Nullius in verba

There is nothing more dangerous to freedom than a True Believer. 

The tendency may be to flip immediately to religion when I say True Believer. Some go to Muslim terrorists. Some go to Polygamist Mormons. They used to be big on Satanists, but you don't hear much of them anymore. 

The truth is though, being a True Believer isn't really about God or the lack thereof. It's about the lack of doubt. 

If you think Socialism, or Capitalism is the only way for society to survive instead of tools to shape an economy, you don't believe in freedom. You believe you know the way, the only way, and you're so certain about it you can make everyone act on your beliefs. True Believers think they are helping, or at least they say they do. They have the one, true answer. Why wouldn't they share it? 

Oh yeah, and if you think only one skin color is good or one sexual orientation is correct, you're an asshole and a True Believer.

For some reason though, True Believers don't seem to be real big on entertaining arguments that run counter to their belief. The reason their ideas fall apart in the arena of debate is not because they're flawed, but because you just don't understand them correctly, right?

Weird isn't it. 

True Believers generally won't let their kids make up their own minds. I think it's because they know what they're selling isn't the truth. If it was, they wouldn't have to force you to see it. If it was truth it would be able to stand up next to competing ideas and win. But, instead of getting an education on how to seek out and find truth, they generally just get indoctrinated into a belief system.  

The Truth is that none of them are good enough to be beyond doubt. You know what is? Sunrise. 

People never argue about it. Ever see a war break out about dropping something and having it fall down? 

They might argue, poorly, about the reasons why it drops, but the drop is coming. Theories are what you're arguing about, not facts.

Beliefs can be very personal. Who cares what somebody believes? Well, there's the real problem. 

Eventually, True Believers are going to try to take away your freedom. Those competing thoughts are dangerous to their beliefs so, you can't have them. Even worse, your competing ideas might spoil the purity of their children.

We've seen it before and I'm afraid it's trying to come back again, from lots of sides. I don't think we can survive as a species when True Believers are at the controls. 

Teach your kids to seek for and find the truth rather than telling them what to do and the future will understand freedom. For everybody. I mean, what more essential freedom is there than the freedom to make up your own mind?

If someone says they have the one, True Answer, don't trust them. For people who know the Truth, aren't really searching for the truth.

The stuff about which there is no doubt, is easy to see most of the time. The rest is just a theory.

Homophobia

I had an interesting and educational interaction on Twitter today. Of course, being Twitter, it was lost of miscommunication and anger. Much of this was probably my fault.

I want to do two things with this post. Explain what my original point was trying to be and then say why it was a total failure on my part.

First, the intent.

Someone posted an opinion that using homosexual sex acts as an attempt to demean Donald Trump and his relationship with Putin was straight homophobia. I replied that it was more about dominance and submission than about homophobia and perhaps not everything that could be about a minority group is about a minority group.

I still believe that to be true.

The reason I brought it up is because it reinforces a damaging negative stereotype. Every time, the stereotype goes, that someone who is part of an aggrieved minority group gets disagreed with they trot out their catchphrase, be it homophobia, racism, misogyny, or whatever.

Ironically I was immediately labeled homophobic.

Eventually I came to realize, in some part due to the conversation, why I was failing to communicate my idea.

Part two, my failure.

Apart from the possibility of being wrong, which is always a possibility with me, I failed to take some serious factors into account. First, LGBT people have been attacked for so long from so many directions, I can see why they might assume it's just another attack. If a thousand people walk up and punch you in the face, you don't assume person 1,001 is offering you chocolates.

The LGBT community has suffered enough damage that it is not right to ask them to be the bigger party and accept what could be considered (and certainly in some cases was intended to be) an insult in order to defeat a negative stereotype.

It's up to me and people like me.

So, my apologies. It was at the very least an awkward way to communicate something and at the worse end of the spectrum, a shitty thing to say.

White Privilege

I want to talk about white privilege. My white privilege specifically.

I am 44 years old. I am a white male. I am a husband, father of two, and a veteran. For the past nine years I have worked as an emergency room nurse. The world, I humbly submit, is a better place for my having been in it, even if only a little.

All of it, every little bit, if because of one moment of white privilege that allowed me a chance at redemption that too many people will never get.

I was 18 years old and living in a small town in Oklahoma. I don't know how much you know about small town Oklahoma, but there is a bit of a struggle for an unmotivated teen to find something to do. We had a saying, "Fight, fuck, or drag." I didn't like to fight. I wasn't attractive enough to find the partners for the second option and the drag was driving up and down the same strip of asphalt over and over and over again.

None of these sounded like good options to me.

So, one summer night my friend and I went searching for something interesting to do. We hit upon and idea. We discovered that a local convenience store threw out all their donuts just after midnight when the delivery guy brought the new ones. My friend saw them throw them all in the trash one night. We decided to go one night, about the right time, and see if maybe we could score one.

We hit the jackpot.

Of course, we had to hang around for a bit while we waited for the donut guy to arrive. While we waited, we shot the breeze with the store clerk. He was bored to hell with the overnight at the convenience store and welcomed anyone to talk with, even a couple of bored teenagers. Hell, he was maybe 20 or so. He'd run out of money going to college and come back home to work and save and maybe get a chance to go back to school

The donut guy didn't care at all. He emptied the donuts into our bag the same as if it were the trash. We got around 20. We ate a few and then chucked the rest at passing cars on the drag of people we knew. I told you we were bored. We were also young and stupid.

Really stupid.

We befriended the clerk. Mostly because he let us get free fountain drinks and buy cigarettes without any questions. Oh yeah, and the donuts. Besides, it was something to do other than the normal crap in town. One night our clerk friend told us about his classes at college and how depressed he was that he probably couldn't afford to go back for several years, if ever. He mused that it would be easier if somebody would come rob the place and shoot him. Then he could collect some insurance money and maybe go back to school.

My friend offered to shoot him right there.

I stopped that idea immediately. But, we opined, we might be able to find someone to do it.

Yeah, I said we were stupid.

The plan hatched over a week or two. We searched the place and found out which cameras worked and which were just wires leading into the ceiling and capped off. We came up with a plan and found a guy that was willing to do the deed. Yeah, there was a high school kid who said he was willing to shoot this guy for a small fee.

When the night the planned deal was supposed to go down, the guy we found backed out. He said he couldn't get his mother's car. (criminal masterminds I tell ya.) I figured he'd seen the stupidity of the whole operation and made a smart choice.

It just so happened that, that night, one of the clerk's friends from a nearby city was in town and he said he was willing to shoot the clerk.

Holy shit. This was going to actually happen.

The clerk said we could take whatever we wanted from the store, none of the cameras worked anyway. So we took some beer. We were teenagers.

We left.

The next day the news was about the robbery at the convenience store. We went to visit the clerk in the hospital. I was called to the station the next day.  Police got free fountain drinks too. We frequently chatted with them on their daily rounds and somehow, being genius detective types, they decided those teenagers that hung around the convenience store at all hours might know something.

They put pressure on and I snapped like a dry cracker.

I gave up everything. You see, the clerk had used his own gun. His friend, not packing his own, borrowed the clerk's gun and then tossed it back into his car when they were done. They had him. I had just turned 18 and was looking at felonies.

I got a felony charge of conspiracy to commit insurance fraud.

They booked me and took me to jail. I sat in the cell all alone and pondered my future.

I was cooked. I knew that, if I was convicted of a felony, I was done. Every job application I ever filled out again would have that box on it. Have you ever been convicted of a felony? And I was fucked.

So I figured I would be a criminal.

Hell, I had yet to figure out what I wanted to be when I grew up. Maybe that choice had just been made for me. I figured if I had to be a criminal, I need to study and be a good one. Jail sucked.

My mom scraped together the money to get me out and then yelled at me for being an idiot.

