John 10:11-12

In Holy Scripture at John 10:11-12 we read: "I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep. But he that is an hireling, and not the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, seeth the wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep, and fleeth: and the wolf catcheth them, and scattereth the sheep."  This passage is very important because it echoes and crystallizes many of the other actions and sayings of the Christ in his ministry, to which truths built around sheep and shepherds are common throughout scripture, because it was an era when the people were intimately familiar with the importance of both sheep as well as the need for a good shepherd because the community understood well the value of sheep, as sheep provided meat, wool, hides, skin, and milk.

As with many passages of the Christ, there are many layers of interpretation, to which quite clearly we can see that Christ indicates that he is the good shepherd, that is to say, that he is the one to monitor and to take responsibility of his sheep, of his flock, and of his people.  This signifies for the flock that Christ the Shepherd is the one to follow and to respect because He is the one that will protect us and guide us, even unto His own death.  The fact that Jesus refers to himself as the good shepherd is of immense importance, as in other Biblical passages He said that only God was good, so the declaration that he was the good shepherd, indicates that he is one with God. Then too, there is a comparison of the hired hand to a shepherd, to which Christ quickly discriminates between he who cares and is willing to sacrifice all for the good of his community as compared to a man merely working for wages so that when the going gets tough and this hireling finds himself in difficulty of life or limb or of having to take an action of courage, abandons the sheep, because the sheep are not of his own.  This abandonment leaves the sheep without a leader, leaving the sheep susceptible to the ravages that a wolf brings as part of his natural character, along with the fact that the sheep are no longer united, but have scattered to the winds.

This demonstrates too the importance of having true leaders, to which it can be said, that those that perceive that they have no skin in the game, will, when the going gets tough, often abandon their posts without any unnecessary compunction.  Additionally, Christ makes it clear that he is no "fair-weather" shepherd, indeed that He will not as the flock's shepherd abandon his charges, even unto death; it is this sort of responsibility that demonstrates the true merit of a man, it is not therefore how a man behaves when the going is good, but instead how a man behaves when the going gets terribly wrong. 

Christ makes it clear that in this world our decisions matter and that those that profess that they know what is best for us, must not just preach the word, but must also live the word, because the difference between a good shepherd, a hireling, and a wolf are as follows: one will do all he can to protect and to lead his charges, dedicated inexorably to their welfare; while the hireling is just a shell of a man, just a pretender; and the wolf will do what wolves do, which is to exploit situations and weaknesses to their advantage, testing the waters, so as to know whether the shepherd that leads the sheep is the real deal or just a pale imitation of.

Hotels That Refuse to Service Locals

I was very surprised to discover that there are some hotels in America that refuse to provide accommodation for "locals", to which their verbiage reads something like: "No Local rentals, any guest checking in with a ID within a radius of 30 miles from the property will not be able to check in."  In general, a policy like this smells distinctly like another form of discrimination but under the color of, an arbitrary callout, of "no locals". 

To begin with, hotels in general are always going to get a certain percentage of business from locals, for a variety of reasons, some perhaps eminently justified such as needing a room to accommodate unexpected guests, defective plumbing or other issues within their current residence making it uninhabitable, or a prudent break from a spouse to escape from an escalating argument; as well as fairly obvious reasons such as a rendezvous with someone for pleasure, or a meeting with someone about business that rests outside the law, or for general partying.  In all of these above cases, people are going to want to rent at a local hotel because it is convenient for them, which means, that any hotel refusing business to locals, are most definitely turning down business.

From a hotel perspective the reason why a hotel would have a policy of not renting to locals, probably comes down to two basic reasons: the first is that their experience has been that locals have utilized their hotel in a manner that causes inconvenience or headache to management such as noise, unwelcomed visitors, and general partying; the second reason would be that the hotel prefers to rent to tourists because tourists spend more money and are in general, easier to deal with.  Still even taking into account that there might be legitimate reasons for a hotel to want to promote their brand exclusively to non-locals, in general, the more people that you draw upon to stay at your hotel, the higher pricing you will often get, because higher occupancy typically means higher hotel rates.

The real reason though that certain hotels refuse local business, is, no matter how they package it, to be discriminatory, to which the first step, is to paint with a very broad brush stroke, and gave yourself the power to refuse everyone within your community, and then within that power, allow exceptions.  This then follows the path of the old discrimination to which the target, whether they are of the wrong race, creed, age, or whatever, is denied admittance because that is the company policy, to which you as the hotel proprietor simply shrug your shoulders, and state, that is just the way that it is.  The thing is that isn't legal, and no matter how you dress it up, when you make it a policy not to rent to locals, and then proceed to allow in exceptions for those that have the right and appropriate demographic, code words, or excuse, that isn't right.

Now, no doubt, some of these hotels will argue that they really don't rent to any locals, whatsoever, ever.  The thing is what is really the point of a policy like that, because if your concern is that locals will run down the place because they are too loud, too destructive, too much this or that, there are plenty of laws on the books that are able to deal with real disturbances; so then rather than judging all guilty for a few bad apples, why not deal honestly with the content of a man's character.

Hedge Fund Managers Pay Dominates CEOs

If you didn't know any better, you would think, have to think, that the CEO of companies such as Walmart, McDonalds, IBM, and so forth, that employ hundreds of thousands of employees would be the highest paid Executives on earth, and you would be wrong, by a very long shot.  The fact of the matter is even though CEO pay is absolutely currently insane for so many of the largest public companies  in America, to which their pay as reported by Fortune  magazine was brought to light by the reality that: "the ratio between average American CEO pay and worker pay is now 303-to-1," and with huffingtonpost.com reporting that: "In 2014, CEO pay had risen to an average of $16,316,000 compared to only $53,200 for workers,"  you might think with that pay that the monetary compensation for CEOs of the most powerful corporations in the world is insurmountable by anyone else at anytime;  this wouldn't even come close to the real truth, is not even in fact in the same picture frame, as the truly astronomical salaries of today's most highly paid hedge fund operators which are absolutely beyond belief.  For instance, the Institutional Investor reported that the top paid hedge fund manager in 2014 and 2015 was Ken Griffin,  who made $1.3 billion and $1.7 billion in each of those years, respectively, whereas in 2013, the highest paid hedge funder manager, David Tepper, made $3.5 billion, and the numbers of the rest of those in the top 25, in 2015, still are staggering, as the bottom man on that list made $100 million, whereas in comparison in 2015, there was only one CEO that crossed over $100 million, that being Charif Souki of Cheniere Energy.  When it is all said and done, the average yearly CEO pay of an astonishing $16,316,000 in comparison to Ken Griffin's $1.7 billion indicates that Griffin's ratio to average yearly CEO pay is a stunning 104:1.

