice. To silence the evidence is to silence the most credible witness.

-- Testimony from women is given only half the weight of men, and testimony from non-Muslims may be excluded altogether (if against a Muslim). Non-Muslim minorities, however, could and did use Sharia courts, even amongst themselves.

Yeah, that'll make for an impartial trial. Mm hmm. And besides, I'm sure all the women's rights activists will just roll over and let that happen! (Sarcasm again.)

-- Sharia courts, with their tradition of pro se (self) representation, simple rules of evidence, and absence of appeals courts, prosecutors, cross examination, complex documentary evidence and discovery proceedings, juries and voir dire (oath of honesty and honor) proceedings, circumstantial evidence, forensics, case law, standardized codes, exclusionary rules, and most of the other infrastructure of civil and common law court systems, have as a result, comparatively informal and streamlined proceedings.

This is Wiki's summary, so I'll offer mine. (Oh goody. As if you haven't read enough of my mumble jumble already, right?!) Basically, by my interpretation, their system is one entirely of "he said, she said." Nothing is concrete, and its highly biased and wishy-washy. It is open to interpretation, changes, corruption, selfish usages, and therefore, I'm sure, results in many (if not mostly) false convictions and exhonerations.

By contrast, the US Constitution is concrete. It doesn't change, it doesn't bend, and if implemented properly, cannot be penetrated by corruption or used for ones' own personal motives. Each person walking into a court knows what to expect. They know its going to allow them a speedy, fair, public trial by an unbiased jury. They know there will be witnesses who will be cross-examined, and forensic, physical, circumstantial, and written evidence will be allowed to speak for itself and for the victim.

Ultimately, Sharia itself - moral and legal - is different from person to person. Each person defines it differently, and since there is no concrete governing document (for either facet, but especially legal) by which to base, well, anything really, then I cannot believe it will ever come to pass here in America. How can something undefined overrule and overthrow the defined?

Bottom line, as long as the Sixth Amendment stands, then Sharia never will. And based on that, I don't live in fear of Sharia. Do I like it? No. Would I ever use it to live by in my own life? Never. Would I (given the choice) want to use it in a court of law? No way. But because of my Constitution, and the court system in my America, I don't live in fear of it. Sure, its an interesting time and world in which we live. But this is America. Its Constitution is POWERFUL, and I have faith in it and in my country, that it will never be torn down in favor of a system that is so fundamentally flawed, ineffective, and biased. That's not what America is about - not when the Constitution was written, not now, and (hopefully) not ever. I think we'd have to get both really stupid and really lazy before we'd ever practice Sharia in our courts, or permit the aspects of it which violate constitutional and human rights in our culture. And I like to believe we're smarter than that. ;)

9/11/10

2010-09-11T08:39:00.002-05:00

As I ready myself for the deluge of "God bless America's" that will inevitably find their way onto my Blogger Dashboard and Facebook wall, I thought I'd just say a couple words on the subject of 9/11.

1) Originally, I had resolved to keep politics out of this. I decided that was an impossible venture this year, especially since I've already been challenged on 9/11 this morning. Fun times. I possess the amazing skill of finding (and semi-starting) a debate before eight am...this is one of my talents.

2) 9/11 actually means my little brother's birthday more than the 9/11 most people think of...Gilbert was born on 9/11/02. The poor kid is going to have that hanging over his head for the rest of the life. He's a character though. Happy seventh birthday Gilbert.

3) 9/11 was sad. What's sadder is what came out of it- two wars that have eaten up billions of dollars and millions of lives that many Americans don't seem to care about because they weren't our casualties. The events of 9/11 have been hijacked by the leaders of the New All American Cult of War. They've twisted them, creating a reality wherein all of a religion was used as a scapegoat for the actions of a few radicals.

To end this on a happy note, I wish everyone a good day!

Economic Woes

2010-09-07T08:50:00.005-05:00

The economy is still failing- at least, if you measure the success or failure of that sector by unemployment rates, which still stand at over 9 percent. This rate is increasing amongst high-tech skilled workers, who are getting laid off due to lack of work- and then their jobs are being given to younger people fresh out of college. Exacerbating the problem is the fact that many of these jobs are now being sent overseas, where there is a burgeoning job market for these kinds of talents, and where workers will do the same work for less than Americans.

As we know, high-tech positions and workers aren't the only ones being hurt by this recession, but I think there is some credibility to the argument that they are sometimes hurt more than less skilled laborers. If an electrician gets laid off, he can get a job somewhere else relatively easy, even if it isn't electrical. But if there is a drop from somewhere like Hewlett-Packard as a computer engineer to fast food...well, that just isn't good.

But you know, don't worry. Our fearless leader has a plan. He's calling for $50 billion to be put into a new infrastructure fund and for there to be a push to upgrade the roads and railroads of America, thereby creating jobs.

It's about time, if you ask me. Some of the stretches of interstate highway I've seen are absolutely disgraceful. (Still better than some stretches of highway between Lusaka and Livingstone in Zambia, Africa, but still pretty bad. ^.^)

This is one measure I think I could potentially agree with President Obama on. Our road and railroad system is due for an overhaul, and this seems like a good idea. It may or may not be wise during a time of economic upheaval as we're in, but at least it's Constitutional. I also think some of the logic behind the plan, that of hoping to prevent earmarks headed for transportation projects, is good. It might make our lawmakers more focused on important things. Or wait...maybe we don't particularly want that.

In any case (and all jokes aside), at least they're still trying. But there's one area that some are saying shouldn't be maintained, and they should stop trying.

That's the housing market. From this article:
"As the economy again sputters and potential buyers flee — July housing sales sank 26 percent from July 2009 — there is a growing sense of exhaustion with government intervention. Some economists and analysts are now urging a dose of shock therapy that would greatly shift the benefits to future homeowners: Let the housing market crash. When prices are lower, these experts argue, buyers will pour in, creating the elusive stability the government has spent billions upon billions trying to achieve."

In the Texas town where I live, house sales are crazy. You drive down a residential street, and you're almost guaranteed to see a house for sale. And these houses aren't selling. They're just sitting there on the market, waiting for someone with enough money to come along.

And as the article above pointed out, despite the billions of dollars the government has pumped into the industry, it hasn't helped. The housing market is still failing. Further, the government insured thousands of loans and credit for mortgages on new houses, and now those people are defaulting, costing us even more money.

Personally, I agree that they should just leave it alone. Experience shows us that oftentimes, when an industry like this goes down, it springs back up soon after. People have to have houses to live in, one way or the other, and they'll continue to buy them, just as they will food or clothes.

God, the gospel, and Glenn Beck

2010-08-31T08:18:00.002-05:00

This was an excellent article.

By Russell Moore

A Mormon television star stands in front of the Lincoln Memorial and calls American Christians to revival. He assembles some evangelical celebrities to give testimonies, and then preaches a God and country revivalism that leaves the evangelicals cheering that they've heard the gospel, right there in the nation's capital.

The news media pronounces him the new leader of America's Christian conservative movement, and a flock of America's Christian conservatives have no problem with that.

If you'd told me that ten years ago, I would have assumed it was from the pages of an evangelical apocalyptic novel about the end-times. But it's not. It's from this week's headlines. And it is a scandal.

Fox News commentator Glenn Beck, of course, is that Mormon at the center of all this. Beck isn't the problem. He's an entrepreneur, he's brilliant, and, hats off to him, he knows his market (see video news report). Latter-day Saints have every right to speak, with full religious liberty, in the public square. I'm quite willing to work with Mormons on various issues, as citizens working for the common good. What concerns me here is not what this says about Beck or the "Tea Party" or any other entertainment or political figure. What concerns me is about what this says about the Christian churches in the United States.

It's taken us a long time to get here, in this plummet from Francis Schaeffer to Glenn Beck. In order to be this gullible, American Christians have had to endure years of vacuous talk about undefined "revival" and "turning America back to God" that was less about anything uniquely Christian than about, at best, a generically theistic civil religion and, at worst, some partisan political movement.

Read the rest.

Current Events

2010-08-26T14:50:00.003-05:00

So, a pastor in Florida is going to sponsor a Qur'an burning at his church on September 11.

I can't stand people who want to burn books. I don't care what book it is. You have to be some kind of crazy person to intentionally burn a book. For real.

Further, where exactly is this man's church going to get the Qur'ans they are going to burn? Buy them? Um...wait. We're going to spend money...just so that we can summarily burn it. Right. Why not just sponsor a burning of Fed money? Because that would make just about as much sense.

Anyway, in further news. The Americans for Prosperity Foundation is in trouble. Turns out that, under 501(c)3 status, a company/foundation/organization cannot make any explicitly political statements. For instance, they can't bash certain policies of certain people we all know. To Tim Phillips, I'd just like to say- "voter education" doesn't include bashing just the opposite party's platform. That's telling the voters what we wish they'd think. How about we just let Fox News handle that, hmm?

Also, the Presidential family went on vacation (again). Not that I really care. Wish I had time to go golfing. Oh wait, I do, but I'm not the President. Right. I still don't care. What, you're saying it's wrong of him to spend his salary on what he wants? Really? How does that work?

Seeing as we, the American people, do have to pay our President, and said President does have alternate sources of income (his wife still has her own income, I believe), he can spend his money however he wants. If I had as much money as he seems to, I'd be taking trips to Martha's Vineyard, too. Of course, it might be hypocritical for him to counsel us to tighten our belts, then go on a vacation. But then again, Obama doesn't have the monopoly on bad advice. Remember Bush, telling us to "go shopping" in response to 9/11...and we all know where that brought us.

Wall Street is defecting to the Republicans, moving away from their normal ally, the Democrats. Odd, that.

So Democrats are using it as a campaign talking-point, that Republicans are, fundamentally, friends of big business, and not to be trusted as, obviously, big business must be paying off Republicans to try to repeal the stimulus/etc. if Republicans want to do so. Does that have logical validity? Sure. Is it likely? Probably. But Democrats have also been bought off in times past, and still are, so there you go.

So anyway. Americans are still concerned with things that aren't really important, a la Cordoba House, Republicans (and Democrats) are being bought off by Wall Street, and lots of other people, and our political system is still just as messed up as ever.

In other words, just another day in the life.

Cordoba House

2010-08-26T14:32:00.003-05:00

Something I had never considered before- seeing as the Cordoba House (variously known as the "Ground Zero Mosque" or Park51) is being built on Park Place, this could very well interfere with a cultural icon dear to the hearts of many Americans.

Anyone who has ever played the game Monopoly knows that Park Place is one of the most expensive properties, and hence arguably one of the most important. If the Cordoba House is built on Park Place, it might very well be seen as an attempt to take over the beloved game of Monopoly.

Those evil Muslims.

(Disclaimer: if you did not get the sarcasm inherent in this post, you really should go get some sleep, and then come back and reread it.)

The Parent Company Trap

2010-08-24T17:13:00.003-05:00

Jon Stewart critiques the folks over on Fox News over their obsessive (or not so much) tracing of "where Rauf's money is coming from."

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

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Now let me say- I don't think the majority of people over at Fox News are necessarily stupid. Misguided, perhaps, though no more misguided than the folks over at say, CNN or ABC or CBS or the NYTimes or the Washington Post.

Ad Hominem

2010-08-23T19:31:00.003-05:00

I find it semi-hilarious when I'm attacked because of my stance in a debate, in a kind of strange, bittersweet way that isn't really all that funny when you really think about it.

Count as of now:
Three times in the past week my faith has been called into question.
Two times in the past week, my love for America has been called into question.

Two of the first three was because of the Cordoba House (Park51). The other was because of a gay marriage debate concerning Elena Kagan's confirmation and Prop. 8. The past two were because of said Cordoba House.

Once it was from someone I've looked up to as near-family.

It's rather sad, actually, how people you know and love can call into question some of the things that shouldn't be questioned just because you disagree with them.

So, for future reference, to all those who may want to attack me on these two things:

Don't call into question my faith in my God. Please. Let me and God take care of that one. We have a pretty good handle on it.

Please don't attack my "love for America." America is a great nation. She has problems. Calling her out on those problems isn't "attacking America." That's constructive criticism that should be put into effect to make America better.

Leaving Iraq?

2010-08-19T11:09:00.003-05:00

So we've finally done it. We have achieved (at least partial) success in Iraq. "Yay us!" in the words of quite possibly the ditziest TV character ever written (kudos to anybody who can name her).

So, to recap seven years worth of war-

We went in under the auspices of Bush and his cronies, who touted the idea of supposed weapons of mass destruction owned by the Iraqi government. Since that time, according to CNN, 4,000 American soldiers have died in Iraq, as well as 106,000 Iraqi civilians. Mm-hmm.

Oh, but wait. What is this? We're not actually leaving Iraq. Of course not. We're leaving 50,000 American soldiers behind to help clean up. Well, I suppose that's only fair. We made the mess, we should clean it up. Of course, it would be optimum if we had never made the mess in the beginning, but one can't cry over spilled milk.