I got a lawyer. He was a former prosecutor and started our meeting by asking me if I knew a guy. I said no. He asked again and I continued to answer no. I didn't know any of the people he was talking about.

"So you're not a player."

"I guess not."

He informed me that I was an idiot. Had I talked to a lawyer before I talked to the police there likely would have been no charges.

Again with the idiot.

I went to court and that is where my biggest moment of white privilege really happened.

I got one year probation. And, after the year was up, if I hadn't been in trouble since, my record would be expunged.

Let's examine my privilege, and these are just the ones I recognize.

I was asked to come to the station. They called my mother and she told me to go in. I wasn't arrested on the street. I wasn't killed while being arrested for what was, in the end, armed robbery.

I got bail and got to go home instead of sitting in jail for however long. Since I didn't have the experience, I don't know what would have happened in that time, but I'm betting it wouldn't have helped me develop into a well-adjusted citizen.

I got a lawyer. Even though my family couldn't really afford it, my mother found a way to get me a real lawyer instead of a public defender.

I lived in a good enough neighborhood that I didn't know any of the people my lawyer named. So I came off as a good kid. Someone worth fighting for.

I got probation and the chance to have my record expunged.

Were I a young person of color, I don't harbor any illusion that the situation would have turned out the same.

Instead of being given a chance to go out and do something positive with my life, I would have been forced to be a felon.

I'm the same person. But, there would have been no military service. There would have been no nursing degree and no nursing job. I would have limited opportunities at best. With limited options for success in traditional channels, the decision to improve my situation through crime would have been much more appealing.

Instead, I got off. I got a chance. Too many people aren't given that chance and we, as a society, are poorer for that fact.

Even felons deserve a chance at redemption. Give them a path back to full citizenship. Look for places where people of color are not given the same benefits and assumption of inherent goodness as white citizens and help change that.

But for one or two choices, some of which were totally out of my control, all the good that I have done in this world would have not only been erased, but likely replaced with bad things.

Give people that chance. We all make mistakes. We're human that way.

Our Current Catastrophe.

Why do they get to live a fantasy life? They didn't earn it. 

I'm not against fighting your way to success; I hope to do it myself someday. But,the Donald Trumps of the world, the Hilton kids, or any number of ultra-rich people that inherited millions get a free pass in life due to their birth. They never have to work. They never have to worry about bills, or insurance. Probably never washed a dish in their whole lives. 

They used to call that an aristocracy. We built our country trying to get away from it, remember? People are given the idea that each individual is equal politically in this country. Most at least pay lip-service to it at least. You know the idea one man, one vote. That much was the baseline. But talk about one woman and one minority, and suddenly we have Citizens United. And, if you are lucky enough to be born with money flying from your ass then you can buy more than a vote, you can buy a Senator. 

You think Roy Moore is getting in on his character?

Now, you might think this is a comment about the current administration and you'd be right. But, it's bigger than that. 

You see, the Democrats suck too. But, the current administration is too big of a tire fire to do anything but put out right now.The rich idiots in charge bought the wrong candidate. They thought it was a sure fire choice. He hits all the good demographics: Older white male. Very wealthy. Had a hit TV show. How could anything go wrong? 

So, we have to focus on getting the current party out and then we need to focus on us. Not the Democrats and not the Republicans. We are the people of this country. 

We have different viewpoints on guns. So.

We have different viewpoints on god. So. 

We have different viewpoints on sports, alcohol, cars and every other damn thing too, but we get along. 

I am a hairy-toed, tree-hugging, male nurse. I am trying to live in a sustainable way on my on my own land in a rural area. Yet I have worked construction. I was in the military, (U.S.Navy 1993-96). I work in an emergency room. I grew up in Oklahoma and still have family and friends there. I've worked with all types of people, from all walks of life, all over the globe. We can all get along, I've seen it. So, why are we at each other's throats all the time?

The Republicans and the Democrats are a good place to start. The people that bought them are worth a look too. 

I mean, look at the GOP. It's supposed to be the party of responsibility and prudence. Yet, here they are in full charge of everything. They passed a tax bill with absolutely zero need for restraint. They didn't have to give up anything and what did they do? They increased the deficit and gave tax breaks to private jet owners. Given a free hand like that, did they go for a flat tax? Nope. Progressive taxation is good. Especially if it gets worse and worse up to a point and then gets radically better. That's a barrier to entry. Think about it. Gotta keep the plebs out, even the really hard-working ones. That private jet tax break doesn't go to doctors and shop owners.  

They don't care about you any more than the Democratic party cares about the middle class. They both serve to take power and money from the middle class and move it. The Republicans want it for themselves and the Democrats want to give it to the poor. The poor certainly need some of it don't get me wrong. But it's like choosing the best charity. Some of them have a lot more overhead for executive pay. There's a smarter way to do that than anything we are really looking at right now and I'm pretty sure we can find it. We just need to look at things logically instead of dogmatically to start with. 

But first, the tire fire. 

Dear Racist Asshole

Yes you.

Fuck you.

You think Black Lives Don't Matter?

You're a coward.

You moron jack ass, pig-fucker. Newt Fucking Gingrich admits the drug laws of the nineties destroyed the black population of this country disproportionately. It's fucking math, like physics. How many white people in the population versus how many blacks? How many white people in the population versus how many blacks? It's like you don't understand how light switches work, you brain-dead shit.

Newt Gingrich.

And yet you still think shooting and imprisoning them at will is just fine because, hey, they're black? You are the shittiest of people I know and guess what?  I've met some pretty shitty people.

Literally.

Covered in shit.

Now, if this makes you mad, that's on you, not me.  Look back at the words I've written and tell me which of these statements told me I was talking about you?

What name did I call you that told you I was talking about you? Which of those statements is wrong? You fucking pigs? You don't understand how light switches work?

You think black lives don't matter?

That's the problem.

An open letter to the NFL from a former fan.

You've done it again NFL, you've done what you always do. You have the attention of the entire country. What you do with it will determine your future this time and I think I can help tell you why.

For the first time in almost two years, I watched football this past Sunday. I did it to see who had the courage to protest in the face of potential loss of employment. I was not disappointed. In order to explain why all of this is so important, you have to understand why I stopped watching football in the first place.

I am forty-three years old. I've been watching football my whole life. Growing up in Oklahoma, I watched the Cowboys. But, you see, it was more than that. My dad loved the Cowboys as did my older brother. Yelling at the television and hoping Drew Pearson caught that monster pass unleashed by Staubach was a rally point for a fracturing family. I believed in football the same way I believed in professional wrestling. The lights shone bright on the VonErich brothers, but no light shone brighter than the one pointed at the Dallas Cowboys.

Many great life memories surround the NFL. I served in the United States Navy. I was stationed aboard the U.S.S. Shasta, which was based out of Concord, CA.  That meant I was a Cowboys fan in San Francisco from 1993 to 1996. One of my best friends was a fellow Cowboys fan from Odessa who married a Niner's fan. Game day was epic. I was a die-hard in enemy territory. Us against the world and we were winning.

One of my favorite memories was the Super Bowl where the Cowboys beat the Steelers. We were in Dubai. I stayed up all night and watched the game live at somewhere around three in the morning. They had spread out a carpet and projected the game feed on to the side of a panel van in the sand just off the pier. I had the early watch the next morning and didn't care. They Boys had beaten the Steelers to claim a championship.

I was in the stadium when Emmitt broke the record. I stayed for the entire post-game program. 

All of that changed when the Cowboys hired Terrell Owens. After his antics on the star at midfield and his continued disrespect of the Cowboys, they hired this cancer. Much like professional wrestling, the heel was trying to turn hero. But, this is real life and the heel stayed a heel and I saw that the NFL was really only about money. Just like wrestling. Obviously, the people in control of the game didn't really care about it the way I did. It was just an investment and maybe bragging rights for rich people. That started the turn.

