New Years Eve

Welcome to New Year's Eve.  The day we count down and celebrate the ushering in of a brand new year (yes I know I am pointing out the obvious).  No, I am not going to lecture you about New Year's resolutions or any of that stuff.  Reason being is that if you make a resolution to do something, then it is up to you to decide what to do with that commitment.  Not my place to judge your decision or is it anyone's but your own (I personally do not have a resolution at all for I just try to make myself a better person each and every day, so I do not really require a resolution).  Well enough about that, what I really wanted to say was that the New Year is something to look forward to.  We humbled ourselves on Thanksgiving, learned to give and express love on Christmas, and now New Years is us taking what we learned and running with it.  Progressing personally forward to make ourselves superior to who we were the year before.  It is us the individual celebrating our future selves and who we want to become.  Stay safe and enjoy the fun tonight as we celebrate our New Years.

A quote from Einstein.

"Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will get you everywhere." By Albert Einstein.  This quote can have a multitude of meanings. But we are going to talk about it in respect to the future and the coming new year.  In this case, there are things we still want to do. Things we have yet to accomplish, but we have no idea how to get there.  We see the rules that logic provides for us to try and get from A to B, and yet we struggle.  Sometimes our path seems blocked.  That is where imagination comes in.  Imagination is our ability to see other methods to getting where we want to go.  It is the ability to imagine things that aids us to creating new ideas and inventions.  As such, without imagination, we would not have cars, skyscrapers or any advanced tech if someone had not stopped using logic and tried to figure out a new way to do something.  With imagination we gained books like "Harry Potter" and "The Hunger Games", and movies like "Up" or "Minions".  Entertainment for our selves, conveniences and more have all been thought up with someone's imagination and then they found a way to bring the imagined into reality.

Final Thought:  If you think your idea is dumb, think again.  It could potentially turn into something that can make life a little easier for people, or to entertain them.  Imagination is a part of our ability to dream, and it aids in making said dreams a reality.  So do not give up on your ideas.  Put the work in and you can potentially go anywhere and be anything you want.

News Cut off

Every once in awhile I have to shut myself away from the news.  For let us face it, it's really depressing.  So I generally choose the holidays to do so, for the holidays are meant to be fun and enjoyed by all.  And that is exactly what I did.  I deprived my brain of everything having to do with what was going on in the news.  Yes, I know I require the news to gather some info and ideas for issues and articles, but watching all that depressing stuff all the time is very unhealthy.  In fact your brain is very powerful and depression or anxiety can harm your body in a multitude of ways.  Needless to say it is a very bad thing.  As such, to remain healthy for you my readers (and in my own self interest) I abstained from the news and anything really relating to it.

Final Thought:  Anything that depresses you or causes you anxiety is potentially bad for your health.  Immune systems can weaken, you can become physically weak, or you can lash out in anger toward those you care about.  So try to take a break from life's stresses or take a vacation if you can.  Trust me, it will help you in the long run.

Countdown to New Years

So, did everyone have a good Christmas?  I know I sure did.  Got to see all my family and a few friends and spend quality time with everyone.  Now (as I am a nerd) I have a whole lot of books to read (ones that I got for Christmas, and others I bought throughout the year).  Do you know what that means?  I probably will have better articles, issues and even mini-posts once I get around to reading and analyzing all the information I'll be cramming into my tiny little brain. Good times right? (well for me atleast).  But this is how I constantly try to make myself better, to know more, to maintain power and authority over myself.  I will never forget the lessons I learn from others and especially those I have learned from my mistakes, but I have to ensure that I do not repeat mine or others mistakes in the process.  Needless to say, it is never easy to overcome your own anxieties, inhibitions, hangups, and whatever other descriptive word you want to use to describe what holds yourself back.  But it is us overcoming these things that makes us as humans great.  We are built to overcome our own failings and to cooperate to achieve greatness.  It is within our ability to make dreams possible.

Final Thought:  What dreams may come? a quote that I have heard but never really understood.  But I think what I wrote about above comes close to a part of what this quote means.  It is about personal and societal progress.  If we as individuals progress, society can progress and it kind of escalates into something great if you think about it.  What could we do if we all just focused on fixing ourselves first?  Making ourselves the model for others to follow?  Maybe we could achieve that city shining on a hill that President Ronald Reagan once spoke of.  Of course that means self improvement.  I know I can do it and so can you.  So good luck, make mistakes and most of all, know you have the power to overcome anything.

Merry Christmas

Christmas is about showing love to one another.  It is about the giving of oneself selflessly out of that love.  On this day Jesus Christ was born, and thus given to us by God.  So I am here wishing you all a happy and a healthy Christmas.  

Merry Christmas.

Sincerely,

Steven Gracey

Christmas Eve

Welcome to Christmas eve.  I doubt many will be able to read my blog today as they are probably doing last minute wrapping of gifts for those they love.  We all have our traditions and our ways of celebrating.  I for one get together with my parents and some other family and unwrap some gifts before Christmas morning (that and a nice home cooked meal).  Basically it is all about the fun and love of being with one another.  It is good to embrace traditions on this day and tomorrow's Christ's' Mass (Christmas) for it gives us memories to build upon year by year as we all grow old together.  It is a holiday to be celebrated and shared between all mankind whether you are a Christian or not, for love knows no boundaries and I believe that is what God intended (sorry if I am a bit preachy here).  This is just how I view the holiday based on how I was raised, my faith, and my own love of my fellow man.  It all comes down to the individual showing love for one another, and sacrificing of themselves honestly for one another to show that love.  So may God bless you all on this holy night of nights.

Decorating the Tree

This time of year is about the fun of family, so in addition to opening the gifts on Christmas surrounded by family and friends, there is other activities that can be done together for the family to enjoy.  In this case it is decorating the tree.  You can make a theme, or go crazy and shove all the ornaments and trinkets you can on it.  However, doing it together as a family can bring people closer together.  Each ornament brings a memory and when you all take turns placing the ornament it gives people the opportunity to remember the past and the love in them.  Each year you can add a new ornament to the tree to represent the year and the life you all lived together in that year.  Basically the tree can be and should be in my opinion a coming together moment.

Final Thought:  The tree represents something.  It can represent the path from earth to heaven with the star on the top.  Christmas trees may represent the memories and love shared and passed on from year to year.  A Christmas tree represents an aspect of Christmas that all families can share.  So feel free to get a tree (fake or real) and use it to come together.

Do unto others as they Do unto you.

Today's quote is do unto others as they do unto you.  This means treat people the way you want to be treated.  It is a character lesson that is told in the Bible, and even other faiths and philosophies around the world.  Basically just be a good person despite how people treat you.  Don't sink to the level of people who would do you wrong.  Yes, I know you want to smack the jerk that nearly got you into an accident on the highway, or the guy yelling at you about their insurance not covering their medication even if you have zero control over the situation (something I experience at least 2 to 10 times a week).  But I do not let that bring me down.  I try to rise above it and let it slip away.  It is not like you cannot get made, let alone annoyed at something like that, but in the end it is trivial.  For the longest time I would bottle up these emotions and it had a negative effect till I learned to let it go (though there are still things I hold onto for there perceived importance despite myself) and I am still learning to let go more and more each day.  I treat others with as much respect and kindness as I am capable of even though I can come off a bit weird at times (too honest, or too unfiltered).  However that honesty is needed as how can I overcome my flaws by not being honest with myself.  If I cannot be honest with myself, then how can I be with others?  Not treating myself as I want to be treated is the same as treating someone else in a way you do not want to be treated.  As such you become a phony.  A fake personality.  Obviously this is a bad thing.  Hence why I write this quote of the day.