While hedge fund managers can talk all day about how they have "skin the game" as they invest their own money in their fund and further that nobody is forced to invest with them, and also that their returns on the money invested with them is stupendous, or whatever, even if it really isn't, the bottom line is that hedge fudge managers don’t actually produce anything, they make their money via leverage, arbitration, market inefficiencies, derivatives, information, sources, superior technological throughput, and whatever else that they can successfully exploit for their benefit, which means in a nutshell, that greed  for them is very, very good.

All of the above might be okay, on some basic capitalistic level, but as always, the most powerful and richest people in the world, have unfairly gamed the system for their own benefit, and in this case, probably the most important asset to hedge fund managers, is the fact that their income is very tax efficient because of their ability to use the carried-interest category which allows their gains on investments to be treated as long-term capital gains at a much lower tax rate as opposed to the significantly higher tax rate of ordinary income, to which the likes of you suffer to pay via our hourly pay rate; in addition, they also make it policy to park their assets outside the USA via reinsurance and hence defer profits from any taxation till repatriated back to the United States. 

While CEOs of major corporations are in the business of actually providing a desirable product to customers throughout the world, and subsequently are running companies that provide a valued good or service, hedge fund managers are simply in the business of making money on money, for the sake of making money, while providing nothing of real merit, nothing of real value to society at large, nothing real but their profits at the world's expense.

Debt Accumulation, Debt Payback, Inflation, and Deflation

To anyone that remembers the very high inflation rates that America when through from 1973 through 1982, it may come as a surprise, that pundits  today as well as government policy are intent that there should be a modest inflation rate as promoted by the Federal Reserve of around 2% yearly.  Because inflation erodes the value of money over time, as well as the fact that the rate of inflation has immense implications when it comes to business, corporate, as well as personal investments, you would think that having a stable currency without inflation would be preeminent, but in point of fact, while in a perfect world, that would be true, in the real world, a little inflation is considered to be necessary so as to ward off all fears of the pernicious effects of a downward spiral of economic slowdown or inactivity and pricing declines that outright deflation brings, which occurred to America during the Great Depression, that brought to the fore financial destruction, massive unemployment, and ruin to a wide swath of humanity.  In today's society any return to a depression like economic condition, would bring massive and dangerous civil unrest and thereby must be avoided at all costs.

There are two basic types of money in America, real money in the sense that this is money that you have earned and saved, as compared to money that you have borrowed from a bank or other financial institutions through consumer loans such as a mortgage, car note, school loan, or through a credit card.  Borrowers in America come in all sorts of flavors and sizes, such as: individuals, companies, corporations, stock and bond investors, and government entities of all sorts, and typically the accumulation of that debt has the tendency to become inflationary because that expansion of easy money chases too few goods which artificially pushes up the price of those goods.  It then follows that when borrowed money is being paid back, when debt is being paid off, such as student loans, or credit card debt, or margin accumulation, that because there is now less money dedicated to the purchasing of goods that therefore the pricing of goods must now decrease as well as businesses, in general, slowing down.

A case in point, is the stock market crash of 1929, which is attributed to the fact that speculators need only put down 10% of the value of a given stock, and could therefore leverage up the balance of 90%, so that in point of fact, a brokerage account with a cash deposit of just $10,000, could control $100,000 worth of stock, and while this can be a powerful way to leverage up and make easy money while the going is good, it can also be the fast route to financial ruin when the going gets really bad as it did during that crash.  The bottom line is that when any economy runs on borrowed money and the amount of that money being borrowed hits a ceiling or comes close to maxing out for whatever reasons, than pricing overall will begin to deflate, because the capacity of money has hit a plateau.  In addition, money is loaned out by banks and bank-like instruments to which those banks are dependent upon that money being paid back, as if it is not, than the banks themselves become subject to failure and collapse, because their loans have to be effectively written off or discounted heavily, signifying that the elasticity of money has snapped.

This means that in general the accumulation of debt is inflationary for the economy and correspondingly the paying back of that debt is deflationary, so that when a country and its citizens have borrowed as much as they can reasonably borrowed and probably beyond that prudent point, pricing for goods as well as labor, must fall.

America's ticking Deficit Debt Time bomb

In 1981, America's accumulated public debt first crossed over the $1 trillion dollar mark, to which America's GDP at that point was $6.59 trillion, or a ratio of GDP to accumulative debt to be about 6.5:1.  America, has not had a surplus fiscal budget since 2001, and in the four years of 2009-2012, ran a deficit amount of over $1 trillion dollars in each of those respective years, so that at the present time, our federal accumulated deficit is estimated by usgovernmentspending.com to be at $19,199,207,411,000, of which none of that deficit amount takes into account unfunded liabilities to entitlement programs such as Medicare or Social Security, and America's annual GDP is currently estimated to be at $17,419 trillion or a ratio of GDP to accumulative debt to be about a troubling .907:1, with all this happening in less than two generations.

This type of historic shift to which the accumulative deficit now exceeds the GDP of this great country, as well as the fact that this deficit has picked up an enormous amount of momentum since the turn of the century, basically only indicates one fundamental thing and that is that this government has no intention whatsoever of ever making good on this debt.    We know this because this nation has not been in any Congressional declared war, although it has been at war, since World War II, in addition to the fact that America has not suffered the economic woes of the Great Depression, although it has been in a great recession.  The problem that the American federal government has is basically that they want or demand both "guns and butter" to satisfy both major parties and they don't have the resolve to force the taxpayers to pay for it all.

The basic reason why taxpayers aren't stuck making good on all these deficits is not because the middle case or median paid worker isn't paying enough or their fair share in taxes, because they basically are, but because so many multi-national corporations as well as sophisticated, powerfully connected, and elite rich people aren't paying their appropriate share, but even if all were being taxed fairly, this country would still be running significant deficits, that would still be unsustainable, but not as extreme as they have been over this last generation.

The real issue with this ever growing deficit is the fact that America keeps postponing till tomorrow what it needs to address today, and will not make the cuts necessary in their budget, nor close the loopholes in the tax system to amend these problems, and all that, at best, would perhaps just stop the rot, but do little, if anything to knock down the actual deficit.  When you live in a country to which nobody ever wants their policy budget to be cut, but instead demands or requests more, and further that in this country, nobody wants to pay any more than necessary to the tax man, as even that is too much, and further when you have feckless politicians that just pander to the crowd, and say one thing while doing the exact opposite, than you are dealing with a country that fundamentally is dishonest, imprudent, and a poor steward of its people's money and governance. 

