The truth will set you free

The above quotation is from John 8:32 and this sentiment makes it quite clear that each one of us has an absolute obligation to find out and to search for the truth, so as to benefit ourselves by living to it.  The point of life is to discover the truth, of all things, of everything that you interact with and relate to on an everyday basis.  It can be said, that without truth, that without accuracy, that without a knowledge of right or wrong, your life can be nothing more than fits and starts of confusion and a mess.  When you learn mathematics you learn that there is one right answer and that answer represents the truth.   When you read or write, there is an underlying foundation that one must adhere to in order to properly communicate as well as to properly comprehend, and the lack of understanding of that truth, will be a marked negative in your life.  In your social relations, personal or not, at work or not, in everything that we do in order to interact with others, the underpinning that allows us to effectively communicate is truth.

The fact of the matter is when you veer from the straight path of truth, onto the side streets of all sorts; you are no longer making 100% pure progress, as your efficiency has been reduced correspondingly.  That is to say, when any great prophet or Messiah incarnates here on earth, such as Moses, Jesus, Elijah, Confucius, Buddha, Krishna, and so on, each one of these great prophets have as their basis one fundamental thing in common, and that is truth.  Each one of these unparalleled masters had an absolute obligation to testify to truth and to see that this truth was espoused to their apostles and acolytes, because without this obligation, than their very message, their very life would be tinted with sin, with falsehood, with error, and their feet would truly then be feet of clay.

You do not, however, need to be a perfect being to understand truth, to espouse truth, to recognize truth, but you should not live a life in which one thing is said yet an entirely different thing is lived as this contradiction between words and deeds will reflect badly on yourself, your advice, and your self-respect.  While there are plenty of people that believe that truth is relative or pretend that they don't understand truth,  or that there is no definitive truth, these are either self-deceptions or often insincere questioning with the preeminent example being "what is truth?" by Pilate, who asked the question but didn't want to hear the answer.

The reason why truth will set you free is that every lie, every deception, and every wrong move, places us into a cage of error and tarnishes the Light that truth represents.  Each day you know what you have done, you know what you have spoken, and you know or have a real good idea as to whether each of these decisions has been done truthfully and without error. 

We are, foremost, responsible for ourselves, as Shakespeare said, "to thine own self be true," yet this responsibility extends further so that we have an inherent obligation to others to espouse truth, aptly demonstrated by the incomparable Wilber Wilberforce when he concluded his speech to parliament by railing against the moral injustice of slavery and proclaiming: "Having heard all of this, you may choose to look the other way, but you can never again say that you did not know." 

The truth is that light that penetrates completely into every crevice and every cavity conceivable, to which no lie can stand up to that light, so knowing this, the choices that you make in life are in actuality, the true you.

The Real Reason for Government Secrets

In theory, this is a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, but in actuality, it is a government of the privileged and connected, by the privileged and connected, that sit above the people, so as to run this country in a manner that is most beneficial for those favored people.  In situations in which governmental agencies are saying one thing while doing another, or simply not disclosing the truth of what they are doing, they find it imperative that those agencies, operatives, directives, and so forth performing such actions do so in a manner that is not available for view or review by the public, which is why so many governmental actions are opaque and classified.  The real reason why there are so many governmental secrets has often nothing to do with national security, or anything of that sort, but instead almost always comes down to the fact, that the government doesn't want the people to know what they are really up to, because the government knows that in many cases, what they are doing fundamentally runs at cross purposes to what this country is supposed to represent.

If everything that the government is doing of real importance is classified, top secret, restricted, and so forth, this means for a certainty, that the public does not have enough information to render an informed opinion.  In addition, when public debate isn't even initiated on certain programs or actions, with the government performing or doing whatever it so desires, it is the public that will ultimately reap the whirlwind of actions run amok.  The government should not now, nor should it ever, treat its citizens, in a paternalistic way, as that is not what our Declaration of Independence was about, yet, the very nature of most secrets accomplishes this very objective.

In point of fact, the government should be held to the highest standards possible, which means, that we expect that our public servants should at all times, behave and perform in a manner bespeaking their obligation to do right by the people that they ostensibly serve.  This means that artificial fences, walls, and barriers, that separate the people from their government, have created a world dividing the people from their decision makers so that there are those on the inside that know everything, and  then there are those on the outside, that know nothing.  This very separation effects a division of knowledge, to which, the people do not know what is truly going on and hence are kept in perpetual darkness.

In actuality, there are very few secrets that any legitimate government needs to withhold from their people so it can be said, that the more open and the more transparent a government is, than the more true freedom that country will have.  No people can be free, if they live under a government that keeps the most important and vital issues of the day, away from the public eye, and available only for those that are privileged enough to be engaged with it. 

The real reason why America has so many secrets has little to do with protecting our homeland, but rather it is to keep the people in the dark so as to deceive them, and tellingly to separate those people from the ruling class.

Low, Low Interest Rates Aren't Going Away anytime Soon

Anyone, who watches the Financial News, hears all sorts of stuff about what is basically our central bank, the Federal Reserve, to which pundits are forever discussing when interest rates will normalize, that is to say when will the FED raise their benchmark interest rate to a level that America has been more accustomed to and thereby closer to 5%, as opposed to the current rate of just 0.50%.  The fact of the matter is, there really isn't a normal interest rate to adjust to, there might be historic rates that have been taken to be normal or desired and so forth, but interest rates are dependent on distinct factors that essentially set the rate.

The factors that are most pertinent to interest rates are inflation, the economy, and the debt of the subject nation to which each of these factors makes common sense.  In general, interest rates need to be in the vicinity of the inflation rate, because money is a source of value, and if there is inflation beyond a very nominal rate of 1% or so, than those saving and/or loaning money will demand that they be compensated for their money becoming more debased, and hence interest rates will rise.  In any economy, funds are needed to expand and to invest in businesses, whether that be directly in infrastructure, training, expansion, R&D, or whatever, companies are going to need access to capital. In situations in which the economy is stagnating, there is thereby less demand for capital, and the less the demand is for capital, the cheaper the interest rate that is going to be charged, because of that very lack of demand.  In regards to the debt of nations, and to a lesser extent the debt of corporations, it is understood implicitly that nations fall or rise on their ability to service their debt.  At this point in history, nations have never been more indebted than they are today, and so too many major corporations have added on debt at unprecedented levels, to which, in order for the financial system to sustain itself as both viable as well as reliable, this debt has to be paid back or at a minimum payments must be made on a timely and consistent basis.  The very act of paying back debt, means that money is being returned to financial institutions, so that loan money properly serviced, is in actuality deflationary because that money is effectively being taken out of circulation which contributes to interest rates being low.