I never bought another piece of merchandise or a ticket after that.

Two seasons ago I watched as Tony Romo, one of my favorite players of all time, was brutalized and returned too early only to be brutalized again. The evidence for the damage done by CTE to the players was mounting and it became more and more difficult for me as a human being with any shred of empathy to support a game that destroyed these men and hypocritically hyped the violence while punishing the players for the very thing they wanted most from them.

It was no fun to watch anymore.

As a veteran and an American, I saw Colin Kaepernick protest. Most of the men and women I served with, even if they disagreed with his actions, would have literally died for his right to take those actions. Yeah, even for a Niner.

I stopped loving this game when it showed me it was only about money. Colin Kaepernick has shown it can be about more. Yeah, they are still rich by all but the most obscene standards, but I don't think most of them do it for the money. Or, at least, they didn't initially. They did it for the love of their teammates, their brothers. This is the same reason soldiers, sailors and airmen die: For their brothers. Not their flag, their people. That is the same reason Colin Kaepernick and the others kneel. For their people.

The support of the owners and executives I saw this weekend was a wonderful start to proving this game means something more than money. But, it's only a start. The NFL can be the force for positive change all the ads and community service announcements show it to be. It can mean something again, but only if you are courageous enough to let it. As a veteran and a former fan, I say take a knee. The Cowboys play tonight.For the first time in a long time, I'll be watching.

We all will be.

My friend Joye

My friend died the other day because she didn't have insurance.

She was intelligent, articulate, and beautiful. She had wonderful children that she loved very much and who loved her back as well. 

She had abdominal pain. People told her to go to the emergency department and get it checked out, but she was a single mom without insurance. That's a hell of a place to be. 

Do you go to the emergency department? What if it's nothing big and you are saddled with a bill that can run into five and six-figures? You literally have to make a decision about whether you risk putting your family into a financial hole it could take years to get out of, or maybe you die. Of course, maybe it's nothing. But, it's going to cost you your kid's school clothes money and maybe next month's cable bill to find out. Maybe more.  

So, she did what parents do. She put off her own needs and rolled the dice. Now, her children grow up without a mother. Her family is devastated and the community will have to deal with another broken family. There is no positive here. 

All of this so we can add extra weight to the pockets of insurance companies. We could eliminate the redundancies present with multiple insurance companies and guarantee a level of basic care for everyone in this country. We have the resources.  But, greed prevents it. 

As an emergency department nurse, I know what our capabilities are. I don't know if we could have saved her, hell, I didn't even know she was sick until it was too late. But, I think we could have if we were given one day to try. And, even if we couldn't, we could have given her the gift of saying good bye to her children. 

But none of this happened. Because of insurance.

 

You were weird, you were beautiful, and you will be missed.

 

 

Fighting back is balance.

Sometimes you have to take a side just to get back to balance.

The Paris Climate Accords are important.  So, I'm fighting back.

Someone posted this article from Breitbart and I decided to take it down.

http://www.breitbart.com/economics/2017/05/31/every-bad-thing-avoided-rejecting-paris-climate-accords/

I decided nothing less than a point by point take down would do and I discovered a thing or two in the process.

Point by point.  

From the article: "It’s likely that it was already acting as a drag on the U.S. economy. After President Barack Obama unofficially committed the U.S. to the Paris agreement, businesses began preparing for its impact. Knowing that it would diminish U.S. economic output, businesses invested less and directed more investment toward less-productive technology to meet the climate deal’s mandates. Banks and financiers withdrew capital from sectors expected to suffer under the climate deal and pushed it toward those expected to benefit. A classic example of regulation-driven malinvestment."

What businesses invested what money where? That's a really vague accusation with no evidence to back it up.  Which companies lost shares and why? How do you attribute this directly to these accords? The Accords were adopted 12 December 2015. The DOW was at 17, 128 on December 18th. As of today it is 21, 201. The economy looks fine. All of this is rhetoric completely lacking any evidence. If you discount peer-reviewed scientific studies about climate change, you must be kidding me that you believe this. No review, no evidence, nothing of any substance at all.  

Even the S&P energy index was at 438.48 at December 18th 2015. It currently sits at 476.57.  Probably not the growth the energy CEO's wanted, but not dead, and still growing. 

From the article: "To get the rest of the way, the U.S. would have to make major investments in renewable energy, energy efficiency, and cleaner motor vehicles. This likely explains why the Paris climate deal was so popular with many in Silicon Valley and many on Wall Street. It promised a bonanza of spending and investment, most likely subsidized by taxpayers, in technologies that wouldn’t otherwise be attractive. It was practically calling out for making self-driving, solar powered cars mandatory."

About that money invested in technologies that would not otherwise be attractive.  What technologies?  How would those technologies look if it were subsidized to the point fossil fuels are and historically have been? What specific regulation would make that self-driving, solar car mandatory?

From the article Point 1: "Goodbye to ‘American Last.’ The Paris agreement was basically an attempt to halt climate change on the honor system. Its only legal requirements were for signatories to announce goals and report progress, with no international enforcement mechanism. As a result, it was likely that the United States and wealthy European nations would have adopted and implemented severe climate change rules while many of the world’s governments would avoid doing anything that would slow their own economies. The agreement basically made the U.S. economy and Europe’s strongest economies sacrificial lambs to the cause of climate change."

The other countries are already moving on this.

 http://www.iflscience.com/environment/china-home-worlds-largest-floating-solar-power-plant/ 

The agreement was a political mechanism for encouraging better behavior.

From the article Point 2: "Industrial Carnage. The regulations necessary to implement the Paris agreement would have cost the U.S. industrial sector 1.1 million jobs, according to a study commissioned by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. These job losses would center in cement, iron and steel, and petroleum refining. Industrial output would decline sharply."

This is where things got interesting. I decided to look up that study by the Chamber of Commerce. It was completed by Steven Tule. 

Steven Tule is the vp for climate change and technology for the US Chamber of commerce institute for 21st century energy.

His bio is at www.energyxxi.org.

Well, what the hell is EnergyXXI? Google energyxxi.com

It's an energy company in Houston specializing in oil and natural gas development.  You think that's a coincidence?  Maybe the bought both .com and .org at the same time? 

I looked it up and the domain registrar for energyxxi.org is www.markmonitor.com which is a company that specializes in, and I quote "Protecting brands in the digital world" 

A marketing firm. This isn't a government website. It is a cover for oil and gas interests. That study is worse than useless, it is actively biased to favor those oil and gas interests.

I'm guessing this study never underwent a peer review process. 

Point three references the same bullshit and biased Chamber of Commerce study and should be ignored exactly as much as point two. No proof.

From the article Point 4: Smashing Small Businesses, Helping Big Business. Big businesses in America strongly backed the Paris climate deal. In fact, the backers of the climate deal reads like a “who’s who” of big American businesses: Apple, General Electric, Intel, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Morgan Stanley, General Mills, Walmart, DuPont, Unilever, and Johnson & Johnson. These business giants can more easily cope with costly regulations than their smaller competitors and many would, in fact, find business opportunities from the changes required. But smaller businesses and traditional start-ups would likely be hurt by the increased costs of compliance and rising energy costs."

This essentially tells you that the major representatives of many other industries, retail, technology, banking and investment, chimicals, cereal and agriculture think the U.S. should stay in the agreement.

All those other industries think it is a bad idea to pull out. One industry thinks it is a good idea to pull out. That one industry who just so happens to be funding all these studies telling you how bad the agreement is.  

Point five actually cites a Heritage Foundation study.  A conservative think tank funded by the Koch brothers who are heavily invested in fossil fuel production?  Again, you get this study peer-reviewed by competing interests, just like the climate change science papers that are denied by these think-tanks, and I'll listen. Until then, shove your Heritage Foundation in the garbage where it belongs.