The bottom line is that you wouldn't keep loaning money to a "friend" if he didn't even try to pay you back, and his monetary requests kept getting larger, and he kept postponing paying you back, and he spent your money on wine, woman, and song; you would, at some point have to cut him off.  The party in America keeps going on and on and on, the lies keep growing, but the train long ago left the station, and the people if not of this present generation, than of future generations, will pay for the sins and malfeasance of their fathers.

Honor Killings and Southern Honor

It seems almost inexplicable that honor killings, that is killings of family members for bringing shame upon the family unit, as in a given female family member refusing to participate in an arranged marriage, inappropriate contact by a female with an outside male, elopement, fornication, victim of rape, and other various unsuitable behaviors that demonstrate either outright rebellion against the family unit, or unacceptable events that have disgraced the family,  or in particular obstinacyin any of its forms against one's parents , may lead to actual honor killings in this day and age, but in point of fact, they do.  Perhaps even more upsetting is the fact that these killings against defenseless females are typically not contracted out to "hit men" such as it might be done in America, but are actually committed by family members, against their own family member -- making this filicide or sororicide.   The belief, held by these families that commit these honor killings is that in order to maintain their "honor" within their community they must kill their own daughter or female member that has brought shame of some form onto the family, and only by this blood sacrifice can their family name and status be faithfully restored.

In the antebellum south, there most definitely was a code of southern honor, a code that any good southerner obeyed and was not often recognized as existing in those that hailed from the northern climes.  This southern honor code was primarily based around family and class, especially in recognition that the father was the head of the family, and that females of that family, must have their virtue protected and secured by the males members of said family, as well as for family to maintain at all times, the gentility, manners, courage, and respect that southern blood was made for.  Not too surprisingly, there were times when that southern honor was invaded or violated, to which as part of that honor, the patriarch of the house would for sake of the family and of their honor, respond to this provocation.

The most significant difference between honor killings of today as opposed to southern honor back then is that while the former is the killing of a family member by a family member, sanctioned by the head of the family, the later is the defense of a family member by a family member, sanctioned by the head of the family.  The southern way was never to believe that their woman had voluntarily given themselves up to another man, or compromised themselves in some way, but to believe instead that the honor of their female member had been violated or seduced under false pretences somehow; whereas in honor killings of today, the female is considered to be guilty and held to blame for whatever violation she is accused of, with the family name and position trumping all else.

Primarily, honor killings as well as southern honor both suffer from the same vice, which is the sin of pride.  It is this pride that wrongfully puts family honor as perceived by the patriarch, above all; above truth, above justice, above love, above grace, and above true honor, for to truly honor someone is to humble oneself in front of He who has gifted us all, recognizing that we have, each of us, been founding wanting, yet in His wisdom, our Creator waits for us in timeless patience, wanting to take us back into His fold, for we once were lost, but now we are found.

Welfare Benefits and Labor

 In 2 Thessalonians 3:10 we read: "For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat."  It certainly makes sense that all should contribute in their own way for the benefit of themselves and as members of a given community, and while some may be limited in their contributions by virtue of their age, their health, their mind, and other pertinent considerations, most everyone in some sort of way can provide some contribution to the whole.  In America, aid for the poor and indigent is provided via church organizations and other organized aid facilities akin to it, along with this aid being supplemented or replaced by various governmental welfare agencies.

In regards to churches and the like, the aid that they receive comes from the donations of their constituents, which is primarily voluntary and without compulsion.  However, for various governmental facilities welfare support is provided by compulsory taxation, of which some of that taxation is from the current generation, but yet a significant portion of that relief is provided by future generations that are stuck with paying for the relief and aid of the current poor and indigent, that is passed to them by virtue of the deficit that our federal government runs on a seemingly continuous basis.

America is quite generous in providing welfare benefits for all, including apparently those that are quite capable of contributing to the good of our nation but for whatever reason choose not to do so.  For instance, in any nation or community of substance charitable welfare must be provided for the truly indigent and weak, such as the feeble elderly, the helpless newborns, as well as others that are handicapped to such an extent that they aren't able to provide for themselves without aid.  On the other hand, there are many people that physically and mentally are fine, or at least are capable of being fine, but for whatever reason, aren't willing to apply themselves to work whatsoever for various reasons, some legit, and some most definitely not.

The thing about welfare benefits and aid is that these provisions are not provided out of thin air, instead they are in essence provided by other productive individuals to which, some recipients of said benefits are merely milking the system to their benefit.  This signifies that the government has an obligation to good tax payers to make it their mission policy that those that are desirous of the State providing them with foundational aid in the form of shelter, food, and money, or its equivalencies must also make sure that individuals that are capable of contributing to their community in whatever way, provide a reciprocal service to the State at some minimal level.

If you look around this country, and around your community, there are always things that need improvement or to be repaired or people that need comfort or attention, to which those that desire benefits from the State must do their part in order to serve their community.  The provision of welfare benefits should be carefully monitored for many good and valid reasons, as the more benefits that are handed out as aid to which the government demands nothing in return, or attempts to get nothing back, the more nothing that will be received, and thereby the more corresponding burden that will be placed upon the shoulders of those that are productive, subsidizing in effect those that will not work, have no intention of working, and in effect, supporting the failure of those that will not even try or be held accountable for their lack of labor in any of its myriad forms.

The Racial Genie

There are considered to be five races globally which are: white (Caucasian), black (African-American), brown (Latin American), red (Native American), and yellow (Asian).  In today's society you can choose to identify yourself using one of these or similar categories, or if desired, select that you are mixed.  Whether racial classifications should even matter, or be tracked by the government or other State agencies is debatable but it's done as a matter of policy.

The history of America from the time of its colonization has demonstrated conclusively that race matters, and that the favored race is quite clearly white.  Every other race in America has been suppressed, exploited, discriminated against, and so forth, through force, extralegal means and also quite frequently through the justice system itself.  This racial preference for whites and oppression of all non-whites has been systemic throughout most of America, although within certain religious groups, and communities, there has been historic accommodation. 

That said, America has made enormous progress over the last fifty-odd years to being what it proclaimed it always wanted to be, which is a true melting pot for all, the golden door of freedom and justice; however despite these great strides, study after study demonstrates that America is still a nation that is unequal and unfair especially to many minorities.