The bottom line, is ready capital, that is money in cash instruments of all sorts, is in plentiful supply, and that supply is so great, that bank institutions, are uninterested in further deposits of this sort, so that they pay little or nothing for them, and that is why the interest paid on these deposits are anemic.  The thought that all of a sudden, because the FED may raise interest rates that therefore bond and savings account yields will raise, won't happen, becausethe fact is that there is already too much money, sitting quiescently, with nowhere for those banking institutions to invest the money prudently. This means, that banks will not and cannot pay appreciably higher interest rates on deposits because they already have too much of the stuff to begin with, in addition to the fact that banks can't charge more money on the loans that they now make, because the nations and corporations servicing these loans, often don't have the real capacity to pay more, and if pushed to brink, they will default, collapsing this entire house of cards.

Nazi atrocities and it can't happen here

The Nazis and Wehrmacht of World War II Germany as well as the Japanese imperial soldiers in the Pacific theatre of the same war have been vilified for their atrocities committed during the conduct of said war, to which, rape, plunder, torture, inhumane treatment, civilian murder, naked aggression of sovereign territories, heartless medical experimentation, and the holocaust are the most notable examples of man's terrible inhumanity to man.  For those that live in America, there is often the feeling that it can't happen here, but such hubris is completely out of place.

In point of fact, most every violation that the Nazis were rightly castigated for, the Americans in one form or another, are just as guilty of, with the exception of the holocaust.  For instance, the American military loves to bomb country after country after country, which has been demonstrated throughout history via countries such as Germany, with the civilian bombings of Hamburg and Dresden, as well as the civilian bombings of Tokyo, Japan, in addition to the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki of Japan, all accomplished during World War II.   Since that seminal war, America has continued to bomb countries such as Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, and so forth, to which, through the spin of a pliant media, civilian deaths are ignored or sanitized, by stating that these killings were collateral damage, accidental, mistaken, and so forth, while never admitting to the truth of the matter which is that by the very nature of indiscriminate bombing, civilians and infrastructures will be destroyed.

So too, America has conducted its own horrorshow of medical experimentations, such as deliberately injecting patients with cancer cells in the 1930s, injecting prisoners with agent orange in the 1960s, subjecting black patients in the 1960s with extreme radiation,  and the list goes on and on.  While America rightly rails against foreign nations for their mistreatment of prisoners of war, America's record in recent years is abysmal, as not only does America believe it has the right to perform renditions, which violate the sovereignty of nations throughout the world; it also abuses prisoners, such as demonstrated in the Abu Ghraib torture mistreatment, which America reluctantly admitted to because of the photographic and video evidence.

While Japanese imperial soldiers were noted for their abuse and rapes of Chinese and South Korea women, they are not the only country doing so, as American soldiers have also been held accountable for civilian rapes in countries such as Japan and Iraq.  Additionally, in today's military in which soldiers of America served with females as well as males, rapes, of both sexes, by military personnel are considered to be an "epidemic", as reported by responsible news media.

When it comes to rounding up civilians and then executing them based on their creed or race or similar, the United States have not yet mined the depravity of the Nazi holocaust, yet they have demonstrated through their historical treatment of American Indians, the callous ability to unilaterally break treaties with Indian tribes, to force-march Indian men, women, and children for great distances, and to basically isolate the American Indian from the American public, through the displacement of Indians onto isolated reservations.  Then too, there is the American treatment ofand internment of United States citizens of Japanese descent, that were forcefully vacated from their homes, businesses sold and confiscated, and these targeted civilians were re-located to isolated areas in America, for the crime of being Japanese in America during World War II.

In the present age, there is no military that is equal to America's in the world, not only that, but the police force of American cities, has become to a large extent militarized.  Today, America has made it clear through their propaganda and media subservience that the enemy we fear is Islam, of which there are many Muslims living in America.  How much of a stretch is it to believe, that a demagogue as President, could and would make it American policy that all these Muslims on American soil, be rounded up and interned, and once done, whatever do you think would happen next.

Are there Two Gods: the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New

We are taught to read for a purpose and that purpose is to learn as well as to comprehend what we have read.  The most read book in all of history, is the Bible, and not too surprisingly, since the Bible has a beginning in the book of Genesis, and an ending in the book of Revelation, many people, attempt to read it just like we would any other ordinary book, but, the Bible is not an ordinary book.  While there isn't necessarily anything wrong with approaching the Bible from that reading perspective, in fact, it can be the right thing to do, there is also, though, a darker side to the equation to which a knowledgeable person should warn or instruct us about.

First off, the Old Testament is very long, to which, according to wordcounter.net the Old Testament has roughly 622,700 words, whereas the New Testament has 184,600 words, as compared to a typical novel which is somewhere around 80,000 words.  In addition, to the sheer length of the Old Testament, we have the fact that many stories contained within it, contain stories and names that are convoluted, confusing to follow, and also often make no good conscious impression upon us.  What does jump out at us, especially in today's relatively civilized conditions, is that the God of the Old Testament, appears rather violent and angry in His own actions, or the actions of the people that are directed to obey his dictates, such as in: 1 Samuel 15:3 "Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy all that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys," as well as Numbers 16:35 "And fire came out from the Lord and consumed the 250 men who were offering the incense."  On the other hand, in 1 John 4:7 we read: "Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God."

The fact is that apologetics write endless amounts of commentary, instructing us that the God of the Old Testament is the same as the New, and these commentaries go on and on and on, with all sorts of justifications and circuitous logic, but all of this protest, seems to run along the lines as in "they had it coming".  In fact, truth be told, there were legitimate concerns by those professing faith in Jesus the Christ, that there must be two Gods, and that the God/Father of Jesus, was the God, who replaced the former, and it is this God that we pay homage to today.  Yet, of course, it's understood that God is perfect, omniscient, omnipotent, immutable, and so forth, so obviously there can't actually be two competing Gods or two Gods in which one was for back then, and this one is for now, but the Bible doesn't make it easy to reconcile this seemingly rather large divide.