Final Thought:  Treat yourself honestly and you can treat others in an honest way too.  Be critical of the self while you self reflect to find out who you are on the inside.  Once that's done and you can act generally toward others.  Honesty really is best (of course curb it when dealing with people who lack character and thus self restraint).  Once we all understand this character lesson, we may just progress as a society by not saying dumb things we would not want to hear if we were in the recipient's position, how we would not want to act especially if we were on the receiving end.  It is a deep lesson that takes time to understand.  Just give it time and question everything so that you may find the inner truth that makes you who you really are to improve yourself as a human being.

Hillary and rumors.

Let us start off the week with roomer and darkness, and then finish with the love of Christmas.  In this case, the darkness is the potential truth to the rumors surrounding Hillary Clinton.  Let us start.

Rumor 1) The first one comes from Roger Stone's and Robert Morrow's book "the Clinton's' war on women".  In this case the authors make the claim with sources that Bill Clinton as President had sex with minors and raped women as well (I did not read the book and thus basing this off the review) and that Hillary covered it up and intimidated and threatened his victims to remain silent.  That and more. As to if it has truth or not I do not know.  I am not going to read it myself, and I feel it is speculative and possibly a propaganda piece to be rid of Hillary in the upcoming election.  You decide.

Rumer 2) our second rumor is something put forth by Dinesh D’Souza.  He fully stated in the interview I saw on the Blaze that this is his opinion, that Hillary wants power for powers sake.  She is power hungry and wants control in the same fashion that a tyrant would if she could achieve it.  From his perspective, she became a senator to gain political clout to get into the inner workings of our political systems backroom deals by using the name of her former President husband to gain access and power.  Then she became secretary of State to understand and see the trouble spots around the world and thus knows when and where she can manipulate those places to gain power, money and authority.  Basically, it is about being able to move the levers of society and thus control every aspect of people's lives if she could.  In short, she is a potential despot.  I agree with Mr. D’Souza that she is power hungry, and I can see her seeking more, but I don't know about her being insatiable.  In this case it is up for you to decide if her and  Bill's foundation, and her political positions were all to set up to seek and hold the reins of power.  Basically, is she "big sister" to 1984's big brother?

Final Thought:  These are both speculative and I felt like providing you my readers with these so that you may decide for yourselves what to believe.  Remember, to question with boldness and choose wisely whom we choose for President, for the nation will get what it deserves.

A quote by Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference. 

By Robert Frost

This quote has a special meaning which has been shortened to saying "I took the road less traveled".  It means (to me) that we should not go down the path others chose.  We must not go down the path that is easy.  Instead we must forge our way under our own power and authority.  In short we have command over our own destiny and thus we must make our own decisions on how to move forward in life.  

As to the part of the quote where Frost says "that has made all the difference".  It is because Frost was able to mold and shape himself in a way he wanted.  He was not held down by other people's beliefs and ideas, but instead he made his own decisions and thus need not regret what he has done or where he has been as every success and failure was his and his alone, and thus all was an experience that made Frost a better person.

So my readers, make your own decisions believe what you want to believe in.  Let no one choose your destiny.  And finally, know that all successes and failures you experience are yours alone and that they shape you and make you into a better person.  Learn from those experiences and make yourself into the person you feel you were destined to be.

See Something Say Something

Ok this is the last post of the week (minus the quote post tomorrow), but it is important as an unnumbered.  After the shootings in California by another set of homegrown terrorists, we seem to have forgotten what "see something say something" is about.  There were reports of people seeing suspicious activity at terrorist couple's shooter's home, but people did not want to say anything because they did not want to be seen as racially profiling or as being perceived as being racist.  Issue is that no matter what, if you see anyone doing anything suspicious you will be racially profiling for a person with a white tee shirt and sweats can be literally anyone.  

We have created a society of fear by perpetuating the idea that if you say anything people will call you an islamophobe, or worse.  Now being called that can lead to total social isolation and even job loss.  This is because people call people racist too easily and people are overly sensitive on all sides.  So now, when a legitimate potential threat is sighted we cannot say a single thing out of fear.   As such I counter with the fact that maybe we need to use anonymous tip lines more.  You do not say your name or anything, just say what you saw.  It makes sense right?  Sure if it is a false alarm it can potentially make the person being looked into uncomfortable (assuming they know they are being looked into to).  But the potential to save a life like in the San Bernardino Shooting, or the Fort Hood shooting, or other terror attack makes that slight uncomfortableness reasonable and necessary.  Sure, we want to mind our own business, but that does not apply when it comes to people's safety.  

Final Word:  Say something, I beg you.  Do it anonymously if you are scared, but say something as you can potentially save a life. 

Why I will not vote for Hillery

Yep, another unnumbered.  This time to show that candidates on both sides suck (in my opinion).

Now, as to why I will not vote for Hillary Clinton.  While Trump taps into anger and fear, Hillary does similar with respect to tapping into emotions, but in her case it is about giving hope to people.  But her hope is a false one.  She intends (from my view) to claim that she will help the impoverished and middle class, but will ultimately tax the middle class and higher to "aid them".  But this aid will not actually help the poor, but instead keep them as a voting block to continue to be used by her political party.  Yes, she does intend to raise taxes as well (in the same manner as Trump), so that multi-thousand page tax code grows and thus further increases the divide between the rich and poor (I don't know if that is intentional or not).

She is power hungry as well.  Hillary has stated prior that she would not run for president, but then does so (she is not the first to do this though).  I find this lying to be distasteful on its own, but she set up her campaign while continuing to say this so she can personally try and lay claim to being the first woman President (plenty of more qualified women can replace her, and with integrity to share).  So this power hungry woman who wants her name left in the history books kind of freaks me out.

Final Word:  I cannot see myself voting for her or Trump.  If they are the two nominees, then I will not be voting for either of them as I see them as dangerous and will pervert and ignore the Constitution to suit their own ends. This is my personal view, so all I can say my readers is choose wisely.

Why I will not vote for Trump

Welcome to one of the unnumbered issues, designed to be issues that can sometimes replace regular issues, while meeting the need to talk about issues of immediate importance without the wait.  In this instance we have my opinion on why I will not vote for Donald Trump.

Let's see, the main reason I will not vote for him is how he is attracting people.  He feeds on their anger and fears to gather support.  Now if you know religion, or even Star Wars, then you know that tapping into such dark feelings leads to people allowing horrible things to happen.  Examples being are internment camps in World War I with the Germans, and World War II with both Germans on the east coast and Japanese on the west coast.  In both instances the government confiscated people's valuables and denied people of their rights.  Both were done under Democratic Presidents, President Wilson and President Roosevelt.  However, Trump is a Republican, but he is also a progressive like Wilson and Roosevelt and will say anything to win.  Remember he taps into anger and fear, hence his moratorium on Muslims coming into the country.  But how far will that go?  If he gives in more to people's fears (or simply tries to keep them as supporters by doing so) then there is no law, let alone president to prevent the internment camps from happening again.  He already is vengeful and lashes out at reporters who mock or disagree with him (or just plain challenge him), so he is an angry prideful man himself which makes him weak as a potential president.  Basically he is a ticking time bomb in my opinion.

Final word:  I will continue to review and present information on Trump in future issues, but I will do my utmost to ensure I write them from an objective standpoint.  Please understand, as a libertarian, anyone who seeks power is potentially a dictator waiting to happen, so I am cautious even if I agree with their policies or not (I agree with a select number of Trumps policy ideas).  Anyway, I write this to let you readers know I am concerned about this wannabe commander in chief.  Be cautious my readers, for we will always get the leader we deserve.