Imagine that one evening, a strange dream comes to you, or at least you believe it is a dream, in which a genie enters your room, but before you can even contemplate making your three wishes, the genie makes sure to tell you that he isn't that type of genie, that instead he is a racial genie, and simply states that he can change your race, if you so desire.   To make it more enticing for you, the genie quickly creates four holograms of the races that you could be, to which you find that just by looking at one, you discover that your mind and body melds completely into this hologram and you become that race and that person, in a manner, that feels so real, that it just has to be real. 

While in this body of a different race, you realize as you take on each of them one by one, that many scenes begin to formulate within your mind, as you picture yourself, for instance, as this different person, in an argument at a retail store, or being stopped and questioned by a policeman late at night, or at an interview for college admission, or for a job, or for a promotion, or for a pay raise, or in a negotiation to purchase a home, or looking at your future children, and so forth.  The scenes dance and play within your mind and you remember and are able to recall everything, about how you felt, your fear, your confidence, and your interactions throughout.

Then it all comes to an end and the genie looks at you and asks you whether you wish to make that racial change, and if so, which one,  or whether you prefer to just stand pat with what you have.  The genie makes sure that you understand that this change is permanent and that it cannot be undone, and as a side note he mentions that he is in a bit of a hurry. 

Perhaps the decision you make is easy, perhaps not; perhaps the whole game just seems annoying, but whatever it is, it's probably a mistake to feel that your decision, whatever it is, won't make a difference in your life, cause in almost all instances, it most certainly will.

The Poor v. the Dependent Poor

In 1900 about 40% of Americans lived in urban areas, and the balance lived in rural America.  In 2014, as calculated by tradingeconomies.com, the percentage of Americans living in rural areas was 18.55%.  The advantage of urban areas is that virtually all of life's amenities are readily available, such as: transportation, communication, electricity, indoor plumbing, air conditioning, schools, entertainment and so on.  That isn't to say that these things in some other form aren't typically available in rural areas, as they may well be, but certainly it is indicative that city life offers more modernity, convenience and variety in virtually all aspects of life that just aren't readily available in rural areas.  Of course, one caveat amongst many, is that all of the really good things that you might desire in urban life, cost money, or its money equivalency, so that although there may be great riches and services in city life, that doesn't necessarily mean they are available for the likes of you, especially if you are poor.  In fact, if you are poor in an urban area, you will often find yourself, not only segregated physically from real money and wealth, but also subjected to more arbitrary law and rules that keep you in your place.  Not only that, but because of the guidelines and perverse incentives of the welfare state, you often will find that the most underprivileged of urban residents aren't particularly skilled at much of anything, including work ethics and responsibility, and are therefore not only effectively wards of the State, but in the manner of speaking, totally dependent on the State for their upkeep and welfare.

There was a time back in America when it was far more rural, back before the great mechanization of agricultural and back before the great migration of the underclass to the northern and upper Midwest States, to which in this previous time many of the poor and disadvantaged worked as sharecroppers and/or tenant farmers.  While this existence for those sharecroppers was often exploitive, unfair, and unjust, it did have its merits, namely that the sharecroppers working the land, knew how to grow crops and raise livestock and from this work they were basically self-sufficient and knowledgeable in these areas.  While the sharecroppers were often caught in a cycle of debt that would never allowed them to own their own land outright, at least they were able to provide food and shelter for their families, in an era before governmental handouts.  In addition, and most importantly, this meant that most tenant farmers knew not only how to raise and to tend agricultural produce, such as corn, soybeans, and oats, but also typically how to manage livestock, such as chickens, and goats, and other barnyard animals.  Further, these skills were passed from one generation to the next, so that a poor tenant sharecropping family, knew in effect, how to grow, process, and cook their own food, as well as how to make their own clothes, in addition to maintaining their own shelter and other creature comforts that they needed, to which each member of a given family contributed to the whole.

While sharecroppers were poor and caught up in a system which often exploited them and their labor, at least, they were gainfully employed, dedicated, and self-sufficient with real world skills that they relied upon each and every day--passing on this knowledge from generation to generation.  In today's world, the poor are still with us, with far more amenities to make for a better life, however, too often there are undereducated, with little or low skills, little or no future, oppressed, bored, substance abusers, discriminated against, imprisoned, subject to arbitrary violence, and wouldn't know the first thing about how to pluck a chicken or hoeing the soil and probably don't really care.  

The Media, Access, Police, and News

Most everyone is interested in the news of the day, and of particular note, news that interests them.  While the internet has blown the lid off of our ability to access news in new and interesting ways, such as people that use their cell phone cameras to record and distribute actionable news events, through social media and the like, for the most part, though, media is most definitely controlled by a combination of mass media companies, police agencies, and governmental agencies.

For instance, perhaps in your community there has occurred a particularly notorious crime and you rush to the crime scene, however since you are just a regular citizen you're not going to be granted access to this scene without having proper press credentials, and despite the fact that this particular crime scene is on public property to which all citizens typically are given access to, your access has been denied, in order to keep integrity to the scene, even though you can readily see a couple privileged other authorized press personnel within it .  The bottom line is that access to crime scenes are typically controlled by the local police department, in other words, the police department will issue press passes to certain people and organizations that meet their standards as to the distribution of such a pass and not too surprisingly those press passes will be issued to recognized named media organizations as opposed to those that are freelancers or known muckraking news consortiums.  This means, that the press in order to get access to noteworthy crime scenes and the like, have to on a very basic level, have a symbiotic relationship with police organizations as if they do not, they will not have any product to produce, edit, and present to their audience, and without an audience they will not have the advertising monies that keep them in business.  This means, in these situations, the media whether they want to own up to it or not, will as a matter of policy, make sure to in their presentation and editorial policy not to bite the hand that feeds them, unless there is a firestorm of protest that forces their hand.

The fact of the matter is in order to get access to political, entertainment, and basic newsworthy events, beyond what the average citizen can do, you need to have a press pass and the distribution of press passes are controlled by known mass media outlets, governmental approvals, and police paperwork.  The result is that often times the video that is shot along with the editorial comment that goes with it, are spun by whatever bias that particular media outlet is known for, but in any event, the spin won't be too far outside the acceptable norm of the community standards, so that there may be in effect, only two flavors presented, the conservative viewpoint and the liberal viewpoint and nothing much outside either of these mainstream realms. 