Perhaps, there is another way to look at the apparent difference between the God of the Old Testament and of that of the New, and that is of mankind, itself.  The more materialistic that man is, the more warlike that man is, the more injustice that man reins upon the other, necessitates, at times, drastic reactions from He would not be mocked.  If man aggrandizes unto himself, that he is the measure of all things, that he is a god in of itself, that he can do whatever he desires, whenever, and to treat his fellow man as his personal plaything or slave, without concern towards the God that is within each of us, there must be an appropriate response from a loving God.  That response can be a prophet or that response can be a plague, or a flood, or a Savior, and so forth, as God's toolkit is unlimited.  At each and every point, though, God provides a sanctuary for those that will listen to that still, clear voice, whereas for those that are too hard-hearted to do so, they surely will reap the whirlwind of free will run amok, resulting in catastrophic events, because those that shut out the Light, will birth darkness, until such time that that Light can be born again.

God is the same, yesterday, today, and tomorrow, so that the God of the Old Testament is told to us in a way that sells us the illusion that makes it appear that God can be arbitrary, capricious, and cruel, whereas these portrayals are really better understood as man's attempt to comprehend the greatest force in all of Creation, to which, in the role of our Divine Mother, our Creator in actuality patiently waits for our return to that which is endless love.

The Non-Progressive Social Security Tax

Our Federal and State taxes are advertised as being progressive taxes, that is to say, that the more money that a given person makes, the higher tiered tax brackets that person will migrate into based on their earnings, signifying that those that make more money, will pay more in taxes at a progressive rate, before eventually for those that earn a lot of money reaching a plateau.  The main reason behind a progressive rate, as opposed to a flat and fixed tax rate on the money that you earn, is that a progressive rate, is a way to help even the income playing field, by taxing more heavily those that are earning a lot more, and hence can "afford" to pay more in taxes, because their net income will still be considerably more than those earning a lot less. 

There is, however, one part of the tax code which isn't progressive at all, and in fact, hurts the poor and those making relatively low to middle class incomes in a manner that is both unfair and unnecessary.  That tax is the social security tax or OASDI which is 6.2% for the social security portion and 1.45% for the Medicare portion for a total of 7.65%, to which this percentage is also matched by the employer.  This means for every individual receiving a paycheck, over and above whatever Federal or State taxes which are withheld, the social security and Medicare taxes are taken from that person's paycheck, and no matter how high or low that individual's income is, those taxes taken at a combined rate of 7.65% will not be returned come fiscal year tax time. 

However, for those that earn a considerable amount of money, the social security tax of 6.2% as well as the matching 6.2% made by the employer, is completely phased out at $118,500 in income.  That is to say, once you cross over $118,500 in earnings in a given year, you will no longer be subject to the social security tax at all, signifying for those that are high earners, that their effective tax rate for social security will in total be below, perhaps well below the 6.2% threshold, as well as the fact that the employer has a perverse incentive to prefer fewer workers making higher salaries so as to fully reap the benefits of their 6.2% contribution being terminated, as well as the fact that less employees will as a matter of course, mean less expense on overhead or healthcare costs. 

While, it is true that there is no cap, on the Medicare portion of the 1.45% for either the employee or employer, and further that there is after earnings have increased for an individual filing as single and earning $200,000, an additional payment to Medicare of 0.9% for earnings above that threshold, none of that is true for the much higher tax, which is the social security tax.

In point of fact, the social security tax has it all wrong, as any tax created so that high earners will pay an appreciably less percentage of this tax than low-income or middle class earners is fundamentally flawed.  Therefore, the social security tax should be changed into a progressive tax, so that, for instance, the first $12,000 of income there will be no social security tax taken out for any earner, to which the social security tax is then tiered to different levels, with progressively more tax taken from earners making more money, becoming, in effect, similar in concept to the Federal income tax.

Those that make low or modest incomes aren’t necessarily looking for a free ride, what they are looking for, though, is a fair deal.

The Dumbing Down of America

In aggregate, America is the richest country in the world, and still the world leader in technology, science, and innovation, but truth be told, the divide between the elite in intelligence and accomplishments as compared to the everyday, common American is getting wider and wider by the day.  The reason behind the decline in the intelligence and the accomplishments of today's youth is that our educational system has for far too long, and for far too often, failed to challenge our children, in virtually all of our public school systems, and unfortunately, this failure extends into many of our universities to which nowadays, students can be awarded useless Bachelor's degrees in subjects such as fashion design and hospitality.  Our high school students are not mandated to learn a foreign language and only the most basic of mathematical, reading, and writing skills, nor do most college students have to learn a foreign language, American history, or economics in order to graduate with a bachelor's degree.  The bottom line is that despite the billions of dollars spent on education in America, most students aren't asked to do much more than make a modest effort in order to accomplish graduation.

There are serious ramifications for students not learning to think, not learning much of anything at all, and in all things, the acceptance of mediocrity as being about as good as you can get from today's mainstream students.  In point of fact, in an age of high technology, in an age when more power to utilize fantastic tools are literally at the fingertips of most students in the United States, our educational system doesn't avail itself of pushing students to be the best that they can be.  The upshot of all this is that on any international rating of intelligence and of learning, the United States, rather than leading the world, is no better than middling, and often far behind other countries that have resources that are a fraction of this great country.

America fails to understand that the dumber that each generation gets, the less impressive this country will be as a nation, and further to the point, if students aren't able to deal with the real world in a competent manner, than they are rife to be exploited and used by for-profit corporations and governmental agencies who will manipulate them so as to extract what worth than they can exploit from their ignorance.  Fortunately, for America we are the lone superpower, and a country that the smartest and most ambitious immigrants desire to come to because of its all encompassingwindows of opportunity as well as its historic embrace of meritocracy; however, for people that don't understand as to where they came from , where they are going to and who they are, that are incapable of comprehending history and its importance, and are use to performing at a dull and listless level, should forces rise against America whether from within or without, our people will for the most part not be able to provide the wherewithal to do right by their country.

The dumbing down of America has reduced most of society into one that cares only for mindless entertainment of all sorts and the plentitude of food to keep their bellies full.  Today's generation rests upon the foundation of previous generations that devoted themselves to the last, best, full measure of a man, but this dumbed down and hollow out shell of today's American citizen, cares little as to how America was created, why America was created, or even for what America stands for; all they really care for is a soft, undemanding job, a cool cell phone, and things and activities that addle their undeveloped minds.

The Continual Rise of Child Sex Abuse

Phllly.com reports that: "In 1970, 40 percent of households were married couples with children. Such households made up just 19 percent of homes in 2013."  Further philly.com reports that:  "Of children living with only a mother, 48 percent had a mother who had never been married in 2013, up from 7 percent in 1970."  This means, that within the last two generations America's nuclear family has fundamentally changed, and while on the one hand, the more liberal conditions in America may be considered to be a living reflection that adults should be entitled to live their lives in a way that they best see fit, signifying their personal choices as adults, one would be amiss to not reflect that the new family structures of today do have cost and consequences to society in general, and in particular, children.