All of the evidence points one direction. This is the fossil fuel industry fighting for it's life in the face of opposition.  They are directly behind all of this. The last time we let the representatives of the fossil fuel industry take charge of our government, we went to Iraq for no reason and destroyed the country. Now, we have ISIS as a direct result of that era.

If you deny climate change and think we should be out of the Accords because of this crap, your whole belief is built on a foundation of lies.

Paris Climate Accords

I want to talk to my conservative friends today. Especially Trump supporters. I want to talk about Virtue. 

There is an old fable that speaks directly to the virtue that I want to address and it is about ants and a grasshopper. I bet you remember it.

All during the spring and summer, the ants are busily working for the coming winter and the grasshopper plays and sings the whole while. Neither understands why the other side acts the way they do. In the end, winter comes and the grasshopper is in trouble.

The lesson Aesop was trying to convey is that you should prepare for the bad times while you are in the good times. This is about as conservative a virtue as you can find, I think. I mean, isn't that how rich people get rich? They treat money as scarce even when it isn't. Warren Buffett famously eats McDonalds every morning and only treats himself to the extra patties if the market is up.  That's the best way to build wealth.  Treat the resource as scarce even in times of plenty.

This is where we are with the environment.  It seems like times of plenty, but we know winter is coming. We cannot treat our environment as though there will always be plenty of reserve for our pollution and our consumption. We need to be virtuous stewards of our resources. Pulling out of the Paris Climate Accords is the move of a grasshopper who cannot believe that winter will ever come.  Even if it doesn't, which I believe it will, shouldn't we be growing our reserves wisely instead of consuming it all now?

Now, more than ever, we need our virtue at the forefront. Let our leaders know we expect them to be virtuous if they want to lead us. 

The Plan.

There is an idea.

How do we make it real?

First, I say we for a reason. I can't do it.  Nothing this big is within the ability of one man.

This takes people. But, I can help with a plan.

First, the idea needs to get out there. So, copy and paste, tweet, Insta, heck... Maybe even talk to somebody. Get the idea out in the world where people can say how much it sucks and we can make it better.

How many views does it need? I don't know. A million? A few thousand?

The more the better. So, if the idea seems good, share it.

Once there is enough momentum behind the idea, once people are aware, it will be time for action.

I don't think it would be wise to just start the party, but I could be wrong. I think the first step would be to form a PAC. The Center Party PAC.

The idea is to get money out of politics, but it won't be easy and it won't be cheap. The money is already in there and we would have to compete. The only way to do it with any integrity is like Bernie Sanders did, with lots of small contributors. So, start a PAC and maybe a GoFundMe or Kickstarter.

If we were to get that far, I think it would be fair to start talking about hiring staff. Again, in keeping with the ideals of the party, staff salaries should be linked to a metric, some percentage of median or minimum wage in the country so that the staff of the party would have incentive to raise the median wage. I think that would be a great way to set congressional salaries too, but I digress.

We have a PAC, we have a staff, we have a party.

But, if we don't share, it doesn't work. Talk to your friends. Talk to your enemies and make them your friends.

Share.

A new party

It has become apparent that the dominant political parties in the United States no longer accurately represent the American people. The fringe elements of both parties have moved further into opposition with each other in a battle to move the center. The parties exist more to serve their own interests and frequently do so by dividing the populace against each other.

This is in neither the best interest nor the character of the American people.

While the fringe elements work to propagate the established system in order to benefit a small number of people, the larger body of the population is neglected and treated as a resource to be accumulated with the aim of defeating the other party.

It is time to take back the center.

It is time to form a political party based on principle instead of charisma. It is time to represent the idea of mutual self-interest and compromise for the greater good.

In order to ensure that the party continues to serve the populace, instead of the other way around, there will be certain principles which candidates must adhere to or they will forfeit the right to any assistance, financial or logistical, by the party apparatus.

These principles would be as follows.

1. Individuals should be as unencumbered by government burden and is reasonably practicable. Our freedom to live as we choose is paramount.

2. Our environment is our home and must be protected as such. What damage is done to the environment spreads out as a burden to each citizen. Those who cause this burden, must be made accountable for it.

3. Each citizen should be, as much as possible, equally responsible for a part of the burden of government. If able to provide to the the common good, they should. If they do not, and they are able, they should benefit less.

4. There can be no provision for the elevation of one religion over any other religion.  All religions are equal with respect to the government.

5. We do not want a ruling class. Therefore, all candidates endorsed by this party will agree to term limits within and outside of the party. After serving a second term in an elected office, within the party or within the government, the candidate must leave that position. They may take up a new position in the government or party.

6. Regardless of identity (gender, religion, sexual identity, political affiliation) all citizens are equal with respect to the government and the law. As individuals, we will strive to be as respectful of the wishes and beliefs of other individuals as possible.

7. The United States military should adopt a primarily defensive posture unless actively attacked by a nation state or multi-national organization. Our interests abroad should first be protected economically and with diplomacy. The use of the military should always be a carefully considered last resort.

8. Smaller, less intrusive government is always better when it can maintain efficiency.

9. Government districts should accurately reflect the demographics of the population.

10. The party itself will not require candidates to declare a position on inherently divisive issues like abortion or gun control. The idea is to unify as many people as possible. Each candidate will have to decide on their own how they will deal with those issues. 

Three-point plan for a better world.

It won't fix everything, but I think it would help.

Here it is, my long awaited three-point plan to improve the world.

Point One:

If you want to be a leader, you should work hard to be worthy of a leadership role. You, not a welfare recipient, should be held to a higher standard. Therefore, I propose that all elected officials be subject to a new law stating that they will be immediately removed from office for a felony conviction. If you think there are too many laws punishable as a felony, get rid of them. If you are a felon, you don't get to hold office. And, if you are found in breach of public trust (you misused public funds for personal gain, if you are fraudulent in your dealings as a government representative, if you knowingly lie to the public for personal or political gain, you are charged with a felony. Any conviction for a felony committed while in office is subject to a mandatory minimum three year sentence in the maximum security federal penitentiary nearest to their home of record. You are elected as a leader, act like one.

Point Two:

When you agree to a position as a government regulator of a business or industry, you agree to never work for that industry after your employment as a regulator of same. If you were a member of the industry being regulated, you are prohibited from occupying a position as a regulator of that industry. I understand that the use of industry people aids in understanding of the industry and aids in regulation. The point of a regulator isn't to make the industry easier, it is to protect the public interest.

Point Three:

The amount of inheritance allowable to any individual will be set to a maximum of fifty years worth of the minimum wage at a forty-hour work week. With great wealth comes increased political power. If you are unable to increase your own wealth and influence with a fifty year head start, you probably are not suited to exert that influence. If you can't win the hundred yard dash with a fifty yard head start, you don't get to go to the Olympics. If you want to increase the allowable inheritance, increase the minimum wage. Otherwise, donate the money to your favorite charitable organization.

PTSD

I have thought of writing this for a while now.

In the interest of finding balance, I think it is important to attempt to gain a better understanding.  This is especially important in areas where there exists a social stigma that would predispose a person to forming certain opinions and judgements.  This is one of those issues.

I had the privilege to come upon a written transcript of a wonderful talk given several years back by a gentleman named Ralph Wexler.  He was a psychologist for the VA for 20 years.  In it he used a wonderful analogy that I would like to share because it has positively informed my practice as an ED nurse for many years now.  Imagine you are sitting in one of those fancy and yet nondescript hotel ballrooms listening to a man at a podium.