This quid pro quo relationship that the media has with newsworthy events, affects directly the product that is delivered to the public, which means in essence that we are being told what to think by the narrative that is delivered to us.  The best way to verify that this is true, is simply to go to a big media event, and then compare your recollection of the events to what is actually reported, and carefully note the differences, recognizing that, if your story and theirs diverge significantly, this proves the point that the storyteller fits the story to the script that they desire, and the devil with the truth.

The Educational Lie

Study after study has demonstrated that the more educated that you are the higher your salary will be, but like most statistics, there are deceptions within this truism.  For instance, if you live in a small little rural town, and either don't have the ambition or desire to ever leave there, for whatever reason, does it avail you of anything to incur amassive amount of debt, and time spent, to attend a given college to get a degree that will never be actually utilized?  Further, consider people that have not demonstrated academic success at the high school level or the maturity or the study habits or the intelligence to actually take on successfully college materials, should these people even be applying to college?  Additionally, consider the fact that in all likelihood that the most successful college graduates were going to be successful whether they attended a college or not, by virtue of the fact, that they are focused, perceptive, dedicated, responsible, prepared and self-motivated.  The bottom line is not everybody has the right stuff to attend college and further that college is not free--in fact, college can be quite expensive and time consuming.

In June 2014, the Economist reported that: "U.S. student loan debt exceeded $1.2 trillion, with over 7 million debtors in default."  Further, as reported by the Huffingtonpost.com, "Fewer than half of all students who entered college in 2007 finished school where they started, and almost a third are no longer taking classes toward a degree anywhere."  This effectively means that a significant portion of students have attended college but failed to complete their college studies, so they are out both time and money, to which, even bankruptcy, will not discharged these debts which can easily be at $25,000, $50,000, or even more.

Then too there is the problem of Bachelor's degrees, of which, the whole purpose, one would think of receiving the Bachelor's degree, is to find gainful employment using that degree, but in fact, as reported by careerbuilder.com, "Nearly half (47 percent) of college-educated workers said their first job after college was not related to their college major."  This doesn't mean that the Bachelor's degree was of no value, what it does indicate is that their given major had little relevancy to the job that they found employment at, indicating that colleges and employment opportunities appear to be significantly out of sync.  While there is something to be said for pursuing the major of your desire or preference; from a practical level that should also mean that remunerative positions that necessitate that major should also be widely available.

Another mark against the current drive for all to get educated at colleges is the fact that even though there never has been so many with advanced degrees, the GDP in America as a whole over the last decade has been anemic.  As reported by cnsnews.com, as of February 26, 2016, "The United States has now gone a record 10 straight years without 3 percent growth in real Gross Domestic Product."  This would seem to strongly indicate that despite what all the administration big hats wish to propagandize, more educational achievement, does not appear to be the fundamental key to higher GDP growth.  Instead, it would be reasonable to conclude that if students take classes in college, that often don't teach them anything of practical real world value and purpose, but are instead frequently empty of any actual utility value but cost these students real money, you will stagnate growth to the detriment of America as a whole.

The very worst part of the structure of today's higher education, though, is the sticking of massive debt onto the shoulders of young students that have been sold a bag of goods much akin to yesterday's huckster selling elixir that supposedly would cure most every human ailment that you could possibly imagine.  Today's college experience has degenerated and degraded itself far too often into a scam of epic proportions, and instead of that American dream become closer for the millennial generation it is instead getting pushed out further; with census.gov reporting that the home ownership rate by age of householder for those under 35 years of age for the 4th quarter of 2015 stood at 34.7%, the second lowest quarterly rate from 1994 to year ending 2015, with only the 1st quarter of 2015 at 34.6% being even lower, with all this occurring in an era of historically low mortgage interest rates.

Taxes on Groceries

The ubiquitous taxman likes to get his fingers on just about anything and then to tax it, forever.  There are income taxes, property taxes, and all sorts of consumption taxes to which a grocery store tax is a form of a consumption tax.  At the present time there are only fourteen States that charge some sort of sales tax on groceries, with half charging the full State sales tax rate, and the other half charging a reduced percentage of the State sales tax rate.  The thing about groceries is that they are an absolute necessity, and because the poor pay an appreciably higher percentage of their income on groceries, a sales tax on groceries is a very regressive tax and hence unfair.

For instance, according to theatlantic.com, those in the lowest 20% income rate spent 16.1% of their income on food, whereas the upper 20% spent 11.6% of their income on food.  In addition, those in the lowest 20% income rate spent just over 70& of their food budget at home, whereas the upper 20% spent just 53% of their food budget at home.  This means that the poor spent more money as a percentage of their income for food, of which a significantly higher percentage of that food budget was spent at grocery stores as compared to the high income people, signifying that the poor are consciously spending their money in a manner that is of greater efficiency and value to them, yet having at the same time, to pay in certain States, a sales tax penalty for having done so. 

While States have budgets and need to meet their budgetary expectations, charging a sales tax for buying food in a grocery store, even at a discounted rate, unfairly burdens the poor in any given State.  Should any State be in the business of charging a sales tax, against the people, for their necessity of purchasing food at a grocery store in order to live?  While most of the States that charge the full State sales tax provide a route to recover some of the monies spent via a State tax return through rebate or credit, the poorest of the poor won't be able to qualify for this rebate, typically for lack of a tax return, and in addition the rebate itself is not going to recover the amount of monies spent in taxes for groceries throughout the year.

The fact of the matter is if any State is so intent that they absolutely must tax food, they should exempt all grocery store purchases whatsoever from a sales tax, and if necessary, charge a higher tax rate for food that is bought at restaurants.  At least by making this change, you are clearly providing the people a choice, whereby for those that are impoverished they will not have to sacrifice additional monies in order to eat by virtue of their buying groceries, unless they deliberately make a conscious decision to bypass this choice by frequenting a restaurant; whereas for the rich and the well off they probably pretty much won't care, although no doubt they will grumble a bit as is their wont.

Refined Carbohydrates and Acne

While you won't find too many people willing to argue that you don’t need food in order to live and further that too much eating of foods will have a tendency to produce obesity after a certain period of time, there is often a disconnect that the food that we eat probably doesn't affect our skin conditions, even though it affects the amount of space our skin encompasses, and of especial concern, the primary cause of embarrassing acne.   While, there is plenty of documentation or propaganda put out there that says that the food that you consume has absolutely nothing to do with your possible development of acne, there are also medical doctors that have stated that diet most definitely makes a material difference in regards to whether you will or will not get facial acne.  Taking into account, that few people actually desire to have acne, you would think it would behoove them to want to discover the truth of the matter.