Issue 733 America Exceptional December 14, 2015

Why is America exceptional?  It is simple really even if people do not realize it.  Let us begin with the answer to the question.

Why America is Exceptional:  America is exceptional because we seek to correct our mistakes.  We do not want to make the same mistakes ever again.  Our rule under a monarchy was a mistake and we broke free and designed a Constitution to do so.  Slavery was another major mistake and the country was washed in blood during the civil war.  Now we are currently trying to make up for segregation.  As such, a dialogue is continuously trying to be brokered.  However it seems that America is losing that dialogue due to it losing what allows the country to be exceptional.  So what is that component?

The key ingredient:  To remain exceptional we have to keep learning our history.  But this must be done in an objective way without biases to understand the context of why things happened the way they did.  Basically, no opinion, just the facts presented in a clear, concise and understandable way.  We want to achieve what Doctor Martin Luther King Jr. espoused, that we must be judged by the content of our character, and that our progress and how we go forward with our lives is our character. 

Conclusion:  Our schools are no longer just giving objective facts.  We do not learn the whole Constitution or even how it is applied to our everyday lives.  All we know from schooling is that things are bad, that people caused everything and we do not even see their motivations or their motivations are presented in such a way as to blame a single group for the horror and oppression caused.  That is not objective history.  We do not judge people by their character because schools are not equipped to teach students to judge and think for themselves like they were in the past.  Unless this is corrected, we will face the same problems and the same bloodshed again.  Once that occurs, America falls as we will have completely lost whatever has made us as a country exceptional.

Some updates on what is going to happen to the Blog.

I can assure you all that I will continue to write more.  That is a given.  However, I will be making some changes.   The change that I will be doing is that I will cut down my posts to four days a week.  This allows more flexibility for me to potentially write more or do more in depth research into a particular topic, and also to have a little bit more free time between work and my writing here.  So pardon my selfishness.

 Also, even though I will be reducing my postings to four days a week, it does not mean that there will not potentially be a fifth post.  In this case it could be a current event that is happening right at the moment that is worth mentioning or something fun.  These will be unnumbered and could potentially replace a typical numbered "issue" if I feel it is important enough.

 As to my health, I am getting better, but the time away from writing has allowed me to read and think.  It has thus allowed me to try and better integrate private life with work and hobbies which ultimately resulted in this decision which is overall better for my mental health as well (it can be stressful making a deadline even self imposed ones).  I hope this pleases you my readers or at the very least understand why I made these changes.  Again as always thank you for reading, and I look forward to your continued readership.

Quote Sic Semper Tyrannus

Sic Semper Tyrannus means thus unto the tyrants.  The quote was made famous by the John Wilkes Booth when he assassinated President Abraham Lincoln in Ford's theater.  He said this to make a statement as he thought that President Lincoln was a tyrant and that ultimately all tyrants die.   But let us quickly dissect this.  The fact that a tyrant is a person who seeks to control and manipulate others as they have some sort of power over others.  Lincoln did to an extent have power over others, but he gave up his war time powers and then some as he wanted the North and South to reconcile as family rather than the north controlling the lives of the defeated former Confederate States.  So Lincoln was not a tyrant in really any respect as tyrants do not give up power as they continually seek more.  Real tyrants are obviously dictators with secret police like Hitler, Stalin and Mao.  Others such as rapists and abusive husbands can also fall in this category as well.  For you see, they want the power of control, control of others.  However, that control is only gained when we are intimidated and fear them to the point that we are paralyzed and can do nothing against them.  But you only have control over yourself.  That personal control is something that you must hold onto or else you become a slave.  So do not become a slave to others.  Do not submit to tyrants and thus make them powerless.  That is the true way of resisting and ultimately removing a tyrant from power.


Here is one of the unnumbered with more to come usually on fridays if a topic or something of importance does not come up.  Hope you enjoy.

Issue 732 Cost of food December 10, 2015

Getting away from government and raising some awareness today.  In this case, some info on why food costs can be so high.

Cost of food:  Did you know (this info all come from National Geographic FYI) that in 2010 21% of food at the consumer level went uneaten according to the USDA.  This un-eaten food includes all edible foods, post-harvest, that is available for human consumption, but for whatever reason is not consumed.  So this un-eaten food is the rejected food at harvest because it is deemed ugly, or defective in some way, half eaten pasta at restaurants and even spoiled food like sour milk.  It is kind of wasteful if you consider it.  In fact it is very wasteful according to the numbers.  About 25% of fresh water is used on agriculture, water that we could be drinking.  Over 300 million barrels of oil is lost due to this waste.  It is 2.5% of the energy production in the U.S. that could have been used elsewhere.  Total costs financially is $115 million.  That is a lot of waste and that hurts us and the nation's economy here in the U.S.  But what can we do about it?  Simple, take home and eat your leftovers.  Learn ways to use every part of a butchered animal, fruit or vegetable.  Be able to take leftovers say from turkey dinner and be able to turn them into something else edible so it does not go to waste.  Even learning to turn sour milk into yogurt may help.  Buying produce that looks like some twisted alien will help as well as much of those ugly foods are simply thrown out.  This means less waste as a whole.  

Conclusion:  Food waste could possibly become a bigger and bigger issue.  That fresh water could potentially become very expensive with the fear of a coming food crisis (hence why people advocate eating bugs and the introduction of other exotic foods into the world's diet).  Oil we already know has issues with price and scarcity and wasting money on anything (non-essentials and things that do not make a person's quality of life improve) is a loser's way to poverty if left unchecked.  So maybe it is time we start looking at what we eat and how we eat differently.  Maybe we can "change the world" (sorry could not help myself with that old cliché).

Issue 731 Fixing Democracy 8 December 9, 2015

In the final edition of the fixing Democracy series (took me long enough) we discuss the final components of fixing our democracy and getting the corruption out.  So let us begin.

Property and Money:  The two final things that form the core of corruption is property and money.  In this case the government being able to take a person's land from them and using it for themselves or (unconstitutionally) giving said property to someone else, and money changing hands to supply subsidies to businesses.  In the case of property as per Amendment five of the United States Constitution, the line "nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation." has been perverted.  For one, everything as a whole in that amendment stipulates that if land is to be taken it must be agreed to by the owner.  However, not only has the government ignored the wills of the owners to take property away, they have even gone beyond public use of that land and given it to private businesses or entities because the government feels that they can make better use of the land over the original owners.  It is for this corrupt reasoning that Thomas Jefferson did not want this as part of the Fifth Amendment.  He knew this corruption and deals (with stadium owners, land developers, etc.) would happen that would take the rights of people away.  As such, the takings clause "only" should be removed from the Fifth Amendment to stop such acts.

As to money (although property had a little to do with money as well), let us take it out of politics.  We all agree on that right?   Well, this means we have to eliminate the patronage of businesses, charities and other organizations outside of foreign and domestic governments.  What does this mean?  It means that only foreign (and domestic) governments would be able to receive money from the federal government and by de facto organizations representing them.  This means no more subsidies to oil companies, or ethanol companies.  No money would go to Planned Parenthood or to charities.  Literally, every organization, businesses, advocacy groups, charities, support groups, you name it, will not be able to legally receive a single penny from the federal government.  As such, lobbyists will have no incentives to lobby as the politicians can no longer line their bosses pockets.  This also means less big money going into elections as well save when a business or group finds that the candidates’ views align with theirs as opposed to the status quo of I help you get in, you owe me attitude.  So we will be taking a whole additional chunk of corruption out of politics by doing this.   All it takes however is a constitutional amendment.