Think about it this way.  You are sitting here, in this ballroom, and suddenly a big Easter Island statue sized face looms out of one of the walls with its mouth gaping at you. At that moment, you are faced with a decision.  Either, you are really seeing this, and everything you thought you knew about the world was wrong, or you are seeing something that isn't real and you are crazy.  This is such a monumental, earth shattering, paradigm shifting thing that you cannot ignore it.  If decide you are crazy, you can no longer trust anything else in this world that you think is real.  Everything is questionable now.  If you are crazy, your mind can't be trusted to tell you anything related to the truth and you are lost and adrift now.  Forever uncertain and afraid.

If you decide you aren't crazy, you have just learned something about the world and subsequently your world has changed.  Your behavior will change accordingly.  If you accept that walls can harbor huge faces with mouths large enough to eat you, you probably won't hang out much near walls.  In a narrow corridor you might just take the very middle and keep a close eye on the walls on either side in case one of them starts looking hungry.  To people who have never seen the faces, and don't believe they are real...not really real anyway, your behavior seems abnormal.  What's wrong with that guy, he's such an asshole.  I was walking down the hall and he was just taking up the whole hall.  He even pushed me out of the way and wasn't even really looking at me.  What an asshole!

Of course, if you know about those faces, his behavior makes total sense.

But you don't.

So, don't think of PTSD as some disease that deserves pity or sympathy.  This is a person who is aware of the world in a way that you aren't.

Each of us walks around every day in a state of some degree of illusion.  We often think and act in ways that are totally irrational if you think about them too long.  We routinely pilot tons of steel at high speeds and in close quarters with other people of questionable training and maturity.  We frequently eat and drink things that we know are unhealthy and perhaps even mind altering with little regard to our personal well being or safety.  We do this because we only understand the danger and our own mortality on an academic level. There is a big difference between understanding that death and destruction exits and having death itself come up and give you a big kiss on the lips.

Some people live in a world where trash cans explode and kill all of your friends.

Some people live in a world where the people you most trust and depend on rape and torture you.

Some people live in a world where people of a certain ethnicity or race actually are trying to harm and kill them.

Each of these people will act accordingly, often rationally and perfectly logically if you understand what their life is like.

"Normal" people, who live under many benign and helpful constraints, see these behaviors and label them a disorder.  That does a disservice to both them and us.  We lose out understanding and they become something less of a person who is fit for our pity and our sympathy, but often not our understanding.

If you value that person, don't pity them.  Try to understand them.  Often they will explain it if you let them. 

The debate

In the interests of making it easier to read for all of the masochists out there that might like to see the full conversation, I am offering this easy organizational post.

It all started with me stating on Facebook that I thought we should take in Syrian Refugees.  My friend vehemently opposed this idea.  He has 20 years experience in the military and is currently an officer in the armed forces.  He has proven himself in the past to have an agile mind.  I figured this would be an interesting opportunity to see where my own beliefs and arguments might fall short.  If my ideas are not good enough to survive an encounter with a disparate belief, they need to be either refined or abandoned.  This process is ongoing.

So, here is my original post.

Post

Here is John's response.

Post 2

Here is my rebuttal.

Post 3

Here is John's return.

Post 4.

At this stage, I am not sure if there is any value in my responding or continuing the argument.  I think the ideology is pretty clear on both sides and the various strengths and weakness of the ideas are present.  Anything further than this threatens to devolve into a less illuminating process.  I leave off with my opposition having the last word in an attempt to remove all strains of bias due to home field advantage.  My hope is that anyone who reads this can get a better understanding of the positions taken by either side and use that understanding to build their own, more balanced opinion. 

John's response pt 1

I assure you, I'm not just ranting to myself.  All of this was inspired by a real argument with a real person.  With his permission I have included his part of the argument because I believe it is important to attempt to understand the arguments of the people you disagree with.

So, without editing and formatting (I gave him the opportunity to clean up the format to emphasize whatever he wanted, but he declined.  I am attributing the block formatting here to the limitations of Facebook.  He replied as a comment to my post.  I assume if he had a better forum, the formatting would be a little easier on the eyes.)

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Eric, I will take the opposite tact and keep this simple. Would YOU (not America, not state X) take 10 Syrian male refugees between 18-30 years of age into your home today, no questions asked? Of course you wouldn't and here's why. You cannot provide for them economically, and you dont have a $18B and growing debt. Well you do, as do your kids but thats another topic. You dont have jobs for them, because we dont even have jobs for the millions of people out of work now. Again, we could delve into the dismal labor force particpation rates, but that too is another is another story. Most importantly, you have a wife and children to protect. Perhaps you could give your kids a bowl of M&Ms that contained 10% which were poisonous and tell them it was ok to grab a handful because "not all the M&Ms are posionous".. No you wouldn't do that either. As a travelling nurse, perhaps you could take the show on the road and go over to Syria and provide "frontline" medical care. please take the wife and kids so they can embarace the peaceful Muslim population over there and experience the tolerance and diversity that that exudes their culture. Make sure Sara is dressed approapriately so as not to offend anyone. The vast cultural divide aside, the simple odds you cited would indicate at least one of those men is a threat. To place your family in danger would be reckless irresponsible and I submit to you that you would not directly incur that risk, but by virtue of your position, believe others should incur that risk for the sole purpose of appearing charitable and compassionate in an attempt to break a stereotype that some people have. The problem is that this approach ignores common sense logic, and history. While your onion reference to Iraq is amusing, it too ignores the fact. At the risk of veering off topic, in simplest terms, the invasion of Iraq created a battlefield that did not previously exist. We were fighting an enemy with no country, no flag and no uniform. That war drew them Iraq where they could be identifed and killed. Obama made the comment that there was no Al Queda in Iraq before we went in. True statement, and he unwittingly acknowledged the success of that strategy. I will tell you in all honesty that I dont think there was ever an exit strategy, and that the architects likely envisioned a Korea or Germany like presence for decades to come. Politics as they are, we hastily left, including our equipment, which ISIS now uses to march through the region. That aspect aside, the reason for the current situation is not global warming/climate change or jobs like some clowns running for President want to believe. Those conditions have existed for decades. This stems from the intentional toppling of stable governments in the region, initiated, funded and directly supportes by the current administration. Regimes that had been pro western or at least not anti-western were toppled and ISIS filled the power vacuum. Syria remains. Yet the US (WH anyways) actively seeks Asaad's removal and actively supported a political campaign against the incumbent President of Israel. Tell me Eric, what threat does Asaad pose to the US that we need to topple his government? Is Iran not more of a threat goven they have nuke technology and have sworn to destroy Israel and the West? Or perhaps they are "joking" as you feigned in another post? I believe, no I KNOW, that you are a good man. I applaud your compassion and agree it is part of the human experience. What I believe your fundamental flaw is in your approach to this probelem is that you have ironically done exactly what Bush did; you applied western thought, values and culture to a situation that is utterly imcompatible with them. ISIS, ISIL, Daesh, Muslim Brotherhood, whatver you want to call them, did not emerge from ressent ment over Amercian anything. You cited death tolls, but left out and important fact. Muslims kill the majority of Muslims, just like black kill the majority of blacks. So if you want to cite totals, be specific. Muslimns also kill far more Christians than the opposite. The fact is that these people have been warring for centuries without any help from us. You will not win a battle of idea with these people because you fundamentally do not undertstand them. Salon.com dailykos and HUFFPO are mouth pieces, as is Fox and CNN and the like. I have lived among these people for years, literally. They are VERY honest when there is no camera present. Why would we want to bring their balkanized violent, centuries long struggle here when they themsleves havent been able to fix it and we certainly havent either. So I never like citing problems without offering solutions, so here is mine. Since we love coalitions and globalism and the UN, I submit that we use NATO to establish "safe zones" within Syria. No fly zones and tropps to defend these poor people and prevent them from having to uproot themselves and their families from their beloved and historic homeland. People like me will go over there and do it. It is far cheaper, and the only Amercians that are in danger are the people we pay to take risks and put their lives at risk, the military. My plan ensures that not a single terrorist enters the country posing as a refugee. Your plan ensures the opposite, as has been demonstrated in Europe. My plan gets everyone involved (UN) so Muslims can see that the world loves and accepts them and are all willing to help them. Tell me Eric, why wont wealthy Muslim majority countries in the region take them in??? I would LOVE for you to answer that one my friend. Incidentally, one refugee in Louisianna disappeared and was found in D.C., their first declared target, and 5 more were captured in Honduras with fake Greek passports attempting to enter the US. I'm floored that you think we need a sliding scale of us death tolls to engage in military action. 200, we dont go in..? So you require a 9-11 type death toll to fight back? Perhaps we should just open the borders up to anyone and everyone from wherever, who claims to be a refugee and was somehow wronged by us or another "imperial entity" at any time in the past. Pu them all on welfare, create sharia courts fo them and allow shariah law to trump our laws where they hold majorities.. Gays will have to relocate of course, but surely they will view our "tolerance" and willingness to accomodate them in a positive light and limit rapes onlly their women and children and not ours. Do me a favor and google "Islamic thighing". Google "increasing rapes by Muslims in Sweden". In the end, people who support bringing these people here fele there is endless amounts of money, that we can just "take from rich people" and that welcoming them will somehow absolve us of past "offenses", despite the fact that we have shed blood and spent treasure to help Muslims. The ONLY thing these people understand or respect is the violnce that has been ingrained in their culture for centuries. It's far better to meet violence with violence somwhere other than the street of America. The liberals are of the opinion that if its good enough for Beirut its good enough for Nashville, and that is how to tell who really loves this country and who hates it to the point that they want to "fundamentally" change it to mirror the failure of Europe and commit national suicide. No thanks. But we'll just go with your plan instead and wait till a few shopping malls, staduims and Starbucks are in flames before we do anything other than open our arms and bury our heads in the sand in blind adherence to lef twing ideology.