For instance, Dr. Bailey at her website: www.drbaileyskincare.com states that: "Scientists have found that people who eat lots of highly refined carbs are more likely to get acne."  In addition, as reported by www.abc.net.au, " There is a growing amount of research suggesting there is a link between diet and pimples (or acne), says Melbourne dermatologist Dr George Varigos… Varigos' research has found a diet high in refined, processed foods creates perfect conditions for pimples."    These medical doctors make it clear that diet and in particular, refined carbohydrates have a strong correlation for the development of acne, which means rather than looking at acne, as a rite of passage for teenagers going through their hormonal changes, it is something that teenagers can take control of, apparently by changing their dietary habits.

Of course, on the other hand, acne and the resolution of it, is something that is very big business for not only Dermatologists but also companies such as Guthy-Renker's industry leader in acne treatment: Proactiv, which was developed by two Dermatologists.  According to Wikipedia.org: "Sales amounted to $800 million a year as of 2010," and Proactiv is just one of many acne treatment products which are sold over-the-counter and are marketed to those suffering from acne and strongly desiring for something to alleviate their skin and acne problems.  Additionally, Dermatologists can and do prescribe medications specifically to address skin acne.

The thing about medicine in the United States is so often the medicine prescribed or the solution offered is to treat the symptom but not to try to diagnose and to treat the underlying problem.  The monetary advantage for doctors or providers of over-the-counter skincare products or medicine is that if the treatment is only of the symptoms, and not of the underlying cause, you will have a constant, consistent, and continuous revenue stream which benefits yourself and your company.  On the other hand, if you deal with the underlying cause, to which the major responsibility of dealing with acne is handed back to the patient in the form of a more proactive course of action in regards to diet, and of the consumption of particular foods that are better for you and your skin as opposed to foods that have a strong tendency to exacerbate the conditions that bring on acne, you have provided good and practical advice, but on the other hand, have possibly undercut your own business income.

For anyone that has children going thru adolescence or remembers that stage themselves, or are in that stage presently, it seems fair and prudent to provide to them information that will empower them to take charge of their lives, and if by so doing, it eliminates or reduces acne, so much the better, as adolescence itself has troubles enough.

Pensions are too Lucrative for Governmental Employees

As reported by epi.org we have seen that defined-benefit pension plans in the private sector have in recent years: "… now cover 18 percent of private-sector workers, down from 35 percent in the early 1990s."  This epic decline in pension benefits in the private sector, has as its main reason for this change, the fact that private sector companies are cognizant that defined-benefit pension plans are often fundamentally unsustainable or problematic by virtue of both the amount and duration of the benefits that must be paid out which often cannot be quantified properly, in addition to the limiting of the company's effectiveness in access to bond monies and other instruments of company growth, competitive considerations, as well as making the company less desirable for mergers or buy-outs.  On the other hand, though, governmental employees, who in theory gravitate to their job by virtue of their desire to serve their community, have created pension liabilities in many communities, cities, counties, and various governmental agencies, that are fiscally unsustainable.

The most significant issues with pensions in the first place for many governmental

employees, is that the actuarial basis for the pension in regards to: its amount, its time frame, its determination, its framework, its inflation-adjusted coefficient, its benefits, and so forth, appears to be a situation to which those that legislate and determine these things, have done a massive disservice to their community at large, by not carefully considering the sustainability, fairness, or appropriateness of the pension benefits.  Unfortunately, it is always much easier to pass the buck from one generation to another, from one legislature to another, with a wink and a nod, as compared to actually taking the time and diligence to figuring out the consequences of pensions that are far too generous or poorly reasoned out and to do the right things to begin with.

The fact of the matter is that the pensions as they currently exist are in a significant amount of cases a grand disservice to the taxpayers at large.  For instance, in Illinois, using teachers as our example, and as reported by teacherpensions.org, it is calculated that: "If instead you lined up every retiree in order of their benefit, the teacher right in the middle would receive a monthly payment of $4,613, or a little more than $55,000 a year." That median pension benefit of $55,000 annually, with, no doubt a cost-of-living adjuster, is how much a teacher will receive in compensation year after year, after retirement, until their death.  If you take into full account, that communities are compelled to compensate not only the teachers that are teaching at the present time, but also teachers that have retired and those that are retiring in the future, the amount of money that is budgeted and set aside for teachers is almost always significantly higher than anticipated, and this shortfall must be made up for by the taxpayers who often, in almost every case, do not have nearly anything approaching the generosity of the same defined-pension plans that they are paying for with their taxes.

In point of fact, pensions for government employees should be phased out, and phased out as soon as possible, and replaced with the same sorts of programs that most private-enterprise companies offer today, which is 401K plans and the like.  The upshot would probably result in a higher compensation rate being offered for today's governmental employees, with the corresponding result being that governmental agencies and taxpayers would not have to worry about pension blowups and unsustainably in the future.

Interview Question: Have You Ever Been Arrested?

At any given job interview, all sorts of unexpected and unanticipated things may occur, of which, one of them may be inappropriate or illegal questions.  For instance, there are some job application forms and job interview questions to which one of the illegal questions that is asked is whether or not you have ever been arrested.   The assumed point of a question like this is to separate out applicants that have been arrested from those that have not been arrested and/or to count against the interviewee an arrest incident in their overall application grade.  While those that have never been arrested might even prefer seeing this type of question asked, that is hardly fair to those that march to the beat of a different drummer, come from a different environment, been harassed, unlucky, or various other reasons why their susceptibility of being arrested would be appreciably higher than someone else's.

For those that have actually been arrested, and really aren't aware of the inappropriateness and illegality of the question being asked, the bottom line is it is up to that person's conscience as to how to answer the question.   In general, unless you feel somehow that the question is a question striking at the heart of your integrity and thereby by admitting to something that really did happen, you feel will somehow garner points with the interviewer as demonstrating your candor in an uncomfortable situation, by all means answer the question honestly.  However, in almost every other instance, you are far better off answering the question by denying your arrest, as there is no such thing as being "convicted of the crime of being arrested".  That is to say, if your arrest did not lead to a conviction, than you have absolutely nothing to own up to.

The most significant problem with inappropriate interview questions is that almost always these questions are a form of trying to get you to "make a case against yourself" which is completely and fundamentally at odds with the whole purpose of having the Constitutional right not to self-incriminate and is often best left in the hands of you and God, or to be confessed as a form of contrition to God's representative on earth.  In addition to this, asking interviewees questions about their arrest record are unfairly biased against both males and those of lower socio-economic levels because these people are historically significantly more susceptible to being arrested in the first place.  Not only that, people that are willing to rail against the system in protest for whatever injustices that they perceive and have felt around society, are far more susceptible to being arrested, yet it is exactly those people, that help to cause and implement positive change.