The fact of the matter is that child sexual abuse, has been a regrettable part of life for far too many children for far too long, but what makes it appreciably worse, is the fact that child sex abuse is increasing at a substantial rate in America, to which, a primary reason for this increase is as reported by cachouston.com is that: "Children who live with a single parent that has a live-in partner are at the highest risk: they are 20 times more likely to be victims of child sexual abuse than children living with both biological parents."  This means, that a biological single parent with a live-in partner that is not biologically related to the children in that household have in a substantial amount of cases, increased the risk of the biological single parent's offspring being sexually abused to appallingly high levels.

Indeed, there are logical reasons why a non-biological adult would have a strong tendency to be more of a predator than a biological parent and that begins with the fact that within most parents, especially parents that are not psychologically damaged, or abusive of alcohol or drugs, is an innate urge to want to nurture their offspring, and that it would be atypical for any biological parent of sound mind to desire to abuse their own progeny.  On the other hand, those without biological connection to children that they deal with, are free from that incestuous conflict, and further to the point, often as an adult are able to utilize their authority position, their power, their strength, their deceptions, and their experience, to take advantage of the gullibility, trust, and naiveté of children.

While most parents are quite protective of their children and keep a relatively high guard when dealing with strangers and the outside public, regrettably, within their own domain, within their own home, their defenses are often left exposed, and the enemy that they should really fear, is that enemy that is already within.  Unfortunately, in a country that has dropped its moral guard and has made highly sexualized media and its images a part of everyday life, this to a large extent, helps enable the perpetrator even more and eases the road that the abuser needs to take to conduct his unseemly business.

The thing is that single parents with children are often overwhelmed already with a litany of legitimate concerns, such as health, welfare, work, bills, school, as well as all of these things as they also apply to their children.  The single parent's desire is to have a helpmate to which their selection of a fellow adult to assist them and to be part of their life, may be limited to those that are not of good character, who, sad to say, for the children that they abuse, are really wolves in sheep clothing, to which times, for these abusers have never been better, in a world in which the adult attitude of anything goes, has torn down the barriers and negated the sanctuary for far too many of our children.

Plastic Bags and Dog Poop

America has somewhere on the order of 80 million dogs, to which in modern times, owners of dogs are far more diligent in collecting the poop that their dogs create each day, typically by utilizing small plastic bags dedicated specifically for dog poop.  The thing is, in many communities, plastic bags are considered in and of themselves to be a nuisance because plastic bags aren't really biodegradable, and because of plastic bags light size, stretch ability and flexibility are easily transported into all sorts of places, land or sea, to which animals often will try to ingest these bags, only to cause themselves harm.

A dog pooping on your own property, gives an owner a fairly large array of options such as composting in your backyard, creating an aerobic digester, a waste digester system, letting nature takes its course, or having an outside poop-scoping service come visit your yard periodically to collect your pet's poop for professional composting or similar.  All of the above seems fairly reasonable to accomplish for a given pet owner, however, many pet owners, walk their dog each day, and thereby their dog usually performs its business in the public square to which, out of courtesy, or perhaps out of health concerns, or the fear of a monetary fine, the owners of the dogs, scoop up the poop.

Currently, most owners just use a plastic bag and after finishing scooping, tie a knot and dump the poop into their outside trash can.  This means that when their regular trash, along with all their poop in plastic bags goes to a landfill, that in all likelihood, the lack of oxygen reaching into the plastic bag, means that the poop will not biodegrade, and in any event, is far from being the best or most appropriate way to deal with that type of waste.  A better plan is to scoop up the poop with something that is a water-soluble material, yet able to hold the poop successfully till you are able to get to a toilet inside your home and then flush it away.  Because this is America, this product has been invented and usually uses names such as flush doggy bags, or dog flushable, to signify that you can utilize your toilet system for this disposal.  Unfortunately, there is a learning curve, depending upon your skill-set and the size of your dog, in order to utilize this product successfully, as well as the fact, that a dog flushable may or may not be correct to use, if you are on a septic tank system.

Modern man takes advantage of indoor plumbing each and every day, to which, it makes logical sense that a far cleaner and efficient way to handle dog poop disposal in the absence of composting or biodegrading the waste in your backyard, is to allow your pet to utilize the same indoor plumbing that is so successfully utilized for humans.  While the process of getting that waste into the sewage system for your dog is far more problematic, it is man's obligation to society as well as to man's best friend, to do their part to make life more bearable and more environmentally friendly than todays toss it in the garbage can and pretend it's not poop, style, which pretty much ignores the reality of the situation.

Life in the Social Media Fishbowl

It is entirely one thing for celebrities to have to deal with living life in a fishbowl, however, at the end of the day, they have the money, the contacts, the getaways, the lawyers, the publicists, and the sanctuary to go home to, and that will pretty much keep the dogs at bay, along with the fact that celebrities have been taught, trained, and have the experience to play the fishbowl social game at a competent level; on the other hand, there are your everyday average people, some more sophisticated and adept than others, that have for whatever reason, decided to or defaulted to living their lives in a sort of "open source" manner, letting any and everyone to weigh in on their lives, and unfortunately, these people have absolutely no hope of controlling the spin of what is their life, for better or for worse.

The usage of social media is inherently unfair to the users, because most users are completely inept or unaware of how deep, how pervasive, and how completely out of their hands, information that has been posted in different forums can be, once posted.  In addition, the world is full of all sorts of people, to which those that love utilizing social media, commit the cardinal sin of believing that the type of person that "likes" them on facebook, or reads their tweets, is obviously someone that is of the same social milieu, or mindset, or similar, whereas, quite unfortunately, there exists a huge percentage of people that aren't anything like that at all.

The fact of the matter is, each one of us is vulnerable in our own way, and while the world does indeed have many good people that wish the best for you and desire to be a positive influence in your life; there are also an incredible amount of people, that are two-faced, prone to envy and jealously, hatred, and outright get pleasure in being the thorn in your side or worse.  The problem with social media is that those that do not have your best interests in mind, are basically given a free gift through social media to analyze you, to stalk you, to understand you, to exploit you, to monitor you, and to harm you. 