So not only are 50,000 American soldiers staying behind, but a bunch of our diplomats will also, to accomplish the goal of, and I quote, "By October 2011...assum[ing] responsibility for training the Iraqi police, a task that will largely be carried out by contractors."

Yay.

But I'm being cynical. Who knows. Maybe we will be able to get this beautiful country cleaned up in record time. But judging by the fact that most countries we've been at war with are just now coming back, or have been on a slow, hard road to recovery...I wouldn't count on it.

Say hello to "War, Part II- the Aftermath, as we try to clean up what we screwed up, and fail utterly."

Have a nice day.

Victory in Iraq? Eh, Maybe Not

2010-08-18T17:55:00.003-05:00

Okay, so I admit it- TheOnion.com isn't the best place one can get their news. Okay, so one could hardly call it news. But nonetheless, I found this hilarious. So, for you, this direct from TheOnion.com-

CAMP SPRINGS, MD—Addressing troops at Andrews Air Force Base Tuesday, President Barack Obama claimed victory in Iraq, saying that formal combat operations in the region would end Aug. 31, and that the United States had emerged from the seven-year war triumphant, kind of.

"For nearly a decade, our mission in Iraq has been to root out those who would choose violence over peace, to create a stable Iraqi government, and to transfer power to an incorruptible civilian police force," Obama said. "And, in a manner of speaking, we sort of did some of that, right? More or less?"

"Granted, this is not the definitive, World War II–like victory most of us expected," Obama continued. "But there's a military triumph in there somewhere, I swear. You just have to look at it from the right angles."

The aftermath of what the president is calling "a success, in a sense, although not really in a traditional sense, per se."

According to the president, the relative victory could be credited to a number of achieved benchmarks, depending upon how strict one's definition of "achieved" is. Obama pointed to the democratic election of an Iraqi parliament currently being held together by a thread; the streets of Iraq being slightly less hellish than they were in 2006; and the fact that women are now, for the most part, free to move around the country so long as they don't make a big production out of it.

Obama also noted that during the war more Iraqi insurgents died than American troops, which, he admitted, isn't necessarily the best way to determine a war's victor, but is nonetheless still preferable to the other way around.

"By the end of this month, victory, to a certain extent, will be ours, and we can finally welcome our troops back home," Obama concluded. "That is unless they are one of the 50,000 U.S. soldiers who will have to stay in the region for the foreseeable future."

Following the president's address, a car bomb ripped through an outdoor market in Baghdad killing eight Iraqis and wounding 32.

Pentagon officials also declared the mission, in a sense, kind of sort of accomplished Tuesday, citing the handful of Iraqi hearts and minds that may have been won over by the U.S. occupancy, and the fact that Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki had not yet been assassinated.

"In cases where we were unable to rebuild infrastructure or quell violent civil unrest, it wasn't for lack of trying," Gen. Ray Odierno, commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, said during last Sunday's taping of ABC's This Week. "And trying your best, one could argue, is technically a triumph in and of itself."

"And hey, Saddam Hussein isn't in power anymore," Odierno continued. "So that's something."

With the cessation of combat operations, and the declaration of what sources said couldn't be called a complete and utter failure because to do so would be to admit that the U.S. wasted $750 billion, lost 4,400 troops, and killed 100,000 Iraqi civilians for absolutely nothing, both Democrats and Republicans have attempted to take credit for the quasi-victory.

"President Obama deserves zero praise for this borderline accomplishment," Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) told reporters. "After all, if it weren't for President Bush ordering the initial invasion of Iraq and making it his central foreign policy initiative, we wouldn't be here right now awkwardly celebrating the muddled outcome of whatever the hell it is we've been doing over there for the past seven years."

Pentagon and White House sources said the American people should expect more wince-inducing victory-if-you-can-call-it-that celebrations 10 or 15 years from now when we kind of, but not really, win in Afghanistan

"The Immigration Problem"

2010-08-11T08:52:00.003-05:00

So with all the controversy surrounding the Arizona immigration law, I thought it was probably high time I said something on the subject. And so, without further ado-

I've noticed that some people seem to have this view that immigration is evil, no matter whether its legal or not. Their thinking is that America is for the Americans, whatever that means. Then we have people who think that "illegal" immigration should be stopped. Then there are still others who think that immigration is fine and all, but once people are here, they should "become American"- whatever weird "American" they're thinking of. Then there are people who are of the opinion we should just let anyone and everyone in, whether they are legal or no.

As for me- well, I'm not really sure. One thing I do know is that, if we completely stopped immigration, our economy would most likely either stagnate or implode completely as cheap labor ceased to come in. However, if we let too many in, we might see either not enough jobs to go around and unemployment would skyrocket, or more jobs being created as labor became cheaper as the workforce expanded.

One thing I do think is a given- the immigration system America currently has needs a lot of work. For one thing, its astronomically expensive. And if anybody can figure out how a Spanish-speaking Mexican national who lives on three bucks a day can get into a country that requires thousands of dollars and the completion of multiple forms (all in English) before they can even have a hope of eventually getting into America legally (within oh, ten years), then that person will officially become a genius in my eyes.

So for starters, it would help immensely if we cut down on how much it cost. Yes, yes, I know- "if they want it enough, they'll pay for it." With what money, pray tell? We expect them to go to the end of a rainbow and nicely ask the leprechaun for his pot of gold?

Now, for illegal immigration- yes, it is a problem. But when one has a problem, it oftentimes helps to trace the problem back to the source. Why is it a problem? If people feel the need to come here illegally, why? I think it can be traced back to some of the above factors, at least some of the illegal immigration. It's too expensive. They can't afford it. What do they have to lose if they try to just cross the border? Deportation? Won't be any worse than the hell-hole they're in at the moment. Length of the process. Once again. What do they have to lose if they try to cross the border immediately?

And so, it is easier to come across illegally.

Now, for those illegals who are motivated by the profits to be gained here- drug dealers, etc. Well, let's see. We've been fighting a "war on drugs" since 1971. Since 2009, we've also been sending money to Mexico to try to help them eradicate the drug problem. Let's see...1971, it's now been almost 40 years since we've started this "war on drugs"?

That means that, in 40 years, we've not only failed to eradicate drug abuse and drug dealers, but the problem has only escalated. In 2003, it was estimated that over 50% of high school seniors were abusing drugs. 20% of 8th graders had tried marijuana. In 2007, 8% of people over 12 had "used" illicit drugs. (This site has an excellent map of drug abuse stats, etc.) According to Wikipedia, in 2005, we had arrested more than 2 million people for drug use.

The "drug war" has failed. Its just wasting money. So stop. Remove the stigma from marijuana, and I do believe we'd see use fall. Yes, people would still use drugs. But it's their body. They can mess with it if they want. And if use fell, we'd see drug dealers trying to get in from Mexico cease trying to get in as much.

Next, obviously our "wall" at the border hasn't managed to keep anything out. As Gary Johnson said- "A 10-foot wall [just] requires an 11-foot ladder." Or, in the case of some of the drug dealers, it just requires a truck with some handy hiding places, and not so much luck as you'd think. Some of the border patrol officers seem more inclined to harass a middle-aged man with his white wife and three teenage children (have a friend that happened to) than the people who might, more logically, be drug dealers. That just shows you the power of a quota.

So here's what we need to do- either hire border patrol officers with more sense, or institute a better system. Oh yeah, and make sure that people who are here illegally can leave, and not detain them as they try to leave, spending lots of money keeping them in jail, because that's just silly. Then, we should streamline the immigration process, and make it so that it is less expensive and takes less time to come here legally.

Anyway. Just my thoughts on this subject.

The Cordoba House- Again

2010-08-05T07:17:00.006-05:00

So this issue has once again been brought to my attention. Here is a short, probably not-so-sweet, but to the point summary of my position.

I do think it is a bit insensitive of Cordoba to build this so close, especially when they've seen the reaction. However, there are some facts that cannot be disputed. They bought the property, hence they have the right to do whatever they want with it- property rights. They have a religion, and are free to practice it- freedom of religion. They have a right to worship together- freedom of association.

However, I do think one thing needs to be remembered- Cordoba and Imam Rauf did not kill those 3,000 on 9/11. The guys who killed those 3,000 are dead. It's useless to whine about them now. It's over. Can't cry over spilled milk. Yes, what happened was terrible. I condole with the families who lost loved ones- both Muslim and Christian and athiest, and whatever other belief systems may have been represented, because I'm sure the families of those 19 men miss them just as much.

But we also can't forget what has risen out of this. It's killed hundreds of thousands of civilians all over the world. It's divided Americans even more starkly along lines of left and right. It's made Americans so gun-shy they freak over the slightest evidence of a possible terror attack- while the rest of the world laughs at our naive belief that we are the only country that has ever been attacked by a terrorist. We lambast a whole race of people for the actions of 19 men. 19 men attacked us. There are roughly 1.5 billion Muslims on the globe, and the number is rising. You do the math. 19 is such a tiny percentage, I'm pretty sure you'd have to put it in decimals. Even if you put in the couple hundred estimated insurgents involved in al Qaeda, the Taliban, and like groups (and that membership is growing too...I wonder why?), you've still got a small, small percentage. That's like saying that, out of the couple billion Christians in the globe, all of them should be treated with as much disdain as we all treat Westboro Baptist Church. That doesn't make sense, and nor does ostracizing and behaving with such venom towards an entire sect of people.

To summarize- yes, I feel for the families of the 9/11 victims. I do think Cordoba should look into moving this community center/mosque somewhere else. But in the meantime- Constitutionally, they can do whatever they want with the property. And I think, that if this does begin to happen, and happens, we should let it be. Move past it. We're all adults. Osama bin Laden would love nothing more than for us all to jump on Muslims and demand they shut down their mosques. Do you know how much of a PR field-day that would be for him? His recruiting levels would go up immediately! The evil Americans, denying what they profess to believe in, and repressing the poor, beleaguered Muslims. Yes, we may look at that and think that he's misrepresenting the situation...but we know about the media, and we know that's exactly what bin Laden and his ilk will say.

Let's not give him the satisfaction.

Conquest through Corporation

2010-08-02T09:44:00.003-05:00

So I had a thought last night- for the last ten years, our country has been embroiled in two conflicts to quash out radical Islam. Recently, we've also had problems with Iran (she's radical too, apparently). However, what we need isn't wars.

We just need to push Walmart and McDonalds to settle down there, make themselves at home, and open up shop. There's nothing like Western fast food and convenience to quash those pesky concerns about religious and national identity. It's worked great in other countries, anyway.

A Random Musing on Hypocrisy

2010-08-01T21:36:00.000-05:00

It will never cease to amaze me how people who don't want government in their wallets, their churches, their homes, their gas station, their workplace, their hospital, or their local stores, will nevertheless push for government to get involved in the bedrooms and bodies of Americans everywhere.

"Ground Zero Mosque"

2010-07-21T09:30:00.003-05:00

So the entirety of the American political spectrum is up in arms- has been up in arms, to think of it- over this issue. A group of Muslims, led by one Imam Rauf, is planning to build a mosque three blocks away from Ground Zero.

Oh noes.

Of course, it's entirely unacceptable that America, like, be the beacon of religious freedom she has been for the past two hundred years. I always thought religious freedom was over-rated, anyway.

The opposition to this mosque/community center arises mainly (surprise, surprise) from the Right. In the American exceptionalist mindset the average Republican pundit possesses, it is inconceivable that America should actually allow alternate views and religions to rise up in her land! After all, those Muslims spread their religion! And...they blew up our towers!

Hint about that last one, by the way- the people who blew up our towers...are dead. Just thought I'd let you know.

But, of course, those aren't the only reasons we don't like the idea of having a mosque in America. This mosque is practically right on Ground Zero! Even though it's...three New York City blocks away. But it would hurt the sovereign, just, righteous cause we have! That Muslims are evil! That they killed our people! It would send a message to our enemies that- Hey! Bring me your tired, your worn, your radicals!

This author has an answer to that:

"But I’d have thought that opinion leaders of all ideological stripes could reach consensus by applying a basic rule of thumb: Just ask, “What would Osama bin Laden want?” and then do the opposite.

Bin Laden would love to be able to say that in America you can build a church or synagogue anywhere you want, but not a mosque. That fits perfectly with his recruiting pitch — that America has declared war on Islam. And bin Laden would thrill to the claim that a mosque near ground zero dishonors the victims of 9/11, because the unspoken premise is that the attacks really were, as he claims, a valid expression of Islam."

My take-

It's a mosque and community center. As one of the commenters on the above linked article asked- how would Palin, King, etc. react if it were a church being proposed? Would they care if Muslims objected?

That's a laugh. It would be whimper-and-whine time. "Oh boo-hoo. Help us. Religious persecution!"

But since it's another religious group we're discriminating against...oh well, that's fine.

Furthermore, I don't think this will harm our image in the Muslim world. I think it'll show people that America is mature enough to not compromise on what she claims to believe in- that is, freedom for all, not just the people we like.

Jon Stewart had an excellent segment on this issue:

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In the News...

2010-07-08T08:53:00.005-05:00

Lots of fun stuff is happening, as usual!