Conclusion:  So both these solutions solve problems.  The bigger problem is getting people's support to get them to be constitutional amendments.  Why do we need people to like these two ideas?  That is because our milk is subsidized, our poor are given money by the federal government, and powerful people with lots of money have a larger amount of influence and access to our politicians.  Sucks doesn't it.  But that has not stopped people before and if we are prepared to practice what we preach, then be prepared for prices to go up in some places and perhaps down in others.  We can get the corruption out, but it takes time, patience and a little sacrifice.

Issue 730 Fixing Democracy 7 December 8, 2015

Now that I am back (somewhat) I can finish off the last two in the series of fixing democracy.  So let us continue.

Appointing Judges and Term Limits:  At current Supreme Court Judges are appointed by the President and ratified by the Senate.  This was meant to be a check on the system as the Senate represented the State Governments and not the people directly.  So it prevented the President from stacking the court in their favor with respect to issues of State sovereignty and people’s rights.  But now it is all about party politics.  Presidents use "litmus tests" to determine the most appointable judge that best represents their ideological viewpoints.   Kind of degrading to the nation isn't it?  As our supreme court is degraded into a tool of the Party Politics system.  So what can be done about this?  Simple, change the rules.

To eliminate this corruption via the political machine, you first have to eliminate the traditional method of appointing judges.  So rather than a president appointing them, they will be chosen via the same method one would choose a member of a jury.  In this case, standards would be set demanding that any judge who may serve must be a practicing lawyer, or judge with at least one year of service.  This eliminates people who have law degrees but have never been inside a courtroom (Justice Kagan being a prime example of a person who never saw time in court, but was appointed anyway).  So with that limitation we make sure people who actually know law and understand how it is implemented are the ones serving.  At this point the currently serving judges would look at the potential candidates and give their top 20 list from which the Senate would pick and ratify a number equal to the number of open positions on the Supreme Court.  If none of the candidates in the list make the cut, then the Supreme Court would provide another list eliminating the bottom candidates and adding new ones.  This process (like the current one) would continue until both sides are satisfied.  

Now, we do not want justices serving perpetually, and thus they will be limited to a maximum of three six year terms with a max total of 18 Judges.  As such, 1/3 of the judges will be changed or reappointed every two years.  This insures that potentially bad judges do not stay in office for an extended period of time (current judges serve as long as they please as they have no limits on the number of years served).  Additionally the number of judges needed to sit on any given case will be a minimum of three and a maximum of nine but the number must always be an odd number. This allows the judges to see multiple cases at once, but if a case should return to the Supreme Court for any reason, the judges from the previous case will not be allowed to sit on that case.  This prevents conflicts of interest. As such with this in place we eliminate judges not wanting to retire due to political reasons like ideology.

Conclusion:  By limiting the Court to choosing its own replacements with select criteria, we eliminate some of the party politics (partly because the lawyers and judges have a mindset that things can only be done within the law).  If combined with Issue 729's set criteria on reviewing a case, then we may have a judiciary that would never allow for something like Obama Care, or Kilo Versus New London ever again.

Remembering Pearl Harbor December 7, 2015

Not many people save history buffs will remember Pearl Harbor day.  It happened December 7th 1941 when the Japanese launched a surprise attack and was the catalyst that finally brought the United States into the war, World War II.  It is not like we were not already involved in the fighting beforehand.  The United States was already sending arms to the British and other forces fighting the Germans and the Japanese.  We lost territory to the Japanese in the Philippines, and our allies did too. But still, we stayed out of direct involvement due to President Roosevelt trying to avoid fighting until America was ready (contrary to his promise to keep us out of war).   As to whether we allowed the attacks to go through to galvanize the public, that is still and probably will remain speculation for who could believe that the government would purposefully allow an attack on U.S. territory (though today's politicians potentially may allow something like that).  So on this day, despite it potentially being an avoidable occurrence we remember Pearl Harbor day and the lives lost that would spur the American Giant to war.

Taking a week off.

Stupidly....I injured my back and cannot sit for very long to type.  In fact I herniated a disk moving furniture for some family, and needless to say, this type of injury really sucks (avoid it if you can).  Hopefully I'll be able to write soon, otherwise I will post what I manage to type when and where I can.   Hope to be back to normal soon.  See you hopefully in a week with the usual five posts a week.

Black Friday

Post Thanksgiving post!  Hope you all enjoyed your time with family and friends, but there is no reason to stop the festivities the day after.  Yea, it may be black friday, but I am not going shopping, I am going to spend some more time with family and friends.  Hard to believe a day that once represented the stock market crash now represents sales and people losing their mind about buying stuff (I'll stick to buying from Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Think Geek).  So stay home and be with your family some more.  Enjoy your long weekend and see you next week where we pick up where we left off on The Jormungand.

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.  

I'm taking a break from the usual to say how glad and thankful I am to have you all as readers.  Without you all reading then I would not have the courage (or stamina) to write as much as I do.  

With the world in turmoil and opinions a dime a dozen, thank you for being there to listen to mine.  I hope you all have a happy and healthy Thanksgiving.  

Issue 729 Fixing democracy 6 November 25, 2015

The Supreme Court is becoming a problem.  How you ask, well let us get started.

Supreme Court problem:  The issue at hand is that they are more and more legislating from the bench.  Basically for those that do not know, they are making laws without respecting the separations of power in our government. The Supreme Court is supposed to say if something is legal or not with respect to if something is constitutional and nothing else.  But they are ignoring this by ruling that the penalties in Obama care are a tax, or that the government has power to define marriage and what constitutes being married.  As such, rules I believe should be put in place to limit how they rule on issues and laws.  They first should look to see if the issue is a federal government responsibility with respect to the powers outlined in the United States Constitution.  If it is, then fine, they can rule on it, but if not they then determine if the level of responsibility lies with the State governments, local government or if it lays with the people.  Basically a checklist on whose level of authority is this under.  In this respect, they can even determine when they deem it a State responsibility which States can make or ignore laws based on those particular States Constitutions, or similarly local governments’ charters.  However, as a check and a balance if rights are being violated and the Supreme Court says that something ultimately lies with the power of the individual people, then no government may usurp the people's power.  So if it violates people's rights, like government deciding who can get married, or people's right to contract, then the Supreme Court can overturn any law.  So the checklist will look as follows:

1) is it in the United States Constitution and is it a federal government responsibility or power?

2) If not 1, then is it a State responsibility or power as per their Constitution(s), and if so is it indicative to that State's Constitution or is it broader to be a responsibility of all States?

3) If not 1 or 2, is it a local government's responsibility or power, and is it indicative to just that particular local government or all the local governments in the country?

4) If it is not a responsibility or power of 1, 2 or 3, then it belongs to the people as per the ninth and tenth Amendments of the United States Constitution and the law or act is to be immediately overturned.

5) If at any time the law or act in question is determined to be an issue of rights, privileges and immunities as held by the people and or as listed in any level of government Constitution or charter, and that law or act is in violation of those at any level of government, then the power and responsibilities in question will be placed with the people as per the ninth and tenth amendments and the law or act will be immediately, overturned. 

6) If the law or act is not clear in purpose, ambiguous and/or is not easily understood, then the law or act is overturned in keeping with the principle that if the people do not understand the law, then the law is unenforceable and open to abuse.

7) If the law or act attempts to clarify or protect a right, privilege or immunity, then the Court is to determine if said right, privilege or immunity in question needs to be clarified, and if said law or act actually adequately defines, protects or hinders those rights privileges or immunities in question.  If the clarification or protection would hinder the expression of a person's rights in any way that law or act is to be overturned.