John's Response Pt 2

In the interest of fair play and helping any readers understand what the heck I am ranting about, I am presenting the person I am arguing with and their entire, unedited, responses.

So yeah, I'm not just talking to myself.

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Here's Johnny.

Eric,
I am not a blogger, nor do I have regular access, or much time to pursue it. Most of my posts are done via mobile phone in between meetings or during my brief lunch breaks. If the formatting is not up to par, I whole heartedly apologize to you and your audience. I’m also generally unable to peruse the web and cut and paste articles from reputable sites like salon and the onion, so again, please accept my shortcomings.

I’m glad you like my idea and agree that this should be a UN effort and Muslim majority countries in the region should take the lead. I find it interesting you don’t think we should take the lead in providing relief over there, but are all for "leading by example" here in the U.S.

Your “what does ISIS want” misses 2 crucial points. They want Muslim domination of the entire planet, and it’s already NOT a “regional conflict”. They’re in Africa, Asia, Europe, South America, and yes, here too. Totally agree. So let’s bring more?

I’d like you to do me a favor and stop insulting my intelligence with your Cloward/Piven and Alinsky tactics. I've read them, unlike most. You just reclassified “refugees” as immigrants. You do recognize the fundamental difference I assume? Or are they asylum seekers? Control the language, control the narrative. So do you support providing them temporary refuge until it’s safe to return them Syria, or are you advocating permanent residency? Perhaps the strategy we employ with the “immigrants” coming from South America will work? http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/report-90-of-illegals-skip-immigration-court-appearances-135000-will-go-missing/article/2550217 Maybe not….

Your dismissal of constructing a wall is further proof that your ideology prohibits you from actual critical thinking. Catapults.. HA. Take a look at this wall my friend http://www.businessinsider.com/saudi-arabia-is-building-a-600-mile-great-wall-to-shield-from-isis-2015-1 Quite a bit different than the one at Helm’s Deep no? As for airspace, google Aegis Ashore. We are employing it in Eastern Europe for anti aircraft and anit-ballistic missile defense. Israel has the Iron Dome. They work. I see the reports of Cubans coming by sea turned back daily. It takes money and effort. The border is securable and any country that chooses to can employ technology to do so. The issue is POLITICAL WILL. We lack it, and we lack it because enough people haven’t dies yet.

If your assertion is true regarding the “fizzle out” approach to dealing with ISIS, why has radical Islam endured throughout the ages, LONG before any naughty Europeans or American or Jews made them mad? I wonder, from where did you gain your insight into ISIS recruiting? Classified FBI reports? NSA field reports? Were you actively recruited? Actually you are simply regurgitating talking points that blame everything under the sun (the west, the economy, the climate, discrimination) instead of recognizing the real problem lies within Islam itself. http://thefederalist.com/2015/11/16/the-crisis-is-islam/#.Vk5IfK5Oq9k.facebook We cannot fix it, they must fix. Please read that with as open a mind as you do the “blame the west and capitalism” pieces you cut and paste from. I am not “after” or advocating for a war based on anyone’s religion. I am however, not opposed to war to crush an enemy who threatens us and cannot be negotiated with. Your question is typical of those with your worldview and attempts to mischaracterize my position.

Fun fact, on Iraq http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2013/04/revisionist-history-aside-we-were-greeted-as-liberators-in-iraq.php and while you may not “believe” there was an intent to stay, I’d encourage you to research a bit more. I’ve read OPLANS and understand the difference between policy and politics, particularly when it comes to the military. Bush’s “mission accomplished” is a political statement. It’s amusing that you despise and distrust Bush and Cheney (and in this case, Rumsfeld) but do not believe that there was long range occupation plan. Again, I have more insight into this than CNN or blogs. Look into a guy named Paul Wolfowitz. He was the architect of the Iraq plan, not Rummy, not Bush. Do you honestly believe that politicians or political appointees make policy? People in positions to make decisions do so based on what is put in front of them. Clearly you’ve heard about “the power behind the throne”. Paul is a real piece of work, world bank guy and recently admitted the flaws in the plan. He even despises Colin Powell which must mean he’s a bad guy and probably a racist too. Iraq would have made a nice forward operations base nearby to Iran and with strategic access to the entire region. Did you know that coalition forces did not pay dime for fuel (jet, ship, tank etc) during the recent Gulf War? I guess that was the infamous “Bush’s oil”. At any rate, do some digging and you will see Bush tried (well his DoD and DoS anyways) to negotiate a Status of Forces Agreement. Not many details were made public and the attempt failed. To the credit of the Iraqis, they recognized the architecture in the SOFA and rejected it. Had they not, you would have a Ramstein AFB like or Chinhae, ROK like operations base in Iraq to this day. Again, I’m truly perplexed that you doubt that was one of the desired end states, given your love of Bush and his cronies. Ironically Paul conceded that his biggest mistake was underestimating the tenacity of the enemy. A mistake Obama’s advisors are replicating. You do oppose Obama putting boots on the ground back into Iraq and Afghanistan don't you? He's a lot like Bush I guess....

Your contention that we can't keep ISIS out is as off base as your rejection of “wall technology”. You can in fact significantly increase border security, then hunt down and kill ISIS members in the US as enemy combatants. You can make it far more difficult to enter, recruit and operate. Alas, your plan is to just let it happen, endure the attacks and it will fizzle out.The problem is that the left (who has no issue killing us citizens overseas without a trial using a drone http://www.cbsnews.com/news/who-were-the-4-us-citizens-killed-in-drone-strikes/ ) would cry foul and demand trials, file lawsuits to defend ISIS, and claim “profiling” when all ISIS investigations, arrests, convictions and/or executions were muslims. Cause they will be. Not every Muslim is a terrorist, but every member of ISIS is. Which is why people like SoS Kerry wan to start calling them something else, to remove the I from ISIS. Control the language control the narrative. Again, the issue not ability, it’s having the will. The enemy has it, our government does not. not yet anyways.