Airstrike "Complications" (Yeah, I'd call it a complication)

So for starters, we just killed five Afghan soldiers who were *gasp* actually doing their jobs! In our defense, it was an accident. So McChrystal instated new rules that made it difficult for soldiers to call in airstrikes on unidentified personnel. God forbid we actually like, exercise discretion before we go in, guns blazing like we're in the Lone Ranger or something. Totally unacceptable.

Yet those rules are loosened and we instantly see an uptick in deaths. Um...yeah. I'm thinking McChrystal's approach was better. The article put it this way-
"Yet other [soldiers] say there have been few cases identified where it is clear troops have been harmed because they were prevented from properly defending themselves – and that the drop in civilian deaths from airstrikes and night raids has also meant fewer enraged cousins and brothers who themselves become insurgents and kill Americans to avenge the deaths."

Can we learn this principle of "blowback" people? We let our soldiers kill civilians, our soldiers die. It's that simple. (Of course, we could avoid both parts of that equation by just getting the heck out of their country, but since it seems nobody outside of a village in Afghanistan seems to think that's a good idea, I don't think it's going to happen.)

As one of the commenters said- "Has any army since Alexander the Great successfully subdued Afghanistan? If not, what makes us think we can?"

Excuses, More Excuses

That's the title of a song BTW, written by a Christian evangelist person who is now dead I believe. He was hilarious. But anyway. That is irrelevant to this section.

What this portion is about is the fact that we keep finding more and more reasons to attack Pakistan and take over their government and stay there for decades and kill their people and harass their military and their government and ruin their infrastructure and all that fun stuff we've done in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Yeah.

Sure, it looks all nice on the outside- we've caught terrorists! We've charged them with crimes! We know who they are! We're going to put them in Gitmo and uh...use interrogation techniques that may or may not mentally and/or physically harm them, and find out all their secrets! Then we're going to put them in jail for a long, long time!

Mm-hmm.

"Newly unsealed charges against Adnan G. El Shukrijumah...present the government's clearest case to date that the main al-Qaeda organization remains active in trying to attack U.S. targets, alongside similar efforts by al-Qaeda affiliates."

"The court filing comes as President Obama and senior national security aides have increasingly cited recent domestic terrorism cases as justification for the war in Afghanistan, noting that country's border with uncontrolled tribal areas in Pakistan where al-Qaeda is based and from which, U.S. officials say, threats continue to emanate."

Yeah. So the next logical step is, of course, to attack Pakistan and continue our quixotic search for these evil terrorists.

Tea Party Exceptions

So now Sarah Palin is trying to get the ardent members of that Tea Party populace to not engage in their deficit-reduction fervor quite so much. Why? Well, it just wouldn't do for us to stop spending 3-11 billion every time we bought a ship. Entirely unacceptable.

...

Last time I checked, we were in the midst of a major recession. When people are going through hard times, what do they do? Well, they might just decide to scale back, not just on that new gadget or on their food budget...but usually, they might also fire that extra security guard if they have one. Y'know. To save money and all that good stuff.

See there's this amazing thing about the Declaration of Independence, that thing we celebrated just a few days ago. One of the complaints they lodged against King George was that he had a standing army. Remember that? Yeah.

Kind of amazing, that little fact, right? ^.^

So yes. Just a little foray into three things that caught my eye. There's more, of course- lots of oil-spill drama, even more economic drama. However, I'm not going to cover it here...

As a quick note- I'm going to be leaving Sunday for church camp, and will not return till the following Sunday. I'm going to enlist my mother to post comments for me again. Play nice. ;)

Some 4th of July Reflections

2010-07-04T22:31:00.002-05:00

The 4th of July. Such a time of joy and fireworks and freedom and food. Not necessarily in that order, of course. Now, I love fireworks. And I like food. And I like freedom. Not that we have much of that anymore.

And I suppose that's what really bugs me about 4th of July goings-on...especially at churches. I had to sit through hours...and hours...and hours of singing and preaching about how "great and free" America is.

Ha. That's a laugh.

Let me ask you- what is free about a country where everything I could possibly want to do is illegal?

I'm 15. I can't drive, even if I want to. That's illegal. So that might be smart, I'll grant you. So let's go to the adult world. We can't remodel our house without "permission." That's illegal. We can't give our money to whom and in what quantities we desire. It's illegal. We can't imbibe substances we might like to. It's illegal. Consenting adults can't get married if they desire. That's illegal.

How is that "freedom?" Sorry, if that's "freedom," I don't want a bit of it! (I read an excellent article on this subject today- click here.)

Another thing that annoys me about the 4th of July in my church is the hypocrisy I see evident. This is sort of in the same thought as above. Christians claim to adore freedom. They practically worship at its feet. They love how "free" we are, how God has given us such freedom, how we can worship how we wish...

Then turn around and push for legislation that will infringe upon the rights of others.

Um....

Say what again?

Don't you love the psychology there? "Freedom for me, yayayay!! Oh, but wait! I don't like what you're doing, so I'm going to take your freedom away! But oh, you want to take mine? Oh no no, that won't do!"

So yes. I could probably go on and tell you all sorts of other interesting things about my day in the land of Christapublican patriotic fervor, but I won't bore you.

Let me leave you on a high note...sort of....
"But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."
- The Declaration of Independence

Independence Day

2010-07-04T08:28:00.005-05:00

Happy Independence Day everyone. Let me share a quote someone wrote on Facebook:
"July 4th is not Military Day - it is Independence Day. It's purpose is to commemorate NOT government, NOT Government troops, NOT war, but FREEDOM from the above. July 4th is about SECESSION from oppressive governments." -- Joshua Joscelyn

I liked it. :)) But anyway. Today we get free food (fun times), and tonight I should be able to construct a post of some fashion because I saw a news story that actually interested me. :)) So expect to see a post or two up tonight, and then hopefully I get back into the swing of things!

Until then, I hope everyone has a safe and happy 4th of July, and that you all stay safe and don't get hit by a falling firework. Have a nice day. :P :))

Is the U.S. a Fascist Police-State?

2010-06-27T14:59:00.002-05:00

I found this article interesting- Is the U.S. a Fascist Police-State?

From the article:
First of all, what is a “fascist police-state”?

A police-state uses the law as a mechanism to control any challenges to its power by the citizenry, rather than as a mechanism to insure a civil society among the individuals. The state decides the laws, is the sole arbiter of the law, and can selectively (and capriciously) decide to enforce the law to the benefit or detriment of one individual or group or another.

In a police-state, the citizens are “free” only so long as their actions remain within the confines of the law as dictated by the state. If the individual’s claims of rights or freedoms conflict with the state, or if the individual acts in ways deemed detrimental to the state, then the state will repress the citizenry, by force if necessary. (And in the end, it’s always necessary.)

What’s key to the definition of a police-state is the lack of redress: If there is no justice system which can compel the state to cede to the citizenry, then there is a police-state. If there exists a pro forma justice system, but which in practice is unavailable to the ordinary citizen because of systemic obstacles (for instance, cost or bureaucratic hindrance), or which against all logic or reason consistently finds in favor of the state—even in the most egregious and obviously contradictory cases—then that pro forma judiciary system is nothing but a sham: A tool of the state’s repression against its citizens. Consider the Soviet court system the classic example.

A police-state is not necessarily a dictatorship. On the contrary, it can even take the form of a representative democracy. A police-state is not defined by its leadership structure, but rather, by its self-protection against the individual.

A definition of “fascism” is tougher to come by—it’s almost as tough to come up with as a definition of “pornography”.

The sloppy definition is simply totalitarianism of the Right, “communism” being the sloppy definition of totalitarianism of the Left. But that doesn’t help much.

For our purposes, I think we should use the syndicalist-corporatist definition as practiced by Mussolini: Society as a collection of corporate and union interests, where the state is one more competing interest among many, albeit the most powerful of them all, and thus as a virtue of its size and power, taking precedence over all other factions. In other words, society is a “street-gang” model that I discussed before. The individual has power only as derived from his belonging to a particular faction or group—individuals do not have inherent worth, value or standing.

Thanks to SE over at Skeptical Eye for the link. ;)

Returned

2010-06-21T18:53:00.001-05:00

Well I have returned from my missions trip. Sorry no posts yet; I'm still trying to regain my bearings and get over this stupid jet lag. Grr. So yeah. I'll try to take a look around a news site sometime in the next couple days and post. Maybe about the oil spill that is apparently about to wreck the American way of life for all time. :P

Absence

2010-05-30T14:01:00.001-05:00

So on Tuesday morning I will be leaving to go to Zambia, Africa on a missions trip! There will be no posts during this time, though I have enlisted someone (my mother) to make sure all comments are published. Thank you, and pray I don't fall into the Atlantic Ocean. :P

A Rant on Paul

2010-05-30T08:17:00.002-05:00

Rand Paul is the country's new up-and-coming. The savior of the liberty movement. The amazing, awesome, splendiferous son of Ron Paul, the almighty one.

Alright, maybe not that bad. But you'd think it, with the reaction he's getting in some circles.

I know several people who are known for berating the Republicans and Democrats for lemming behavior. Then they do this: vote for a name like 'Paul', without thought to the actual beliefs of said Paul.

However, I will not support Rand. Why? The reasons are simple: I just don't agree with him. At all. He supports the war in Afghanistan. He supports measures like the PATRIOT act. He is for banning of abortion and granting person hood to unborn children. He has even said he is not a Libertarian, and doesn't want to be identified with the group.

So why in the world are Libertarians falling for him?

And many are- I know several. I think it can be traced back to the issue of his last name and his parentage. Yet do we really want a dynastic Congress? Really?

Furthermore, I think many Paulite Libertarians have fooled themselves into thinking Rand is lying for the purposes of political expediency, for which there is no proof. Could he be lying? Certainly. However, Rand has no record whatsoever. We don't know how he will vote. Hence, I must assume that what he says is what he truly believes. And frankly, what he says I don't agree with.

So I find the willingness to give him the benefit of the doubt a bit puzzling. I know that his positions don't align with some of the beliefs of my friends. So why are they following him so ardently?

Yet Another Blow...

2010-05-17T12:06:00.004-05:00

Against civil liberties is being proposed. On the heels of the latest proposal (to take away Miranda rights) comes this gem- if a person is suspected of being in collusion with a foreign terrorist organization, he or she will be stripped of their citizenship and detained indefinitely. By the military.

Oh joy.

Let's forget Constitutionality- again- and do what is needed to keep us...'safe.' Sort of.

This is so wrong, I don't even know where to begin. For starters- what part of 'inalienable' and 'not infringe' did you not understand?

Secondly, in America we have this wonderful thing that sets us apart from a lot of other countries (especially those ones we style as 'the enemy' and berate practically every day)- innocent until proven guilty. This has been a fundamental tenet of the American legal justice system for a long time. Apparently though, even that goes by the wayside while we're on a quest for this elusive 'safety.'

In closing, I'd like to bring attention this little tidbit-
"Citing with approval news reports that President Obama has signed a secret order authorizing the targeted killing of a radical Yemeni-American cleric, Anwar Al-Awlaki, Mr. Lieberman argued that if that policy was legal — and he said he believed it was — then stripping people of citizenship for joining terrorist organizations should also be acceptable."

Oh nice. Let's take one piece of bad decision-making, turn it around, then use it as justification for another piece of bad decision-making! Oh, I like it.

Only in the government...

Sound-Bytes

2010-05-15T17:47:00.001-05:00

Word of warning- this was written Friday when I was half-asleep. Staying up till 3am is not a recipe for excellent blog posts. Trust me.

-------------------------

So I liked the title. This will be quite a bit more than sound-bytes.

On that subject, just a word on sound-bytes. I hate them. Absolutely detest them. I especially detest people that speak for sound-bytes. Like Sarah Palin or Obama. Palin is quite conceivably worse than Obama because she doesn't have a polished manner to pass off her sound-byte-speaking-ness as good speech-making. It's like every time the woman opens her mouth, a sound-byte comes out. It's annoying. ^.^

Anyway.

On the Miranda warning issue I wrote about the other day- this is an excellent op-ed piece on the issue. Quite good. ^.^

Increased Regulation = good, apparently

Mm-hmm. Now, I'm all for a certain bit of regulation. There are certain things that have to be regulated for our safety. For instance, immigration. Should be regulated. Imports and exports. Should be regulated, within reason. Corporations should be held in check to some extent, I think. There is a time and a place for government in business.

However, there are also times it goes overboard. And things like this happen-
"For example, the F.D.A. announced in October that it intended to ban the sale of raw, untreated oysters harvested from the Gulf of Mexico in warm months. Fifteen deaths a year are attributed to eating oysters with a cholera-like bacteria."

Now, I am absolutely convinced no possible health benefits could arise from eating fish. No, I don't care what some health expert says. I don't like fish. (Of course, one of my friends is convinced I am going to learn to love fish, but that's another discussion.) So if you're stupid enough to eat oysters when they're not in season, you deserve what you get (does that sound cruel?).