Simple Checklist right?  If you will notice, both 4 and 5 make it so that if the issue is not any government's responsibility or power, or if it is a question of rights, privileges and immunities, then the laws are overturned.  These insure that laws and acts made by legislative bodies and agencies and departments are always inferior to the Federal, and State(s) Constitutions, and local charters. Additionally, if the right, privilege and immunity is listed at any level of government or simply determined to be a power or right held by the people, then automatically the law is overturned if deemed in violation even if the law or act in question comes from a higher level of government. For the sake of example a local government's charter says that anyone can marry anyone as per their religious right to marry, then a federal law may be overturned which say was attempting to define marriage to just a man or a women.  Get it.  Rights of the people would trump laws and acts by government.

Conclusion:  A simple checklist like this will do wonders in defining what can and can't be done, especially if the Supreme Court wishes to continue to determine what is constitutional or not.  So expanding and limiting their power at the same time would work which this checklist does.  However, determining the obviously wrongful acts like murder, theft and the similar will be necessary to prevent changes in attitudes and maintaining the idea that the ninth and tenth amendment provide for unwritten rights will also be necessary as well.  For let us face it, we are a forgetful people and defining what can and cannot be done is absolutely necessary to maintain our Republic.

Issue 728 Fixing Democracy 5 November 24, 2015

In this issue we will talk about reallocating responsibility of which level of government does what.  Let us start.

Changes of responsibility:  So the federal government is supposed to do one set of things, State governments another and local another.  Basically, we just make sure each one sticks to its own responsibilities.  For example the federal government has a forestry service.  They basically stop forest fires, preserve the forest and act to aid in conservation efforts.  But some of these things run counter to each other due to fighting fires in forests meaning that parts of the forest needs to be removed to act as a fire break.  The reason being is that again interest groups get in the way as conservation groups, in their effort to preserve the forests, help to enact laws that may hinder firefighters from going in and stopping the fires.  As such the National Guard, primarily a State level institution, should get the role of fighting forest fires.  The conservation role will be separated as well and turned over to the forest ministries and their equivalents in their respective States.  By doing simple things like this it eliminates competing doctrines in agencies which can paralyze them and cause our tax dollars to go to waste.  Another example would be the jobs that homeland security does.  The air national guard can do airport security, the FBI already does counter terrorism, and the Army national guard already coordinates with fire, police and other rescue personnel in disasters.  As such, the entire apparatus of homeland security is redundant as all their jobs are done by other bodies in and at all levels of government.  New York City has its own counter terror group and shares info and receive info from the FBI and CIA.  So we can have major cities protect themselves from terrorists, coordinate with other bodies for broader national defense and areas that do not have the counter terror teams set up like NYC does can have that placed in the national guard or FBI branch offices, or simply placed in SWAT teams run by the States.   

Another example would be national monuments.  No one wants them to go away and they are deemed national treasures.  But why is the federal government in charge of them.  States already do a good job with their State parks and monuments, so why not turn over the national ones to the States who are more than equipped to handle their upkeep.  It is not the federal government's job to maintain monuments, so why is it doing so?  Why is it wasting taxpayer dollars which can be better spent elsewhere and the States can get the revenue from those people visiting those monuments as well?  Well, lobbying is partly to blame for all of this.  The federal level departments and agencies who handle monuments also lobby congress.  Yes, government even lobbies itself.  And thus sending it to the States makes sense as now the government lobby is broken up and no longer has an influence.  How about Fannie and Freddie, the mortgage loan giants.  They were created and supported by the federal government to back loans, but that is not the federal government's responsibility, it is the private sector, so break it up and privatize it.  Welfare is a local government responsibility, and thus should be turned back over to them.  Education and environmental protection are both State and local government jobs, the federal government really should not have a say there either.  However, environmentalists, industries, advocacy groups and even the government all lobby for power and control.  But if the jobs were placed where they belong, we may not be having as many problems as we have now with respect to corruption.

Conclusion:  We are centralizing political power in the higher echelons of government and that causes problems with competing doctrines, lobbying and of course power struggles that can paralyze our government.  It is time to fix that by giving power back to where it belongs and doing it smartly.

Issue 727 Fixing Democracy 4 November 23, 2015

Continuing with this series, we get to ways to end Gerrymandering.  What Gerrymandering is, for those who do not know, is when politicians divide up electoral districts to make them have an overwhelming majority of people from one political party to ensure that that particular party gets elected into office.  Basically it makes it easier for one politician from one party to get elected over the other.  However, this is a form of corrupting influence upon our nation and it must be stopped.

Fixing it:  Obviously this is a bad practice as it ensures little to no compromise with respect to politicians as they have to appeal to only their political party and the voters in that group.  Also it causes the politicians to become more extreme as without the need to appeal to the other side, the views of their ideologically pure constituents can become more and more radical. As such, they become more radical too so as to not be replaced by more ideologically pure politicians. So a better method must be developed and enforced by law to prevent gerrymandering and its influence on the nation.

One method already in use is a committee of non-elected/non electable officials which are selected in the same way a courtroom chooses a jury.  This committee then distributes the districts up as equally in population size as possible without looking at things like race, ideology or other factors.  California already does this (note: States make the congressional districts, not the federal government).  However, this has a weakness.  It does not account for regional needs such as urban, to suburban to rural.  It only takes into account population density.  As such there is an additional alternative people may or may not like.

The alternative is to have the States, when making electoral districts, divided into regions.  In this case, a city will be its own electoral district and rural areas, wilderness areas and the like will have each their own districts as well. In the case that there is only two representatives for a particular State, then one representative will represent all the urban areas and some suburban areas, and the other will represent all the rural, wilderness and other sparsely populated areas.  Now the reason why this is controversial even if the representatives are actually representing regional needs is that the size of the populations in those districts will be vastly different.  Cities can have thousands of people living in them, but rural areas can have less than a thousand distributed throughout the entire State.  So people see this as unfair that a few hundred have the same voting power as potentially one million.  The Supreme Court has already ruled on this matter once in favor of having districts with population sizes that are almost equal irrespective of the fact of people's needs.  To overcome this the Supreme Court ruling would either have to be overturned or electoral districts would need to stop being constrained by State borders.  This would mean a total loss of power to the States which would in effect reduce lobbying as well to a degree as power becomes more distributed.  But this may also mean that Congress may need to be reworked as well.  Additional houses of representatives may be needed so that rural areas and urban areas do not overwhelm each other’s votes.  Even then, Suburban and wilderness areas would need representation.  Basically it gets really complicated and thus making sure cities, suburban areas, transitional areas, rural, and wilderness all have an equal number of representatives if we end up not having to rework the very government itself that is.  Again, none of this respects population size and thus will be seen as unfair.  

Conclusion:  I wanted to make it clear to you my reader that there is alternatives out there, but our current system is the fairest. As such, to reduce the corruption of gerrymandering the committee idea is the best one with respect to reducing corruption and preventing politicians from becoming too radical (let alone the districts themselves).  In that respect the committees insure that districts potentially have people who will disagree and thus play devil's advocate to ensure no ideas get out of hand.

Issue 726 Fixing Democracy 3 November 20, 2015

So we got Congress and the Senate, the Vice President, but what about the Electoral College.  It aids in creating corruption and allows people more power than they normally would have.  So how do we fix this?