If you look at the great heroes of history, such as Jesus the Christ, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Mahatma Gandhi, Mother Jones, and Nelson Mandela, to name just a few, they all stood for justice and truth against the forces of injustice and error and were all arrested for their stand or even worse.  The question put forth: have you ever been arrested is fundamentally unsound, as that question by itself divides neither the sheep from the goats; the real question to ask is whether you have ever stood up for justice, knowing that by doing so, you would suffer for it.

The Poll Tax

Most people do not know what the 24th Amendment to the United States Constitution stipulates, but in short, in 1964 when it was ratified, it basically stipulated that in national elections voting: "… shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any state by reason of failure to pay any poll tax or other tax."  It then took a Supreme Court decision in 1966 to eliminate the poll tax in State elections, so that since 1966 poll taxes are no longer valid or legal in any State of this union.

As for a poll tax, it's name pretty much sums up what it is, a form of taxation or fee that has to be paid in order for a voter to be able to legally vote at the polling booth and those that did not pay such a tax, would therefore not be permitted to vote.  The purpose of the poll tax, not too surprisingly, was to take away the vote from the disenfranchised and poor, so as to tip the scales of justice to those that had the means to create their own form of justice favoring those of a certain class, race, and/or creed.  The poll tax was quite effective in its discrimination, as indigent people simply didn't have the monetary means to vote and often simply gave up trying to fight the system.   

While the poll tax as it was has now been placed into the dustbin of history, it has somewhat been resurrected by identification laws that certain State legislatures have passed over the ensuing years, so depending upon the State of your residence, in order for you to vote in a given election, you must present some form on legal government issued ID, such as your driver's license.  It would seem that, offhand, the presentation of proper ID to vote appears to be a reasonable request to make, but that isn't necessarily so.  For instance, for a well established person, having proper ID on hand is almost a given, however, there is a substantial part of America to which that isn't necessarily so, for a variety of reasons, yet they are of age, entitled to vote, and in fact, voting is their Constitutional right.

At a polling booth, in order to vote, you have to be able to identify yourself, which historically has meant identifying yourself verbally through your full name, address of voting registration, and possibly also your date of birth, all of this for the benefit of the official at the polling booth so as to verify this information against their records and thereby check your name off of the voting rolls for that election.   While it might be convenient to present one's ID in order to confirm or to establish identity, it should not be the law to do so, as that ID has previously been established by virtue of the fact that your name is on the voting roll.  This means, that a verbal declaration of who you are, to which that information is consistent with the information at the voting booth, should be sufficient to allow you, your right to vote. 

In short, whether you jogged to the voting booth, drove, walked, dropped by, got dropped off, or whatever, you should be able to wait your turn in line, properly identify yourself, and then vote.  Those that insist upon proper government issued ID in order to vote, are deliberately creating barriers to entry, much like the poll tax of old, to keep undesirables at bay, in their place, and left behind.

The New Color of Slavery

Whether you want to believe that slavery ended in America upon Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation of January 1, 1863, or upon the surrender of the Confederacy on April 9, 1865, or perhaps upon the ratification of 13th Amendment in 1865, which abolish slavery and involuntary servitude, one could make a strong argument that slavery or its modern equivalence of never really went away.   The problem with the defeat of the Confederacy in 1865 is that the same power structure that created the Confederacy still existed, unbowed and unrepentant despite any loyalty documents that were signed, still owning the same land and still having access to the same poor and disenfranchised black people of the South, and although there were federal laws on the books, Union men in town, it didn't take all that long for things to inexorably slip back to the way that they previously were.

That is to say, of course, technically Southern plantation owners no longer owned slaves, as that was illegal, and perhaps considered impolitic, but just as surely Southern plantation owners adjusted to these circumstances by creating "black codes" and other laws and restrictions on black movement and labor, that were backed by southern justice, southern arms, southern violence, in such a manner that freed blacks were forced into positions of servitude similar to slavery to which the prime beneficiary of this labor was reaped in large part by that southern plantation class, trapping blacks into a system that offered no escape from economic deprivation.

It was not until the aftermath of World War II that the pressure to give the black man a fair place at the table of American bounty became something that began to inexorably increase on the Federal government; yet, while on the one hand, America began to become a more liberal society, there was a conscious recognition that jobs that were both labor intensive as well as historically poor in compensation, such as agricultural in all of its many facets, hospitality, and so forth, needed to be filled by somebody that would be satisfied just to have some sort of foothold in America.

The answer to that labor need came from south of the border, in Mexico, and in Central America, to which whether purposely done or by benign neglect, the powers-to-be made sure to differentiate these people from "real" Americans, by first allowing them to slip across the borders in unprecedented numbers, and further to make sure that these people would not be considered to be citizens, but instead be looked upon as undocumented workers, illegal aliens, or whatever.  Further to the point to separate these people from Americans, they made sure to setup the logistics of a language barrier; by making Spanish the de facto recognized second language of America.  The brilliance of this decision was that, those that are unable to comprehend English, but instead must rely on Spanish to conduct their day-to-day activities of their communication, place themselves into the inferior position of being both stigmatized by authorities and also exploited by labor, because by their language, there are in essence recognized as people that have no rights that need be respected.  This means, in effect, that they are subject to "Mexican codes" to keep them in their place, that a "good" Mexican is a Mexican that keeps their head down, does their work well, doesn't complain about working conditions or pay, and should be grateful for the bones thrown their way.

While one could argue that it isn't really slavery when you aren't forced to or compelled to move your feet into America, which while technically true, misses the point that the deliberate exploitation of any human labor, that is further not accorded full civil and economic rights, is a civil crime against humanity and a disgrace to anyone that pledges allegiance to this mighty flag and what it represents.

The Insanity of High-End Art Pricing

There are the rich, the very rich, and the superrich that are so superrich that they are absolutely beyond the pale, to which most people are absolutely clueless as to how the world of the wealthy actually revolves.  The world is a very large place to which money is made in all sorts of ways, some legal, some not, some of very questionable actions, some not, and some of blatantly illegal ways, and some not.  Those that make their money on the "dark side", so to speak, have only solved half the equation, as cash or cash like instruments, in and of itself, has limited value if you are unable to turn that cash into something of more tangible value, especially something that is both fungible as well as easily transferrable and preferably of international merit.