My argument wasn’t specious at all. I never implied forcing every family to take “2.5 times their number”. 10% could be terrorists, your figure (and arguably low) but not mine. I used your figure to highlight the fact that you would not accept that numerical risk when it came to your family, but you would when it came to this country.

There is no screening process Eric. The Director of the FBI, appointed by this President by the way, has clearly stated it. http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/11/18/no-good-answers-allegedly-exhaustive-syrian-refugee-vetting-process/ The former Deputy Director of the FBI said the same thing.

Citing the immigration law process is not vetting for terrorist suspects. No Syrian database exists, no Syrian government or entity exists to confer with on screening (they aren’t that developed or savvy at present) so you can say it over and over again, but it simply isn’t true. You want to embrace the smoke and mirrors of previous refugees being screened. My friend, again, I know you don’t necessarily know this but we have over a decade of biometric data complete with family profiles, cell phone records, and a myriad of other data on the people who lived in Iraq. I’m sure some Cheney cohort’s company made a killing on that contract too, but, there is a substantial difference between the “process” used in the past with regard to Iraqi refugees.

Aside from the obvious national security risk, there’s a cultural one as well. Muslims by and large do not assimilate into western society. On the contrary, they reject and carve our enclaves which become balkanized from the rest of the country. Behold the “sensitive urban zones” your ideology has created in France. This article was written long before the current situation. http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/world/2014/April/Native-French-under-Attack-in-Muslim-Areas/ They don’t come to assimilate, they come to occupy. This is engrained in their religion and their culture. Conquering new lands. Your immediate response will be to blame France. France let them in. But that’s not enough right? The benefit packages weren’t enough, they didn’t get seat in local governments or some other apologist nonsense. Tell me Eric, where is your outrage at the stoning of Christians in broad daylight by Muslims here in America? http://www.clarionproject.org/analysis/dearborn-no-go-zone-where-islam-rules-and-christians-are-stoned# Still just a “few bad apples”? Tell that to Sweden. http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=de1_1394099792
You can try to twist the narrative all you’d like but they don’t come here to be Americans. The traditions you allude to are based on assimilation and adoption of the culture, not carving out your own empire and demanding it be recognized as equal. Do some actual reading about it. It’s not isolated, it’s an epidemic. http://truthuncensored.net/there-are-muslim-no-go-zones-in-the-usa/#sthash.E4EckaE9.dpbs

You glazed over Taqiyya, but that is exactly what you are engaging in, knowingly or not. Incidentally, CAIR has access to the WH and is driving these policy decisions. Why has our Muslim ally Saudi Arabia, and others, declared them a terrorist organization but we have not? Why did a stadium full of Muslims recently boo and disrupt a moment of silence for Paris victims? They were Pakistani, always held out by the left as the example of moderate Muslims. There sure are a great many "isolated events" no? The only people who believe in your ideological world view are people who are ignorant of the facts, or simply unable or unwilling to embrace the painful and frightening truth of truth of what is really going on and why.

Fighting ISIS Round 2

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John,

I would love to put your opposition pieces to these up.  If you want to reformat them, to make them look a little cleaner (but please don't alter the content.) I would happily post them here as well.  Or I could just paste your response in here as I have it.  Nothing without your permission of course.

Here is my reply.

OK, I finally have time to sit down and try to arrange my thoughts. Let's try this.

I find it interesting that you consider me naive. Because I think that you aren't taking this problem serious enough. First, the secure areas controlled by the UN? I think that is an outstanding idea. I also think we ('Murica) can't be seen as the lead agency in this. Then it is just another imperialist, racist powerful white Christian culture oppressing a poor brown Muslim country.

Why is this important?

What does ISIS want?

They want world war three. They want apocalypse. The longer we make it easy for them to portray themselves as the heroes, the longer this fight continues in a global capacity. If we set the narrative to them being barbaric, psychotic, assholes, this can stay a regional conflict with a particularly barbarous enemy. Their tactics are so radical they will burn themselves out unless we continue to feed them new recruits. I think this is already happening. As it should. The Muslim community at large is condemning ISIS and is a short step away from actively fighting it.

Now, let's talk about those immigrants. It does all tie together. One of the main reasons I am not worried about the immigrants is because I think there are plenty of radicalized Muslim extremists already here. I think attacks are inevitible. And yes, I say this from Washington state, a place that plans on accepting refugees. I will be staying here and supporting the intake of refugees. And I think we can just go ahead and send the young males wearing bandoleers and carrying really heavy vests back. And about this wall idea. HA. Logistically speaking alone I think it is absurd. Tunnels, catapaults, demolitions, ladders, the whole wall technology has been surpassed for a few centuries now. Our country is huge. And supposing we were able to build an actual formidible wall that magically couldn't be tunneled under or climbed, what about our coastlines or airspace? I don't think there is any legitimate, feasible way to prevent a small group of highly determined people from getting into this country. We have to stop the actual group.

Again, I have no illusion that we can negotiate with ISIS. What we can do is keep them from resources, the most important being new recruits. Their casualty rate is much higher than their numbers can sustain for long. Unless we drive more recruits to them.

So, what drives a person a person to support ISIS? Well, you can just happen to be there and support them at the point of a blade. Plenty of that is happening, but we all know conscripts are not stereotypically the most loyal soldiers. You like to talk about Taqiyya, let's talk about Takfir. Their own fire will burn them out. Another possible reason is the same reason Hamas became so powerful. The government in the area was corrupt and not taking care of the people. When people are desperate, they align with those who help them. It worked for Hamas, it worked for street gangs in New York and LA, it worked for the mafia. If you don't have food and someone gives you food, you like them. Watch that Frontline about ISIS in Afghanistan. ISIS is paying around twice what the Taliban is paying and the government forces are buying their own ammunition. If we can spend the money we would spend on arms and spend it on bread, a lot of the people who might turn to ISIS or Hamas or whoever, might not feel they have to. I get it, those that are already converted aren't chaning. What we have to do is keep the rest from converting.

If ISIS manages to keep bringing in fresh recruits, it just might reach a tipping point where Muslims (and Christians...both Abrahamic religions with an apocalyptic branch.) start to believe this is a war between the religions. If you pit 1.3 billion Muslim against 2.2 billion Christians, you get a lot more dead than the Paris attacks. You probably get a lot more dead than the population of Paris. War itself is the enemy here.You aren't after a war between Islam and Christianity...are you?

When we went into Iraq to overthrow Saddam, we were told we would be greeted as liberators, it would be a short conflict and democracy would spread like wildfire. Don't pretend now that we expected a continuous presence there from that point on. It is provably untrue. Remember Mission Accomplished? Accomplished means finished. If we go in there with a heavy military hand, we prove that what ISIS is saying about us being evil oppressors is confirmed and we deliver them fresh recruits plain and simple. People remember who kills their family. For too long that has been us. We have been responsible for the death of too many middle eastern Muslims. Let the people there start their Jihad against the people who are killing them now...ISIS. Let them be the bad guy. We cannot stay out of the area, we have created too large a mess. But we should be responsible for as little death as possible and be seen as helping people. We can't keep ISIS out of the US, we can't stop the people that are currently ISIS, the only way to stop them is to let them become the bad guy to the people that would otherwise be tempted to join them. I know America is strong enough to withstand a few terrorist attacks, as horrific and terrible as they would be. I know we are compassionate enough to help the people that need help even if it is dangerous.

Now let me go reread your message and see what I missed.