Fixing the Electoral College:  Our current electoral college works as follows.  Each State chooses a slate of electors, with two for each electoral vote that State has with half representing one candidate running in the Presidential election and the other half representing the other.  From there, we the people vote and then the majority vote decides which slate of electors votes who then vote for their chosen candidate.  Somewhat simple right?  Basically it makes the system a winner take all vote as the candidates need a certain amount of electoral votes to be elected President.  Problems are caused by this however.  For one, a person in a Blue State (Democrat party) like New York State overrides their Republican brethren with respect representation in that State.  Which means that it is almost pointless for a Republican to vote in New York as they will always be outvoted.  So you lose representation.  Additionally, this helps Swing States like Florida as more attention is going to be paid toward it due to how many electoral votes they have and how they can go for either candidate.  So Florida gets major benefits from politicians as they want to play nice to manipulate the voting in their political party’s direction.  This also means that businesses in these swing States gain advantages as well as explained in Issue 722 with the example of Sugar growers having superior say in political circles if they originate in a swing State and thus make them able to manipulate the market in their favor (hello lobbyists).  

So what is the solution to our votes counting more, getting other States to be paid attention to, and to reduce lobbying?  Simple, eliminate the winner take all system. Have it by electoral district with each district's electoral vote going toward whichever candidate had the most votes in said district.  Then if the majority of districts in the State vote for a particular candidate, the two electoral votes representing the number of Senators each State has (electoral votes are determined by the total number of Representatives in the House and Senate combined) will go toward the candidate with the most electoral votes in that State.  But if neither candidate gets a majority, then the electoral votes representing the senatorial representation will be divided between the two.   Actually let us scrap that, and make it so that the total number of electoral votes is equal just to the number of the members of the House of Representatives and each candidate must win a simple 50% plus one majority.  No more by winner take all bull crap.  Just win half the 435 plus one electoral votes to win.  This makes it simpler and easier to understand.  Every electoral district is equal which means the Candidates for President will have to visit multiple places to try and win, not just a few key areas of a State to get all of the votes as with the current system. It eliminates the power businesses had if they existed in swing States and thus reduces their political clout and thus their ability to lobby Congress which hinders crony capitalism.  It also means your vote may count more as well especially as you are not locked into the Republican or Democrat majority State situation anymore.  States also become more equal as Swing States and States with a lot of electoral votes do not count as much anymore as candidates are not trying to win a whole State, but instead a majority of the people by electoral district.  Truly much better than the current situation.

Conclusion:  This will be hard to pull off because we are basically removing a lot of power from a lot of people.  It does not eliminate key businesses like banks, international and domestic trade ports and the like, but it removes as many businesses as possible who gained say (lobbying power) artificially through our imperfect system.  Basically it is better than the status quo.  However, I will not go toward a pure democracy with the direct election of the President just yet, as I still fear mob rule.  Until we can counteract that, this solution I present to you here is as far as I am willing to go while fixing the system.

Issue 725 Fixing Democracy 2 November 19, 2015

As we are talking about fixing democracy, we need a canary in the coal mine in office.  No, I am not talking about a literal canary, but someone who can play devil's advocate and hopefully suppress the radical ideas of idealist Presidents.  I am talking about altering the role of the Vice President.

Vice Presidential Fixes:  So we all know that if the President can no longer serve as President for whatever reason that the Vice President takes over.  Did you know that the Vice President is the President of the Senate according to the Constitution?  What this means is that the Vice President organizes debate on the Senate floor and only has a vote there in the event of a tie.  And that is pretty much it.  Or should it be?  If we are going to fix the role of the Vice President, then we need to make him/her the opposition.  This means that the runner up in a Presidential election will be the Vice President so as to be the devil's advocate and be the canary that says the President is going too far.  But how would that work?  How is a Vice President going to be in meetings with the President (especially if the Vice President is not liked) while actually doing the job as President of the Senate?  Well, the Senate is not meant to be in session all the time, and the Vice President is not necessarily there all the time either.  Sure, the Vice President can keep the tie breaking vote as the Vice President represents government and not necessarily the people.  So what about making the Vice President the chief of staff?  The Chief of Staff organizes meetings, and oversees the operations of the Executive branch.  That is one way to make sure that the Vice President is in on the meetings, but that may be pushing it.  The reason being is that the Vice President need not be in meetings to be the canary, and is meant in this case to go public with his/her reservations.  We need a Vice President that is designed to usurp and undermine the President's power via public statements.  So remaining the President of the Senate is fine along with the tie breaking vote.  But adding in the equivalent of a State of the Union address would be most beneficial.  In this case, the Vice President would publically go before the Congress and the Senate and voice his/her concerns.  In this instance, the time frame for these speeches will be the week prior to Election Day each year at minimum and at maximum additional ones can be held or the Vice President may address the people publically through media and the press.  No President wants to be reprimanded or look bad the week before elections are held for that means his or her opposition can gain just the foothold they need to usurp the President's allies in the Congress and the Senate.  People listen and the American people will listen to the Vice President if we give the appropriate title and message in the speech the Vice President will be making.  So we can label it "The State of Opposition" speech. 

Conclusion: Other than that, the Vice President really has no roll, save maybe formalizing the Vice President attending State funerals, weddings and other events in the President's place.  The Vice President can informally also stand in for the President at Cabinet meetings or other official business, but these will need to be added into the Constitution much like the "State of the Opposition" speech in order to formalize duties and actually give the Vice President any semblance of political clout.  So let the Vice President meet with foreign dignitaries on behalf of the President, perform all ceremonial duties and basically any public duties.  This keeps the Vice President in the limelight in contrast to the President's power, but makes the President's presence all that much more important when he/she does eventually appear in a non-ceremonial or even a ceremonial function with the Vice President.  They will literally be competing for public attention with the Vice President having the advantage of making connections and being the most visible person to the public at large (which will help to ensure that people listen to that speech).   I thought of making the Vice President the Secretary of State, but that defeats the canary in the coalmine idea, so we will have to settle for all ceremonial duties being carried out by the Vice President, formalizing his/her role as a stand in when the President is absent and hopefully adding that opposition speech in for good measure.

Issue 724 Fixing Democracy 1 November 18, 2015

As we looked at what was wrong with democracy, with respect to America's Republic I thought it might be nice to look at ways to fix it.  So here is part one in this series.

Fix it:  First and foremost let us not say cut things, and the usual methods.  Instead I will discuss methods to change our democracy and explain the context on how they will help do that.  One of those first methods is to eliminate the direct election of Senators as prescribed by the 17th Amendment of the United States Constitution.  You may be thinking that this runs counter to the idea of democracy.  That by not being able to choose your senators via elections defeats the purpose of a democracy.  However, these individual senators abide by mob rule. They will do anything to please the populace that elects them even if it means creating chaos in the country.  These people depend not only on your vote, but special interest groups (lobbyists) to maintain power as it takes money to run an election.  However, going back to the system that had Senators chosen by State legislatures with the ability to recall them when necessary removes lobbyist’s power.  The reason being is the fact that the Senators no longer have the power of the vote as the legislatures will then tell them how to vote (those legislators represent us).  They, as they were intended, were meant to vote in line with what the State legislatures wanted and was in effect a check to prevent the Federal government from gathering too much power and usurping the State's powers under the 10th Amendment.  So no more overbearing federal government overstepping their bounds and less lobbying.