In all seriousness, I don't see why we should be regulating that. If people eat them and get sick, well, they should know the risks. You can't regulate stupidity. It never works, trust me.

Like I said, there are certain times we need regulation. Regulation has its place. But that place isn't micro-managing every facet of the production, distribution, and use of products.

Afghans Distrust us?!! What?!

Unfortunately yeah, they do. More properly, they distrust our puppet government. I can't imagine why they would...I mean, it's just full of corruption, and was set up by Americans who attacked their country without just cause and who keep destroying their infrastructure...no reason at all to distrust the government!!

However, what are we worried about?

Not that the Afghan people distrust us and our government, or that they might be getting sick of us...instead, we're worried about what effect said feelings will have on our strategy.

.....

The problem can't be with our strategy. Our strategy is fool-proof. We are Americans. We are supreme. We know all. The problem is with the people. They just don't know what they want. They need to be happy. We freed them!! From a repressive regime!

Ignore the problem. It saves worry-power.

In all fairness though, it does seem like our military might possibly be trying. Of course...once again, another faction of the population doesn't want our help. This time, it's Karzai himself, who is of course, skirting the issue just a bit so as to avoid offending his American sponsors. In an effort by our forces to ease corruption, we're trying to get solid local governments set up.

Karzai doesn't want our help. That would imperil his own power.

One of the main reasons the Taliban was not a good government was because they did not make an effort to understand the dynamics of Afghanistan. They imposed their own system without discretion. How different are we, really? We want to impose freedom, democracy, American ways without thought to how well the Afghans will acclimate to that system.

Throughout history, foreign meddling has only put the Afghan system off-balance. They are a people that are very resourceful and can take care of themselves. Leave them alone, and they will find a balance. Americans need to get over the idea that only we can bring stability to the world.

America, exit stage right.

Taking Away Your Rights...

2010-05-10T19:24:00.003-05:00

So the terrorists can't destroy them!

It works. It's awesome. We should try it.

Of course...we are.

Under a measure currently being discussed around the White House Round Table, Miranda RIghts might be, shall we say...modified. Or rather, the mode of administering them will be. You see, in the ten seconds it will take to tell a suspect he has the right to silence and a fair trial, we might be in imminent danger of a terror attack.

Oh, and don't forget the fact that they might actually like, take advantage of those rights. And that would be bad.

According to Eric Holder, we need more "flexibility" to deal with terror suspects. Which, of course, naturally means being able to delay the ritual reading of the rights. (Not that that would pose a problem to someone informed of American law- all you have to do if arrested is demand your rights as a prisoner. Quite simple, but I digress.)

This springs, I believe from a misconception that the reading of Miranda Rights automatically means that the suspect will stop talking to us- which is a pretty serious error. History is full of people who had their Miranda Rights read to them, then proceeded to talk. Like, it happens every day.

Of course, precedent is somewhat established...from the article-
"Under the current public safety exception, statements obtained before issuing the Miranda warning may be used in court -- including to charge suspects -- if it is determined that police needed to obtain information quickly to prevent further crimes. Once an immediate threat is ruled out, the Miranda warning must be read, under current law."

Oh goodie. So if there's a suspicion you might be on the verge of a terrorist attack (or any other kind of crime) they can delay reading you your rights because of it. (Even though, technically, you still have the right to remain silent. I wonder, what would they do if some terror suspect refused to talk under such auspices?)

In any case, this seems silly. Let's say we catch a suspect on the verge of blowing up a bomb, as in the case of the Pakistani-American bomb suspect we caught last weekend. The threat is easily seen (not that his bomb was much threat). So do we delay reading rights under this exception with the excuse that there might be other threats?

"The goal of revisions would be to give law enforcement officials greater latitude to hold suspects within the criminal justice system and interrogate them for long periods of time -- without having to transfer them to a military system or designate them as enemy combatants, officials said. "

Oh nice. And once again, the Obama admin pulls a Bush- instead of following the rule of law, we'll do what's convenient, circumvent the Constitution, all in the name of safety for La People. (Do they ever ask us if we want to be kept safe in such a manner? Of course not.)

According to the Washington Post, the changes may take a different form- instead of changing the public safety exception, the statute limiting how long a prisoner can be interrogated without coming to trial.

Which isn't any better.

Maybe (and here's a novel idea) we should just leave the system like it is and instead like, work within it. And do things right- in other words, Constitutionally. If you don't want to try terror suspects in civil court, put them in military tribunals. Of course, we can't do that because they're not part of a uniformed military. So hence, they are civilians and should be tried so.

What are we afraid of that we can't do that? That we've detained a bunch of innocent people?

Maybe we should examine that just a little...

And This is Called Blowback

2010-05-09T15:58:00.003-05:00

Surprise, surprise.

Imagine this amazing concept- we do things and, like, the Middle Easterners want to do things back! It's like, totally weird.

In all seriousness, I don't understand the surprise here. We did things- pretty big things. Like, oh, messing in the politics of the region, keeping bases open all over the Middle East, invading two of their countries, threatening to invade two more, fanatically upholding a nation that has done some pretty horrid stuff over the years...

But all that has nothing to do with our current situation. Oh no. Our bombing of their countries has nothing to do with the current soaring recruitment numbers, not at all.

And this is what we call Doublethink, children.

What we do has an effect on what they do. What we do always has an effect on someone else's actions. The same principle applies here. (It's called blowback, BTW, if you were wondering...)

Oh and another note- Obama is going to get us all killed. He's so soft on those evil terrorists, after all.
"His first year in office he authorized more Predator strikes — more than 50 — than President Bush did in his last four years in office. In December, accepting the Nobel Peace Prize, Mr. Obama stated that sometimes peace requires war. “I face the world as it is, and cannot stand idle in the face of threats to the American people,” he said. Negotiations “could not have halted Hitler’s armies. Negotiations cannot convince Al Qaeda’s leaders to lay down their arms.”"

Here and Now...

2010-05-08T11:43:00.002-05:00

Well, it's about that time again. It gets to where there's so much going on that I don't know where to start, so I don't post, and I just make things worse for myself (I'm a terrible procrastinator, and you'd think I'd learn), and then end up having to condense everything into three paragraph blurbs and combine them into one rather longish post that deals with more than one issue.

So yes. Here we go.

The Oil Spill

Yes, yes. The oil spill that is going to kill lots of little animals out in the ocean and endanger fishing livlihoods all over the US. Well...I never liked fish, so that's no skin off my nose. I haven't been following this story very much, mostly because oil is of absolutely zero interest to me.

But anyway...it looks like the new opening up of offshore drilling places (you see how horribly ignorant I am of this issue?) is going to be postponed because of this spill. However, this spill has also (according to some members of Congress) made it politically unfeasible to try to pass energy and climate legislation- probably because any plan that'll get in good with the Republican minority will have to include something increasing offshore drilling, and the environmentalists aren't going to go for that right now...

And I sort of agree with them. Let's see...we just had a huge oil spill that may or may not have been caused by poor security or safety practices, and we want to add more cooks in the kitchen? o.0 Yeah. That's smart. Not.

Supreme Court Appointments and You

So with Justice Stevens retiring, that leaves another spot open on the Supreme Court. Meaning Obama gets to appoint another Justice. Which obviously means that we'll have to be subjected to a repeat of last year's Sotomayor Fiasco, with accusations whirling, counter-accusations being shot back, and underneath it all, the absolute certainty on the Right that Obama is an evil socialist who wants to enslave us all.

Hence this lovely quote- "Senate Republicans said they would be watchful for a nominee who made decisions based on his or her "own views and political agendas," in the words of Sen. Jeff Sessions (Ala.), the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee..."

Translation: "We're going to absolutely flip over any nominee you send us who isn't Republican and making decisions based on our views. Because anything less is absolutely unamerican."

And of course, being the civil rights geek I am, I was wondering exactly what the potential judges think about said rights...which, of course, means this caught my eye.

What exactly do the potential Justices think about executive power? Their records are vastly dissimilar in many ways, but I must say this woman talks some sense-
"Of the three, Judge Wood, of the appeals court in Chicago, has the clearest record in favor of protecting civil liberties and taking a skeptical stance toward executive power. In a 2003 essay, she spoke out against approaches to counterterrorism that she said posed “a significant threat to the continued observance of the rule of law” — like giving noncitizens fewer due process rights than citizens and sacrificing individual privacy to foster intelligence-gathering.

“In a democracy, those responsible for national security (principally, of course, the executive branch) must do more than say, ‘trust us, we know best’ when they are proposing significant intrusions on liberties protected by the Constitution,” Judge Wood wrote."

Thank you, Ms. Wood. One of the other prospective nominees (another woman, Ms. Kagan), I feel more iffy about. She has a known record of siding with the White House when it comes to executive power...and that's not a good thing. The other front-runner, one Merrick Garland, also has a mixed record which means he could go either way when it comes down to a decision on the issue.

Now I know very little about all the prospective nominees, but the NYTimes did a piece giving a brief blurb about each. Check it out.

Israel and Nukes, oh me oh my....

So it's happened. Finally, the IAEA is looking into Israel's nuclear capabilities. After ignoring her lapse for years in favor of jumping all over non-nuclear countries that are trying to proceed with their own programs, somebody has finally blown the whistle on Israel and asked for an investigation.

Sort of.

Israel is eighth on the agenda. Tentatively. Of course, if Israel and her allies (us) throw a big enough fit, she'll be struck off the agenda, probably never to return. Which would be wrong.

I thought the UN was about the world working together to reach common goals. I thought the UN was about us all knowing what everybody else was doing, so that nobody gets ahold of something they shouldn't (which kind of makes the whole world sound like a playdate...). So why shouldn't Israel's nuclear arsenal be discussed?

We've consistently yelled at Iran about their nukes (which they don't have). We went to war in Iraq over nukes (which they didn't have). We've consistently lambasted North Korea for their possession (and testing) of nukes. Yet somehow, our allies and ourselves are immune to this wave of criticism against the Big Bad Boy Bomb.

Wha-?

Ah yes. The difference. Iran would use nukes, and we never wou- Uh....wait...

Iran would use nukes, but Israel never would. Ever.

And we know both of these things for certain because we read the minds of their leaders. Uh-huh. Tell me how that works out for ya'.

How Convenient- Pakistan and the 'Square Bomber

So after the bomber-that-wasn't, our Government has decided Pakistan is the new Enemy of the State. Which of course means that the most obvious course of action is to invade their country, or, in the nice language of our President, "put more boots on the ground."

You almost have to wonder how this could happen so conveniently. Obama is looking for a way to invade Pakistan (for purposes of "national security", naturally), and hark! A bomb! Driven by a dummy who was trained in a Pakistani Taliban camp! He's a Pakistani Talib! Help!! Invade Pakistan!!

Of course.

Now naturally, the Pakistanis don't want us invading their nice little country. But that's okay. That's why we've been really nice to Islamabad lately. That way Pakistan will like us. Or maybe not. We'll just have to get hit with another attack, that's- oh wait. Did we say that out loud? ^.^

State Power vs. Federal

2010-04-29T08:01:00.002-05:00

So, federal government, what do you do when a state goes over your head and passes some bill that intimately impacts their own economy, police, etc.? Why, of course, the only logical thing is to pass your own bill so you can reassert your superiority! Right?

Uh...maybe.

Now, I'll admit. I have some problems with the Arizona immigration law. What I don't have a problem with is a state taking care of problems in its own sphere of influence. For instance...state boundaries. That's their job. No harm, no foul.

Of course, in today's climate of federal-government-first-cuz-we're-awesome, it isn't hard to find beauties like this: "Mr. Obama said it was vital that Congress address the immigration issue, lest more state measures like the tough new law in Arizona sprout up."

....Oh no. Constitution forbid the states actually, like...exercise their power! That would be just way unconstitutional....

Oh. Wait. What's this you say? Tenth Amendment?
"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

Huh. Fancy that.

Now, I don't see anything in the Constitution about immigration. Except this:
"The Migration or Importation of such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the Year one thousand eight hundred and eight..."

And this in the powers of Congress:
"To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization..."

Now in the first- the States decide who comes in, and when. Hence, Arizona's law is arguably not unconstitutional.

The second sets Congress' role in the immigration/nationalization process. Which is the last part. Congress decides the process whereby someone becomes an American citizen. Don't you love it how the Founders balanced everything out...and how everybody has to work together?

Sorry, Congress. Immigration is not Constitutionally your job.

Get over it.

Comment Moderation

2010-04-24T09:28:00.001-05:00

So, I was trying to avoid this policy, but unfortunately some spambot keeps visiting and posting nasty links on my comments. ^.^ So from now on, all comments will have to be moderated. Rest assured no actual comments will get deleted. :)

Nuclear Summit Logo...Muslim?

2010-04-20T10:30:00.002-05:00

Apparently, conservatives have gotten up in arms over how the Nuclear Summit logo supposedly looks like a Muslim flag. Which it doesn't. Below is Jon Stewart's segment on the issue- which is, by the way, absolutely hilarious. ^.^

Enjoy!