Social media sites such as facebook get it all wrong, when they offer you the opportunity to add people into a category called "friends" when it is functionally impossible for people to have hundreds and hundreds of real friends.  It is these so-called friends that can compromise your life, and bring emotional and physical pain to your very existence.  Think about this for a moment, you break up with your boy friend, and even though you have blocked him from your social media sites, if he is determined or devious, he can still see what you are up to, via, another person that you are friends with, by using their access to you, without your knowledge.  Additionally, there can be many "friends" that aren't really your friend reading your posts, and biding their time, waiting for a situation when you are hurt, vulnerable, alone or down, to spring their trap against you.

There isn't any good reason why someone that you really don't know, knows everything about you, and you literally know nothing about them.   Your life should be your own, not shared indiscriminately with those that have not been properly vetted, because there are some people that are evil, and they live for an opportunity to bring real harm and damage to you

Law and Rules are Enacted and Enforced to control the People

There are many, many people, who cry out whenever there is some perceived unfairness or injustice that there ought to be a law.  The problem with this mindset is that the United States already has substantially way too many laws, and these laws applied on nearly an everyday basis are biased, senseless, erode our freedoms, are arbitrary, and often conflict with other, greater laws.  The point about laws that many people get just wrong, is the impression that the more laws that there are on the books, and/or the more laws that are strictly enforced, the better behaved and the less crime that society will have, when in actual fact, the more laws that are created and enacted, typically makes for more people that are unfairly susceptible to being arrested or restrained from conducting their lives in a manner that they so desire.

If you turn back the clock back to a time when people lived in small communities and tribal configurations, just struggling to make a go of it in a society in which there was no sponsored healthcare, no hourly wages, no guarantees of much of anything, do you really think that there was one big boss, with hundreds of written books next to him, studying, applying and executing law as he saw fit, for his community?  It just didn't occur, as the rules for any given community were undoubtedly straightforward and pretty much followed the general guidelines of not stealing, not murdering, and not lying, while also having the people demonstrate the type of obeisance necessary to placate the God of that community, with pretty much the most important thing being the survival and protection of the community.

The laws that man has in the modern day times, though, are endless reams of pretty much the "haves" trying to maintain their status and position vs. the "have-nots" and nothing much else.  So too the law has corrupted itself to becoming a perpetual and annoying busybody into the affairs and conduct of one's everyday life; because the fact of the matter is that one's thoughts, one's body, one's actions, one's vices, are for the most part, not something that the State should have any need to know, especially in instances to which no other person or entity is impacted in a detrimental way.

When the law is arbitrary, capricious, unequally applied and enforced, the State is in the driver's seat, and you, as a sovereign individual, are instead treated as a servant to the State.  This means, that your freedom of movement, your freedom of action, is restricted by authorized governmental agencies, to which, in a country to which there are thousands upon thousands of laws, many of them: obscure, subject to interpretation, and unknowable; in addition to all sorts of judicial courts, and over 1 million lawyers, just about everyone on any given day has committed some sort of rule violation, infraction, or crime. 

The bottom line is that when you as an individual are subject to being stopped and frisked, questioned, held, or intimidated, all in the public square, because the State has you in their sight, there isn't much that you can do about it.  All these laws and all these rules are meant to protect the ruling class from any incipient uprising, to control and to mold the population, and as always, sold to the public as required in order to effect appropriately the public safety.

Every Mosque in America has been compromised

The 1st Amendment to our Constitution is very clear, that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," which would strongly imply that Americans are entitled to worship in any way that they so choose.  The only possible limitation on this worship would be meetings held in a house of worship in which the congregants are actually contemplating or planning treason by participating or by actively giving, aiding, or abetting our avowed enemies of the State, to which some of those enemies would include known terrorist groups such as Al-Qaeda and ISIS.  In fairness, America has an absolute obligation to protect its people and its borders against foreign as well as domestic enemies to which it is certainly conceivable that some of these enemies would meet in a mosque, as a significant amount of peoples that oppose America and its policies are avowed Muslims.

Where the ground becomes quite shaky though, is that despite the protests of the Executive office or the Department of Justice, that America does not or will not infiltrate and spy upon Mosques without a valid warrant or similar, all that really means in the doublespeak of American government, is that no directly paid FBI agents, or no directly paid NSA agents, will infiltrate mosques, and nothing more than that. 

This government has proved again and again, that laws aren't so much meant to be broken or pushed aside as they see fit, but that position papers can be created for virtually any law, with interpretations spun on a given law, allowing the law to be bent, formed, and manipulated so that the government can do what it wants to do, and having created the Orwellian named Homeland Security in 2002, the government and all of its affiliated and subservient departments will not allow, and will never permit, mosques, or other congregations of Muslims to be unmonitored in this world of heightened domestic concern.

This means and signifies for an absolute certainty that at a minimum every single mosque, without exception in America, is monitored, to which the government records the license plates and thereby the identities of the worshippers, the hierarchy of the given mosque, the banking and spending of money at that mosque, the sermons in the mosque, and any other pertinent information that can be observed, noted, or recorded.  While this information can be gathered through all sorts of law enforcement or governmental agencies, one of the easiest ways to gather such intelligence, is to have within a mosque, a person or persons that have previously been either compromised by the government, or in need of aid, such as monetary aid, or employment aid, which necessitates their availing themselves of help from the government in return for these people providing the intelligence or information desired by said government.

There is zero chance that today's government is forgetting any of their plays from the playbook of the radical 1960s, instead, it can be stated as an incontrovertible conviction that technology, an unlimited budget, and the general greed of a generation that believes it is forever entitled, makes the governmental  work of surveillance much easier thanfifty-odd years ago.  To be a practicing Muslim in America is to be monitored, classified, processed, and watched.  For those that believe that this is right and prudent, remember that sanctuary wrongly denied for others, will one day be denied for you.

Each race looks through events through their own Prism

While it would be nice to believe that each American essentially sees events in the same way as other Americans, the fact of the matter is, that doesn't happen.  In point of fact, for an absolute certainty, the way that people see events, are colored by their prejudices, in regards to race, religion, political party affiliation, and other pertinent traits in a given personality, so that, quite obviously, there is little or no argument, that one person that relates strongly to the Republican party, whereas another relating strongly to the Democratic party will listen to a given political candidate and come to two diametrically opposed opinions as to what that politician said and meant.  What is especially disappointing, though, is that, many events and our perceptions of them, are colored by the color of our skin, that is to say, that, for instance, blacks and whites, do not come to the same conclusions about police and criminal justice, as demonstrated by the washingtonpost.com reporting: "Only 1 in 10 African Americans says blacks and other minorities receive equal treatment with whites in the criminal justice system… In contrast, roughly half of all white Americans say the races are treated equally in the justice system," which is an absolutely staggering difference in perception.