Likewise, we want the same to be said for the House of Representatives.  While the Senators go back to being appointed, the people who are actually meant to represent us in the Federal government cause similar problems due to lobbying and corruption.  So the solution that I think works best is to extend their terms to three years in office as opposed to the current two.  Yes, we let them stay in office an additional year, but they will be limited to a maximum of two terms and those terms in office cannot be consecutive.  So why is this better?  Simple, for one lobbyists will have a harder time manipulating Representatives in the long run due to the limited number of terms allowed and the fact that it makes it harder for incumbents (the guys running for office again after already having served) to win elections due to them not being able to hold consecutive terms.  Therefor lobbyists will have to offer short term bribes that have less impact on the United States economy and less likely to be as corrupting as well.  The reason lobbyists are so effective is due to the sheer number of years some of these congressmen and senators serve in office, but limiting the number of years or removing the reins of power helps to fix that.  At the same time this three year term is set up to insures 1/3 of the House of Representatives is being elected each year.  This means higher turnover and thus fresh blood constantly coming into office while acting as a check against a popular president gone bad.  Think for a moment.  People did not like where President Obama was going with his first term in office and so we had to wait two years to create a counter balance with the other political party (Republicans).  But with 1/3 being elected per year, the power balance shifts yearly with popular support for a good President ushering in more people who think like him/her and unpopular support reducing the President's power by removing his likeminded party members from Congress.  It is another check and balance on the system.

Conclusion:  Both of these solutions have to go together.  They cannot be separated for without the Senators going back to representing the freedom of the States and the individual people in them, then the entire change over for term limits in the House of Representatives becomes an outlet for popular support of the President and thus creates a mob rule scenario.  The Senate is meant to be a check on the House of Representatives to prevent mob rule, not support it by maintaining the current situation with the direct election of senators.  Get it now?  I hope so, or you can always ask me questions via google here or my Facebook page which is under my real name.  Anyway, hope you enjoyed the read.

Issue 723 Failure of our Democracy November 17, 2015

Welcome back.  So we looked at the failure of our market economy so why not our democracy.  Let's begin. (I take inspiration from the Economist and Foreign Affairs)

Issues with our Democracy:  The first issue is that elites have superior access to power and information which is used to protect wealth.  Remember the sugar grower’s example in yesterday's issue?  This is part of that.  Rules in general and access to politicians due to this political clout allow these individuals and businesses to get information first before everyone else.  So what to do here?  Simple, let everyone have access to that information by having government not get in the way.  By having less government involvement it means less chances for government to solidify unfair competition.

Issue two is that we, the ordinary voters do not get angry at our corrupt politicians as we generally do not know that money is being stolen in the first place.  As such we need to get the money out of politics.  No, this does not mean more rules to be enforced however.  It actually means less money being taken from us, the taxpayers.  It means no more pensions or even salaries for politicians, less government as this means less money and as such each level of government focusing on its own responsibilities only.  Smaller government means we can see it better, and even limiting when they can meet and vote helps with this too.

Our other two issues are our fault.  Firstly we have our cognitive rigidities and beliefs.  This can be religion, ideology or just being stubborn.  However, these things prevent social groups from mobilizing because we keep looking at what is different.  In other words we sabotage our ability to organize.  This leads to our other issue.  Different groups have different abilities with respect to actually being able to organize in the first place.  As such minority groups can misportray themselves as the majority in some cases and lead us further down the wrong path.  So what can we do?  Well, we have to start looking at what we all agree on. It is all about uniting behind things one at a time and talking it out to decide what needs to change and how.  Once that is done, then we all get up at once and say never again and perpetuate that.

Conclusion:  I personally always come to the conclusion that less government is best for those in power amplify these problems in our democracy.  We may not need to organize as much if there were less rules turning people who are completely innocent into criminals (victimless crimes).  But alas, this is what we created for ourselves.  So now we struggle to undo the harm we have done to ourselves.

Issue 722 Market Economy Failure November 16, 2015

So what is a market economy and when does it fail?  That is what I will answer today.  Let us begin.

Market Economy:  A market economy is a form of Capitalism.  It allows for the freedom to buy, sell, and produce more goods.  It also creates winners and losers.  However, there being losers is not a bad thing in the least.  The reason being is due to the fact that losers in a market economy are doing something wrong.  Their ideas are either outmoded, too soon, or their business model or how they treat their customers is bad.  As such, they fail and other businesses see this and learn from their mistakes.  Also, those same losers learn from their mistakes as well and may eventually become winners later on.  This is what it means to have innovation and growth in a market economy.  However it can only occur when everyone has equal access to the economic system.

When businesses do not have access to the economic system we lose as consumers and businesses lose as competition is reduced.  This occurs when winners in the economy seek to maintain their position by turning their wealth into political capital.  How does that work you ask?  Well it occurs in two ways.  The first form is when our elected representatives and even the bureaucrats are bribed.  Our other example is when they use their political influence to have the institutions that attempt to control the economy change the rules to favor those who have that political clout.  As such the market for a certain type of good, or favorable conditions will be offered while at the same time closing off any competition.  All this the while shifting the playing field in their favor more and more.  And this is what we call corruption.  Here is a real life example.  Sugar growers are in Florida and Iowa, and these two States in the United States are swing States which can determine the outcome of a Presidential election.  Do you know where this is going?  Well it means that they have a bigger say than sugar growers in other States.  They can use this power to have the rules shifted to favor them.  Just think of all the other industries that exist in politically important States or provide product that cannot be made anywhere else.  This includes defense firms, States with key ports for shipping and similar.  These people get to bribe and manipulate as much as they please even promising cushy jobs to politicians once they retire.  Get it. Good.

Conclusion:  So what can we do?  Simple, get rid of the rules.  Less rules means more freedom as the rules are setup to solidify unfair trade practices.  Then to ensure that we do not return to the status quo, we have to eliminate the people who are bribable.  This means less government. You may have saw where this was going, but government equals corruption.  In order to reduce that corruption you need less government and less rules.  But I will talk more about that in the coming days. In the meantime hope you enjoyed the read.

Pray for Paris

Paris was ruthlessly struck by a coordinated terror attack from what looks to be ISIS.  They have killed over 150 people and some may still be at large.  So I ask for everyone to stand in solidarity with France and to say never again.  It is time to first mourn and then to fight.  Stand with France in the fight against the evil that is ISIS.  May God protect us on this perilous path.

Issue 721 How to make Aid Churches work November 13, 2015

So, we need to get money together to get this aid church idea up and working.    This means salaries if and where needed, money for training and also equipment when and where required.  Now where will all that come from?

Money for the idea:  Well most of the money will be from donations.  It is a church and it is already set up to receive donations in the first place.  Therefore telling parishioners what the money will be going for, they may be more inclined to donate more to help get this running.  Most of that money will initially go toward training for fields in both mental and physical health that require the least amount of education time and logistical support.  So anti-bullying and physical health instructors would be a few of the earliest ones to be set up and working first.  In the meantime the Church can play host to AA and yoga instructors and similar to fill in the gap until the priests themselves can perform such duties.  Additionally, the churches should embrace growing their own food for themselves and parishioners which even may include natural cures.  These can be sold to help support priest training and also stay in theme with providing for the health of the churches proverbial flock.  Other easy things to sell are honey which can be made into wine and even ointments and teas to help fight bacterial infections.   Even providing fishing bait in the form of worms and small fish farms can help as the worms aerate the soil of the gardens (if they are growing any food) and the fish if they die can be used as fertilizer (live ones obviously sold as bait so that people can feed themselves by fishing if need be).  Donations in the form of exercise and medical equipment will also help greatly.  Crutches and wheelchairs alone can help as the church can use such hand me downs to be a medical supply store of sorts to those who are struggling to buy such equipment for their loved ones.   