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

A Farewell to Arms

http://www.thedailyshow.com/

Daily Show Full Episodes

Political Humor

Tea Party

Natl Day of Prayer Unconstitutional

2010-04-16T11:36:00.003-05:00

So some judge in Wisconsin finally took the plunge and declared the National Day of Prayer unconstitutional. Frankly, I agree with her.

The First Amendment expressly forbids the establishment of a religion. Government favoring one religion over another by giving one a "national day of prayer"? Yup, that'd be establishment of religion.

Now, I see no problem with people spontaneously getting together and praying, even on government property. Since that property technically belongs to them, that's just fine and dandy. However, what I do have a problem with is Congress (or any other branch of the government) setting aside a certain day for the worship of a certain god- unless, of course, they also honored every other god in the pantheon with their own days.

The thing is, for you Christians out there, we don't need a day of prayer. You don't. God listens all the time, or am I misreading the Bible? Furthermore, by trying to sustain a "national day of prayer" you foster the idea that Christians view themselves as somehow more righteous/important than everybody else. We aren't America, folks. There are tens of millions of other people in this country, and the government exists to protect all their rights, not just ours.

Do I think it should have been declared unconstitutional? Sure. Do I think it is unconstitutional? Yes. Do I think there's anything wrong with prayer? No.

I agree with the judge-
"However, recognizing the importance of prayer to many people does not mean that the government may enact a statute in support of it, any more than the government may encourage citizens to fast during the month of Ramadan, attend a synagogue, purify themselves in a sweat lodge or practice rune magic.""

Tea Parties...or Not

2010-04-15T11:01:00.002-05:00

So at our local tea party here they've started charging.

That's right.

It's $10 for an adult to go in. To a protest. That is supposed to be spontaneous, not a Republican, Obama-bashing rally.

Need I remind people that the tea parties were not started as rallies, as huge events that were against Obama and his "evil socialist policies", but rather against Bush and his "evil socialist policies?"

The Tea Parties have been coopted by the Republican Party. They were originally a protest fueled by Libertarians, Democrats, and Republicans from all walks of life who were upset about Bush's bailouts (and, for some people, also the wars and out-of-control debt). They weren't about Obama at all!

But somehow, they've been twisted to be something they're not. Now they're nothing but GOP fests. Very sad.

Recent News

2010-04-14T07:59:00.002-05:00

I'm just going to go over a few of the current issues that are making the rounds these days...been super busy, and I don't have enough of an opinion on a lot of it to actually make full blog posts. So, without further ado...

The Healthcare Bill

So I predicted it would pass. I also predicted Scott Brown would vote for it. That one didn't come to pass, unfortunately, because it would have been so much fun to say "I told you so" to all the "glory-be-hallelujah-Scott-Brown-got-elected" people. Ah well. Political face-saving wins again...

Having not actually read the healthcare bill itself, I'm not going to go into detail on what I think is wrong with it. I've heard plenty of alarmism and "this is going to take away all our liberty and institute a mark of the beast and make us all get chips in our foreheads and help, help, help!" But I haven't actually seen citations of that (of course, if somebody wants to provide me with some, feel free. :) )

To me, the primary reason this bill is messed up is 1) it takes way too much power away from the states, and their right to decide how things are run, and 2) it will increase our government's spending, and taxes on the citizen.

So yes. If anyone has any other points of concern you think I should know about, please share (with actual citations, if you would, to the actual bill). ;)

States Stepping up to Bat

This week Nebraska passed a law banning abortions after 20 weeks, based on fetal pain.

Well good for them. Is this unconstitutional as some people are claiming? Well to my mind...no. According to my understanding of Constitutional law, the Supreme Court making laws in the first place is unconstitutional, which would make Roe vs. Wade unconstitutional. Hence, the responsibility for abortion laws falls directly to the states, as this power is not granted the Congress.

I think abortion advocates should just get over it. This measure is constitutional: it keeps power where it should be, in the hands of the state. That isn't wrong, that is a very good thing. Furthermore, I do think we should take into account the baby's pain level, at least to some extent. If you want an abortion, get one early. It isn't rocket science.

Obama's Nuclear Summit

So I admit it, I laughed. Especially since it doesn't appear either North Korea nor Iran has signed this pact-thingymajigger, making it so that two of the "greatest threats to our safety"...still have nukes. Real smart.

Of course, Iran doesn't actually have nukes yet apparently...they're just enriching uranium and using the tough-guy approach to try to keep us from invading. Not that it'll work. Hussein tried it, too (well, he actually tried Pakistan's approach- ingratiate oneself and maybe we'll leave one alone. Nope).

So anyway...I do think Obama has good intentions at heart. Do I think those good intentions will reap much? Eh, probably not, considering how many other measures like this have failed in the past. People still have nukes, people are still developing nukes, and in the end, one can't really stop stupidity and pure cussedness.

Oh, and on the subject of the summit- dont'cha know that free press is just totally eighteenth century.

So yes, just a quick blurb on a few issues I found interesting. :)

Obama...Muslim?

2010-04-08T09:37:00.002-05:00

So I was thinking about this the other day. And you know, if Obama is a Muslim, he is an incredibly backslidden one.

You see, to be a true Muslim one has to follow the "Five Pillars of Islam-" Iman (faith), Salah (prayer), Zakah (tithing), Sawm (fasting), and Hajj (pilgrimage).

So I haven't seen Obama doing ritualized fasting like Ramadan, because I'm sure we'd have seen something about how he doesn't eat until the sun goes down. One pillar down. Nor, to my knowledge, has he made a Hajj to Mecca. That's two. We don't see Obama praying five times a day (something else we most assuredly would have heard about, and that would have been passed around the Republican blogosphere and radio). There's three pillars. Nor have I seen Obama pronounce Iman, as he should if he is a Muslim.

So hence, even if Obama ever was or is now a Muslim, he is a severely backslidden one.

The USA PATRIOT Act

2010-04-08T09:26:00.005-05:00

"Any people that would give up liberty for a little temporary safety deserves neither, and will lose both."

Benjamin Franklin

The USA PATRIOT act of 2001 is often regarded as either one of two things – first, an excellent tool to protect American civilians from terrorists. Adversely, it is also seen as a tool used by government (or capable of such use) to infringe upon the personal rights of those same American civilians.

Both arguments have credence, as I explain later in this paper. This work is mainly for the purpose of explaining, to the best of my understanding, the Constitutional ramifications of the PATRIOT act, as well as the consequences of this act concerning the liberties of the American citizen. Also included will be various observations on the “war against terror” itself when relevant to the discussion of the PATRIOT act.

This work is not intended to be focused directly against a certain political party or figure; rather, it is an analysis of a particular action taken by the Federal government of the United States of America.

About the PATRIOT Act

The omnibus USA PATRIOT act itself is properly named the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001. Signed into law just weeks after September 11, 2001, the act was based in part upon an earlier act, circa 1996 (the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act), which laid out loose guidelines concerning terrorist activities. The PATRIOT act carried the process begun with the 1996 act further, increasing and expanding the powers of the Federal government, as I will explain later.

In the aftermath of September 11, 2001, the entire country was in a state of shock: shock that someone would have the audacity and courage to launch an attack on American soil, even if that attack took the form of a jet being hijacked and rammed into a building. The shock lasted. However, the interesting thing with human beings is that, when confronted by situations that require much thought, weighing, and comprehension, they can be the most stubborn, irrational, rushing things in nature.

So it was with 9/11. In a tense atmosphere that required that we adhere even more strongly to the Constitution, do what we could within its limits, and most of all, make sure we didn’t take any foolish action we would later regret, our leaders instead buckled down and committed some of the most heinous crimes against the Constitution since the Federal Reserve act.

The PATRIOT act was just the first in a long line of civil rights abuses. On its heels came two wars, unconstitutionally begun and unconstitutionally continued, and yet more grabby Federal agencies to watch our every move, as if the FBI, CIA, and NSA weren’t enough. The PATRIOT act formed the foundation for this chain of abuses. Giving the Federal Government unprecedented power over the lives of its citizens, it ensured that the feeling of fear and insecurity in the direct aftermath of 9/11 would carry over years into the future – only this time, this fear would not be provoked just by the terrorists, but also, in large part, by the government that claimed to protect us.

Terrorism

Before any serious analysis of the PATRIOT act can be entered upon, I believe one must first establish the nature of the enemy it was intended to fight, and of the tactics they use.

A terrorist is, in the loosest definition of the word, a person or organization which uses the tactic of terrorism. In the incarnation we currently hear the most of, a terrorist is generally regarded to be a Muslim man, about twenty or thereabouts, sporting a suicide bomber’s vest and shouting Muslim anthems at the top of his lungs as he takes both himself and a large group of Westerners to Paradise (or the Muslim version of hell, as the case may be).

The tactic of terrorism, and hence terrorists, have a long history not fundamentally rooted in Islam. Terrorism (an act intended to incite terror in a population) has been around since the Roman era, when political rebels used terror as a tactic against the repressive Romans. The practiced lived on as the primary tactic of the Muslim Assassins against the Crusaders and rival Islamic factions, the Irish nationalist movement in the 19^th century, the Kamikaze bombers of Japan, one of the most blatant acts of terrorism (yet not generally regarded as such) embodied in the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II, the Viet Cong, and most recently, attacks by Palestinians upon Israel, and vice-versa.

Many of these actions were not religiously motivated, negating the modern Western view of terrorism as a purely religious movement, held fast within the confines of a Middle Eastern desert. Terrorism as a tactic transcends such paltry boundaries. This makes it very difficult for a “war on terror” to be waged, since acts of terror can be prosecuted by any faction or person in any country on the planet. Yet the primary goal of the PATRIOT act is claimed to be that of fighting just such a war, on top of that of “keeping America safe.”

Terrorism is, by its very nature, merely a tactic. Tactics can be reacted to; one cannot declare war upon them. Nor is it feasible to declare war on (or engage in “extended military maneuvers” in) countries or against peoples that have made use of the tactic. If we were to do so, nearly every nation and people on the globe would have to incur our wrath because of their actions at some point.

Further complicating this idea is the fact that those who use the tactic of terrorism are akin to guerilla warriors in that they do not have a base of operations that is stable. These organizations are often nomadic, keeping themselves in secret hideaways that change quite frequently. Unless they are allied with a nation-state, as in the case of the Viet Cong or the Kamikaze pilots, it is impossible, by the very nature of the thing, to declare war upon them: you do not, and cannot, declare war upon organizations or ideological groupings, but upon nations and armies.

And here arises yet another problem – that of the men themselves. As stated earlier, not all of these terrorists are religiously motivated, despite the stereotypical suicide bomber image the American media and politicians have fought so hard to project. Especially in recent years (after the American invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq) most of the new recruits to these causes have been, not jihadists bent on bringing a pure Muslim caliphate to the entire globe (a goal they cannot even spread to their own districts), but rather their cause, their rallying cry, has been the defense of their homes.

After the American invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, there was massive loss of both civilian life and civilian infrastructure. Directly after the invasions, people began to flock to radical organizations. Prior to the invasion of Afghanistan, there were only two major “terrorist” organizations present in that country – al Qaeda and the Taliban, which was the acting government of the war-torn country. After our invasion and the appearance of the insurgency, there were ten, still including al Qaeda and the Taliban. In pre-invasion Iraq, the only warlike organizations were Saddam Hussein’s (legal) government under the Ba’ath Party, and the rival Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK). After the insurgency arose, we had a problem with 5 major terrorist organizations, not to mention the plethora of smaller ones that were doing their own work, albeit with less effectiveness.

In the aftermath of the Iraq and Afghanistan invasions, the US military claimed it had effectively wiped the Taliban and other terrorist networks off the map. This was loudly proclaimed by a Bush aide on the USS Lincoln with a banner – “Mission Accomplished” – that would go down in infamy as the most dramatic counting-your-chickens-before-they-hatch moment of the Middle Eastern occupations. Within a scant few years, the Taliban was back, just as strong as ever, if not in control of the resources of a nation. Despite that fact, they have managed to keep American troops on their toes quite effectively.

Because of this resurgence, it is logical to conclude that our invasion caused the train of events that caused the rise of the insurgency. It also attests to the remarkable resiliency of the Afghan people, especially. In the past, they have repeatedly shown themselves capable of fighting off a far superior foe, and managing to regain control of their ancestral lands. The arrogance America displays to think she is different is astonishing.

Added to the above, there is also the domestic side of this “war on terror.” A count of how many politically motivated “terrorists” might actually be in America is hard to come by; however, the drama of “Jihad Jane” in the winter of 2010 was ample reminder that there is the potential for terrorists and terrorism to live right here in the United States, and even to be one of our own.

There is also the fact that at least three (according to an INS report1) of the 9/11 hijackers were living here in the US on expired visas and green cards. This complicates matters. Deportation is an expensive process, but nonetheless one that is needful to retain some semblance of a nation that is both lawful and open to those who want to legally come here. Granted, not every immigrant living here on an expired visa is a terrorist, or even potentially dangerous. However, a precedent needs to be set of making sure people who aren’t supposed to be here, aren’t. Such a precedent could have potentially prevented the 9/11 attacks completely.