This means that, unfortunately, from a race perspective, we have something similar to the book, "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus," in that our perceptions are substantially different in many areas of everyday life because we come from different places. So too this signifies, that it is pointless to pretend that one's race does not make a difference in one's perception of police, criminal justice, job employment, immigration, schooling, opportunity, and so forth.  While America has made great strides forward to address these issues, there still remains an incredible amount of work to do, which cannot be accomplished unless each race acknowledges the basis of another's persons perspective and is able to show respect as well as empathy to the other, as compared to systemic contempt or blithe unconcern.  

The fact of the matter is when there are huge disparities between the races, in perceptions in America, that not all is well, that this is in actuality a symptom that things are very wrong.  While one has to give America an incredible amount of respect for having tried to attempt, to be a true melting pot of different races, cultures, creeds, and so forth, this grand experiment has not come to full fruition and in order to get there, much more time and effort will have to be expended in walking in the other person's shoes, for you truly do not know your fellow man, until such a time as you are able to actually be that man, and that is indeed a very hard thing to do.

Sad to say, and it just seems a shame, that man's best friend, his dog, seems to have it all so right as opposed to common man, because your dog certainly doesn't care one iota about your race, but instead cares solely about the content of your character; that is to say, how much time you spend with him, the food that you feed him, the playtime, the quality time, your treatment overall, and your fairness. 

It is fair to say that no child is born with an ingrained prejudice, so that this everyday prejudice of viewpoint is socially conditioned, and in order to remove these prejudices, understand that, we are either all Americans, all equally entitled, or we are all separate, unequal, divided, lost, and forsaken.  Until such time as you are able to see each man as your fellow brother, as your fellow neighbor, there will never be peace, liberty, or justice.

Dentist: Twice a Year, but what about your Colon

It's accepted practice that for good oral health and in order to maintain your teeth, bone density, and gums we should see a dentist twice a year.  Yet, although everything that we eat and drink are done through our mouth, most everything that we consume has to be expelled, but virtually all medical doctors are not in favor of colon cleansing, colonics, enemas, or colon hydrotherapy, with the basic explanation that the colon self-cleanses and therefore there isn't any real need.

The thing about medical doctors is that they make it part of their mission, to fervently protect their own turf, and while it therefore makes sense that medical doctors do not have a lot of respect for non-medical persons to perform colon cleansing and the like, the question really is, why aren't there hardly any medical doctors that recommend that the colon should be cleaned out periodically in order to maintain good health.

The bottom line for medical doctors is that they believe that a regular colon cleaning is not necessary and further that colonics rather than helping to clean the colon of stool and similar, can in actuality, bring harm to the patient by virtue of the fact that the people performing such a thing aren't trained medical professionals and do not understand, or misunderstand, that their actions can irritate the colon, or make the patient suffer dehydration, and so forth. 

You would think, given that particular concern by medical professionals, and because patients are seeing non-professionals to have their colon cleanse, that subsequently medical doctors and nurses might have a real interest in performing the type of things that you would, after all, normally seen done before a colonoscopy and thereby want to conduct a periodic pre-procedure purge of the colon for patients, so as to provide at a minimum, comfort to their charge, which at worse, would be something akin to prescribing a placebo to an anxious patient.

The fact of the matter is that medical doctors don't always get it right, and far too often, medical doctors follow groupthink, to which, no legitimate medical doctor wants or desires to get out of lockstep with the standard thoughts of the day.  Yet, there is another way of looking at things, to which, medical doctors could say to themselves, if certain patients are concerned about their colon containing toxins or stool that needs to be cleansed so as to maintain good health, why don't we as medical professionals, provide that service?

After all, doctors make it clear that they recommend a colonoscopy for patients after they reach the age of 50, to which a given patient has to go through the rather uncomfortable procedure of basically induced diarrhea so as to completely empty the colon, whereas, perhaps a more mild procedure could be initiated to help cleanse out the colon that while not considered to be a colonoscopy would provide to the doctor valid information as to the general health of the colon and a comfort point for the patient.

Dentistry, itself, is of fairly recent vintage, and our oral health is appreciably better for it; it just seems sensible to at least consider the same in order to maintain a healthy colon.

Barcodes on License Plates

Many police departments are able to currently read a driver's license plate number through a sophisticated license plate recognition device which uses an algorithm to convert an image of a license plate on a particular car into its alphanumeric equivalent.  While these license plate recognition devices do a commendable job, a far more straightforward way to track license plates on vehicles would be to utilize the same thing that you see in any retail store of virtually any size in today's America, which is a barcode.  In fact, some States actually have barcodes attached to their license plates, to which, it is understood at the present day, that these barcodes are simply setup to reduce data entry errors of the license plate assigned to a particular vehicle by the Department of Motor Vehicles, so that the scanning of the barcode is done so as to correlate that information to the unique Vehicle Identification Number that each automobile has onto the DMV database. 

The thing about driver license plates is that different States have different naming conventions and further that license plate recognition devices have to utilize an algorithm in order to convert that image into actionable characters which are then processed by the police department or similar.  A far more effective way to more easily track and monitor vehicles is to have a standard barcode of a standard size and placement, to which vital information can be contained within that barcode, indicating, for instance, the VIN# of the car, the owner of the car, their driver's license #, their address, and whatever other pertinent information desired that a driver and a vehicle has that would be of most pertinence.

Of course, civil liberties groups would be up in arms about this, but in actuality, their protest would be short lived, mainly because each vehicle license plate and each individual driver's license is already uniquely identified in the first place, and thereby a barcode isn't changing anything other than the efficiency and capability of law enforcement to gather information.  That said, no doubt, the usage of barcodes on license plates would ultimately allow law enforcement to be far more systematic in their gathering of intelligence and in their crime mapping.

In addition, barcodes are read by scanners, to which the scanning of barcodes does not need to be done by an actual police officer on the side of the road, but could instead be done, for example, by a drone that is above the traffic and instead controlled by an agent, offsite.  This means, that drones in conjunction with law enforcement agencies could theoretically track known or suspected areas of criminal activity 24/7, and further would be able to provide a database of all vehicle traffic within that geographic area for a relatively low cost.  The advantage for law enforcement is that this information gathered by drone, could later be collated and analyzed against additional known or ongoing intelligence so as to discover connections, previously overlooked.