No, I personally wouldn't take the refugees you mentioned, that is a pretty specious argument. Nobody is asking any family to do that. Refugees would be screened and no one family would be asked to take in 2.5 times their number. No family, I think, would be asked to take in anyone. The worst homeless shelter we have in this country is better than the trying to live in a war torn country. That's why they leave. I'm not saying we have to give them jobs, how about a little security and food. Hopefully, the idea of the American Dream is attractive enough that they would integrate and become productive members of the country. Far fetched I know, but it has actually happened. As for your suggestion that Sarah dress in a Burqa. Come on...this type of hyperbolic rhetoric damages what credible points you do make.

A nuclear Iran is a grave danger, I don't recall ever suggesting they weren't serious in acquiring and using nuclear weapons.

I looked up thighing, like you wanted me to and...well that's weird. Of course, Muslims have not cornered the market on bizarre sexual practices. Especially if you are a religious fundamentalist. If you live Mormonism or Christianity by the letter of the founding documents, you would be just as ostracized. It isn't about the religion, it is about an area of the world where people have been kept down so long that their specific version of their culture hasn't been allowed to evolve into something more peaceful. Let's help change that.

Fighting ISIS

OK John, full explanation time.

I think there is a good chance that if we take in refugees we will be attacked. I think we have to do it anyway. First, because we are human beings with human compassion and it is the right thing to do. Each person we turn away would be at least living in a hellish situation and just might be killed. It's like Schindler's List. Each one is a life we could save. Think about it this way. Each year over 10,000 people die in firearms homicides in this country. ( http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/homicide.htm ) Each year there are over 30,000 auto related deaths. (http://www.iihs.org/iihs/topics/t/general-statistics/fatalityfacts/state-by-state-overview ) Each year untold hundreds of thousands die from heart disease, diabetes and other diet related health issues. And yet we still have guns, Big Macs, and cars. Why? Because on some level we realize life is inherently dangerous and choose to live a life based on our principles in spite of the danger. Compassion is one of those principles. This is my first, and probably most important, argument.

But there is more.

As I said, I understand there is no diplomatic negotiation that will ever work with ISIS. There is no appeasement. None of that will work. Ever. And yet we cannot just go in there dropping bombs and killing people.

When the time comes to fight ISIS, it will likely require a commitment to war the like Sherman's march to the sea or Genghis Khan. I don't know if you know this, but many in the South are still pissed off by that whole Sherman thing, it leaves a lasting impression. This type of warfare will require things most Americans are uncomfortable with, hell, most of the world will be uncomfortable with and unlike previous wars, all of it will be news. They are teaching grade school children to fight and be suicide bombers as you know. (PBS Frontline ISIS in Afghanistan - http://video.pbs.org/video/2365608927/ ) You cannot win a war like that without a steel resolve that is currently not present either here or in the international community. We would be committing unjustified atrocities. This would feed directly in to the desire of the enemy.

Their entire worldview, from recruitment to retention, their propaganda, their entire identity and narrative relies on their heroic opposition to an oppressive Western World. Unfortunately, they have a lot of material with which to work. They can point to countless instances of Westerners, predominantly Christian westerners negatively meddling in their world. From propping up dictatorial regimes, to dropping bombs and drone strikes and collateral damage, we have bettered our own state by degrading theirs. Our tragedies make worldwide news and theirs aren't even mentioned. How many Iraqi and Syrian citizens, not ISIS or Taliban, but just plain old trying to raise a family in my culture people, have died by military or terrorist violence (not just at US hands, but total) this century alone? Thousands? Tens of thousands? Hundreds of thousands? Millions? I would be willing to wager the overwhelming majority of the western world couldn't even answer the proper order of magnitude, much less get within a stone's throw of the real number.* Four dead people in Benghazi get more news time and attention than hundreds of thousands of dead Muslims in the middle east and Africa. The current narrative is that we are a racist, selfish country within our own borders and in the larger world. There is an alarming amount of evidence to back up this claim. ** I will not definitively state it is true, but there is more than enough evidence to support that as a viable narrative. If we go in there arrogant and mad, we feed that narrative more fuel. That increases the resolve and recruitment of the enemy. Now, we are sending in our boys and girls to fight a larger, fiercer and more determined enemy. How does that help?

Here is how I hope it happens.

First, we accept refugees. Again, because we are compassionate and aren't freaking evil. Also, because it helps reduce the impression in the world that we are Muslim hating, racist assholes. We will encourage and support those who do decide to go in and fight ISIS. The people that live in and around that region will be forced to fight or be killed. As we know, ISIS isn't big at the bargaining table. I think of ISIS like Ebola. It is too virulent and deadly to spread as far as it could. It burns through the population so fast and so thoroughly that nobody has time to leave to spread it or survives long enough to take it out of the region. Still dangerous as hell, but we can contain it. Leave it to fester in the region and highlight the barbarism, depravity, and horror they are dealing out to their own people. The whole world sees it up close and in constant coverage. Hopefully, it burns out on it's own, like Ebola. Contain it and they kill off so many people and their barbarism shows through the flames of their own hatred will be their demise. It is my understanding that they hold executions near constantly and mass executions with regularity. It wont be long before there is no one left to support them. Every one of their fighters that is busy baking bread and fixing the plumbing is one that isn't firing a rifle or building an IED. And they didn't just take the territory they hold from no one. There are interested parties that want that land back. We need to reduce the flow of people to their side. We have to prove we are the good guys. It would be foolhardy to assume anybody else sees us automatically as the good guys.  Especially in the middle east.

If we are attacked, especially by a refugee or refugees, we still don't go in there unless the attack is so bad the entire world understands why we go. They kill 200 people, we don't go. That doesn't justify the type of warfare we will need to conduct to to any damn good. I don't know what size attack it would take, but I bet the whole world will know it if we see it. Think Pearl Harbor.

What I'm afraid will happen is we will be attacked and go in there trying to fight a war like we did in Iraq. Hell, even The Onion, knew going into Iraq was stupid. ( http://www.theonion.com/multiblogpost/this-war-will-destabilize-the-entire-mideast-regio-11534) Let me repeat that. THE ONION had a better grasp of the consequences of the invasion of Iraq than the Presidential administration of the time. We cannot afford to make that mistake again. We get drawn in, still looking like the bad guys to the Muslim world. Every disenfranchised, unemployed, and oppressed Muslim in the world sees validation of the ISIS narrative. It is the Christian West against the Islamic East. I don't think even 1% of Muslims buy in to that, but even 0.9% of 1.3 billion keeps a war going for a loooong time. Do you think the people and countries that would like to see American power diminished in the world would feel sorry for us and not mess with us while we were so occupied with this long, drawn out culture war? Yeah, me either. Now we are pouring money and children into a meat grinder while we diminish our standing in the world community and allowing the more adversarial countries a freer reign while we are busy. None of that helps us. Reduce our treasury, our status and our people. Already we have problems with debt and helping our veterans I can think of nothing that would exacerbate those problems more than getting into another war. We may yet have to anyway. But let it be our last resort.

I heard someone say something that I think is a perfect fit for this situation. You can't kill an ideology with a bullet.

But you sure can create one.

* I submit this site only to provide an estimate.  I don't assert that this site has totally accurate information but would likely provide an accurate range.  This doesn't include Syria or Afghanistan.  Imagine the chaos if the USA had 10% of those casualties.  This is a humanitarian nightmare of incredible proportions and for the most part we just shrug. Is it any wonder we create more and more enemies in the region?

** Missing white woman syndrome, Beirut attacks go unnoticed while Paris gets world wide continuous coverage, Black Lives Matter, US incarceration rates highest in the world with a disproportionate amount of those imprisoned being minority. I could go on and on, (Ferguson, Eric Garner)...now I hear you saying those aren't proof of anything and you are totally right. But, there is a legitimate perception of this in the world with evidence. Perception is what matters in this instance.