The PATRIOT act is, in large part, intended for the domestic side of things, though it does provide for several interesting foreign matters – for instance, USC 18,113B (revised by sec. 104 of the PATRIOT act) allows the Justice Department to authorize military maneuvers if a person within the United States (or, presumably, outside) is conspiring to build or use a weapon of mass destruction, a vague definition that leaves quite a bit of wiggle room for the person carrying out the orders.

So, in summary of this section – the PATRIOT act was intended to curb terrorism. Yet foreign (and even domestic) terrorism is difficult to discover, difficult to nail down, and even more difficult to fight. Because of the nature of terrorism, and the nature of the organizations that make use of the tactic, it is impossible to wage a war upon them that is actually feasible.2

Safety

One of the primary arguments I have heard for the PATRIOT act is safety. It keeps us safe, its proponents argue. Yet I would ask – at what cost? As the quote at the beginning of this paper said – if we are willing to give up fundamental liberties in the pursuit of safety, the safety we gain will be transitory, a mere chimera that flees at the first sign of danger, leaving us both unsafe and in the grip of tyrants.

The PATRIOT act vastly increases the size, scope, and power of the Federal government. “Emergency” powers are granted to the Executive Branch (Section 106) giving the President the power to direct the seizure of any substance, object, or presumably, any person without a warrant. This gives one man the power to do whatever he wants, outside the Constitution or the bounds originally set down for his office.

True safety does not lie in allowing our elected officials to do what they will with us. While the PATRIOT act may keep us safe from outside perils (though there is little evidence that it has done so), or even dangers from the inside, it expands government control over our lives, putting us in danger of another peril.

In reality, much could have been done within the bounds of the Constitution to ensure our safety. As previously stated, at least three of the 9/11 hijackers were illegally living in the United States. Changing the framework of the immigration system so that it works better and with more efficiency would be a viable, cheaper way to ensure the safety of Americans. By deporting any immigrant who has overstayed his or her visa, we could both limit the costs to the American people and ensure those immigrants would not be here to potentially perpetrate acts of terror.

We should also be watching who we give visas to in the first place. As the “Christmas Day Bomber” Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab showed, we oftentimes let our own sense of security (an ultimately false sense) get out of control. If we had followed Britain’s lead and revoked Abdulmutallab’s visa as his father asked us (and warned us) to do, we would not have had a problem with the kid.

Safety could be better achieved with less invasive procedures that would not require the circumventing of rights and principles we as American citizens hold dear.

Warrants, Searches and Seizures, and Wiretapping

“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution

Above I have quoted the entirety of the Fourth Amendment. Most Americans are – or should be – familiar with this amendment. It guards against power abuse by law enforcement. This amendment gives the stipulation that, before any searches can go on or any property be seized, a warrant must first be issued by a court of law. This warrant can only be obtained after first proving there is “probable cause” for the search, seizure, or arrest to be made.

The PATRIOT act gives several rather harsh blows against this amendment. Though many sections of the PATRIOT act do contain the provision that warrants must be served, this device for the preservation of freedom often seems to take a secondary role. The view of the authors of the bill seems to be “You can do this-and-this, and oh yeah, it might be good to get a warrant, too.” Often, the language in the bill concerning warrants is vague, with little actual accountability built in.

For instance, the act revises 18 USC 2516 to put in extra wiretapping provisions for terrorism. The wording of this section is ambiguous, giving the impression that information for a warrant can come from former wiretapping operations. It is unclear whether the former wiretapping op must have had a warrant, an oversight that seems a bit strange given the seriousness of this tactic. Section 218 makes a strange revision concerning the purpose for wiretap warrants. The revision changes the stipulation that the purpose of a wiretap must be to gather foreign intelligence, to that a "significant purpose" of the wiretap must be to gather said intelligence.

This ambiguous wording, changed to be so, appears to me to denote the creation of a legal loophole, created so that the purpose of wiretaps could be broader than originally intended. This raises the question – what would be the purpose of wiretapping someone who is not involved in a foreign governmental entity or foreign terrorist group? With this stipulation, it is conceivable that the government could try to legally wiretap anyone they wanted to, not just those who were really involved with terrorist groups.

Of course, it is disputed whether wiretapping is included within “searches and seizures.” The Founders had no telephones or email, no cell-phone waves to be intercepted, so it is argued that hence, such things have no protection under this amendment. I would argue that the opposite is true. The definition of “effects” and “records” is able to change as our view of those words also changes. I would argue that, in present-day society, “effects,” “papers,” and “records” should be taken to include cell-phone records and calls, texts, emails, phone calls, and digitized records for the sake of good governance.

The act also revises 18 USC 2518(7). The revisions in this case appear to create a loophole for the Justice Department and the Attorney General. It allows the Attorney General or one of his trusted underlings to grant a warrant without the approval of an actual judge. This appears to me to be a formal legalization of the “good-faith rule,” established in the Supreme Court case Terry v. Ohio. The “good-faith rule” is an informal arrangement whereby a law enforcement officer, if believed to be able to exercise good judgment and if able to display adequate information and understanding of the case at hand, he or she has the authority to make a search or seizure without a warrant, so long as he or she can prove there was just cause at the time of the search.

The revised 18 USC 2518(7) goes on to create the qualifier that an application for an order must be filed within forty-eight hours of the actual start of the operation. This section once again has another built-in loophole: even if an order is not obtained, the operation can continue until the information sought is found. Given the scope of government “phishing expeditions” the public has seen (an inaccurate measure of the true nature of these operations), it is unlikely, to my mind, that such operations would be carried out in a manner befitting a free society. The operation could go on for weeks or months without the limits put in place by a warrant.

Section 214 revises 50 USC 1842, changing the qualifications for a trap-and-trace operation. This is the process whereby an entity observes all calls incoming on a certain device, be it phone or computer (the pen register device is related to this, with the difference that a pen register monitors all out-going, rather than all in-coming calls or information). Written into this provision is the preservation of first-amendment protections, though it is written in such a way that it appears that the protection may be but skin-deep. For instance, this section allows for these operations to be launched against foreign terrorist organizations and spies. Herein lies the difficulty – how are such things defined? The definitions of such terms in the United States legal code are also vague, leaving much wiggle-room for determined officials.

One of the gravest blows against the fourth amendment comes in section 213 of the PATRIOT act, in the form of delayed notification for warrants. The section states that the government can delay notifying the subject of a warrant if it is believed that notification would result in adverse consequences. “Adverse consequences” is vague, giving little insight into the actual circumstances that would qualify. It is conceivable that practically any situation in law enforcement could be found to have “adverse consequences” if notification was served; for instance, it is quite likely that an “adverse consequence” might be seen as the escape of a criminal because he or she knew of a warrant. How many times has such a consequence occurred, and how many such situations would be covered under this provision?

Under this provision, law enforcement officers can search and seize property without the owner’s knowledge (by the aforementioned delay of notification), what seems to me a grave over-extension of legal power in the direction of martial law. (Section 215 continues in this same vein, allowing for companies to be searched and consumer records to be seized without said consumer’s knowledge.)

But the need for a warrant is not always built-in. In some cases, this seems innocuous; for instance, in section 212, it is stated that if a provider of a service (presumably regarding telephone, cell-phone, or internet service) inadvertently came across information concerning terrorism or some other crime, said provider is free to take the information to the government, as they should. In such a case, I would say that it was not unconstitutional, as the information was not gleaned from an actual government source (though that could be disputed).

But section 212 does seem to contradict itself just slightly, by also stating that a provider cannot give out consumer information unless the governmental entity seeking to acquire the information has a warrant. This is an apparent contradiction, and one that seems to create a loophole of significant proportions; just where does each provision end and the other begin?

Ambiguous and vague wording, coupled with seemingly unimportant exclusions all combine to form an overly intrusive, unconstitutional cocktail of allowable activities. Taken together, they pose a grave threat to the privacy and freedom of American citizens.

Watch-Lists

I believe a word should be said here on this subject. There are multiple “watchlists” compiled by the US government. One of these is the no-fly list, another the far more reaching Terrorist Watch List. The “no-fly list,” enforced by the Transportation Security Agency (TSA) is intended to keep suspected terrorists from boarding a plane. Despite the obvious failure of this measure (what else do you call the presence of a five-year-old3 and Ted Kennedy on a list?4), many people still insist the lists are an essential part of what keeps us “safe.”

Number one, watch lists such as the TSA “no-fly list” have very little information, and hence are notoriously unreliable. They have a name, and nothing else – no age, no passport number, not even a text description. This leaves it incredibly open, both to mistakes and abuses. How are we sure the right people are being stopped? What if there is a “John Smith” on the list? Well, how many “John Smiths” are they going to detain before they get the “right” one?

The TSA and the “no-fly list” rose out of a provision of the PATRIOT act, which suggests that airports should be given access to government watch-lists of suspected terrorists, ostensibly to prevent a second 9/11. It is estimated that over 6,000 names are on the no-fly list, most of them without any further information beyond a name, hence the rather embarrassing mistaken detentions made, like that of 8-year old Mikey Hicks.5

Other than the no-fly list, there is also the Terrorist Watch List. Reported to have over a million names on it, the Terrorist Watch List is a list of suspected terrorists, both inside and outside the United States, that our government feels might form a threat sometime in the future. Not only is it completely unconstitutional (and unethical) for the government to be tracking and “watching” American citizens in that manner, it is also wrong that there is no easy way to get off the lists.

Despite efforts, it can take months to get your name dropped off a list. In fact, until mid-2008, it was near impossible – until a California court ruled that the government must hear such cases, and passed one such case on up the line.6 The DHS created a program called DHS TRIP to help with such cases as well, though the system works inefficiently, and moves at a mere snail’s pace.7

If the watchlist fails, the TSA has a secondary line of approach – the Secondary Security Screening Selection (SSSS). This is a system whereby passengers of a plane are either randomly chosen, or are selected through a system of criteria ranging from having one-way reservations to flying to a specific destination that appears “suspicious.”

If a person is stopped in an airport, never fear – the search that will ensue is perfectly legal, when taken in light of 31 USC 5317 which gives law enforcement the right to search you at the border (or, apparently, anytime you’re boarding a plane, even if your flight will stay within the bounds of the US) for any reason.

Who has access to these government watch lists? Only every federal law enforcement agency in the United States (and stationed out of it), and, according to a suggestion made in the PATRIOT act, banks should have the capability, too. Section 326 suggests that, before a person opens a bank account, the bank should be authorized to “check up” on their prospective acountee and make sure he or she is not on a terrorist watch list.

Are we sure we want the government to be able to arbitrarily say whether or no we are free to get on a plane, travel, or buy certain things? Many people (both on the right and the left) like to use scare-tactics of certain governmental surveillance and incursion that will eventually take away our every freedom. Yet when such a provision actually occurs, you see very little protest.

Your Money and the PATRIOT Act

A significant portion of the PATRIOT act deals with monetary matters: crimes, penalties for said crimes, etc. Most interesting about these parts of the PATRIOT act are the “protections” against smuggling and the origins of your money.

Section 365 gives the government the authority to require an accounting of all “non-financial” transactions if those transactions exceed $10,000. This seems to me to be against the principles of personal liberty embodied in the Constitution. What business does the government have investigating me merely because I have money? (Although, as with so many things, the government often seems unconcerned about the true substance of the rules. A man was detained for carrying only $4,700 by the TSA.8)

If a private citizen has money, it is theirs. The government has no claim to it. We as citizens allow our government to take some of it in the form of taxes, to reap some tangible benefit in return, generally in the form of social programs and the like. But the government being able to investigate citizens merely for possessing money is going one step too far in my opinion. Once we allow them to do that, where will they stop? When they have completely trespassed against the Fourth Amendment and it has become naught but an annoying legal clause in a long chain of others?

Another facet of this issue is also the use of our taxpayer money. It is a known fact that the government often uses taxpayer money in foreign aid payments for other countries. Yet under the PATRIOT act, this aid money isn’t dependent upon actual need, but instead upon said country’s level of cooperation with United States imperialistic movements and policies.

Section 360 of the PATRIOT act puts foreign aid funds at the disposal of the President and his Cabinet secretaries, and gives him the power to dispense these funds to countries he feels are doing things in the best interests of America; basically, bribing other countries to cooperate with our policies, even those that might not be in other countries’ best interests. Not only does this give the Executive branch powers above and beyond the set Constitutional limits, but it also gives the impression that, far from being a freedom-loving, helpful nation, we are in fact the exact opposite – a tyrannical, overbearing nation that only wants to help itself. In fact, we look a lot like the bully on the playground.

The PATRIOT act grants the government immense power over the financial industry. Many of the provisions are merely strengthening and reiterating laws that were already on the books. This does not, however, give the federal government the right to dictate to the rest of the world, via our money, how they should act or govern. Nor does it give the federal government the right to harass American citizens merely because they are in possession of a set amount of money.