The big auction houses such as Christie's and Sotheby's have taken over from the Swiss bankers of old, as the new way to laundry and store money that has questionable origins.  The first clue that Christie's and Sotheby's are not on the up and up, is the fact that some of the most expensive art pieces in the history of mankind are sold or transferred to either straight-out anonymous parties, that "prefer for privacy reasons" not to be identified, or sold to a named person or rumored to have been sold to a named person in the art industry, who in fact is just a front for an anonymous buyer.

The second clue that things at Christie's and Sotheby's are not on the up and up, is revealed within the increasingly insane pricing of art pieces that are sold.  For instance, a Cezanne painting sells for $250 million, and a Picasso for $155 million, and the still living Jasper Johns painting goes for $110 million.  No matter how you slice and dice the pricing on these pieces, none of these pieces demand that type of pricing, yet prices like these or on a somewhat smaller scale are achieved again and again and again.

Because a given art piece must have a buyer as well as a seller, and of course, be able to accommodate the very nice commission for the art gallery or auction selling the piece, there has to be some sort of assurance for all parties involved, that the punch bowl in regards to these high-end art pieces is not going to be taken away anytime soon.  That bowl is primarily controlled and manipulated by the art auction houses themselves in conjunction with certain art critics and the credulous press.  That is to say, you are not going to get buyers, with even the most corrupt and dirty money, even considering buying art, if they aren't confidently reassured that the art game itself is rigged in everybody's favor.

For instance, if there is an agreement, an implied agreement, of course, that art pieces will always or almost always go up in price over time, this makes the dealing of this commodity much more enticing for those that need to wash their dirty money and thereby to cleanse it, from either a buying or selling perspective, as today's buyer, is often tomorrow's seller, and that washing cycle continues until such time as the game can no longer sustain itself.  So despite what you might hear from the art experts, or despite the denials from Sotheby's and Christie's, today's art pricing is a manipulated shell game, rigged, and fueled significantly by the very dirty money hiding behind the cloak of anonymity, tax evasion, and/or false fronts.

The Importance of Private Property

In today's modern society the law often in conjunction with the government is constantly encroaching upon man's natural right to enjoy and to control the very things that he owns.  In a country without private property, whether that property is owned by the government outright, or by the people in common, the individual, has no safe sanctuary, since the very steps that he takes upon any part of the earth, is not his own.

While it might sound enticing, fair, or even Christian, for everyone to own everything in common, the actuality of it all is far from some sort of earthly paradise.  First, no matter how the bread is sliced, somebody is going to have effectively more rights than you to common land, and further, that somebody will often have less responsibility to work on that same land as you do.  In point of fact, that is one of the fundamental lies of communism, to which those in power, those with arms, those that are connected, decide just how much or how little freedom of action, or freedom of conscience, that a given citizen may have, and through it all it will be made abundantly clear that not all commoners are equal, and those that are less equal will have to make do with whatever the State elects to parcel out to them.

It doesn't take a genius to understand intuitively as well as in action that you do not treat your own private property the same way that you treat property that you do not own or property in common, or property controlled by some State agency.  In truth, you treat your own property with far more concern and care than any other property, basically because you have "skin in the game" knowing that how your treat your property has a direct material effect upon you, whereas property held in common, or anonymously, is not property that overly concerns you one way or another, so, for instance, if you have trash you toss it, cause you don't really care, even though you should.

Another very important aspect of private property, is that this is your line of defense from State encroachment upon you as a person, so that without private property, without private property rights, there is no safe haven, because a government that does not respect private property, will not typically respect you as a person, and rather than seeing you a person with certain inalienable rights, will see you instead as someone created to serve the State and if necessary, will make sure that you are obedient to this dictate.

When it comes to private property, the interest of the State should be strictly related to the fairness of as well as the acquisition of the holding of private property for individuals and not in contrast for the State to aggrandize unto themselves or to take unfairly private property from individuals.  A country with strong individual private property rights is a country made up of sovereign individuals that collectively may then decide to band together so as to protect those rights, and thereby become a country of the people, by the people, and for the people.

The Dangers of Anonymous Police in Riot Gear

The first thing to remember is that domestic law enforcement officers foremost duty is to protect and to serve the public, not to be a law unto themselves, not to be responsible to just some special subset of society , and that they therefore must be held accountable for the actions that they perform and accomplish in their day-to-day activities.  The responsibility that a given law enforcement officer has to himself as well as to society is enormous, as the real world is a combination of so many myriad factors and tensions that the performance of duties as a law enforcement agent is fraught with dangers, pressures, and decisions that can overwhelm a lesser man.

When tensions are high, there are very valid reasons as to why police officers will be outfitted into riot gear; for instance for their own protection, as well as intimidation, preparedness for danger, organization, efficiency, and safety reasons.  In almost every case, citizens that are facing up against a well organized police force in their full riot gear and accouterments are almost completely at the mercy for life and limb by these officers. 

When it comes to regular police duties, officers of the law are identified with badges or similar with their name and identifying number visible; this is necessary for all parties involved, providing the citizens a chance to basically ascertain that the officer is actually legitimate, as well as a valid protection of answerability for the people.  In addition, police vehicles are uniquely identified by not only their license plate but also the distinctive identification code on the roof of a given vehicle.  

However, when it comes to riot gear on police, with the exception of some word printed on their uniform or gear such as "police" or "sheriff" or similar, it often is virtually impossible to identify any individual officer of the law by name or identification number, if these are even shown.  Additionally, riot gear is typically so encompassing, that often times no body skin of the riot gear outfitted officer is shown whatsoever, in addition to normal visual identifiers such as the eyes and face being obstructed or shielded by the face shield and/or goggles or shades so that in total it is difficult or nearly impossible for the public to identify the officer in question whatsoever.

The officer in full riot gear is well aware that he is both seen as an intimidating force, as well as being cognizant that he is virtually and effectively anonymous to the public.  This anonymity, this unaccountability is extremely dangerous to the public, as those that are the law, or instruments of the law, are far more capable of giving full vent to their free rein, if they believe that they individually will not be held accountable for their zeal in their performance of their duty, as well as believing that those that strike against aren't ever going to be able to know who they really are as individuals and fellow citizens.

The fact of the matter is that all police officers in riot gear should always be readily identifiable by at a minimum a unique identifying number clearly displayed on their helmet so that the public and the police agency itself can know for a certainty the identity of that particular officer.  Anytime that a country degenerates to such an extent that the policing agency of said country is permitted to perform their duties without identification nor proper independent oversight, than the rights of the people, will be held in the hands of those that wield the sword.