The biggest advantage of barcodes on license plates is that they eliminate both human error as well as providing vital information.  Additionally, having police officers when they pull over a vehicle use a barcode scanner to read the license plate to which this information is automatically downloaded onto their laptop will cut down on wasted time, mistakes, and provide extra security.  The bottom line is that license plates of today are already being scanned each and every day, so that the bar-coding of license plates are the inevitable next step.

What Happened to the Really Big Denominated Dollar Bills?

Believe it or not, the Federal Reserve back in the 1920s printed the $500, the $1000, the $5000, and the $10000 dollar bill, before ending this printing as of 1944, and retiring these currency valuations, apparently, for good, even though $500 today would be worth only about $37 dollars in 1944 currency.  While there are all sorts of valid reasons why these currencies went out of favor such as the fact that checks, check-like instruments, electronic transfers, and so forth, have replaced the need for high denominational currency, the fact is that high valued currencies such as the $500 or $1000 if re-issued would be utilized, especially the $500 dollar bill. 

That said, there is validity behind the reason why large currencies probably won't be issued again in the United States because cash transactions are transactions that for the most part, the government can't easily monitor or track, to which the governmental preference is cash substitutes of any sort that they can track.  While that might be good for governmental monitoring, that certainly isn't a real benefit for people that prefer to take care of their own business without having to justify their behavior.  Additionally, in a country to which as reported by millionairecorner.com that: "There are 29 Million Mass Affluent households with a net worth between $100,000 and $1 million," that this would seem to signify that the handling of $500 dollar bills would not be unusual and probably preferred as an option for a meaningful percentage of them.

The fact is, depending upon your family size and shopping habits, it is very easy to spend over $100 on a dinner, or at a grocery store, or at a warehouse store, or an electronics store, or a home improvement store, or for vehicle repair, or for home repair, or in purchasing something as common as the latest non-contractual Apple iPhone, and so forth.  While the government might believe that legitimate Americans don't need to utilize cash for any of these transactions, or don't want to make it easy to use cash, the fact is that cash is a legitimate form of payment and of receiving payment and is appreciated for its convenience and because cash is fungible.

For some people, too, there is something magical about money that cannot be replicated by a credit card or a check note, or by coins, but needs to be money, and having in one's possession a $500 or a $1000 dollar bill would just seem to be coolest thing in the world, perhaps giving one a slight dose of dopamine just by touching it.  Then too, places that cater to people that like to spend money like water, would appreciate larger denominated bills because the more cash, especially the higher valued denominated cash in one's pocket, the more inclined someone is to spend it, as well as the more inclined the seller is to try to extract it from him.

There was a time when a $100 bill, just seemed like a lot of money, it kind of still represents that, but for the most part it does not, as just about anyone can carry or represent a "Benjamin," and as people like to brag about just about everything, want to show off about just about everything, placing big denomination bills back in the hands of the public, would not only be practical, but would also be fun.

The Steady Decline of Births in America

The USA birth rate has been in a steady decline for over a century, and probably even longer.  As reported by infoplease.com, there were 30.1 live births per 1,000 peoples in 1910, as compared to just 13.8 per 1,000 peoples in 2009.  To put this in even more meaningful perspective, in 1910, the population of America was approximately 92 million peoples, yet there were 2,777,000 newborns created, whereas in 2009 with a population of nearly 307 million, there were only 4,131,000 newborns created.  Clearly, the birth rate in America has plummeted and based on this steep and precipitous decline it would not appear that this will be changed anytime soon, without governmental incentives.

There are a multitude of reasons why our birthrate as well as other industrialized countries birth rates have declined, to which the most meaningful are the fact that typically the more educated the woman is, the less children that she will bear, in addition to that fact, the age of women when first getting married has risen considerably over time so that the older that a woman is upon marriage the less children that she will bear.  Then too there is the fact that with both abortion legal in all 50 States, as well as the fact that the variety of birth control pills or other birth control devices have never been more available and reliable, signifies that "non-planned" births and "shotgun" weddings are both in decline.

Then too there is the reality that the population mix in America has changed over the years, to which the urban population percentage currently is approximately 81%, whereas back in 1910 the urban population percentage was only about 46%.  So too, as reported by consumer.healthcare.com, in 2013,"The teen birth rate was almost one-third higher in rural counties compared to the rest of the country."   The thing about rural communities back in 1910, and while certainly less true today, is that children were often seen to be a net benefit, because of the fact that the parents of these children could utilize them as free labor in the harvesting and production of food or other rural products, whereas in urban areas, children are more of a cost burden, and in recognition of this, parents have less children.

In addition, to all of this above, there is the fact that people today have many more things available to do and to keep themselves occupied as compared to families back in 1910, to which, you only have to look at your typical day and behavior to see how often and how much time you spend on social media, your cell phone, your computer, entertainment options of all sorts, and the fact that whereas previously lives were centered around accomplishing work from daylight to sunset, with modern lighting and all of its amenities, people can extend their days, indefinitely.  Back in 1910, most of the items that we take for granted today, either did not exist, or existed on a limited scale, for urban people, or for people with lots of money.  This meant that rural people, especially and for the most part, once their hard labor had been accomplished for that day, had few options to entertain themselves upon nightfall other than conversation and copulation so that without birth control and considering the fact that they married younger, resulted in a significantly higher birth rate.

The Poor Spend too much of their Income on Fast Food

While it is true that the more money that you make, the higher the percentage of that money made is spent on eating food outside of the home, the difference between poor people and upper class people or poor people and middle class people, is that those with more money can avail themselves of more dining options by virtue of the fact that they have more money.  When you are poor, making smart and informed decisions about how and where to spend your money is imperative, yet, often, those decisions made are not wise or prudent.  While there is something to be said about treating your family to a fast food meal as a reprieve or a thank you from time-to-time, there is something more to be said about having the discipline and structure to actually cook or prepare meals at home as being far more cost conservative, as well as, in general, being more healthy in the content of the food consumed.

While it is quite unfortunate, that impoverished people are often surrounded by a plentitude of fast food restaurants offering plenty of calories for the cheap, the quality of those calories are often too sugary or too high in refined carbohydrates to do a body good.  In addition, poor people often have more corner convenience stores that once again, typically don't offer a lot of healthy choices for those wishing to grab something quickly and take home to eat or to snack on.  In fact, the only real way, that indigent people have any hope of both saving money on food as well as eating a meal that is more healthful for them is to have a grocery store near their place of residence, or work, or available nearby through some sort of transportation.