Ultimately however is for the church to set up its own schools or programs to train priests and parishioners in these fields.  In this instance, the church will remove all the fluff from the courses that you would expect at a college such as liberal arts requirements or credits and focus on the skills exclusively needed to be a professional in the fields of physical and mental health.  The money generated here of course will be further used to support the programs or this can be provided free depending on what the church decides.  Practical training will ensue once the knowledge is obtained in the form of apprenticeships for students and priests.  Basically we usurp the entire college system to train the next generation of Doctors (basic practitioners), nurse practitioners, nutritionists and psychologists.  It may even be able to teach these classes in the churches themselves as seminars so as to eliminate the issue with large scale universities or they can post seminars on-line to also provide the information.  Again, all these specialties and even classes will be broken up between each church so that you get people using multiple churches depending on that churches specialty(s) is.  This avoids overcrowding and backlogs of parishioners coming into the church for these services with the churches being overwhelmed and at the same time prevents one church attempting to steal another church's parishioners away (a major obstacle that keeps some churches from working together).  Ultimately the church's end up as a network to provide free health services and potentially free practical education as well.

Conclusion:  So what do you think?  Will this work?  Well for certain, it will not work if the priests try to convert people to the faith while performing their services with respect to health care.  So no trying to convert people at all.  Besides that, the church needs political will to implement such a change and it of course will take time.  But time is what they seem to have plenty of.  As such we got nothing to lose for trying to give the church (or mosque or temple) another tool to help their parishioners.

Issue 720 Aid Church: Physical November 12, 2015

So we talked about the mental health portion of this concept yesterday. However, I hinted that the physical portion of the idea was not just doctors.  So to satisfy your curiosity, let us begin.

Aid Church:  So like mental health, Priests specialized in different forms of physical health will be divided up between churches, with some specializing in one kind or another.  Yes, doctors in the form of nurse practitioners will be in some to provide basic diagnosis for common problems like bumps and bruises to the cold and the flu.  It will focus primarily on physical exams and inoculations as it takes a lot of infrastructure and expensive equipment for more complex medical care.  As such, that will be only a small portion of aid churches providing that form of care due to expenses (we have to teach a priest to be a doctor so of course just making it free will be difficult).  Therefore the other parts of physical health will be people who specialize in things like nutrition or even yoga and Tai-chi.  Yes, simple things we take for granted health wise.  Real physical health.  Nutritionists will need simple blood testing machines that are becoming cheaper so as to help their patients develop an eating plan for their dietary needs.  Weight loss specialists for those patients that are obese or are suffering from weight related problems will team up with nutritionists and therapists.  Yoga, tai-chi and other soft martial arts and meditative practices will aid in helping people keep their body in shape without mutilating themselves through over exercise.  There may even be room for exercise equipment and physical (recover from injuries) and occupational (develop ways to overcome physical disabilities in work and at home) therapy equipment for physical and occupational therapists to have a role in the physical health portion in these aid churches.  Helping people recover from accidents and for dealing with disabilities is something that can be expensive, but if a priest does it for free, then more people will have access.  The physical health field is wide and even includes studying the movement of the body to aid people in knowing how to prevent injuries to themselves.  Disease prevention and learning how to use medication properly will also be something that is key.  These priests, once they obtain the knowledge and gain the experience needed will be able to pass that knowledge on to their patients and parishioners in the form of free education. As such, the church can become a pseudo college or licensing course for people interested in these fields like yoga instructor, fitness instructor or nutritionist.  Seminars for learning first aid and CPR can also be provided.  All of it dealing with people's physical health and teaching and working with them to maintain that health.

Conclusion:  Like with the previous mental health portion, the biggest issue primarily is educating these priests or rabbi/imam as the case may be.  However it is still free health care by people who give of themselves more than they take.  Priests and their counterparts in other faiths are meant to be teachers, and expanding that to being healers only makes logical sense.  Churches are seeing less and less people because they do not stand for anything, they do not take on the issues, but at least they can still do some good by helping to become a network of people who help people both mentally and physically while they work out what they stand for.  See you tomorrow for part three of this concept, the actual funding for this idea to get it off the ground and how we can work to make health care truly free.

Issue 719 Aid Churches: Mental Health November 11, 2015

I feel health care will just keep getting more and more expensive and everything government does will simply compound the problem.  However, the Churches, and other religious institutions can potentially offer some forms of healthcare for free.  Let us discuss.

Aid Church:  The concept is that Churches or other religious institutions can act as home bases for priests trained as various forms of doctors.  The easiest to get working, with respect to equipment needs, is the psychological field (you need a private room or a common area and maybe a couch, and chairs).  Issues with people trying to overcome mental trauma, or conditions are many and is a field that needs to be expanded (especially with the recent issue of people with violent mental conditions acquiring guns).  So these priests can be trained by the church in mental health.  So we could have PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) specialists, substance abuse specialists, couple counselling and even anti-bullying and child psychology specialists.  If the church's' train the priests, the churches can be set up where each church will specialize in one or two of the different psychological issues so as to bring people into the church themselves primarily for treatment without the church being overwhelmed and looking like a hospital.  Churches can circumnavigate some of the laws and restrictions of even getting these "aid" churches up and running.  Mainly, the churches can bypass the issue of America's health care system with people with mental conditions needing to be a danger to themselves and others to get treatment of some form.  Of course this will not work if the church seeks to indoctrinate people.  As such, at all times the priests turned psychologists will seek to empower individuals to fix themselves.

Conclusion:  This is the mental aspect of aid churches.  The idea to create cheap (preferably free) and effective health care for people who need a psychologist and or therapist.  Kids need people to talk to, and PTSD victims need support.  These aid churches can be that support and even advice people how to help their family members who are suffering in some way.  Latter if it expands it can even set up retreats and other activities for people who suffer mentally.  Remember this is the mental portion which just requires priests or rabbis and Imams if you will to be trained in these specialized areas of psychology or even sociology. Training that can be done partly online and partly in classrooms potentially set up by the church itself.  Tomorrow we will add in the physical component to this concept, and I do not just mean doctors.

Issue 718 Pissed off Killers November 10, 2015

So we talked about preventing gun violence yesterday, but there's one group that really cannot be stopped.  Let us discuss.

Lone Gunmen:  Lone Gunmen, spontaneous killers, those who plot out murder over the course of time. All these individuals cannot really be stopped unless for whatever reason they provide some warning sign that people pay attention to.  And this is not just them obtaining a gun or leaving a note either.  These spontaneous killers, or in some cases premeditated killers will use any weapon they deem fit to do the job (or any object in reach) for any motivation they deem acceptable.  Which means sharp objects like garden tools, and kitchen knives are far game.  Heavy objects like pipes, rocks, and even frying pans also play well.  Heck even frozen meat on the bone will suit their murderous intent (yes, it has happened).  Even an unloaded gun works as a weapon to bludgeon someone to death.   If you want a gun?  Why buy one from anyone, all the parts are at the local hardware store which allows you to make a submachine gun in the privacy of your own home.  From there you just need to buy the bullets.  Bombs?   Again the local hardware store or even the local supermarket will have the items you need and the internet the design plans to follow.  No matter what, these individuals who want to kill someone will find ways to do so for as tiny a reason as their victim bumping into them.  They are spontaneous or they are patient looking for an opportunity.  They are predators looking for a victim and they are nearly impossible to stop.

Conclusion:  So is there any way to stop these people?  Can we stop spontaneous or premeditated murder when it comes in the form of the lone gunman?  Truth is, we cannot unless people are in the right place and time.  And even then, they need the power to be able to stop the act and the police can only be in so many places at once.  Yesterday's solutions will help to maybe stave off those who would otherwise give into anger, but that is not enough.  Basically, we need the right to defend ourselves by means we deem fit.  And as such, the gun, or other self-defense capability will always be needed.