Aid to Terrorists

The PATRIOT act revises the guidelines originally set out in the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of ’96 concerning providing “aid” to terrorists and affiliated organizations. Under the PATRIOT act, “aid” can be any number of things, ranging from a simple monetary donation to helping a terrorist set up a missile launcher.

In 18 USC 2339A, “aid” is separated into three main categories – material support, expert assistance and advice, and training. The first category consists of anything from lodging (a hotel room?) to financial help. The second includes giving them computer advice (a casual tech?), to teaching them obscure mathematical equations. The third and final category includes teaching them how to use guns and the like. In another area of the bill (section 812), it adds “harboring or concealing terrorists,” which seems to be akin to “lodging.”

Once again, these are very vague provisions, mostly because of the wiggle-room inherent in the definitions. What exactly is “material support?” Even with the extra qualifiers, it is still a broad definition. On the other hand, there is the added “buffer” (if you could call it that) of what I call “reasonable knowability” – if you could know something about the terrorist activities you were allegedly helping in, you can be prosecuted. If you couldn’t have reasonably known, then you will not be held responsible (this is dealt with in more detail in the next section).

Despite that added level of “safety” from the excesses of law enforcement and our justice department, I still find this section to be too far-reaching over personal freedom. People have the freedom to divert their private funds where they wish. They also have the freedom to give their time and labor to whatever cause they wish so long as they are not infringing upon the freedom of another individual.

Judging Thoughts and Intents

Under the PATRIOT act, the government also takes the right to judge, not on actual crimes committed, but instead upon the “intent” and if someone could “reasonably have known” about terrorist activities of a person they were “aiding”.

If someone had the “intent” to carry out a terrorist action, he or she can be detained, or if something was “intended” to be used in a terrorist action, it can be seized without a warrant. Herein lies the difficulty – how would the government know if something was “intended” for a certain use, or if someone “intended” to launch an attack? If that is the only grounds needed, to what heights of power could that catapult the federal government?

The “reasonable grounds for knowledge” clause is in many parts of the PATRIOT act. It goes both ways. Someone will not be held accountable for having “aided” a terrorist if they did not have reasonable grounds for knowing the person was a terrorist. Adversely, if they reasonably could have known (or should have known), then they can be detained and brought to trial.

Measures such as this are passing perilously close to the realm of thought-policing. How, exactly, is plausible “knowability” to be decided? Without an actual knowledge of a certain person’s thoughts, it seems highly unlikely that law enforcement, no matter how good, could actually decide whether someone “could have known” about a certain crime to any degree of certainty.

There is also the subjectivity of the clause. What are “reasonable grounds for having known?” Who decides such a thing? Does a judge factor in what he or she thinks of the individual’s attention span, level of alertness, etc. If so, how does one accurately measure such a thing? Once again, this section of the PATRIOT act is vague, giving little real protection for American citizens.

With this provision, the government is, in effect, setting up the precursor to a thought police mentality. Ordering our law enforcement and judges to make decisions about someone’s intents and thoughts concerning a certain action or proposed action passes perilously close to real thought control.

Penalties and Punishments

So let’s say that, through some convoluted process of the law, whether by your own fault or no, you were to end up on the wrong side of this act: you were picked up as a terrorist. Whether through the investigative efforts of a wiretapping station, or a perusal of your credit records, brought to attention via some “tip,” you are currently being detained.

So what, exactly, will happen at this point under the PATRIOT act?

First of all, if you are a suspected terrorist or linked to a suspected terrorist, law enforcement can pick you up and detain you at a high-security detainment facility (such as Gitmo) practically indefinitely until a hearing/trial can come about. This detention is mandatory. For non-American citizens, this detention is mandatory until their removal from the US (though it is unclear whether Gitmo and CIA blacksites qualify as US soil or not).

Under the current rules, a hearing into the legality of the detention must be held no later than seven days from the date of the arrest– a point our government has seemed to completely ignore. It is not clear where nor how these hearings would be carried out: for instance, whether they would be military tribunals, civilian trials, or something else entirely, or whether they would be open to the public and press.

Added to section 412 is the further rule that detainees can only be held for six months, maximum. Besides displaying an aptitude to make rules then promptly break them on the part of our officials (elected, hired, and appointed), this also serves to show that perhaps someone did have the right thing at heart when drafting this bill. But as we all know from places like Gitmo, Abu Ghraib, etc., it is obvious our government hasn’t been too eager to keep up with this rule, nor the legalities involved.

Of course, this part of the section might also have a loophole built in. Assuming that Gitmo and like areas are not actually counted as “part” of the US per se, then men could conceivably be held indefinitely at those sites under the “mandatory detention” rule.

It is unclear what would occur if the detainee were not an “alien” (foreign terror suspect), but instead an American citizen. I would assume that you would also be detained, and perhaps (due to your more prestigious standing in the eyes of our nationalistic self-examination) would receive a speedy trial.

Many of the provisions concerning penalties are, then, filled with holes and difficult to uphold. There is little government oversight of these rules and the facilities that should be carrying them out – the debacle at Abu Ghraib and the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay attest to that.

A Matter of Principle

“Not all these things are actually taken advantage of.” “We have to be safe.” “Sometimes we have to sacrifice liberty in favor of safety.” “We have to compromise.”

All these arguments I have heard in favor of the PATRIOT act. Throughout these pages, I have shown the dangers inherent in the PATRIOT act. To recap – the PATRIOT act:

Vastly increases the size and scope of federal government through strengthening both federal law enforcement agencies, and executive power.
Undermines the right of American citizens to be free from warrantless searches and seizures.
Is vague in its provisions by leaving techniques and provisions open-ended, free to be exploited by individual law enforcements officers, judges, and even the President and his cronies.

Yes, perhaps I don’t know I am on a watchlist. Perhaps no one I know is. And yet the potential is there, and while there is potential for freedoms to be undermined, we are not truly free. It is principle we must stand on here, and that principle must be individual liberty.

Within these pages I have listed the different points of interest that I believe trespass against the Constitution and against the principles of freedom inherent in that document. I hope that, perhaps, you are both better informed about the PATRIOT act, and about the danger it poses to our personal liberty.

Notes and Bibliography

The Electronic Privacy Information Center

The Legal Information Institute (Cornell Law School)

INS Staff Statement No. 1 – Entry of the 9/11 Hijackers into the United States
Teenage Politics (teenpolitics-liberty.blogspot.com) archives, January 2010, “The War on Terror”
boing-boing.com, “TSA searches, detains 5 year old because his name was on no-fly list”
Washington Post – August 20, 2004 – “Sen. Kennedy Flagged by No-Fly List”
New York Times – January 13, 2010 – “Mikey Hicks, 8, Can’t Get Off No-Fly List”
San Francisco Chronicle – August 19, 2008 – “Court: Passengers can challenge no-fly list”
BTNonline.com – October 19, 2009 – “DHS Trips on Watchlist Redress”
boing-boing.com, “Man detained, threatened, and abused by TSA for flying with $4700 in cash”

NSA Wiretaps Illegal

2010-04-01T15:36:00.004-05:00

Finally, finally, someone is actually realizing that maybe (just maybe) the stuff our government has been doing in the name of our "safety" is wrong. A federal judge found that the NSA wiretaps done during Bush's reign were illegal. (Like imagine that- NSA has to get a warrant! *gasp*)

Of course, this also shows, once again, just how little difference there is between the Bush policies and current Obama policies: both insist upon maintaining the nationalist idea that America can do whatever she wants both to the international community and to its own citizens, and that anything goes in the quest for "safety."

Furthermore, they are also akin in that they both have and are insisting upon claiming superiority to every law, Constitutional and otherwise, on the books merely because they happened to have a face the media liked. Mmm-hmm.

"“Judge Walker is saying that FISA and federal statutes like it are not optional,” Mr. Eisenberg said. “The president, just like any other citizen of the United States, is bound by the law. Obeying Congressional legislation shouldn’t be optional with the president of the U.S.”"

So perhaps, just maybe, somebody in the actual framework of our government is starting to wake up. Would be nice.

Goodbye, Mr. Jefferson

2010-03-29T14:32:00.002-05:00

By Sam J. Smeaton

"When we interpret the Constitution, let us go back and look at the spirit in which the clause was drafted, so that we may truly interpret correctly." -Thomas Jefferson

There is no argument of any merit whatsoever that the founders would have supported this Healthcare legislation. For any person in this country (much less an elected official, Pelosi!!!) to suggest that the founders envisioned a country where the federal government forces (by law!) private businesses and citizens to do what it says, or buy what it demands you buy, has no understanding of history and no respect for the principles of liberty.

Health Care is not a right, Madame Speaker. To say so suggests that, as individuals, we have the right to other people’s lives and property. This is not true, and is downright reprehensible. It is not a right. Period.

On this night I fear for my country. Not some abstract, over dramatic, Olbermannesque fear, but a legitimate concern for the greatest nation on earth. On this night we have passed into law the idea that we all have the right to one another's money and property. If there was even a thread connecting us to the political philosophy of the American founding, it may have been cut tonight.

The road to hell is paved with good intention. I have no doubt that many supporters of this bill genuinely want all people to be healthy. But they are fools, naive in historical and moral understanding if they think that more government will fix our problems. Government killed the markets. It killed Medicare and Medicaid. It killed true economic recovery. It sends our troops to die in needless military interventionism. Government kills things. It retards growth and it hampers market forces. History has shown this, time and again. Yet despite all this, supporters of this Health legislation insist on granting government the power to slam more mandates, more regulations, and more taxes on our country. Problems caused by a lack of market forces cannot be solved by interventionism. 80 years ago, the greatest Austrian economist of all, the brilliant Ludwig Von Mises himself, tried to warn us that government interventions are an endless circle because each intervention causes more problems, which will attempt to be solved by future interventions, which will cause more problems, etc. This has turned out to be totally true in the last century in America (The New Deal, Military meddling in the Middle east, government mandates on health and insurance and housing, need I go on?).

I believe the solution to the Health crisis is fundamental change, more competition, less regulation, and more individual freedom. At the bottom of this note I will supply a link to some great writings on free market solutions from the Austrian Economic thinkers. But the focus of this note lends itself to the over-arching philosophy behind tonight's bill.

Are we so far away from the Constitution that it is totally null and void? Article One Section 8?! Remember that? It is immoral for governments to mandate healthcare. It is an assault on your liberty. It is an assault on American political Philosophy, and it is an assault on the founders. This country has maintained its greatness because of the Jeffersonian ideals of religious freedom, free expression, states rights, less taxes, and weak government. America is made great by her people, not her government.

But we are losing that. Indeed, tonight, we may be bidding Jefferson and his ideas, farewell. For tonight, government expands to its fattest form yet, and thus drives another nail into the coffin of the ideals of liberty. If you're not outraged, there are only a few options.

1-You are ignorant of the contents of the bill.

2-You don't understand our economic and political history.

3-You have an immoral political philosophy, because you believe Health Care is a right.

Regardless of which it is, you are bidding farewell to American liberty.

Goodbye, Mr. Jefferson. We shall miss you more than you know.

http://mises.org/daily/3737

Who's Holding the Gun?

2010-03-25T14:18:00.001-05:00

Palestinian Christians Speak

2010-03-13T20:36:00.002-06:00

Very interesting, this. A group of Palestinian Christians have gotten together and written a very interesting document detailing their belief that the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories is unjust. It is a powerful document, and they make a good case.

Here is the main website, and here is the PDF file.

As with anything, it should be taken with a grain of salt- there have been outrages committed by Palestinians as well (as they acknowledge briefly), so there is fault on both sides.

Take the position of both sides, and somewhere in the middle, that's where truth lies.

To the Slaughter House

2010-03-09T09:59:00.001-06:00

Planning for the Next War

2010-03-04T12:10:00.001-06:00

How to Fight a Better War (Next Time)
Three Fixes for the American Way of War
By Tom Engelhardt

Iraq remains a mess from which the U.S. military seems increasingly uninterested in withdrawing fully and Afghanistan a disaster area, but it’s never too soon to think about the next war. The subject is already on the minds of Pentagon planners. The question is: Are they focusing on how to manage future wars so that they won’t last longer than the American Revolution, the Civil War, and World War II combined?

There’s reason to worry, especially since the lessons of both Iraq and Afghanistan are clear: it takes years after a war has been launched for the U.S. military to develop tactics that lead to stasis. (“Victory” is a word that has gone out of fashion.)

Here, then, are three modest suggestions for recalibrating the American way of war. All are based on a simple principle -- “preventive war planning” -- and are focused on getting the next war right before it begins, not decades after it’s launched.

1. Make the Apologies in Advance

Who can doubt that the American way of war has undergone changes since, in December 2001, a B-52 and two B-1B bombers using precision-guided weapons essentially wiped out a village celebrating a wedding in Eastern Afghanistan? Of 112 Afghans in that wedding party, only two women survived. Similarly, in August 2008, in the village of Azizabad in Herat Province, at least 90 Afghans, including 60 children, were killed in a series of U.S. air strikes, while in May 2009, up to 140 Afghan civilians died in a U.S. bombing attack in Farah Province.