While, young people, have never known a world without fast food being both prevalent and common to indulge in, in actuality, fast food as an industry did not start its rise until the 1950s, and while there are many reasons for fast food restaurants to exist, such as their convenience, their fairly reasonable cost, their fresh off the grill food, and the perceived lack of time to prepare one's own meal, each one of those reasonsisn't by itself a good enough reason why so many Americans routinely indulge in buying fast food, sometimes, even multiple times in one day. 

The fact of the matter is, all things considered, it has never been easier to prepare meals at home, but for whatever reason, perhaps through heavy fast food advertising that sells the illusion that eating fast food makes for a pleasurable and deserved event, or perhaps because so many people just don't perceive that they have the time or are able to structure the time to buy and prepare their own meals, the eating of fast food is considered nowadays to be as American as the eating of apple pie.

The thing is, while it is a given that the poor have always been with us for proverbial generation after generation, millennium after millennium, fast food has not been, and fast food in and of itself, is not helping the needy to utilize the little that they have in the most prudent and effective way.  It is, as the old adage goes, far better to teach a man how to fish, than to give a man a fish, so that, it would seem to behoove all governmental and school services to expend a much greater effort in providing the basics to the general public and especially the indigent poor on how to buy, cook, and to prepare good, healthy and cost effective meals at home, as this skill seems to have become essentially dormant in far too many households that are struggling to just make it day by day.

The conversion of Failing Shopping Malls

America loves to shop, but while true, America certainly doesn't lack for shopping options, which, of course, includes shopping from home that is, via the internet, combined with the fact that Americans are extremely mobile with their cars meaning that Americans aren't stuck having to shop at their local mega mall, as they have a multitude of choices available to them.  While the right shopping mall in the right place is still doing quite well, as reported by the nytimes.com, though: "About 80 percent of the country’s 1,200 malls are considered healthy, reporting vacancy rates of 10 percent or less. But that compares with 94 percent in 2006…" which signifies that a considerable amount of malls are not on the path of doing well, and probably won't recover to doing well anytime soon.  This then, poses the problem as to what to do with failing shopping malls, or malls that are clearly on the path of failure, to which these malls already have the infrastructure built up and working but find their property being underutilized.

There are a lot of options when it comes to the conversion or re-making of malls, such as combining more entertainment options with malls, such as bowling alleys, movie theatres, play or musical theatres, fitness centers, good quality restaurants, small theme parks, traveling road shows, and other venues that appeal to people in general.  So too, there is a lot to be said for restructuring shopping malls in a manner in which part of the mall will be devoted to business offices, condos, hotels, or apartment complexes, which will then serve the dual purpose of having a captive audience that readily appreciates all the advantages of a given shopping mall's conveniences.  As for malls, which are beyond redemption, in disrepair, or on the wrong  area or wrong side of time, the sheer size of these malls and the availably of infrastructure and parking at these malls, makes the conversion into a community college or a hospital a reasonable fit and function for what once was a mall.

In any event, the days of a shopping mall with anchor stores being built just anywhere and the feeling that they will surely come have effectively ended, as the overall playing field is far more complex, nuanced, and dynamic in today's marketplace.  This means that shopping malls must change with the times, and therefore rely far less upon having store after store after store, and rely far more on providing the appropriate bells and whistles that will drive in customers more often for the new mall experience that will encompass more activities and viable options for the buying public.

The bottom line is that people vote with their dollars, and when a shopping mall begins its decline, it is of paramount importance for the shopping mall management to actively pursue all possible means to right the ship, as once a shopping mall is painted with the broad brush of, "nobody goes there anymore", things can get appreciably worse in a very short period of time.  This means that the community at large, must band together, because monies not spent in their tax district, but spent outside of it, are tax dollars effectively lost, with no corresponding gain, along too with the corresponding employment losses from lost jobs. 

America is a dynamic and competitive marketplace, and failing shopping malls, must find a way to re-construct themselves in order to stop the terrible effects and aftermath of a terminal downward spiral.

Targeted Killings, Assassinations, Justice and Law

There is zero dispute that America, has over the years, specifically attempted to assassinate or have assassinated prominent political leaders in foreign nations, such as several attempts on the life of Fidel Castro of Cuba, and successful assassinations of Prime Minister Lumumba of the Congo, and Commander Torrijos of Panama, to site just a few.  While sometimes these assassinations are done by USA personnel, they are also accomplished through proxy under the direction or guidance of the CIA and approved or sanctioned by the upper echelons of the US government.  It would be nice to report in this present age that targeted killings and assassinations are all things of the past, but in actuality, America seems to have substantially stepped up its targeted killings through drone strikes, SEAL team raids, and so forth, with apparently nary a worry or concern that America is violating the sovereignty of foreign countries or interfering in their domestic affairs. As bad as that might sound, it gets worse, as America does not limit itself to simply taking out "bad" politicians, or "bad" generals, or "bad" guys in general, but appears to believe that those that have certain scientific knowledge, such as nuclear scientists, are also legitimate targets to kill as well, whether it is done by proxy or not.

The most basic issue with targeted killings and assassinations isn't really the misses, the wrong targets being killed, or the collateral damage that is created by dropping bombs, shooting, or by poisoning the wrong person, but more a matter of, the rule of law.  If, the most powerful country in the world doesn't believe that the law applies to their actions outside of their own domestic country and that they, alone, or in conjunction with other countries, can decide who should or shouldn't be elected or serving in office, or who should or shouldn't be a general, or what knowledge scientists should or shouldn't be allowed to exercise, than in reality, there is no boundary that America isn't permitted to cross with apparent immunity, especially when dealing with countries that simply don't have the resources or power, to possibly stand up to a nation such as the United States of America, and they with no outside recourse to appeal to the world justice for redress.

The thing that all of these assassinations and targeted killings that make the whole nefarious affair, such a disgrace to a country as great as America, is that the killing or the compromising of powerful people of other countries, does not bring peace or resolve whatever the perceived problem was, whatsoever.  All that this killing really does is change the players, but often the game remains the same, but even if the game was to change, the underlying problems, the underlying issues of a given country, cannot be rectified by something as simplistic as an assassin's bullet.  Then too, it is one thing to take out a national politician, or a leading general, as these men are usually aware that there may indeed be powerful opposing interests who do not wish to see them alive in their current position, but it is an entirely different thing to take out innocent civilians or to take out scientists just because they are utilizing and applying knowledge, that America or its proxies, believes should not be used or applied.

America acts far too often as judge, jury, and executioner, never once recognizing that there will come a day when the chickens will surely come home to roost; to which, so too, America seems incapable of acknowledging that an assassin's bullet never can and never will lead to lasting justice or an honorable peace.