Understandably, such “incidents” have done little to endear the U.S. and its allies to Afghans. Until recently, the U.S. military would initially deny that civilians had even died; if the incident refused to go away, military spokespeople would then admit to small numbers of civilian deaths (often blamed on the Taliban), while launching an “investigation” and waiting for the hubbub to die away. Apologies or “regrets” came late and grudgingly, if at all (along with modest payments to the relatives of the dead). Back then, being American and at war in distant lands meant never having to say you were sorry.

More recently, Afghan war commander General Stanley McChrystal has changed the rules, curbing air strikes (though not drone strikes), warning his troops to prevent civilian deaths, and instituting an instant expression of “regrets” for such deaths. One thing, however, has changed only marginally: the civilian deaths themselves.

In mid-February, for instance, 12 civilians died when two U.S. rockets slammed into a compound near the city of Marja in Helmand Province. The following day, five Afghan civilians digging at the side of a road in Kandahar Province were killed in an air strike after being mistaken for insurgents planting a roadside bomb. Then, in Uruzgan Province, U.S. Special Forces troops in helicopters struck a convoy of mini-buses, killing up to 27 civilians, including women and children.

After each of these incidents, regrets were quickly expressed, investigations launched. In the case of the mini-buses, McChrystal apologized to Afghan President Hamid Karzai personally and then went on Afghan television to make his apology public. (“I pledge to strengthen our efforts to regain your trust to build a brighter future for all Afghans. Most importantly, I express my deepest, heartfelt condolences to the victims and their families. We all share in their grief and will keep them in our thoughts and prayers.”)

Unfortunately, a policy of repeated apology is unlikely to prove much more successful than the previous stonewalling tactic as long as civilians die, which they will, given the American style of war. It may be too late to correct this in Afghanistan, but the next war is another story. My suggestion is simple: in the future, the U.S. military should issue a blanket apology before going to war, and the first waves of U.S. planes should not drop bombs but abjectly worded leaflets. These would take responsibility in advance for future civilian deaths and pre-apologize for them.

There is a partial precedent for this. In both the Korean and Vietnam wars, American planes regularly dropped leaflets warning peasant farmers that they were living in “free fire zones” and should beware or move out. In this case, the pamphlets would make clear that the United States is going after “the evil-doers” and admit that, despite our ever more precise weaponry, we will unfortunately kill a certain percentage of you in the process. (“The U.S. military expresses our deepest, heartfelt condolences to the future victims and their families. We will all share in their grief and, when they die, will keep them in our thoughts and prayers.”) We should also announce in advance at least a $1,500 solatium payment for any relative, spouse, or child who perishes, as well as carefully calibrated sums for the loss of limbs, eyes, and the like.

After this, whenever civilians die, the military would simply refer interested parties to the prewar statement. This should guarantee a cleaner, more effective way of war.

2. Pre-Build the Bases, Prisons, and Embassy Complexes

Thanks to nine years in Afghanistan and seven in Iraq, it’s easier to grasp how the American way of war actually works. A striking (if little discussed) aspect of it is the base-building that accompanies it. In the years of fighting, the Pentagon built several hundred bases in each country, ranging from tiny outposts to massive American “towns.” It also constructed multiple prisons and holding centers (some secret), and for each war, a nearly billion-dollar regional command center, which we still inaccurately call an “embassy.” The one in Islamabad, Pakistan, is only now under construction.

Much of this was done on the fly and in response to events. For the next war, it would be more logical to prepare in advance. Again, there is a partial precedent. In recent years, the U.S. has pre-positioned equipment at small bases and other locations around the world, so that, should a sudden desire to intervene arise, the means are relatively close at hand. This strategy should be significantly expanded. The Pentagon and the U.S. Intelligence Community could agree on the four most likely places for future interventions. Say, Yemen, Colombia, Nigeria, and Kyrgyzstan, and start laying the groundwork now.

The usual private contractors -- Fluor, DynCorp, and KBR -- should be rounded up to build the necessary 1,400 bases and accompanying prisons under a global multi-billion dollar LOGCAP contract to be divided among them. At the same time, the State Department would put those future mega-embassies out for bid to U.S. architectural firms so that the now-typical fortress-like designs (with their near-billion-dollar price tags) would be ready to go.

With full-scale base-prison-embassy complexes ready in four strategically located regions, future invasions would have a reasonable shot at not dragging out for decades.

3. Pick the Right Natives

It’s noticeable that the U.S. military always seems to get stuck with the wrong natives. Take the current campaign in Marja:

Afghan National Army (ANA) troops are regularly described as unable to read maps, incapable of “planning a complicated patrol” or resupplying themselves, poor at small unit maneuvering, poorly trained, refusing to stand night guard duty and sometimes even to fight, high on drugs, riddled with corruption, unable to aim their weapons, “years away from functioning effectively on their own,” and as C.J. Chivers of the New York Times recently summed matters up, totally inadequate when it comes to “transporting troops, directing them in battle and coordinating fire support [or] arranging modern communications, logistics, aviation and medical support.” And keep in mind that the soldiers sent into Marja are reportedly the best the ANA has available. All this, despite multi-billions of dollars and years of effort invested in Afghan army training. (And the Afghan police, for multi-billions more, make the Afghan army look good.)

On the other hand, perhaps a few hundred Taliban fighters stayed in Marja and fought. Descriptions of them invariably reflect grudging admiration. They are considered capable of planning and executing complex small-unit maneuvers as well as “sustained and complex attacks,” of resupplying themselves, of “surprisingly accurate” sniper fire, and of not being corrupt. In Marja, it was repeatedly said that “outnumbered and outgunned” Taliban fighters were “mounting a tougher fight than expected” or engaging in “determined resistance,” that they represented, in the words of Centcom commander General David Petraeus, a “formidable” force.

For those old enough to remember the Vietnam War, you could replace such descriptions of “our” Afghans with “our” Vietnamese and “their” Afghans with “their” Vietnamese without breaking stride. One explanation for this is that indigenous people react differently when fighting a foreign occupying force rather than aiding it. However, as U.S. forces are incapable of occupying a country thanks to our exceptionally good intentions (of which we are well aware), another explanation makes better sense: In the kinds of countries we’re likely to invade, there are evidently two races (or the equivalent) of natives -- think of them as like the Eloi and the Morlocks in H.G. Wells’s novel The Time Machine -- and we always pick the wrong one.

So before the next invasion, we should make use of small teams of anthropologists and social scientists from the U.S. Army’s Human Terrain System, already trained to help the military with local cultural problems. They should be inserted in the country or region in question to identify which natives are best suited for learning small-unit maneuvering and the other skills over which the enemy always seems to have such a monopoly.

Of course, a fourth planning possibility would involve not launching such wars in the first place. But that path would conflict with a basic American can-do spirit that this country prizes, so suggestions 1 through 3 are undoubtedly a more practical way to proceed.

Tom Engelhardt, co-founder of the American Empire Project, runs the Nation Institute's TomDispatch.com. He is the author of The End of Victory Culture, a history of the Cold War and beyond, as well as of a novel, The Last Days of Publishing. His latest book, The American Way of War (Haymarket Books), will be published in May. Catch the latest TomCast, TomDispatch.com’s audio interview with Tom Engelhardt on the American state of perpetual war, by clicking here, or download the podcast by clicking here.

Copyright 2010 Tom Engelhardt

Blind Followers

2010-03-03T08:07:00.005-06:00

I will never cease to be amazed by the stunning lack of introspection among Americans. It would be hilarious if it weren't so utterly sickening. All too often, I see people make comments that show that they really don't know what they're talking about. That, or they just haven't thought about it enough to actually hear what they're saying.

Come on. Who in their right mind would seriously advocate the nuking and killing of millions of innocent civilians? Yet we hear that all the time, both from ordinary Americans, commentators (mostly on Fox News) and even some of our elected officials. They seem to think, through some mysterious logical process, if we kill millions of people, our image among the collective world would improve, everyone would love us, and all our problems would be solved.

Then there's the near-mantra of the left- if we just get the government involved, everything will be fine. (Of course, Republicans also do this, but the left is a far more vocal proponent, mostly because they'll get reelected for it. Republicans won't.) Somehow, if we only had more Federal control over local life, the country would come back from the brink, we'd all be prosperous, and America would once again be all peachy keen.

And Americans are only too willing to continue to fall prey to rhetoric of that sort. What I don't understand is why. Why do we so willingly follow those we shouldn't trust- the politicians- and eat up their rhetoric as if it were the best thing we'd ever heard?

Yoo and Bybee

2010-02-26T08:06:00.004-06:00

I do not understand how we can let war criminals loose. It is appalling.

John Yoo and Jay Bybee were absolved from any responsibility for their infamous "torture memos." Why? Apparently because the investigators of the case didn't give enough credit to the tense atmosphere right after 9/11.

Okay. And that means they're not responsible for their actions....how?

Sorry, but people are just as responsible for their actions when under stress as when they have nothing on their minds. It doesn't make you any less responsible for what you did.

From the NYTimes article-
"The report quotes Patrick Philbin, a senior Justice Department lawyer involved in the review, as saying that because of the urgency of the situation, he had advised Mr. Bybee to sign the memorandum, despite what he saw as Mr. Yoo’s aggressive and problematic interpretation of the president’s broad commander-in-chief powers in trumping international and domestic law."

"Okay, so I knew this wasn't exactly Constitutional, and I also knew this might not be the best thing to give the President, but I also thought that it might do...something...."

Okay. I see how this logic makes some sort of sense. In Wonderland.

From the same article-
"“While I have declined to adopt O.P.R.’s findings of misconduct, I fear that John Yoo’s loyalty to his own ideology and convictions clouded his view of his obligation to his client and led him to author opinions that reflected his own extreme, albeit sincerely held, view of executive power while speaking for an institutional client,” Mr. Margolis said."

And yet it was, apparently, not enough for them to actually say- "This guy is guilty."

When we let people like this off the hook, people who don't even have enough respect for the Constitution to consult it before giving the President power, what is our rule of law coming to?

Define a Terrorist

2010-02-24T08:32:00.005-06:00

At what point do you become a terrorist? When you bomb a building? When you attend a training camp? When you talk to a terrorist?

Apparently all of those, even the last, hold true.

According to this article, in 1996, a law called the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act {PDF} (so much for there being nothing to deal with terrorism), set up a system whereby anyone providing "material support" (Supplies, people, etc.) would be treated as a terrorist- detained, imprisoned, etc.

With the advent of the PATRIOT act {PDF}, in 2001, the definition of "material support" was expanded to include "expert advice or assistance," and "service."

I see many problems with this- mostly because it is so incredibly abstract and over-reaching. What, exactly, is "service?" Is it doing electrical work in a house that is used by al Qaeda operatives? Delivering pizza? Or do there have to be overt tokens of actual complicity in the organization?

"A lawyer would commit a crime, she [Ms. Kagan] said, by filing a friend-of-the-court brief on behalf of a terrorist group. Helping such a group petition international bodies is also a crime, she added."

This is so incredibly wrong, I don't even know where to start. I really don't understand why we shouldn't be trying to reach out to groups like Hamas and Hezbollah, and yes, even al Qaeda and the Taliban. Perhaps we should listen to them, try to figure out their beefs with us or their main antagonists, and then perhaps we could reach a solution that would be mutually amicable.

It's like the Kurdistan Worker's Party (P.K.K.)- I've heard so many Americans use the Kurds as one of the biggest beefs with Saddam Hussein. "Don't you know Saddam killed hundreds of Kurds in nerve gas attacks?!"

Yeah. And you wonder why they were engaging in terrorist activities against him. The Kurds have been set upon by both the Turks and the Iraqis- and their situation isn't getting any better. But somehow, only Americans are allowed to be freedom fighters: all other peoples are just going to have to suffer in silence until we get around to helping them out.

"Support of any kind, Justice Kennedy said, “will ultimately inure to the benefit of a terrorist organization, and we have a governmental interest in not allowing that.”"

I can see his point in a way, but I also still think that this law is way too overreaching. Like I said above- where do we stop? The pizza delivery guy's pizza will come to benefit the terrorists, but should we go after him as an accomplice in terrorist activities? What about a school teacher? Should the men who taught the 9/11 hijackers to fly planes be imprisoned?

I have been saying for a long time that the PATRIOT act is way too powerful. I still think I'm right. And I think this confirms it.

Brown the Republican Liberal

2010-02-23T09:30:00.005-06:00

Heh. Big shocker here. Scott Brown, the Republican Liberal, voted Liberal. Well, 'magine that. Despite the overwhelming response from many Republicans of "Thank God we got Scott Brown," or "Thank Goodness a Republican got in! And in Massachusetts, too," Brown was nothing more than Same Ole', Same ole'. And guess what, you vote for Same ole', you get same ole'. Sorry, that's life.

And, of course, he was never anything different from other Republicans and Democrats. He just doesn't understand the political game in Washington quite yet, I don't think. Maybe people in Massachusetts will finally wise up and realize that, hey- neither the Republicans nor the Democrats are helping them.